When were ‘mismatched’ river courses carved?

During Noah’s Flood or the post-Flood Ice Age

by Ron Neller

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Today’s feedback comes from Elliot in the United States who asks when river courses were carved, namely, whether it was by the retreating waters of Noah’s Flood or during the post-Flood Ice Age.

CMI (Australia) earth scientist Dr Ron Neller responded:

Dear Elliot.

Thank you for your email. Many of us have also been fascinated by what you refer to as a ‘mismatch’, the apparent discrepancies between what we see and what we are advised or taught. Indeed, this discrepancy affected me even in my undergraduate degree days, long before I accepted young earth creation. So much so that I opened my honours thesis in 1976 with the quote:

“Nature seems to operate always according to an original general plan, from which she departs with regret and whose traces we come across everywhere.” Vicq D’Azyr (1784)

Although the quote was written by a French physician and anatomist who specialised in comparative anatomy, I felt it was similar to the comparative landscape studies that I was researching.

Regarding your reference to ‘small streams that create valleys wider than they should be’, these have been termed ‘underfit’ rivers, and much research was undertaken on various aspects of this feature (Dury, 1964).¹ The South Platte River that you referred to has been written up in the academic literature as an underfit river. Underfit rivers are not just found in the USA—they are found worldwide.

An underfit river is defined as being ‘much smaller than expected from the size of its valley’ (Goudie, 2014).² The Natural Resources Conservation Service USDA elaborated on this and defined an underfit river as a river that appears to be too small to ‘have eroded the valley in which it flows; a stream whose volume is greatly reduced or whose meanders show a pronounced shrinkage in radius’. Recognising that underfit rivers are global features, Dury (1964) sought a common explanation, and argued it to be predominantly the result of a rapid decline in stream discharge (flow rates) because of paleoclimatic changes.

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As underfit rivers are worldwide, regardless of terrain and climatic settings, Dury’s argument is weak. Likewise, melt waters from the post-Flood Ice Age are not adequate, as the post-Flood Ice Age was not global (the extent of the ice age is shown in figure 1).

A good in-depth book on landform changes associated with the post-Flood Ice Age is The Missoula Flood Controversy and The Genesis Flood. This book reveals how such a catastrophic post-Flood associated with the Ice Age can alter landscapes significantly. Nonetheless, this does not provide an explanation for underfit rivers worldwide.

A better explanation would be that these the underfit rivers (i.e. the ‘overfit valleys’ they flow in) formed during the receding stage of Noah’s Flood. You will find interesting the section that deals with underfit systems in Steve Austin’s Impact article “Did Landscapes Evolve?”³ In another article I recommend, The Three Sisters: strong evidence for Noah’s Flood in Australia, Tas Walker says:

‘ … escarpments and large valleys eroded later in the Flood when the volume of water decreased and the flow was restricted to large channels. The rivers and waterfalls that now occupy valleys are minuscule compared with the volume of waters that carved the landscape during the Flood. Underfit rivers are the norm around the world, but we would expect conformable-fit rivers if millions of years were available to reach an equilibrium position.’.

I underlined an important point in Tas Walker’s argument – and that is, why has equilibrium not been achieved with lengthy periods of time available for adjustment in river systems?

You list a host of other features, such as fluctuating river mouths and cliff faces in meander bends that exceed present flood levels. The specific features that you cite I have not seen and cannot provide an answer on their formation. Hence, I refer to other outputs from Creation Ministries International that describes similar features.

How landscapes reveal Noah’s Flood: Visualizing the receding floodwaters is a good article that deals with cliff faces, whether they be gorges or waterfalls.

I think you would enjoy the podcast Can certain geological structures be explained by a global Flood? on the broader landscape topic. This one does deal with interpreting apparent ‘glacial’ features that you refer to.

Yet another article, Geomorphology provides evidence for the global flood, will give you an overall perception of the evidence of the global Flood.

I trust that these readings will highlight that what we perceive as a mismatch between what we observe and what we are taught, essentially arises out of the rejection of a Noah’s Flood, an event that Jesus himself referred to (Matthew 24:38-39).

All the best,
Dr Ron Neller
Scientist, Writer, Speaker
Creation Ministries International (Australia)