Response to Faulkner’s ‘biblically-based cratering theory’
Danny Faulkner is an individual
I respect very much, and I would agree with his point of view on many aspects of
astronomy. I am very encouraged to see him address the issue of cratering and acknowledge
a cratering event at the time of the Flood.1
However, I have some concerns about
what he has proposed in the previous issue of this journal. My papers from
the Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism argue
for an impact bombardment event surrounding the Flood that began with the onset
of the Flood and continued for some time, trailing off into the post-Flood period.2,3
First, Dr Faulkner seems to believe the planets and moons accreted from matter created
on the fourth day. I don’t think this can work in a young-age time frame,
except possibly for small objects such as asteroids. Accreted objects are not differentiated
but are just random jumbles of material, yet it seems that all but the small objects,
such as asteroids, are layered objects. For jumbled objects to differentiate, they
have to be melted. Then they have to cool and Earth would have to cool in this way
before life could exist on it.
In the evolutionary view of the origin of the solar system, the planets would have
been melted after accretion by radioactive decay and by impacts.4 From a biblical perspective, there is not sufficient
time for the layered structures to form or for the heat to dissipate naturally in
a short time scale of several thousand years. One would apparently have to propose
miraculous divine intervention in the formation of the planets. I would consider
this a legitimate possibility, but I am not sure this is what Danny intends.
He seems to suggest the early impacts were smaller and the larger ones were later.
But what about the Aitken impact? It does not fit his scenario too well unless it
is just viewed as an exception. Unlike the maria, it is on the far side of the moon,
near its South pole, and it is the largest impact in the solar system and may be
one of the most ancient.5
One really large impact could wipe out human life very easily, at the time of the
Fall, for instance. An impact like Aitken on Earth would produce a crater four or
five times the size of the largest craters known on Earth to date. In Danny’s
scenario, one would probably simply have to say that God did not allow a really
large impact on Earth of the magnitude of Aitken.
The effects of a bombardment around the time of Creation or the Fall must be taken
seriously. The effects of such an event would be very severe and much of Earth’s
life would die, though not necessarily all of it. I don’t think this fits
in with biblical history well, except at the time of the Flood. Scripture really
does not give any indication of any catastrophic events at the time of the Fall,
though there apparently was a subtle change of some kind in living things and possibly
in thermodynamics.
Do we really have evidence of there being two events? How could we have evidence
of this unless we had a reliable absolute chronology of the craters on the moon?
I don’t think we have that from radiometric dates of moon rocks. Danny’s
paper seems to give no convincing argument of there being two separate events. The
differing crater densities on different areas of the lunar surface mentioned in
his paper do not necessarily imply two events. They could imply one longer event
in which the number of impacts drastically dropped off over time. Or, they could
indicate two populations of objects.
Danny treats the issue as if the moon is very different from all other bodies in
the solar system regarding cratering, and that the cratering event was a very focused
kind of thing that only affected Earth and the moon. I don’t see this as realistic,
judging from what we know about cratering in the solar system. There are examples
that I could cite from moons of the outer planets that Danny would probably interpret
as two cratering events for those objects as well.6,7 But his comet approach cannot
explain cratering patterns elsewhere in the solar system being like the moon.
The event at the time of the Flood as Danny suggests would be of very short duration,
less than a month certainly. But I see no way of reconciling the astroblemes on
Earth with such a short-lived event, since impacts are found on Earth in strata
of all types, all through the Geologic Column, unless all these strata are Flood
deposits.
In Danny’s scenario, the early bombardment event (at the Fall, for instance)
would leave very little evidence on the earth to the present. Erosion and sedimentation
would have been very limited in the pre-Flood earth, presumably, and the Flood would
tend to destroy these early craters. Thus, almost all or perhaps all of the craters
we find today would have to be from the time of the Flood. Craters throughout Earth’s
geologic column point to an event that was spread out over a period of months to
years. Some impacts occurred during the Flood (such as the Sudbury structure, Canada2),
while others occurred after the Flood,8
and there is clear geological evidence of this from specific crater sites.
Dr Faulkner and I are addressing the issue of solar system cratering in two different
ways. I have proposed that there was one event that affected much of the solar system
in a relatively short time. That event, whatever it was, produced craters with a
size distribution different from craters produced after the catastrophic bombardment
event.
It appears to me that many moons in the outer solar system, as well as Mars, were
heavily bombarded with impacts. This was followed by a period of significant volcanism
and tectonics that covered many prior impacts. Then after the volcanism, some impacts
still occurred which were random, much less frequent, and unrelated to the catastrophic
bombardment event.
Though a comet impact event affecting the earth and the moon such as Dr Faulkner
suggests is very possible, there is much additional data on cratering in the solar
system to explain as well. There are some other difficulties in placing a significant
impact bombardment at the time of the Creation or the Fall, or between the Fall
and the Flood. The effects of the impacts would limit our options as creationists
as to what was possible during that period.
Other types of events have been proposed that could cause cratering as well. The
most promising in my opinion are a cloud of solid objects from outside the solar
system passing through our system,9
other types of comet or multiple comet events, and possibly the breakup of an object
beyond Neptune.10 We have
only begun to examine these issues as creationists. Important new data has also
been coming from the Galileo and Mars Global Surveyor space missions. As we continue
to study these questions, I hope Dr Faulkner and I can continue to converge to some
similar conclusions.
Wayne R. Spencer
Arlington, Texas
United States of America
Danny Faulkner replies:
I am pleased that a letter from my friend, Wayne Spencer, questioning my proposal
for a creation based cratering theory appears in this issue. I
readily acknowledge Wayne’s work on cratering in formulating some of my ideas.
For a very long time I had resisted subscribing to the notion that impacts were
the result of the Fall or the Flood, opting instead for most impacts being primordial.
The main reason for my reluctance on this matter was the sense that perhaps too
many physical characteristics of the world were being laid at the feet of judgment.
Wayne’s discussion of the many astroblemes in the fossil record helped me
realize that there must have been many impacts during the Flood. Before directly
responding to Wayne’s letter, I want to emphasize that my proposal for cratering
before and at the time of Flood is just that—a proposal. I do not have so
much time and effort invested in my proposal yet to cause me to dig in my heels
when challenges come, so I welcome opportunities like this to have my mind changed.
Apparently Wayne has misunderstood some of my proposal, and so I can only assume
that others have misunderstood as well. I welcome this opportunity to offer a few
clarifications.
First, I suggest that the planets and satellites were assembled on the fourth day
of Creation Week. The matter from which they were accreted could have been created
on Day Four as well, but that material may have been primordial, that is, created
in the beginning (Day One). Wayne is quite correct to point out that this presents
a problem for differentiation and cooling to have rapidly occurred.
However, rapid cooling is a problem that young-earth creationists frequently encounter
in situations such as very thick lava flows. If thick lava flows were flood related,
then it is difficult to cool them to their current temperatures in only a few thousand
years.
Another problem for rapid cooling in a recent creation is the moon. If the moon
or at least portions of the moon were ever molten, which seems to have been the
case judging from the evidence of past volcanic activity on the moon, then how did
the moon cool to its present interior temperature in only a few thousand years?
Unless the other bodies in the solar system were simply instantaneously created
as is, the same cooling problem exists for many of them.
The creation account necessitates that the formation and early history of the earth
be very different from that of the other planets. If nothing else, this is suggested
by the fact that the earth was created first and the other planets three days later.
Another problem that Wayne could have mentioned is the time required for the planets
and satellites to coalesce. A gradual or uniformitarian process would demand quite
a long time. If these bodies randomly accreted from a cloud of material, there should
still be a large amount of debris left after only a few thousand years. Therefore
I propose that the planets and satellites rapidly accreted, using most of the available
material.
I doubt that anyone can devise a realistic scenario whereby this could have happened
by a natural process. Indeed, if one could, would it be a creation theory? If the
planets and satellites formed by accretion, then many of the craters that we find
on their surfaces would be the results of the impacts of the accreting material.
This much is in agreement with evolutionary theories, though I would drastically
reduce the time scale. Another difference from evolutionary theories is that the
brief process would have been directed, rather than a random one.
I agree with Wayne that there are no biblical reasons to invoke major impacts at
the Fall. I would go further and conclude that there are no biblical reasons to
invoke impacts at the Flood. On the other hand, Wayne has clearly demonstrated that
even if only a few of the alleged astroblemes in the fossil record are indeed impact
craters, then Flood Geology demands that there must have been many impacts
associated with the Flood.
One fact that has struck me is that our nearest neighbour, the moon, shows evidence
of two distinct cratering episodes. Most of the lunar highland craters are classified
as early heavy bombardment, while the impact basins of the maria are dated as late
heavy bombardment. After the late heavy bombardment, the lunar cratering rate rapidly
decreased. Most people, including Wayne, would view the early and late heavy bombardment
as part of the same episode. I have gradually come to view them as two distinct
episodes. At this time I am not prepared to give physical evidence for this—it
is more along the lines of the basis of my proposal. As I develop my proposal, perhaps
the evidence will come forth.
I have always puzzled over why some of the largest impacts on the moon were also
the last. Or more correctly, why some of the last impacts were some of the largest.
Wayne does point out that the largest impact on the moon is the Aitken basin, but
it is very different from other lunar impact basins. The Aitken basin has been so
heavily modified by other craters, that it is difficult to identify. Indeed, the
Aitken basin is a very subtle feature that has only recently been discovered.
In both my theory and the evolutionary theory, this heavy modification would date
the Aitken basin to an early epoch. The question is, why did the Aitken basin fail
to produce volcanic overflow? This is particularly a problem for an old moon, because
the Aitken basin impact would have happened when the solid surface of the moon would
have been much thinner than when the other impacts that resulted in volcanic overflow
occurred. I do not know if I have an answer for that yet, except perhaps that the
circumstances of the Aitken and other basins were different. For instance, the speed
of primordial impacts may have been much smaller than the later (Flood) impacts.
There are other faint impact basins that are alleged on the moon, though none of
them resulted in volcanic overflow. The same can be said for features on a few other
bodies, such as the Caloris Basin on Mercury. All of these features, if real, appear
to be very old and have no volcanic overflow. Only the relatively younger lunar
maria have the overflow. Furthermore, the maria are preferentially on the side of
the moon facing the earth. All of this leads me to conclude that what processes
caused the lunar maria must have been fundamentally different from the other impacts
in the solar system.
In summary, I suggest that the early heavy bombardment should be identified with
the final stages of the moon’s assembly on Day Four. There could have been
large impacts during the early heavy bombardment, but for some reason they failed
to produce volcanic overflow. I would also date most of the impacts in the solar
system on Day Four as well.
The late heavy bombardment occurred at the time of the Flood, and did not affect
the entire solar system. The lunar maria were caused by impacts sustained during
the late heavy bombardment, and few impacts have happened since. Evolutionary models
hypothesize that the impacting bodies had a random distribution in motion. It would
be very difficult to clear the solar system of meteoroid debris in only a few thousand
years if either one of these events were due to random orbits. Therefore I propose
that the Day Four events were directed to the purpose of making the planets and
satellites of the solar system. Since the earth already existed by Day Four, the
direction of the process would have prevented the earth from being bombarded at
that time.
To account for the unique pattern of the lunar impact basins, I conclude that the
moon encountered a brief but intense swarm of meteoroids. It is apparent that the
earth suffered large impacts at the time of the Flood, so I suggest that this is
when the impacts that led to the lunar maria happened as well. The earth was the
intended target for God’s wrath, but the moon was struck as a result of, to
borrow a military term, collateral damage.
It is tempting to place most of the solar system impacts at the time of the Flood,
but I have several objections to that. First, it fails to account for the unique
features of the moon. Second, the crater density of heavily cratered terrains, such
as the lunar highlands, suggests an extremely high impact rate. That high rate appears
too catastrophic to me to have merely caused the Flood. Such a titanic calamity
should have taken precedent as the instrument of God’s judgment, rather than
the water that prevailed upon the earth. Third, a general mass of debris would be
difficult to clear from the solar system in a few thousand years.
Wayne has suggested that an interstellar swarm of debris swept through the solar
system at that time. I concede that this would answer this final objection. However,
that suggestion is not as far removed from my suggested source, a comet swarm. The
only differences are that my comet stream would have directly affected only a few
bodies in the solar system and leaves the possibility of a return visit by the stream.
This sort of speculation is only in its infancy. It is a real pleasure to have such
fine individuals as Wayne Spencer involved in this. It is my desire that my modest
proposal act as a catalyst to stir up the thinking and discussion of others.
Danny Faulkner
Lancaster, South Carolina
United States of America
Further reading
References
- Faulkner,
D., A biblically-based
cratering theory, TJ 13(1):100–104, 1999.
Return to text.
- Spencer, W.R., Catastrophic impact bombardment surrounding
the Genesis Flood; in Walsh, R.E. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth International
Conference on Creationism, Technical Symposium Sessions, Creation Science
Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 553–566, 1998. Return to text.
- Spencer, W.R., Geophysical effects of impacts during the Genesis
Flood; in Walsh, R E. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference
on Creationism, Technical Symposium Sessions, Creation Science Fellowship,
Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 567–579, 1998. Return to text.
- Baugher, J.F., The Space-Age Solar System, John Wiley
and Sons, Inc., pp. 71, 384, 1988. Return to text.
- Spudis, P., Reisse, R.A. and Gillis, J.J., Ancient multiring
basins on the moon revealed by Clementine Laser Altimetry, Science
266:1848–1851, 1994. Return to text.
- Plescia, J.B. and Boyce, J.M., Crater densities and geological
histories of Rhea, Dione, Mimas and Tethys, Nature 295:285–290
(see especially p. 288 on two populations of impacting objects), 1982.
Return to text.
- Woronow, A., Strom, R.G. and Gurnis, M., Interpreting
the cratering record: Mercury to Ganymede and Callisto, Morrison, D. (Ed.),
pp. 237–275 (see especially page 251 on Mars), 1982. Return
to text.
- Froede, C.R. Jr. and Williams, E.L., The Wetumpka impact crater,
Elmore County, Alabama: an interpretation within the young-earth Flood model, Creation
Res. Soc. Quart. 36(1):32–37, 1999. Return
to text.
- Spencer, W.R., The origin and history of the solar system;
in Walsh, R.E. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism,
Technical Symposium Sessions, Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 513–523
(see p. 521), 1994. Return to text.
- Spencer, W.R.,
Revelations in the solar system,
Creation 19(3):26–29 (see p. 28), 1997.
Return to text.
| They say time is money. Well, this site provides over 30 years of information. That’s a lot of money and time. Would you support our efforts to keep this information coming for 30 more years?  | | |
|
