Dubbed The Tamu Massif it is located about 1,600 km (1,000 miles) east of Japan, and is the largest feature of an underwater mountain range called Shatsky Rise.
Reports drew attention to the unusual shape of the huge lava deposit. The volcano is low and broad, a shield volcano. Most other volcanoes that erupt under the ocean are small with steep sides. The seafloor is dotted with thousands of such steep-sided underwater volcanoes, or seamounts.
The broad, flat shape means that the lava erupted at an enormous rate such that it travelled rapidly across the ocean floor as a fluid over long distances, before it was cooled sufficiently by the seawater such that it began to solidify and become viscous.
The volcano is ‘dated’ at 145 million years according to uniformitarian philosophy. This timing is based on the idea that everything happened slowly and gradually, and that the Noah’s Flood catastrophe never happened.
So we have to reinterpret these ‘dates’ that geologists have assigned. 145 million years equates to about halfway through the Flood. The Flood occurred about 4,500 years ago. Most of the rocks exposed on earth were deposited during the Flood, which was an enormous catastrophic event, which means everything happened quickly (not over millions of years).
Some idea of this timing can be estimated from the timing of faulting on the edges of the continents, such as in south-west Western Australia. The geology suggests that the break-up of the continents and the opening of the ocean basins began somewhere around the Early Cretaceous. (A similar picture can be seen in Africa.) If the relative timing the scientists assigned to the Tamu Massif correlates with the geology of Western Australia (which it probably doesn’t exactly across such large distances), it would mean the massif was emplaced around the time the ocean basins were opening up and deepening prior to receiving the waters from off the continents.
This volcanic eruption was one of many similar eruptions all over the planet at this time as the oceans were opening up. The volume of lava emplaced during these eruptions was enormous, and they are called Large Igneous Provinces, or LIPs for short.
The eruptions for the Tamu Massif took place underwater and the volcano is still under water. However, even the LIPs that are now on land would have erupted underwater at that time during the Flood.
The rate at which lava spewed from beneath the earth was so rapid that the Tamu Massif formed a very flat shape, not a steep shape as occurs for undersea eruptions today. Its shape is similar to the shape of the Columbia River Basalts (See article Field Studies in Columbia River Basalts), which also erupted at around this time (broadly speaking). The Columbia River Basalts display evidence for very rapid emplacement. Deposits such as the Columbia River Basalts are often called ‘continental basalts’ but this field study indicates that is a misnomer. They erupted underwater.
It is interesting that the researchers recognize that the eruption of the volcano was a hugely catastrophic event. Sager said:
The bottom line is that we think that Tamu Massif was built in a short (geologically speaking) time of one to several million years and it has been extinct since.
Catastrophic events do not take much time, which is what we would expect from Noah’s Flood. And it would have been a lot quicker than Sager imagined—emplaced in days.
There was another feature about the volcano that puzzled the researchers. Sager again:
One interesting angle is that there were lots of oceanic plateaus (that) erupted during the Cretaceous Period (145–65 million years ago) but we don’t see them since. Scientists would like to know why.
There is a simple reason why these eruptions only took take place in one period of earth history and we don’t see them since. The volcanos erupted as the ocean basins opened up during Noah’s Flood. As the basins began to open they began to receive the floodwaters that were covering the continents. It was a one-off event, contradicting the usual (but erroneous) geological assumption that the present is the key to the past. It happened just once and it won’t happen again.
If these scientists who are so puzzled would read their Bibles and take what they read seriously it would all make sense. They would see that God said this:
I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. Genesis 9:11
Message for William Sager at Texas A&M University: Noah’s Flood is the answer to your puzzle. The eruptions occurred about halfway through Noah’s Flood, which was a one-off, non-repeatable event. Now you know why.
Alice Maxwell
This is so interesting, especially since the upwelling of water off the coast of Australia this year occasioned astonishment as it flooded a huge area of that country and continent.
This suggesion that water comes from beneath as well as from above should give the meteorologists some nightmares as strange anomalies continue….like in Colorado this month!
Robert
The “old-earth” guys always end up with “but why?” Just when they think they know what, when, and how, “why” smacks ’em down. They definitely need Gods Word for the whole story.
mjnellett
The “Flood” explains a lot of earth’s physical phenomena if only “science” was open minded enough to look and listen using the bible as a guide.
Victor Meyer
Also apt is Genesis 7:11 — all the fountains of the great deep were broken open…
M.S.
Just wanted to point out, as the parent of two Texas A&M Aggies myself, that the massif’s name comes from the discoverer’s institution–TAMU (Texas A&M University)–gig ’em, Aggies!
Bruce Budd
I’m really curious about Alice Maxwell’s comment on the upwelling of water off the Australian coast. Don’t know anything about it. Can anyone enlighten me?
Greven
Some interesting points concerning Noah’s flood and the ice age. Were I come from in Sweden evidence of the Ice age is every where from flattened mountains to areas of stones and gravel still not covered by plants as one have thought after 40-50 thousand years.
As we learned in Genesis during the preparation of the planet a large volume of water were suspended in the atmosphere. This would have resulted in serious global warming and indeed palm trees have been found in Greenland and there are big coal deposits and oil finds in the arctic demonstrating lush vegetation existing in the past.
When the flood happened it was that water that rained down this would have led to a dramatic climate change which would explain snap frozen mammoth and mass graves of animals killed instantly.
A perfectly reasonable explanation for all those related events.
And in case someone asks the water is still here covering 70% of the planet to an average depth of nearly 4000 meter compared to average height of land 800 meter.
jeff
Those who are in a state of rejection of the Truth (Word) never fail to clamor for an alternate explanation, no matter how ridiculous.
As far as the flood. One explanation is that the water came from off the planet. See what Dr. Jeffrey Goodman has to say in his book the comets of God. thecometsofgod.com
I find the name choice to be interesting as well Tamu(z) Massif?
It seems to me that there is a lot of occult ties to Texas A&M (and many other “knowledge” dispensers).
S.M.
Jeff, may I ask where you get the information about “occult ties to Texas A&M”? As the parent of two sons who are at the University, I can tell you that the simplest explanation for the researcher giving the volcano the name that he did is the institutional loyalty for which TAMU is legendary–and for good reason. TAMU started out as a military academy, and still retains values of service toward the greater good. Their motto is, “An Aggie does not lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate those who do.” And obviously, while not every student can or will live up to those ideals, just having those ideals anymore is out of the ordinary.
In addition, the student body is well-known for being one of the most conservative and religious in the US, drawing heavily as it does from small, rural Texas towns. There are very few public universities in the United States that I would recommend to Christians, but Texas A&M would be foremost among them.