Geology Questions
Question: A documentary about the Himalayas reported that marine fossils were found at their highest elevations. Do you understand that geology as being in accord with the biblical orbital-year chronology?
Setterfield: Yes! That geology is in basic harmony with the Bible. What has happened was that the strata of the Himalayas was laid down under water in the period from the Cambrian (about 540 million atomic years) to the Cretaceous (ending about 65 million atomic years ago). The Cambrian started just after Noah's Flood, and the Cretaceous ended at the time of the Peleg continental division (Genesis 10:25 when continental drift started). At the continental division, India was separated from Australia and Antarctica and moved rapidly northwards. Shortly afterwards, the Indian plate collided with the Eurasian plate. The buckling of the (still soft) sediments that had been laid down under water began, and the Himalayas started to rise. They are still rising today at a slow rate, of about 5 mm per year. In the early days the rise would have been very much faster and then slowed as the two plates interacted with each other. The catastrophe of the Peleg continental division began about 3050 BC. The Cambrian strata were being laid down just after the Flood of Noah about 3450 BC. So there was a period of about 400 years for the strata to be laid down under very active geological conditions, then the buckling of the strata to form the mountains went on from 3050 BC up to the present time. Erosion on the still-plastic sediments gave their craggy look. There are legends of people seeing mountain ranges rise in their life-times, but I would have to check to see if the Himalayas were among them, or whether it was just the Andes.
Please get back to me if you have any questions.
Question: How could the chalk in the White Cliffs of Dover and other chalk deposits around the world happen in one year in the Flood?
Setterfield: I don't think that is a possibility. I was particularly impressed by an article by David Tyler, who has assembled a large number of facts which are important.
If we summarize the facts relating to the chalk deposits, they are as follows:
- The purity of the chalk indicates that no other material has come in, so there are no turbidity currents involved in their deposition
- There are horizons called “hard grounds” which are very common. In these hard grounds there are burrows and boring and encrusting organisms. This indicates the sediments had formed a firm surface and so deposition had stopped. These surfaces form bedding planes a half to two metres apart. In some cases there are over a hundred horizons. On these horizons, at the top of these horizons, there is often bentonite, which is a form of clay which comes from the weathering of volcanic ash in the presence of water, and it contains a high percentage of iron oxide. For this reason the bentonite layers, or hard grounds, are orange or brown, because of the iron.
- There is the thickness. We have up to 350 metres of material in some places.
- There are speciation trends, or a change in the type of microfossil as you progress up through the sequence. This indicates longer time intervals are involved, which is the same impression we get from the horizons of hard grounds.
In addition to these points, some more can be made. In the book Petrology, by W.T. Huang (McGraw Hill, 1962) he makes the point that chalk contains microfossils which range from 17-34% of the total rock. The remainder of the rock is usually calcium carbonate. He also makes the point that these rocks are formed at depths usually less than a few hundred feet. So we have shallow water. He says that the purest limestones and chalks form as very shallow water deposits. He also points out that chemically precipitated calcium carbonate, which makes up the majority of the chalk, forms in warm, shallow, quiet waters, but there must be good circulation. He suggests that for continuous precipitation or precipitation over lengthy periods, to give these horizons, the sea bottom is undergoing slow, continuous subsidence.
He said this precipitation occurs as a result of one or more of these factors: a rise in temperature which would warm water brought up from depths, or by warm air currents, evaporation with a hot sun, a decrease in barometric pressure, and the removal of carbon dioxide from oceans by photosynthesis and the secretion of calcium carbonate by organisms. These are all the factors that we have to deal with.
There are several factors in here which impinge on our modeling. First of all, the Cretaceous and the Mesozoic generally was period of high temperatures. The average temperature was about ten degrees higher than what we have today. This means that there would be enhanced evaporation and water coming up from the interior would also be warmed. The second thing is that photosynthesis by these algae was proceeding at a much faster rate because of the higher speed of light at that time (the lower ZPE strength). This would aid in the removal of CO2 from the oceans and also the secretion of calcium carbonate by organisms. Both of these result in rapid formation of chalk deposits.
I strongly disagree with Andrew Snelling that these depositions could build up in six days. I think Tyler is much more on target talking about decades for the building up of these layers. The evidence that this has taken time, even with rapid photosynthesis comes from the fact that deposition has stopped when the hard grounds were formed and that speciation trends are present.
There is one final point which must be made. We have mentioned previously in other posts that the plasma model for the formation of the solar system and the earth results in a layered planet. It also means that the planet is heating from the interior outwards, and that water is being driven out of rocks from the interior outwards. This means that, because of the layering of the elements, the first waters coming out from the interior would be rich in silicon and this is also why the early granites are tonalitic, or sodium-rich. It is only later that the predominant constituent of these interior waters would be carbonates. As a consequence, the deep layers of carbonates in the Mesozoic can be attributed to the waters coming out from the interior of the earth being rich in that chemical. And so precipitation of limestones and chalks would be facilitated.
In summary, it would seem that the conditions required for the chalk beds to build up cannot be satisfied by the Flood process in a period of one year or less. It must have come subsequent to that event and taken at least several decades to have formed.