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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flood geology | 10/12 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_geology | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:19:57.530514+00:00 | kb-cron |
== Creationist arguments for a global flood ==
=== Fossils === The geologic column and the fossil record are used as major pieces of evidence in the modern scientific explanation of the development and evolution of life on Earth as well as a means to establish the age of Earth. Young Earth creationists such as Morris and Whitcomb in their 1961 book, The Genesis Flood, say that the age of the fossils depends on the amount of time credited to the geologic column, which they ascribe to be about one year. Some flood geologists dispute geology's assembled global geologic column since index fossils are used to link geographically isolated strata to other strata across the map. Fossils are often dated by their proximity to strata containing index fossils whose age has been determined by its location on the geologic column. Oard and others say that the identification of fossils as index fossils has been too error-prone for index fossils to be used reliably to make those correlations, or to date local strata using the assembled geologic scale. Other creationists accept the existence of the geological column and believe that it indicates a sequence of events that might have occurred during the global flood. Institute for Creation Research creationists such as Andrew Snelling, Steven A. Austin and Kurt Wise take this approach, as does Creation Ministries International. They cite the Cambrian explosion—the appearance of abundant fossils in the upper Ediacaran (Vendian) period and lower Cambrian period—as the pre-flood/flood boundary, the presence in such sediments of fossils that do not occur later in the geological record as part of a pre-flood biota that perished and the absence of fossilized organisms that appear later (such as angiosperms and mammals) as a result of erosion of sediments deposited by the flood as waters receded off the land. Creationists say that fossilization can only take place when the organism is buried quickly to protect the remains from destruction by scavengers or decomposition. They say that the fossil record provides evidence of a single cataclysmic flood and not of a series of slow changes accumulating over millions of years. Flood geologists have proposed numerous hypotheses to reconcile the sequence of fossils evident in the fossil column with the literal account of Noah's flood in the Bible. Whitcomb and Morris proposed three possible factors:
hydrological, whereby the relative buoyancies of the remains (based on the organisms' shapes and densities) determined the sequence in which their remains settled to the bottom of the flood-waters ecological, suggesting organisms living at the ocean bottom succumbed first in the flood and those living at the highest altitudes last anatomical/behavioral, the ordered sequence in the fossil column resulting from the very different responses to the rising waters between different kinds of organisms due to their diverse mobilities and original habitats. In a scenario put forth by Morris, the remains of marine life settled to the bottom first, followed by the slower-moving lowland reptiles, and culminating with humans, whose superior intelligence and ability to flee enabled them to reach higher elevations before the flood waters overcame them. Some creationists believe that oil and coal deposits formed rapidly in sedimentary layers as volcanoes or flood waters flattened forests and buried the debris. They believe the vegetation decomposed rapidly into oil or coal due to the heat of the subterranean waters as they were unleashed from the Earth during the flood or by the high temperatures created as the remains were compressed by water and sediment. Creationists continue to search for evidence in the natural world that they consider consistent with the above description, such as evidence of rapid formation. For example, there have been claims of raindrop marks and water ripples at layer boundaries, sometimes associated with the claimed fossilized footprints of men and dinosaurs walking together. Such footprint evidence has been debunked, and some have been shown to be fakes.
=== Widespread flood stories ===
Proponents of flood geology state that "native global flood stories are documented as history or legend in almost every region on earth". "These flood tales are frequently linked by common elements that parallel the biblical account including the warning of the coming flood, the construction of a boat in advance, the storage of animals, the inclusion of family, and the release of birds to determine if the water level had subsided." They suggest that "the overwhelming consistency among flood legends found in distant parts of the globe indicates they were derived from the same origin, but oral transcription has changed the details through time". Anthropologist Patrick Nunn rejects this view and highlights the fact that much of the human population lives near water sources such as rivers and coasts, where unusually severe floods can be expected to occur occasionally and will be recorded in local mythology.
== Proposed mechanisms of flood geology == Price attempted to fit a great deal of Earth's geologic history into a model based on a few accounts from the Bible. Price's simple model was used by Whitcomb and Morris initially, but they did not build on the model in the 1960s and 1970s. However, a rough sketch of a creationist model could be constructed from creationist publications and debate material. Recent creationist efforts attempt to build complex models that incorporate as much scientific evidence as possible into the biblical narrative. Some scientific evidence used for these models was formerly rejected by creationists. These models attempt to explain continental movements in a short time frame, the order of the fossil record, and the Pleistocene ice age.