Note from CM: We welcome back Michael McCann, aka Mike the Geologist, to do a series blogging through a book about the Grand Canyon, one of earth’s great natural wonders. Young earth creationists have tried to explain this magnificent geologic marvel by appealing to a great worldwide flood in the days of Noah. Let’s see how their arguments hold up.

This is the second post in the series.

• On the Grand Canyon and the Flood (1)

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The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth: Can Noah’s Flood Explain the Grand Canyon?
By Gregg Davidson, Joel Duff, David Elliott, Tim Helble, Carol Hill, Stephen Moshier, Wayne Ranney, Ralph Stearley, Bryan Tapp, Roger Wiens, and Ken Wolgemuth.

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Part 1 of the book is entitled “Two Views”.  Chapter 1 is “Introduction”, Chapter 2 is “What is Flood Geology”, Chapter 3 is “Time Frame of Flood Geology”, and Chapter 4 is “Time Frame of Modern Geology”.

The introduction takes us for an overview of the Grand Canyon from Lee’s Ferry at River Mile 0, the beginning of the canyon to River Mile 277 where the Colorado River empties into Lake Mead.  The park covers 1,904 square miles.  Geologist and explorer John Wesley Powell completed the first documented traverse of the canyon by boat in 1896.  It was nearly a century later that 25 year old river guide Kenton Grua traversed the canyon on foot in 1976.  Before 2015 more people had stood on the moon (12) than had traversed the canyon on foot (8).  Think about that for a minute and contemplate how complicated and wild the Grand Canyon is.

The conventional geologic understanding of the origins of the Grand Canyon recognizes deep time periods of major land changes, including rising and falling sea levels, tectonic or continental uplift and subsidence, long periods of both deposition and erosion, faulting and folding of the strata, and finally, the carving of the canyon by the Colorado River and its tributaries.

In opposition to the conventional geologic understanding, Young Earth Creationists (YEC) promote a view that makes two bold claims: (1) a biblical view leads necessarily that the Grand Canyon and its rocks were created in recent events associated with Noah’s Flood and; (2) that an unbiased view of the scientific evidence proves a global deluge.  Those who hold to a YEC view are generally referred to as “flood geologists”.  Ironically both flood geologists and conventional geologists both concur that the Grand Canyon formed by natural processes, and are subject to scientific inquiry.

Chapter 2 lays out the basic viewpoint of flood geology and its modern history; for it is a modern viewpoint.  Geology became a true scientific discipline beginning in the nineteenth century.  The Catastrophists or Diluvialists (the original flood geologists) argued with the Uniformitarians (the best known of whom were James Hutton and Charles Lyell).  Note this was some 50 years before Charles Darwin and the Origin of the Species; so the canard that modern geology was formed to support evolution is false.  These men argued back and forth on the basis of the observed rock record until by the beginning of the twentieth century the Catastrophists had largely conceded to the Uniformitarians.  The fact that both groups were largely made up of Christians, and often were Christian ministers, is also mostly overlooked.  The book points out that few readers are aware that the widespread rejection of Noah’s flood as a major geologic episode and the likely antiquity of creation beyond 6,000 years did not concern most conservative biblical scholars and theologians at that time.  Evidence of that is found in the Fundamentals, which were written by conservative Christian pastors and seminary professors between 1910 and 1915.  These essays, which were the foundation of the fundamentalist movement, acknowledged the possibility of an ancient creation and did not challenge the philosophical basis of uniformitarian geology.

In 1864 Ellen G. White (1827-1915), founder of Seventh Day Adventists, published a series of “visions” that basically set forth Noah’s Flood as both literal and global.  An apologist for Adventist theology, George McCready Price (1870-1963) promoted his reinterpretations of geologic strata to conform to a single global deluge.  He sought, but did not receive, support of his views from Christian professional geologists of his day.  I remember, when I was in undergraduate school, finding some of his “tracts”.  He was considered a “crank” by geologists, Christian and non-Christian alike.  That is until Bible professor John Whitcomb and engineering professor Henry Morris co-authored the book “The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications” in 1961, recycling and expanding on Price’s theories (but giving little credit to Price himself, because, you know, Seventh Day Adventists, Ellen G. White and… VISIONS).   Their book established the modern Young Earth Creationism movement, especially among fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals.  But the dirty little secret about YEC is that it is a modern construct and based on the spooky visions of Ellen G. White.

The book then lays out the basic principles of Flood Geology:

• Based on a (selective) literal reading of Genesis. (The Statement of Faith signed by all AiG “scientists” and other employees says in part: “By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.”)
• The Earth was created 6,000 years ago in 6 literal 24 hour days
• The Noachian Flood happened 4,500 years ago- all civilizations discovered by archeology must fit into the last 4,285 years.
• No rain fell on the planet before Noah’s Flood.  Then rain fell for 40 days and 40 nights and the “fountains of the deep” broke forth their water.
• All the planet was flooded to the tops of the highest mountains.
• All tectonic mountain building, continental movement, and major volcanism occurred in the year following the flood.
• The majority of the sedimentary rock record was deposited.
• No death or decay occurred before the fall of Adam and Eve, therefore the fossil record must date to sometime after the fall.
• All terrestrial life, animal and human, except for what was on the ark, was extinguished.

I’ve reproduced Figure 3-2 from the book.  This will be a key figure in this discussion series.  It covers the strata not only in the Canyon, but north through the Grand Staircase up to Bryce Canyon.  The book is filled with these simple but illustrative figures that are very layman-friendly.

Flood geologists make the Grand Canyon the showcase for their view that most of the sedimentary rocks on the planet formed during Noah’s flood, only a few thousand years ago.  They say they know this because of the revealed truth of the Bible-God’s Word.  They also assert their claims are scientifically defensible.  But remember the statement of faith quoted above: “By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.”  So which is it?  Are you going to defend your theory by the scientific method or are you going to make a faith claim?  The value of this book is that because flood geologists argue that their geologic interpretations are in fact testable by scientific investigation this book will evaluate the claims of flood geology on their scientific merits.  Each of the bulleted “basic principles of flood geology” outlined above has physical, measurable, testable implications in reality.  This book illustrates that reality.

Chapter 2 discusses the time frame of flood geology and Chapter 3 discusses the time frame of modern geology.  At the base of the canyon are the metamorphic and igneous rocks of the crystalline basement.  Igneous rocks are the cooled rocks of magma (molten rock that has not been extruded onto the surface) and lava (volcanic rock extruded on the surface).  Metamorphic rocks can be any rocks that have been re-crystallized by extreme heat and pressure.  A stack of tilted sedimentary rocks overlaps on top of the crystalline basement rocks and are known as the Grand Canyon Supergroup.  In the flood geology timeline the basement rocks and the Supergroup are considered pre-flood i.e. deposited, hardened, tilted, and intruded by lava between the third day of creation and Noah’s Flood some 1,650 years later.  If you un-tilt the Supergroup its total thickness would be about 12,000 feet.  The Supergroup layer only contain fossils of single cell organisms, mostly stromatolites (algal mats).

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The absence of ferns, flowering plants, fish, birds, reptiles, mammals, amphibians, sharks or other multicellular organisms in over 12,000 feet of sediments is never explained.  In the modern geology timeline the Supergroup age is Proterozoic or Pre-Cambrian, older than 525 million years (1,250 million years to 740 million years old), and the absence of other fossils other than algae is because they didn’t yet exist.

The tilting, erosion, and faulting of the Supergroup and deposition of the overlying horizontal layers was Early Flood (first 150 days).   Flood geologists recognize a single “supercontinent” existed before the flood that was violently fractured and thrust apart leading to the planet’s current arrangement when “the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of heavens were opened” (Genesis 7:11) in less than a year.

The deposition of the Grand Staircase, the strata from the top of the Grand Canyon rim north to Bryce Canyon took place Late Flood (Day 151 to one year) while modern geology dates these rock as Mesozoic era (250 million to 65 million years).  To quote from the book: “Leading flood geologists understand the wording found in Genesis 8:3 and 8:5, “the water receded steadily from the earth…”, and, “the water decreased steadily…” to mean that the late flood period was characterized by waters rushing back and forth with an action resembling violent tidal fluctuations.  The resulting currents were forceful enough to strip away thousands of feet of sediment in some areas and create equally huge deposits in other places.”  Bear in mind that if that scenario is true then many kinds of dinosaurs somehow survived the initial onslaught of continent sweeping tsunamis (which according to a video in the Creation museum were large enough to be seen from space) and the months of inundation that followed to leave FOOTPRINTS in hundreds of differently freshly deposited layers as well as many EGG-FILLED NESTS.

To quote from the book, “Consider the implausible sequence of events required for this ‘escape hypothesis’.  Early in the flood, giant waves circled the Earth, scouring parts of continents and in other parts dumping sediment in massive deposits thousands of feet thick.  Changing currents and continental upheaval caused these newly formed deposits to rise above sea level, while new waves raged over previously unflooded land to sweep off dinosaurs.  Some dinosaurs swam or clung to floating debris long enough to gain footing on the freshly uplifted muck at multiple places around the globe, with sufficient numbers still alive at each location to establish nesting grounds.  But shifting currents and tectonics then redirected waves to bury these hapless communities repeatedly within several more thousand feet of sediment.”

Bryce Canyon and the higher Cenozoic rock layers are considered to be Post-Flood.  There are thousands of feet of “post-flood” sediments above the Claron Formation in the western U.S.  Great sequences of “post-flood” rock are also found in other parts of the world, all deposited without the benefit of catastrophic upheavals and global inundation.  Finally, the carving of the canyon is also said to have occurred post-flood.

So why the wildly implausible scenarios with floating dinosaurs and Indianapolis-500-speed continental drift?  Because: “By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.”  Therefore, “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity”, and Occam’s razor (and us compromising Christians) be damned.

Now some sauce-for-the-goose-sauce-for-the-gander atheist reading this may be tempted to ask me why I accept the wildly implausible scenario of some itinerant Jewish rabbi rising from the dead after 3 days in a tomb merely because some ancient document says so.   After all, science has demonstrated that doesn’t happen either. Why do you, Mr. Geologist, get to pick and choose?

Fair question, and I understand the impetus of the YEC crowd to want to link Genesis 1-11 with First Corinthians 15:12-19:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?  But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.  We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.  For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But I’ve already rambled on enough in this essay to now engage in apologetics and genre classification argumentation.  It will have to suffice for now to say if you can’t see the difference in a one-off event and a series of natural processes that are observable today your focus way is too narrow.

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Photo by Aftab Uzzaman on Flickr. Creative Commons License.