4h) Continued
i) Was there a Global Flood?
- Some believe that the deluge was worldwide because of the apparently universal terms of the text in Genesis 6:17 and elsewhere (Ge 6,7,12,13; 7:4,19,21-23; 8:21; 9:11,15). Others argue that nothing in these narratives prevents the Flood from being regional to where it destroyed everything related to sinful mankind. It could have been confined to something less than the entire globe and it would still accomplished God's purposes.
- When we go to the geological records I see clear evidence that the Earth experienced a major catastrophic event in relatively recent times, ie around 11.5k years ago according to ice cores. It should have been earlier than the earliest tree rings would indicate, but then this would still be only 5k or 10k years ago. The only question is the extent of it. I feel that the Atlantic Ridge was initiated during that event. I also see evidence of major floods worldwide, whether or not they were all the same event. [Note, the geological column is pieced together from segments found worldwide, and all are considered to represent the same record. A global flood would support combining these pieces, but it would reduce the time required to produce this evidence by many orders of magnitude. As such, it would preclude the time for distortions and misinterpretations to creep in.]
- A Global Flood that didn't cover the entire Earth, but just most of it would probably suffice for both the Literalist and the Scientific interpretations of the Bible.
- If there were Polar Ice Caps prior to the Flood and they were not completely destroyed by it, this may account for some of the older seasonal cycles scientists find in those ice cores. Then, too the seasonal variations could have occurred more rapidly following a global flood, since major climatic changes were in progress everywhere.
- I believe Dr Walter Brown's theory* , which has large mats of vegetation floating around the earth as a result of the global flood. They settle everywhere, including in the polar regions and later turn into coal and oil deposits. The large number of dinosaur footprints found in Wyoming coal fields (Fossil Butte) is a perfect example of how the process worked. Let me diverse a moment to review this process for the record:
The vegetation mats are carried on the rising and falling tides that oscillate across the globe for months. The animals that are large enough to swim well are able to survive for some time longer than the others. Between the tides, they are looking for higher ground and food. The vegetation mats settle out on the highest spots first, where the last surviving animals are gathering. Silt is washed over the mats with the successive tides. Dinosaurs are heavy enough to press their footprints through the silt into the vegetation mats below, as they scurry around in a panic. After animals are all gone and washed away, and the flood has subsided, the vegetation mats with the embedded footprints lie buried under tons of sediment. Over a few thousand years the mats turn into coal and preserve the footprints. The process stops when the sediment is exposed and that accounts for the partially coalified logs also found buried in these fields.
Here are some of the observable features on Earth that Dr Brown contends are a result of a Global Flood on the order of 10,000 years ago:
-The
Grand Canyon and Other Canyons
-
Mid-Oceanic Ridge
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Continental Shelves and Slopes
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Ocean Trenches
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Seamounts and Tablemounts
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Earthquakes
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Magnetic Variations on the Ocean Floor
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Submarine Canyons
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Coal and Oil Formations
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Methane Hydrates
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Ice Age
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Frozen Mammoths
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Major Mountain Ranges
-
Overthrusts
-
Volcanoes and Lava
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Geothermal Heat
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Strata and Layered Fossils
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Metamorphic Rock
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Limestone
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Plateaus
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Salt Domes
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Jigsaw Fit of the Continents
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Changing Axis Tilt
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Comets
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Asteroids and Meteoroids
Visit
his website http://www.creationscience.com/ for
details. It’s worth reading.
Now, for the alternate view of the potential affects of a Great Flood, see the appendix, 1d. Dr Richard Alley is a Methodists and a scientist, who spends his life coring ice and learning how to date geological history with what he finds. I am starting a discussion on this subject with him now and hope to come to some mutually agreeable position. I think the “Fountains of the Deep” must be a paramount factor in how we interpret the potential affects of this cataclysmic set of events. Stay tuned for more on the subject.
Aug 24, 2001
For more on this and a response to any questions, please email any comments to nasamike@nasamike.com