Post by M.R. Hagerty on Mar 13, 2023 13:39:38 GMT -7
Most of us are familiar with the names of the various periods in Earth's history, such as Cambrian, Carboniferous, Jurassic, etc. And as believers in the Genesis account of Creation, it’s not conceding to the other camp to use these terms to describe the various layers we find in many areas all over the world. The layers are real, the fossils in them are real. But the timetable for how much time they represent is where we differ.
The geologists’ interpretation of the layering is that these were laid down by what is called ‘conformitarianism,’ where processes operating today operated in very ancient Earth times, which means millions of years in forming mere inches on top of other layers. The Creationist view is that the layering was done rapidly in a short period of time by the Noahic Flood of Genesis.
One point has been staring me in the face and I didn’t see it until now – namely that the places where new kinds of materials begin layers different than below, there are flat contact lines that extend for thousands of square miles. Geologists insist this supports long periods as layers built up very slowly.
But it’s ignoring what happens to the current layer in any given time. The topmost layer on the surface of the earth doesn’t maintain a clean, flat, level surface, waiting a million years for the next era of deposits. The surface gets eroded in different places. Harder material resists erosion and remains higher as softer material erodes into valleys. Water from local flooding digs deep ravines and gullies. There is uplift that raises areas above others, subsidence that drops areas below others. (And geologists ironically offer that there is plenty of time for this between these layers.) That would be the surface the next era of layering meets as inland seas encroach on the land and deposit new material.
The expectation would be a jagged contact line, like the chart for a stock price. But nothing like that is seen at the contact points between geologic eras. They are largely flat and smooth. If they change to a higher level, it is clearly from an uplift event for a whole section, which then continues flat from there. Or flat sections are tilted in a non-conformant way.
But this issue doesn’t go away for Creationists, either. A Creationist explanation is that debris kicked up by a massive Flood would roll along under the surface and settle out at different rates. The contact line of the lowest deposit layer would not be flat because it would represent the up-and-down surface from erosion over centuries of time before the Flood.
This doesn’t take away some of the problems remaining in a Creationist model, like how to account for limestone as a calcium carbonate deposit from sea creatures seen at different layers not just the lowest, and how to explain different materials that are being mixed together in the flood waters then settle out at different rates, causing layering? Also, do we see an undulating, up-and-down contact line at the lowest geologic level before the first Flood layer was laid down?
But one thing is now quite certain, the evolutionary explanation by geologists can’t be maintained - that these periods were deposited over millions of years, hence the expectation of flat contact lines.
I welcome your comments . .
The geologists’ interpretation of the layering is that these were laid down by what is called ‘conformitarianism,’ where processes operating today operated in very ancient Earth times, which means millions of years in forming mere inches on top of other layers. The Creationist view is that the layering was done rapidly in a short period of time by the Noahic Flood of Genesis.
One point has been staring me in the face and I didn’t see it until now – namely that the places where new kinds of materials begin layers different than below, there are flat contact lines that extend for thousands of square miles. Geologists insist this supports long periods as layers built up very slowly.
But it’s ignoring what happens to the current layer in any given time. The topmost layer on the surface of the earth doesn’t maintain a clean, flat, level surface, waiting a million years for the next era of deposits. The surface gets eroded in different places. Harder material resists erosion and remains higher as softer material erodes into valleys. Water from local flooding digs deep ravines and gullies. There is uplift that raises areas above others, subsidence that drops areas below others. (And geologists ironically offer that there is plenty of time for this between these layers.) That would be the surface the next era of layering meets as inland seas encroach on the land and deposit new material.
The expectation would be a jagged contact line, like the chart for a stock price. But nothing like that is seen at the contact points between geologic eras. They are largely flat and smooth. If they change to a higher level, it is clearly from an uplift event for a whole section, which then continues flat from there. Or flat sections are tilted in a non-conformant way.
But this issue doesn’t go away for Creationists, either. A Creationist explanation is that debris kicked up by a massive Flood would roll along under the surface and settle out at different rates. The contact line of the lowest deposit layer would not be flat because it would represent the up-and-down surface from erosion over centuries of time before the Flood.
This doesn’t take away some of the problems remaining in a Creationist model, like how to account for limestone as a calcium carbonate deposit from sea creatures seen at different layers not just the lowest, and how to explain different materials that are being mixed together in the flood waters then settle out at different rates, causing layering? Also, do we see an undulating, up-and-down contact line at the lowest geologic level before the first Flood layer was laid down?
But one thing is now quite certain, the evolutionary explanation by geologists can’t be maintained - that these periods were deposited over millions of years, hence the expectation of flat contact lines.
I welcome your comments . .