Tillites and chalk beds…
Can certain geologic features be explained by a global flood?
This week on Creation Magazine LIVE!
Welcome to Creation Magazine LIVE!
My name is Richard Fangrad.
and I'm Calvin Smith.
This week on Creation Magazine LIVE our topic is 'Can certain geologic features be explained
by a global flood?'
Yes. Many Bible skeptics have claimed that there is no evidence of a global Flood as recorded
in the Bible when in fact the evidence is overwhelming.
Yes, and creationists have been showing for years now that rapid deposition of hundreds
of meters of water borne sediments resulting in rapid burial and rapid fossilization, rapid fossil formation
is the most obvious explanation for the rock record, not slow and gradual processes typically
championed by most evolutionists.
Yes, to the point where modern evolutionary geologists are now actually promoting neo-catastrophism
that admits many geologic features we see today must have been deposited in giant floods…
Not THE giant flood…
Not the giant flood, just a series of them.
We did a show on that a while back called 'Neo-catastrophism vs uniformitarianism' that was
in season 3, episode 23, and the link for that is on the screen here.
Right.
So in order to discredit the idea of a global flood what evolutionists will typically do
is trot out some very specific arguments they feel creationists cannot explain adequately,
as if that will explain away all of the other evidence that supports it.
Unfortunately many Christians have bought into these arguments.
Yes.
Now the specific arguments we will be discussing today are tillites, which are interpreted
as the left behind rubble from glaciers, and chalk beds, which are huge layers of calcium
carbonate like the famous White Cliffs of Dover in southern England, but there are other
arguments against Flood geology like paleosols which are dealt with on the massive Creation.com website.
It's a fantastic resource so check it out, it's not just the ones we are going to be dealing with today.
Yes. Now, we won't be able to go into much more than an overview today in the short time we
have but we'll put up some links to articles that will provide more details if you want
to dig in further.
What we'll do is start with what the feature is, why long age geologists say it's a challenge
to Flood geology, and then give you the biblical explanation showing it really isn't a problem.
OK, well let's start with tillites and we'll go from there.
Tillites are assumed to be the lithified equivalents of glacial till, which is basically supposed
rubble from glaciers found in the strata of the Earth.
The reason these tillites are supposedly a problem for Flood geology is that many uniformitarian
scientists postulate a number of long-lasting ice ages having occurred over hundreds of
thousands of years, so the 'Late Palaeozoic' ice age in southern Africa, that's probably the most notable.
So the question is how do you have various till deposits from various ice ages in varying
rock layers included in what creationists say most likely got laid down over the course of
the year long Flood?
Lithified rock is supposed to have hardened by pressure and not the results of being cemented
together in a watery environment.
Well, as usual, the answer comes when you actually question the assumptions behind the conclusion.
Could these deposits claimed to be left over from glaciation periods have been caused by
other processes? Good question.
Well, a classic supposed Late Pre-Cambrian tillite is the Bigganjargga tillite of northern Norway.
It overlies a rock layer in which two striae directions, two different striae directions, two different scratches in the rocks, a sharp North West–South East set overlying
a faint East–West set, were embossed on the sandstone below.
Striations by the way are grooves or scratch marks, ridges in rocks. That's what we are talking about here.
Now three specific features identified this as a supposed tillite.
Firstly, 1) Two subparallel sets of layers are supposedly indicative of glaciation.
Number 2) One author claimed to have observed striated and faceted clasts within the tillite.
And 3) The top layer of the tillite is composed of thin beds containing clasts larger than
the thickness of the bedding, which is reminiscent of dropstone varvites.
Dropstones are isolated fragments of rock found within finer-grained water-deposited
sedimentary rocks.
They range in size from small pebbles to boulders.
Now these three characteristics of the Bigganjargga tillite are the main diagnostic features for
an ancient ice age and so most geologists accepted, without question, that the tillite
was a remnant of the Late Precambrian 'ice age'.
OK so how do creationists understand this?
We'll be back in just one minute to show you how!
Most people know that pollen can cause problems for those who suffer from hay fever.
But did you know that pollen is also a major problem for the evolutionary interpretation
of the fossil record?
Since the 1960s, the scientific literature has reported the presence of pollen and spores
within a rock layer called the Roraima Formation in South America.
This formation is supposedly over 550 million years old, yet according to evolutionary theory,
flowering plants that produce pollen didn't evolve for another 390 million years!
So why do we find pollen in the fossil record so long before the first flowering plants appear?
The simplest explanation is that the fossil record doesn't represent the evolution of
life on this planet over eons of time, but is better explained as a consequence of the
year-long global flood of Noah and its aftermath.
This is recorded in the book of Genesis, chapters 6, 7, and 8.
To find out more from Creation Ministries International visit our website Creation.com.
Well if you've just tuned in, this week we are talking about 'Can certain geologic
features be explained by a global flood?' and in particular we were talking about, right now, we'll get to another one in a minute, tillites.
Yes and specifically we are talking about the Bigganjargga tillite which is supposedly a slam dunk example of these things.
So how do creationists explain this?
Well recently, a more in-depth analysis has indicated that this classical tillite is very
likely a submarine debris flow.
Yes. Underwater debris flow.
Scientists investigating this discovered that this feature was found to have been made by
rocks sliding along soft sandstone, specifically because some of the clasts are embedded in the sandstone.
Moreover, clast imprints on the sandstone have the same random spacing as in the 'tillite' above.
Now the sandstone had been assumed to be lithified, which means a process of hardening without
water, and older than the tillite which was supposedly another argument against Flood geology.
The sandstone had been dated 150 million years old but because of these soft-sediment deformation
features the investigators now suggest this time gap is not real, go figure.
Also the matrix and the clasts in the 'tillite' are rounded.
This is very unlike a glacial till.
The rocks in the 'tillite' show flow layers around the clasts indicating an underwater mass flow origin.
Marine deposits are also closely associated with the so called 'tillite'.
Investigators Jensen and Wulff-Pedersen conclude this: "The evidence for a debris flow origin for
the Bigganjargga diamictite [a non-genitive term for till-like rock] seems
compelling; the diamictite is massive and has random fabric, mound formed top, marginal snouts
snout(s), projecting boulders and a striated pavement."
So the implication of this result is that the 'main diagnostic features' for this
ancient 'ice age' are really not diagnostic at all!
It's been known for a long time that the features of a 'tillite' cannot be distinguished
from a debris flow.
Early workers didn't concern themselves with distinguishing between the two processes
and just assumed ancient glaciation.
So its no surprise that the strata from the Earth have so many remnants of these ancient 'ice ages' if they aren't actually remnants for ice ages.
So these claimed ancient ice ages are very likely submarine, or underwater debris flows — a process
that is consistent obviously with a global Flood.
You can check tillites off of the list of geologic features that can't be, supposedly,
explained by a global flood.
Well, what about chalk beds? Chalk beds found all around the world.
Most people would have heard of, or seen (whether in person or in photographs), for example the famous White
Cliffs of Dover in southern England.
The same beds of chalk are also found along the coast of France on the other side of the
English Channel.
The chalk beds extend inland from England and northern France, being found as far north
and west as the Antrim Coast and adjoining areas of Northern Ireland.
Extensive chalk beds are also found in North America, through Alabama, Mississippi and
Tennessee (the Selma Chalk), in Nebraska and adjoining states (the Niobrara Chalk), and
in Kansas (the Fort Hayes Chalk). There's three different chalk layers in the US.
So the Latin word for chalk is creta.
Those familiar with the geological column and its evolutionary time-scale will recognize
this as the name for one of its periods—the Cretaceous.
Because most geologists believe in the geological evolution of the earth's strata and features
over millions of years, they have linked all these scattered chalk beds across the world
into this so-called 'chalk age', that is, a supposedly greater period of millions
of years of chalk bed formation.
So What Is Chalk? What are we talking about here?
Well it's a porous, relatively soft and fine-textured substance.
Its normally white or nearly white and consists almost wholly of calcium carbonate.
It is thus a type of limestone, and a very pure one at that.
Now under the microscope, chalk consists of the tiny shells of countless billions of microorganisms
composed of clear calcite set in a structureless matrix of fine-grained calcium carbonate.
Foraminifera and coccolithophores being two of the main microorganisms in chalk.
This is the point where critics, and not only those in the evolutionist camp, but just long-agers in general, have said
that it is just not possible to explain the formation of these chalk beds in the White Cliffs
of Dover via the geological action of the Flood.
And we'll discuss this in detail when we get back…
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On this week's episode we are talking about, 'Can certain geologic features be explained
by a global flood?'
And the feature we were discussing were the massive chalk beds evolutionists point to
in order to try to discredit the idea of a global flood.
Most geologists believe that 'the present is the key to the past'.
If chalk is made up of accumulated microorganisms, then they logically look to see where such
microorganisms live today, and how and where their remains accumulate.
Now, the deep-sea sediments on the ocean floor today have an average thickness of about 450 metres,
and it is on the deep ocean floor that the purest calcium carbonate-rich 'ooze', as it's called, has accumulated.
There are a variety of different sediments that blanket the deeper ocean floor.
Amongst these are what are known as oozes, so-called because more than 30% of the sediment
consists of the shells of microorganisms.
Indeed, about half of the deep ocean floor is covered by light-coloured calcareous, calcium
carbonate-rich ooze generally down to depths of 4,500–5,000 metres.
Geologists believe that these oozes form as a result of these microorganisms dying, with
the calcium carbonate shells falling slowly down to accumulate on the ocean floor.
This slow accumulation is how most geologists believe that these chalk beds originally formed.
Now the chalk beds of southern England are estimated to be around 405 metres thick and
are said to span the complete duration of the so-called Late Cretaceous geological period,
estimated by evolutionists to account for between 30 and 35 million years of evolutionary time.
Right. So a simple calculation reveals that the average rate of chalk accumulation therefore, over
this time period, is 1.16 and 1.35cm per l,000 years, which is right at the lower
end of today's observed accumulation rates.
Right, so evolutionary geologists feel vindicated, and the critics insist that there
is just too much chalk to have been originally deposited as calcareous ooze by the Flood.
Well, you can see what's going on here, can't you?
Bible skeptics abandon the idea of a global Flood, then they apply uniformitarian ideas
to what we observe and say that the explanation disproves the Flood, which is the very thing
you discarded out of hand in the first place.
What happens when you start with the idea that the Flood actually DID happen?
Well, two creationists have done just that and have done much to provide a Bible based
response to these objections against Flood geology.
Geologists Dr Ariel Roth of the Geoscience Research Institute (in Loma Linda, California)
and John Woodmorappe.
First of all, reproduction rates of these microorganisms could have easily been vastly
higher than today.
Yes, Roth argues that, 1) if a high concentration of foraminifera of 100 per litre of ocean
water were assumed, 2) a doubling time of 3.65 days, and 3) an average of 10,000 foraminifera
per gram of carbonate, then just the top 200 metres of the ocean would produce 20 grams
of calcium carbonate per square centimetre per year, or at an average sediment density
of 2 grams per cubic centimetre, which is a deposition rate of 100 metres in 1,000 years.
Yes, and that's not all.
Coccolithophores on the other hand reproduce faster than foraminifera and are amongst the
fastest growing planktonic algae, sometimes multiplying at the rate of 2.25 divisions
per day.
Roth suggests that his rates show it's possible to produce an average 100 metre thickness
of coccoliths as calcareous ooze on the ocean floor in less than 200 years!
So these carbonate-secreting organisms at optimum production rates could produce all
the calcareous ooze on the ocean floor today in the last 2000 years easily.
However, that doesn't tackle the biggest problem.
As helpful as these calculations are, they overlook one major relevant issue — these
chalk beds were deposited during the Flood so the shells that are now in the chalk beds
would have to have been produced during the Flood itself, not in the 1,600–1,700 years
of the pre-Flood era.
Why? And how can we explain it?
Well, we'll be back shortly. Stay with us…
How would our view of dinosaurs change if scientists found carbon 14 in their bones?
Well, a group of geophysicists claimed to have discovered exactly that—carbon 14 in
dinosaur bones!
This is indeed a shocking proposal for those who believe that the last dinosaurs died out
65 million years ago, because carbon 14 decays so fast that it could not possibly survive
that long.
There should not be one atom of carbon 14 present in dinosaur bones, if they really
are as old as is usually claimed.
After going to great lengths to rule out contamination, the researchers concluded that they had indeed
found carbon 14 in dinosaur bone.
These results seriously undermine the evolutionary story of long ages of earth history.
However, they fit nicely with Biblical history, whereby dinosaurs lived only thousands of
years ago, with their fossils forming from animals buried during Noah's Flood.
To find out more from Creation Ministries International visit our website Creation.com.
Our subject this week is 'Can certain geologic features be explained by a global flood?'
And we're still discussing the massive chalk beds evolutionists point to in order to discredit
this idea that there was a global flood.
Yes, we're saying that during the Flood the shells that are now in the chalk beds
would have to have been produced during the Flood itself.
Why, and how can we explain that?
Well the majority of Creationist geologists regard these Upper Cretaceous chalks as having
been deposited very late in the Flood.
That being the case, the shells in the chalk beds would have to have been produced during
the Flood itself, not in the years of the pre-Flood era because then these chalk beds
should have been deposited sooner rather than later during the Flood event.
Now scientists recognize that even today shell accumulation is not steady but highly episodic,
and under the right conditions significant increases in the concentrations of these marine
organisms can occur, just like plankton 'blooms' and red tides for example.
There are intense blooms of coccoliths that cause 'white water' situations in
the waters near Jamaica where microorganism numbers sometimes have been reported increasing from
100,000 per litre to 10 million per litre of ocean water.
Now the reasons for these blooms are poorly understood, but suggestions include turbulence
of the sea, wind, decaying fish, nutrients from freshwater inflow and upwelling, and temperature.
Without a doubt, all of these stated conditions would have been generated during the catastrophic
global upheaval during the Flood, and thus rapid production of carbonate skeletons would be
possible obviously.
Quite clearly, under cataclysmic Flood conditions, including torrential rain, sea turbulence,
decaying fish, and other organic matter, and violent volcanic eruptions associated
with the 'fountains of the deep' breaking up, explosive blooms on a large and maybe repetitive scale in
the oceans are very realistically conceivable.
So the production of the necessary quantities of calcareous ooze to produce the chalk beds
in the geological record in a short space of time at the close of the Flood is also
realistically conceivable.
Yes. Violent volcanic eruptions would have produced copious quantities of dust and steam and could
have reduced ultraviolet radiation levels from the sun.
However, in the closing stages of the Flood the clearing and settling of this debris would
have allowed increasing levels of sunlight to penetrate to the oceans.
And ocean temperatures would have been higher at the close of the Flood because of
the heat released from volcanic and magmatic activity, etc., and would have also been conducive
to these explosive blooms, more temperature.
In addition, the same volcanic activity would have potentially released copious quantities
of nutrients into the ocean waters, as well as lots of CO2, so those are necessary for
the production of the calcium carbonate by these little microorganisms.
Yes. Situations have been known where pollution in coastal areas has contributed to the explosive
multiplication of microorganisms in the ocean waters to peak at concentrations of more than
10 billion per litre. Can you swim in that? I don't know, you can float in it!
So adapting some of Woodmorappe's calculations, if the 10% of the earth's surface that now
contains chalk beds was covered in water, near the end of the Flood rather,
and if that water explosively bloomed with up to 10 to the 13th microorganisms per cubic
metre of water down to a depth of say less than 500 metres from the surface, then it would
have only taken two or three such blooms to produce the required quantity of microorganisms
to be fossilized in the chalk beds that we see today.
And this just isn't some kind of defensive argument we're proposing here. That all of these conditions might
have happened just to try and justify the Biblical timescale.
The facts we observe today demand rapid formation of these chalk beds, not 'millions of years' explanations.
That's right!
The purity of these thick chalk beds worldwide testifies to their catastrophic deposition
because, over millions of years, if we go with that scenario, lots of other sediments would have been mixed in with the chalk.
It strains believability to expect that massive contamination events depositing other types
of sediments wouldn't have occurred.
That's right!
The only additional material in the chalk that we see is fossils of macroscopic organisms such as
ammonites and other molluscs, whose fossilisation also requires rapid burial because of their size so this fits again with flood deposition.
So once again it turns out that the Biblical explanation of history makes better sense
than the evolutionary history.
And we'll be back with a little bit more in just a minute…
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Find out at Creation.com
Welcome back. That's been kind of a fun episode to do looking at tillites and chalk beds and showing how the Bible makes a lot better explanation but we want to
switch gears a little bit . This is the 'In the News' section where we take a look at something having to do with the creation/evolution debate in the popular news.
there's always something. Well here's one.
Let me read a bit of this report titled "Armor Up!
Water Fleas Grow Helmets and Spines for Battle". So it says, "Water fleas prepare for battle
by growing armor that's customized to specific enemies, new research finds.
Tiny Daphnia species develop impressive protective structures as they mature, including pointy
tail spines and tough helmets.
Now, researcher Linda Weiss of Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany and her colleagues have
found the neurotransmitters that help water fleas customize their bodies in response to
the chemical cues in their watery environments.
'Dopamine, in particular, appears to code neuronal signals into the endocrine [which are hormone signals]
signals,' Weiss said in a statement.
Daphnia is a genus comprising many species of the tiny crustaceans known as water fleas.
Most are less than 0.2 inches (5 millimeters) long, and look much like translucent versions
of the land-based fleas that give them their nickname.
When juvenile Daphnia molt and develop a mature exoskeleton, they mold their bodies based
on the chemicals they encounter in the water.
The water fleas use appendages called antennules to detect scents and chemicals left by predators
(fish, for example, or the upside-down swimming insects called backswimmers).
They then develop armor defenses in response to the threats they expect to face.
'These defenses are speculated to act like an anti-lock key system, which means that
they somehow interfere with the predator's feeding apparatus,' Weiss said.
'Many freshwater fish can only eat small prey.
So, for example, Daphnia lumholtzi grows head and tail spines to make eating them more difficult'."
Wow. So, here is another example of incredible design, and we've done shows on this type of thing
before showing abilities like this are extremely difficult to explain within an evolutionary paradigm. Design features.
Yes, we've done shows about amazing animals like season 4 episode 10 and
shows like 'When exactly were bad things created?', remember that episode? Where we talked about very similar
things like the grasshopper to locust transformation where they have the exact same DNA,
identical DNA, but because of the epigenetic code they can actually transform from a locust to a grasshopper, back and forth. We mentioned the 'Jeckyl
and Hyde' transformation it's almost like that. And what we emphasize is that sure, creatures are changing all the time, but that's
not evolution. That's one of the key understandings that we need to get across.
Yes things change, but when you see incredible design features like this in little water fleas ability to select
different defense abilities the question is how is such change possible?
Creation just makes so much more sense. Right because all of that information has to be packed into that little water flea and then its got these abilities
to just scan the environment and then oh, I'm well going to need this defense and then I'm going to need this in this environment but another water flea in a different
environment might... So it's got programmed instincts based on the environment to do certain things that are just incredible.
Right so explain that in an evolutionary way that's extremely, extremely difficult to do.
We do that all the time in articles in Creation magazine. The magazine goes out to over 100 countries, it's been going for nearly forty years now.
You can see a free copy, a digital copy, you can view a free copy at creation.com/free-mag and if you like it you can subscribe.
Next week on Creation Magazine LIVE: Cloning and stem cell research - right or wrong? See you next week...
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