Geological Cross Section, Perth, Western Australia (Click for larger image)
As I have mentioned before, I look at sections like these and interpret them using biblical history.
Section A-B is approximately 80 km long and shows a depth of 17 km (remember it’s an interpreted section). The vertical and horizontal scales are the same. The left hand (west) side of the section begins in the ocean some 43 km west of Perth and runs to the north-north-east for 80 km, ending about 37 km inland. As we look at the section we are looking to the north. The coastline is approximately half-way along the section (marked by an arrow visible on larger image).
The section is dominated by thick sediments (mauve, blue, green, etc) that are almost horizontal but have been broken and moved up and down by many near-vertical faults. The faults extend into the ‘basement’ (red).
The lowest horizontal layer has been labelled S? D? meaning it could be Silurian or Devonian. The next layers as we move up are labelled P, TR, Jl, Jmu, K, and T, meaning Permian, Triassic, Lower Jurassic and Middle to Upper Jurassic, Cretaceosu and Tertiary. The sediments sit on a basement (red) labelled as Precambrian. (The labels are visible in the larger image.)
Notice that these horizontal sediments stop abruptly at the east (right) side of the section against the Darling Fault (labelled Darling Fault Zone on the section, visible in the larger image). The rocks to the east (right) of the fault are similar to the red basement but the detailed geology of the basement beneath the ocean is not known so it is simply shown as red. From the section it seems that the rocks to the west (left) of the Darling Fault have dropped down some 15 km.
Because the sediments stop abruptly at the fault it makes sense, according to the principle of lateral continuity, that they once extended to the east for a long distance. However none are present now in the cross section shown.
So, here is my take on the story, the geological history from a biblical Flood perspective.
- The Devonian-to-Jurassic sediments (mauve, blue, green, etc.) were deposited during Noah’s Flood as the floodwaters were rising. These sediments covered most of the Australian continent (including far east of the Darling Fault).
- The floodwaters eventually covered the whole earth. They peaked somewhere around the time the Cretaceous sediments were being deposited in Western Australia.
- The ocean basins of the earth began to sink relative to the continents. This caused faulting along the west coast of Western Australia as the crust of the earth to the west of the continent sank. The Devonian-to-Jurassic sediments were faulted and sank by as much as 15 km.
- The floodwaters flowed from the Australian continent into the ocean. In the section shown the waters would have flowed in a westerly direction. This eroded kilometres of sediment from the top of the continent but the sediements to the west of the Darling Fault were preserved because they had dropped down.
- The upper Cretaceous and Tertiary sediments (above an unconformity, which is shown as a wiggly line, visible in the larger image) were deposited after the faulting had occurred, which was when the floodwaters were receding.
We see that it is reasonably simple to interpret the geological cross section using the geological model based on biblical history.
Tags: Australia, Flood geology, Geological History, geological maps, geological model, Perth basin, Western Australia, Yilgarn craton
Reader JF contacted me asking for help with their son’s assignment:
Hi, my son is in year 4 and has been given an assignment on “weathering and erosion at a landform in your local area”. If he could get some information and give a good talk it would be the boost for his confidence that he desparately needs. I am doing my best but have not a clue where to start. If you could point me in the right direction I would be so appreciative. [Email edited to maintain privacy.]
This assignment comes out of the new National Curriculum being implemented in schools across Australia.
Science / Year 4 / Science Understanding / Earth and space sciences
Earth’s surface changes over time as a result of natural processes and human activity
Elaborations include:
- collecting evidence of change from local landforms, rocks or fossils
- exploring a local area that has changed as a result of natural processes, such as an eroded gully, sand dunes or river banks
- considering the effect of events such as floods and extreme weather on the landscape, both in Australia and in the Asia region
This curriculum point seems harmless enough but it has profound religious implications. Depending on how it is handled, it has the potential to exploit the young child’s lack of knowledge and critical-thinking ability, and influence their attitude against biblical Christianity.
The processes of weathering and erosion can be studied in the landscape today and these processes impact our environment with gullies and sandunes and river banks.
But how do we extend these processes into the past? There are two philosophical approaches, both with religious implications.
The mainstream geological philosophy says weathering and erosion have been occurring for millions and millions of years, and these processes carved the landscape. If this assumption is true then the global Flood described in the Bible never happened. That means the Bible is not reliable in its history, so why would we trust it elsewhere? The fact is, however, that many features of the landscape are a problem for this long-age idea.
The second approach assumes Noah’s Flood was a real event. The processes of weathering and erosion observed today can only be extrapolated into the past to the time when the Flood ends, some 4500 years ago. These present-day processes are not responsible for the the major features of the landscape, which are explained by the enormous processes operating during the Flood, in particular the eroding effects of receding floodwaters. The Flood easily explains features in the landscape that the long-age geological philosophy has failed to solve.
It is said that religion should be kept out of the science classroom, in which case discussion would need to be confined to landscape features formed over the last 4000 years. But that is unlikely. So will these philosophical issues be raised in the classroom? Or will only one religious position be assumed, the one that begins with rejecting biblical history?
Related articles:
It’s plain to see
Do rivers erode through mountains?
Devil’s Tower explained
Glass House Mountains, Australia
Glass House interpretive sign
Tags: Australia, Bible, Flood geology, Geological History, receding floodwaters, science education
Those studying geology and those working as geologists in geological surveys, universities, and private industry will enjoy this article by Brett Smith from a 2008 Journal of Creation. It may be a bit of a challenge:
The current treatment of young-age creationists in the scientific community and society at large is unfair and unwise. Scientists and philosophers of science, including old-age creationists and naturalists, should respect young-age creationists as legitimate contributors to science. Young-age creationists offer to the current origins science establishment a competing rational viewpoint that will augment fruitful scientific investigation through increased accountability for scientists, introduction of original hypotheses and general epistemic improvement.
Tags: creation, Evolution, Flood geology, Genesis Flood, geological column, geological dating, Geological History, science
I was encouraged to receive an email from a geologist friend who has been working in mining and mineral exploration most of his life.
A quick note to thank you for the list of references you sent. My interest in this topic came from looking at the timing of many of the landforms that one comes across during years of interpreting what we see in the field, specifically in trying to relate these to Biblical history.
It was interesting to see the New England area of NSW featured in some of the articles, [e.g. here and here] an area where I have searched for gold.
It was rewarding to see how well the explanations support what we see with peneplains and incised valleys in so many parts of the world, particularly when one looks back at the explanations that were taught to us as students and accepted by other geologists and scientists over the intervening years.
For quite some time I was troubled by the results of radiometric dating. My first doubts go back to when I first sent material off for investigation. When I was asked in advance for an estimate of the sample’s age my suspicions were aroused. Though of course in those days one could not question dates given by laboratories that were held in such high regard. So with dating data being an ongoing problem in trying to understand things, I was gratified to see that others have investigated the ins and outs of dating techniques to find out how it is that they could be so wrong, and where necessary, when lacking concrete proof, have said that they are wrong and that is that! That seems to describe my thoughts.
For the last 40 years I have been searching for precious metals, concentrating more recently on areas with improved chances of success for IRGDs (Intrusive Related Gold Deposits). One of my earlier problems was the suggestion that the gold potential in different intrusive systems should only be compared for those of the same age. But of course all the millions of years go out the window when Biblical ages are adopted, which supports my deduction that age is relatively unimportant in this work, that factors such as rock-type, structure and geochemistry are the main considerations.
So thanks for your help in improving my appreciation of time in the development of Earth history.
Good to see someone with a lifetime of experience open to look at geology from a new perspective.
Tags: Australia, Flood geology, geological dating
Condit Dam, Washington State. Erosional forms carved when dam emptied: A. Scalloped escarpments; B. Water gap. C. Erosional remnant.
About the event, the commentary on the video says: “On October 26th [2011], a hole was blasted in the base of 125′ tall Condit Dam on the White Salmon River in Washington. In less than 2 hours, the reservoir behind the dam drained completely and the White Salmon flowed unimpeded by a dam for the first time in 100 years. This short clip is a combination of video and timelapse photography captured throughout the day.”
Rob Carter said, “The topic is interesting enough, but it gets exciting when the water level begins to reach the level of the upstream mud after ~ time 1:20.
“I know that there was a pre-existing river valley here, probably with hard rock walls, but a new valley was formed almost instantly in the mud. Huge blobs of mud are shifting downstream in a giant slurry as the water level drops.
“This was a slowly-deposited feature in a quiescent basin (the upstream lake), so there may not be many parallels to the inundatory stages of the Flood, but there are logs in that mud and old tree stumps are sticking out of the previous ground surface, re-exposed for the first time in a century.
“I see parallels here to many erosional features associated with canyons worldwide. What implications are there for catastrophic drainage of continents? Could it be that canyon formation was the last thing to happen as the Flood waters receded?”
There are many interesting features in the main photo at the top of this page (taken from the video at ~ 1:32). At this point the dam has not fully drained and much erosion occurs after this. Nevertheless, there are some interesting features to notice in the image.
In the main photo above, notice the scalloped escarpments at A (letter is easier to see in the enlarged image). In the video leading up to this point we can see how quickly these escarpments formed. Notice the small amount of debris at the base of the escarpments. That is because the water flow that carved the wide ‘valley’ removed all the mud from the area. The water that emerged from the dam was black with mud. In the same photo above notice the water gap at B. Notice also the erosional remnant at C.
All these features are common landscape features around Sydney (check Google images), indeed around the world. This video powerfully demonstrates on a small scale how they form quickly.
Here is the video:
Explosive Breach of Condit Dam from Andy Maser on Vimeo.
Tags: Condit Dam, erosional remnants, receding floodwaters, USA, water gaps
Sydney area with 80m scarp to west.
Water gaps north of 3 Sisters basin near Sydney
Others in the oil industry have noticed that 80m worldwide marks the boundaries of a lot of oil-rich provinces. Does that mean that there is oil around Sydney? Indeed, the lower Sydney formations do contain oil and gas (see Three Sisters: evidence for Noah’s Flood). Colours: yellow = 80m asl; red = 800m asl; Orange = 940m asl.
Water gaps and scarps west of Sydney
Third image: With the sea level at red = 80m, orange = 320m and yellow = 620m, the drainage now flows to the east, with 3 major water gaps appearing and flowing eastward. It also looks like there’s a secondary terrace around 320m, west of the 80m scarp.
One striking feature of the Sydney area is how chewed-up and disected the area is. This is very different from the sorts of water gaps that cut through in linear mountain ranges, such as in the eastern USA. In this situation the water gaps are narrow and drainage is very structurally controlled. Around Sydney the situation is very different. Australian geologists are well aware that the drainage of the area is not structurally controlled, and comment on it in their reports. At first glance, there does not appear to be a lot of small-scale water gaps in this area, unlike the Finke River and Flinders Range areas, where small-scale gaps abound.
The ‘chewed-up’ appearance is similar to the patterns in the western side of the Grand Canyon area which Scheele explained as the effect of ponded water draining into a lower sea. He gives a modern, small-scale analogue of this process and shows how it carves the dendritic, fractal, branching valleys back into the escarpments.
One of my colleagues commented on the sharpness of the escarpments, gaps and gorges in these images. The fact that they are so crisp and sharp and that we can easily trace the drainage flows means that the landscape is not very old. If it was exposed to tens of millions of years of erosion the features would be smoothed and not sharp.
Tags: Australia, Flood geology, Google earth, receding floodwaters, Sydney Basin, water gaps
Susquehanna River basin of Pennsylvania, USA showing water gaps through Blue Mountian.
“Since you mentioned Ken Karle’s article [free pdf], I thought I’d send this SLR picture at 180m asl (red), 240m asl (orange) and 320m asl (yellow) of the Susquehanna River basin of Pennsylvania, USA. The large river whose channel is marked by red is the Susquehanna River.
“The image shows very clearly how Blue Mountain, the long SW-NE trending ridge that transects the picture, could have acted as an impoundment, which was overtopped by receding waters through what are now the water gaps (marked with arrows). Closer inspection also reveals many water gaps in the basin itself.
“Just FYI, it was Karle’s article that got me interested in this area. I started playing around with the Susquehanna basin using Google Earth and Google Maps, and using the Google Earth filled-in contours, I came up with diagnostic criteria for the identification of water gaps (transverse drainages) in plan and profile view, ultimately identifying over 600 water gaps in the basin.”
Update: Karle’s article was first published in Journal of Creation. It’s a great periodical to keep you at the cutting edge. The cover of the latest issue is displayed above right, with a link where you can obtain your own subscription. (Here’s the link for you to subscribe. If you are not from the US, click “Stay here” if a message box appears.)
Tags: Appalachians, Flood geology, receding floodwaters, Susquehanna River, USA, wind gaps
Western USA showing sea level rises to 1650, 1860 and 2100 m asl.
“In response to Berend de Boer’s comment, attached is another example of what can be done with Sea Level Rise. This is an image of the western US at 1650m asl (red), 1850m asl (orange) and 2100m asl (yellow).
“As you can see, a huge swath of the western US has become a giant inland lake, whose only outlet is the Grand Canyon. This would appear to correspond to the inland lake that Scheele mentioned in his article. What is interesting is that the higher sea levels appear to the north, which would seem to indicate that drainage started toward the north and proceeded southward. You can also see many large scale water gaps, indicated by arrows. If you recreate these levels on the SLR website, you can zoom in and see the features in greater definition.”
Like JS, Kenneth Karle used a similar approach for the eastern USA and examined the multitude of wind and water gaps in the Appalachians. His article, published in Journal of Creation, is called Young evidences in an ancient landscape: part 1—the Eastern Structural Front of the Appalachian Mountains and is available free as a pdf.
Simulating the effect of Flood runoff by raising the sea level is a good first estimate to visualizing what happened. As JS has noted, for water to flow there needs to be an hydraulic gradient, which means that the water level upstream would be higher than the level downstream. Also, as the waters were receding, the continents were rising relative to the ocean, and that involved massive tectonic movements. Such movements of the crust mean it’s likely there were localised changes in the level of the land surface during this process.
Nevertheless, as these images from JS show, the evidence for Noah’s Flood is not something confined to just a few specialist geologists. Anyone interested can now experiment with the amazing tools readily available on the web.
Tags: Flood geology, Grand Canyon, receding floodwaters, USA, wind gaps
Wind gap at Walyunga carved by large paleo river that flowed west which was captured by the smaller Swan River flowing south.
“The first is a Google Earth screenshot, in which the purple represents a filled-in contour of 80m asl [above sea level], and the blue of 120m asl. The blue area delineates the westward flowing paleochannel which would appear to have been cross-cut and captured by the SE flowing Swan R., whose channel is purple.”
Region around Perth, Western Australia, showing sea-level rise of 80, 180, and 240 m asl
“What I found intriguing on this image is both the parallelism of the western Australia streams, and also a consistent jog in stream channels that appears as they approach the coastal plain. Stream parallelism is a prominent feature of the east coast of America as well, as are bends in the stream channels as they approach the coastal plain. Interestingly, 80m, 180m and 240m are also levels at which major groups of water gaps appear in the northern Appalachians of the US.”
Another feature this second image from JS shows is the flatness of the plateau east of the Darling escarpment. The Sheet flow stage of the retreating floodwaters explains the flatness of this plateau which has had kilometres of sediment removed in sheets from its surface.
Notice how far the valley of the Swan River (yellow) has cut westward (and then southward) into the plateau, for more than 100 km through Northam and York and as far as Brookton. This huge valley is more than 10 km wide in many places. It’s appearance is similar to the Grand Canyon in the USA but it is not as wide or as deep. Peter Scheele published a study on Grand Canyon in the Journal of Creation using a receding-Flood scenario for its origin.
Notice the fractal shape of the edges of the Swan River valley on the plateau. That is similar to the shape of Grand Canyon, USA. Sheele explains how a huge, deep body of water ponded on the plateau would carve that fractal shape as it drained off the plateau and across the escarpment.
Notice the faint ripple pattern on the surface of the plateau. It looks like the sorts of sand ripples often found on the beach after the tide has gone out. These sorts of features are noticeable in landscapes all over the world.
Thanks very much JS for these images. They indeed graphically reveal the signature of the Retreating stage of Noah’s Flood on the landscape. The ready availability of Google earth allows anyone to do these sorts of investigations.
Tags: Australia, Flood geology, Google earth, Perth, receding floodwaters, water gaps, Western Australia, wind gaps
Steve Jones failing to engage the argument
Evolutionary geneticist Steve told a beauty in his latest article Islam, Charles Darwin and the denial of science published in The Telegraph on 3 December 2011. Here is how he starts:
The story began long ago, when our ancestors were fish. …
Our ancestors were fish?! You must agree that is an imaginative story! But Steve is serious and he gets upset because some of his students at University College London don’t believe him.
Some [muslim students], unfortunately, refuse to accept Darwin’s theory on faith grounds, as do some of their Christian fellows.
But why should anyone accept Darwin’s theory on faith grounds? (Sorry, couldn’t resist that.
) Steve should provide evidence. What evidence does he give that molecules once turned into a living, self-replicating cell—presto? (It had to be “presto” because all the interdependent, nano-machinery had to appear suddenly at the same instant or it would not work.) Further, what evidence does he give that this single cell evolved over billions of years into people?
Evidence is what makes science different from fairy tales. To be fair, Steve says he did appeal to his students with evidence:
I have tried asking students at quite what point they find my lectures unacceptable: is it the laws of inheritance, mutation, the genes that protect against malaria or cancer, the global shifts in human skin colour, Neanderthal DNA, or the inherited differences between apes and men?
Steve, there is no argument over this evidence. What we don’t accept is your belief that this evidence supports molecules-to-man evolution. It doesn’t.
- the laws of inheritance These work on information already present in the genome. They do not create any new genetic information.
- mutation These are copying mistakes and spoil the genetic information. In some environments these can have beneficial outcomes but they still degrade the genetic information. Mutations have been observed to take feathers off a bird but not put feathers on a lizard.
- the genes that protect against malaria or cancer These are just specific examples of the previous two points of inheritance and mutation—no new genetic information.
- the global shifts in human skin colour Just another example of inheritance and mutation that likewise goes the wrong way for bacterium-to-biologist evolution. Actually, accumulating genetic information for humans supports biblical history, not evolutionary scenarios.
- Neanderthal DNA So? Neanderthals were human. They were early post-Flood migrants from Babel into Europe.
- the inherited differences between apes and men Inherited? Who observed that? Apes and humans are distinct creations. The similarities are due to common design, and are evidence that there is one Designer.
Do a search on creation.com on relevant key words (e.g: ‘inheritance’, ‘mutation’, ‘natural selection’, ‘malaria resistance’, ‘human skin colour’, ‘human genome’, ‘Neandertal DNA’, ‘ape human similarities’). You will find lots of articles that address the evidence and present the arguments why it does not support evolution.
When you read them you will see why your students think your interpretation of the evidence is not compelling. So, instead of calling them names and saying that they deny science, respect their skepticism and engage the scientific arguments.
Tags: Evolution, Steve Jones
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