Blog

In the last two articles we looked at some powerful evidences that favor a global flood model.  The next logical question is, do we have a plausible model for the flood, and how does it explain the actual evidence compared to the uniformitarian model of slow and gradual processes over millions of years?

Since no one was there to see the earth’s oldest rocks form, we can only test different models of how they formed and observe how well these models match up with the real world data.  As I have been pointing out, scientists who hold to slow and gradual processes and those who hold to more rapid, catastrophic processes each observe the same data.  Therefore their interpretive framework becomes very important.

So what do the rocks reveal?  We see large formations, continent wide, of water laid rock.  We also see evidence of very large volcanic eruptions in the past.  Ocean rocks are made of a more dense material (basalt) than continental rocks (granite).  This is why the continents “float” on the mantle of the earth above sea level, kind of like wood on water.  We also see marine fossils on top of mountains, as we mentioned last time.  Not only are these marine fossils on the mountains, but they are all through the geological column of rocks, not just at the bottom or top.  And as a rule, we only find these marine fossils on the continents, implying that the ocean floor is  geologically much younger than the continental rocks. The evidence therefore shows that ocean waters must at one time or another covered the continents. In other words, the oceans were covering the continents at the times when fossils were formed.

This means the sea level would need to be able to rise to deposit the fossils on top of the continents, or the continents need to sink below the sea level.   But the only way the continents would be pushed down would be to pile more rock on top of them, as putting more weight on a floating block of wood pushes it lower into the water.  So the continents can’t be pushed down, therefore the ocean floor must rise to deposit the fossils onto the continents.

A scientist by the name of Antonio Snyder also noticed in 1859 the shapes of the continents and that they seem to have a “jigsaw puzzle” fit to one another.  From this observation came the belief shared by most geologists today that there was once a supercontinent, which at sometime in the past broke apart, and the continents continue to drift apart. today.  This is known today as plate tectonics, “tectonics” meaning having to do with earth movements [2].  In plate tectonics, the continental crust is made up of plates that are moving and when the supercontinent split apart, the original ocean floor that surrounded the supercontinent actually disappeared by subducting, or passing under, the continental plates.  These points of subduction are where earthquakes and volcanoes are most prevalent.  When continental plates collide, mountains are formed as the crust buckles and is pushed up. Also, when the ocean floor subducts or sinks into the mantle, it pushes up hot mantle material in other places.

Most geologists, whether they are uniformitarian or catastrophist, believe the above processes happened, the difference in their models is the rates and processes by which these things happened.  In the conventional model, with slow and gradual continental drift. they have the sea floor rising and falling to flood the continents at different times in the earth’s history, with millions of years in between each time the continents are flooded and then re-exposed.  And herein lies the difficulty with their models: how do we explain these processes happening at a slow pace?  How do we move continents around?

Is what we observe today what was going on in the past?  This is the basic idea of uniformitarianism.  Do we see sea level rising today due to the ocean floor rising?  Do we see continent-wide layers of sediment being deposited across continents today?  Do we see marine creatures being buried in vast fossil graveyards today?  No to all of these.  It seems that the present really isn’t the key to the past.

So what about the catastrophic models?  There are several models that have been put forth, and all of them are still being developed today as in any scientific model.  I would like to focus on one model in this article that fits the observed data, and actually explains some data that the conventional models stumble over.  This model has been called Catastrophic Plate Tectonics, or CPT for short. It was developed originally by geophysicist Dr. John Baumgardner, who also is well known for being an authority on plate tectonics and who has written computer simulations for plate tectonics that other geologists use.  Like any model, the CPT model has some starting assumptions: {1}

There was one supercontinent in the past.  The earth’s core, mantle and crust were of the same material as today.

The surrounding ocean crust was colder and denser than the warmer mantle rock beneath it.  Therefore, it “floated” precariously on the mantle much like a needle floats on water due to surface tension {1}  Just as if you touch the needle, it may then sink because it is more dense that the water below, so this ocean crust could sink with the right trigger event.  (see:Hot mantle initiated ocean and Flood beginnings)

The event had a definite trigger either directly or indirectly caused by God.  Remember, we are trying to defend the Genesis Flood here, and the Bible specifically mentions God’s intervention to initiate the Flood.

These conditions and assumptions would cause the following processes:

The ocean floor sinks down into the mantle, ripping the ocean floor apart and the supercontinent is pulled apart as well. (in Genesis, this corresponds to what is called the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep-Gen. 6:)

The boundary of the cold ocean floor crust and the supercontinental crust ruptures and the ocean crust starts sinking down and subducting beneath the continental plates, kind of like a conveyor belt.  This is because it is more dense than the mantle underneath.

As we said above, the ocean crust sinking pushes aside warmer mantle material which then rises ( upwelling) and fills the split in the ocean floor (called a rift). This produces new ocean floor going out from the rift in the ocean floor.  Sinking ocean floor pushes aside mantle rock, while the rifting ocean floor and splitting supercontinent provide “space” for the mantle to upwell as mantle plumes.  In other words, the cold material goes down, the warm material comes up and replaces it.

Violent supersonic steam jets propelled steam from the ocean floor and continental rift zones that go around the whole earth (the fountains of the great deep, Gen 6;).  These steam jets from the splitting of the ocean floor pull along with them ocean water and carry it into the atmosphere where it eventually falls back to earth as intense global rain (the windows of heaven opened, Gen 6: ).   Hot rock has water in it, and also interacts with ocean water to get steam and pull cold ocean water up with it.

Magma upwelled from the mantle into the rifting ocean floor and pushed aside the old Pre-Flood ocean floor to produce new, warmer ocean floor crust, called seafloor spreading.  This new warmer ocean floor crust is less dense than the previous old ocean floor, and so sea level rose drastically, by more than 3500 feet.  This enabled the ocean waters to flood the continents.  This effect was helped further by the continent edge being dragged down by the subducting old ocean floor.

Could this kind of rapid ocean floor sinking and subduction happen, and how rapid would it be?  Theory, experiments, and computer simulations done over decades  have shown that tectonic plates would in fact sink rapidly, eventually up to meters per second.  There is a latent instability in the way hot solid silicate rock deforms under stress  The continuing stress increases the rate of deformation, the friction increases, heat increases, which make the mantle more plastic and the sinking rock would increase in speed, eventually resulting in a “runaway” effect, with the rock sinking at a rate of meters per second.  This would cause not a continental drift, but a continental “sprint” as the continents would also divide at a rate of meters per second. (see articles: Runaway Subduction and Deep Catastrophic Earthquakes, and article by Dr. Baumgarder: Runaway subduction as the driving mechanism for the Genesis Flood)

What would be the outcomes of the above processes?

Ocean floor and continental plates split apart, subduct, slide past one another, or collide to produce mountain ranges.  For example, the Himalayas formed when the Indian Plate collided with the Eurasian Plate.  This needed to be a rapid collision to produce these high mountains, just as two cars colliding will be more bent out of shape at a higher speed than a lower one.

Tsunamis would be caused by earth movements and earthquakes which would also send water up onto the continents in addition to the effect of the rising sea floor.  The tsunami of 2004 marooned boats several miles inland, so imagine what a much larger earth movement than that one could cause! (See articles: Do tsunamis come in super size?, and The Christmas Tsunami of 2004  Tsunamis and tidal surges also would carry sediments and marine creatures from the pre-Flood ocean and dump them onto the continents, each surge going higher and higher as the sea level rose.  So you would have a series of surges.

These successive surges from from tsunamis and daily tidal surges would result in continuous deposition of strata of fossil bearing rock.

There would also be massive volcanic eruptions which would add large amounts of volcanic rock to these strata, in between the rocks laid down by water (sedimentary).

There would therefore be a sequential sweeping away and destruction pre-Flood habitats, and fossils would show an order from outer to inner habitats, and lower to higher elevations, such as from continental shelves, then coastlines, lowlands, uplands, and moutains.  This would partially explain the sequence of fossils we find in the rocks.

When collisions occurred, sedimentary layers would buckle, fold, and be uplifted to form mountain belts, into which the hot granite magmas would intrude to become volcanoes.

All these processes would continue until all the pre-flood ocean floor moved to the mantle/core boundary deep in the earth.  Warm material that was previously at the mantle/core boundary had now moved to the earth’s surface to form a new ocean floor crust. Tectonic plate movement gradually slowed to today’s slow pace.

The new ocean floor gradually cooled and became more dense, and therefore sank, causing the waters to drain off the continents and return to the sea as the sea level dropped.  (see article: How did the waters of Noah’s Flood drain off the continents?)  Rising mountains also made the waters drain off, causing the sheet type erosion we see today.

The oceans would be warmer from the hot water and magma from the mantle, which would result in much more atmospheric circulation and precipitation, and the continents would be stripped of vegetation and there would be much volcanic dust in the atmosphere, causing colder continents.  This combination of warm oceans, cold continents, and more precipitation is a perfect cause for the Ice Age, as the air circulation carried the moisture evaporating from the warm oceans to high latitudes to form ice sheets.  Just having a colder land surface does not produce an ice age, you need more precipitation, which means you need a warmer, not colder ocean.   For further development of the model of an Ice Age caused by the Genesis Flood, see article: What caused the Ice Age? by Michael Oard, who has also written a complete book on the subject [3]

A specific prediction of the CPT model confirmed by real world data:

In addition to the above effects, there is a direct prediction from the CPT model, that because the mantle would have been overturned recently, (within thousands rather than millions of years), there should be evidence of cold pre-Flood slabs at the bottom of the mantle beneath subduction zones.  These would be there because the slabs would not have had time to be warmed up and assimilated into the surrounding mantle.  In 1997, this prediction was verified.

Also, the CPT model may explain the rapid magnetic reversals that we see evidence for in the rocks.  These would be resulting from the relatively rapid movement of the core fluids.  See:.

For a complete article on the CPT model, see: Catastrophic Plate Tectonics: A Global Flood Model of Earth History  Also see The Flood, Catastrophic Plate Tectonics and Earth History

Conclusions for the CPT model:

Slow and gradual models can’t explain how the ocean waters flooded the continents and deposited marine creatures in strata than extend across continents and into high mountains.

Conventional models can’t explain the huge horizontal and vertical earth movements as the supercontinent broke apart and mountains formed.

This model integrates the real world evidence better than the conventional models.

This is just one model.  But it shows that there are sound scientific models that also uphold a catastrophic interpretation, which is in line with the Genesis account of Noah’s Flood.

Some other models for the Global Flood are discussed in these articles: Flood models: the need for an integrated approach,  also Flood models and biblical realism.

{1} I am taking these descriptions from the video by Andrew Snelling entitled The Flood-The Big Picture of it’s Mechanism and Resulting Evidences, 2009, Answers in Genesis, Hebron, KY.  I will follow his general outline from here to describe the assumptions and the effects of the CPT model.

[2] Plate tectonics-The reality behind a theory

[3] Oard, Michael, An Ice Age caused by the Genesis Flood, Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, CA, 1990.  Also Oard, Michael, The Frozen Record, Institute for Creation Research, Santee, CA, 2005.

---