Lunar volcanoes rock long-age timeframe
by Tas Walker and David Catchpoole
Published: 4 May 2009(GMT+10)
Image NASA
Evolutionary timeframes date the moon at about 4.5 billion years, with the lunar
volcanism that produced the large, prominent and nearly circular, dark “seas”
(or maria, as they are called) starting soon after that. The volcanism is mooted
to have ended about three billion years ago.
But researchers studying recent images of the far side of the moon, taken from the
Japanese SELENE (Kaguya) lunar satellite, report dark “seas” of volcanic
rock they say are “only” 2.5 billion years old, “much younger”
than formerly presumed.1,2 That’s because there are fewer craters (blasted
by meteors) on the smooth dark surfaces than expected—assuming the rate of
cratering has been constant through time. Fewer craters means that the volcanic
lava flows can’t be so old.
ghost craters reflect the catastrophic history of the moon, and are evidence for
its youth
Given this volcanic activity lasted (supposedly) 500 million years later than previously
thought, evolutionists now have the challenge of explaining how lunar volcanism
was able to persist for so long. The moon is only about one-quarter the diameter
of Earth, and only about one-eightieth of its mass, so it should have long ago cooled,
and long been geologically dead.
Peeling back the uniformitarian assumptions, as our knowledge of space increases,
mounting evidence points to the solar system (and the rest of the universe beyond)
being much younger than the presumed evolutionary ages, consistent with the biblical
time-frame of only around 6,000 years.3
Ghost craters are young too
Image USGS
Ghost craters on the lunar maria also testify that that the moon is young.1
We have seen how each mare formed after a huge space object smashed into the moon
blasting an enormous depression, cracking the crust and releasing molten lava from
inside.
Ghost craters appear as faint circular shapes on the smooth maria (arrowed in figure)
because their edges poke up from beneath the lava. They were formed by meteors and
are visible because they are only partially filled with lava. By way of contrast,
the small craters that formed after the maria solidified are sharp and
clear.
Many ghost craters have been recognized and herein lies a dilemma for evolutionists.
Based on the present slow rate of cratering, evolutionary astronomers need
lots of time for the ghost craters to accumulate before they were filled
with lava—500 million years in fact.
But, after the huge crust-cracking impacts, how much time would it take for the
lava to flow from inside the moon and fill the maria basins? Obviously not long—a
few hours, or days or weeks at the most. Longer than that and the lava would solidify
and stop flowing. Such huge impacts would have had an effect immediately.
Thus, ghost craters reflect the catastrophic history of the moon, and are evidence
for its youth. They also indicate that the rate of cratering was much higher at
a certain time in the past. And the ages of the other planets and moons in our solar
system, based on cratering counts, are also much younger than claimed. Creationist
astronomers suggest this period of intense cratering coincided with the global Flood
catastrophe that took place on Earth (Genesis 7:11–12).2
References and notes
- Fryman, H., Ghost craters in the sky, Creation Matters 4(1):6,
1999; <creationresearch.org/creation_matters/pdf/1999/cm0401.pdf>; see also
Psarris, S, What you aren’t being told about astronomy, vol. 1: Our
created Solar System, DVD, <creationastronomy.com>, 2009.
- Faulkner, D., A biblically-based cratering theory,
Journal of Creation 13(1):100–104, 1999, <creation.com/cratering>;
Spencer, W.R., Response to Faulkner’s ‘biblically-based
cratering theory’, Journal of Creation 14(1):46–49,
2000, <creation.com/crateringresponse>. They propose that a brief, narrow
swarm of space objects impacted the moon producing the distinctive, dark maria.
This explains why the maria are almost exclusively confined to one side—the
swarm passed before the moon had time to turn on its axis and expose the other side.
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References
- Haruyama, J. et al., Long-lived volcanism on the
lunar farside revealed by SELENE terrain camera, Science, doi: 10.1126/science.1163382,
6 November 2008. Return to text.
- Minard, A., Volcanoes rocked dark side of the moon, National
Geographic News, <news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081106-moon-volcanoes.html>,
6 November 2008. Return to text.
- See also Sarfati, J., The moon: the
light that rules the night, Creation 20(4):36–39,
1998; <creation.com/moon>. Return to text.
(Available in Portuguese)
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