Evidence for a Global Flood
February 20, 2020
The Flood, Jan van Scorel, c. 1530
THE physical evidence for a global flood that occurred thousands of years ago is consistent with the biblical account of Noah, according to Hugh Owen, of the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation:
In recent years, geologists have reinterpreted several huge sedimentary rock formations in light of empirical research in sedimentology, including the Tonto Group, a large section of the Grand Canyon depicted below. According to a peer-reviewed article published in the journal of the French Geological Society, careful analysis of the sediments that make up this formation indicate that the whole deposit was laid down rapidly—in a matter of days or weeks, not millions of years—by an enormous body of water moving from east to west across what is now the Southwestern United States.
Another common observation consistent with the historical reality of the Global Flood is the beautiful sharp folding of multiple sedimentary layers within uplifted and folded mountain ranges which can be witnessed all over the Earth. If these layers had been laid down over millions of years, there ought to be some evidence of cracking and fracturing of the more ancient layers during the folding and uplifting of the mountains. Instead, all over the Earth, one observes multiple layers of sedimentary rock, folded in beautiful tight folds, without any fracturing—a clear indication that all of the sediments were laid down rapidly at more or less the same time, and that there were no long intervals of time between them.
And more:
A related feature of river valleys all over the world is their enormous size relative to the size of the rivers that flow through them. According to geologist Steve Austin,
Studies by G.H. Dury [10] on modern stream channels and river valleys prove that many are too large for the streams that they contain. He argues that most modern streams at some point on their channel are “underfit.” Dury speaks of the “continent-wide distribution of underfit streams.” [11] Using channel meander characteristics, Dury concludes that streams frequently had 20 to 60 times their present discharge. [12]
The same geological forces that produced enormous sedimentary deposits extending from one continent to another also left behind enormous planation surfaces as Flood waters receded from the continents and flowed into the ocean basins. For example, almost two-thirds of the entire land surface of the African continent is a planation surface, sheared off by the receding waters of the Flood as they flowed into the oceans. No geological event since the Flood has come close to producing the kinds of effects that can still be observed all over the Earth as a consequence of that unique global cataclysm.
According to one theory which Owen describes, the flood waters did not just come from rain but the displacement of the oceans. The fossil records include vast deposits which suggest sudden, catastrophic conditions. Obviously, all this is hotly contested by many geologists. The physical evidence, Owen asserts, cannot be denied but also at issue are the premises which scientists use.
