CREATION RESEARCH SOCIETY Q · ing to gethe r a sim ple ma chin e that man aged to fly. In re al - ity, however, their achieve ment was the result of a highly con trolled sci en tific

CREATION RESEARCH SOCIETY QUARTERLY

Volume 40 June 2003 Number 1

Haec CredimusFor in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the sev enth.—Ex o dus 20:11

Ar ti clesThe Wright Broth ers’ Air plane Com pared to In sect 1

Flight De signAr thur L. Man ning

The Sa guaro Na tional Park (east) Mylonites, Ul tra- 8mylonites, and Cataclasites: Ev i dence in Sup portof the Gen e sis FloodCarl R. Froede Jr., George F. Howe, and John R.

MeyerFlood Ge ol ogy of the Cri mean Pen in sula 17

Part II: Con glom er ates and Gravel Sand stones ofthe Demerdji For ma tionAl ex an der V. Lalomov

La Brea Tar Pits: Ev i dence of a Cat a strophic Flood 25Wil liam Weston

Helioseismology: Im pli ca tions for the Stan dard 34So lar ModelJon a than F. Henry

Notes from the Pan orama of Sci enceNat u ral His tory or Nat u ral Sci ence? 41

John K. ReedThe Pos si ble Or i gin of Fos sil Wood and Pol len in 44

the Aguja and Javelina For ma tions, Big BendNa tional Park, TexasGeorge F. Howe, Emmett L. Wil liams, Carl R.

Froede, Jr.

Editorial StaffEmmett L. Wil liams Ed i torGeorge F. Howe Bi ol ogy Ed i torJohn K. Reed Ge ol ogy Ed i torEu gene F. Chaffin Phys ics Ed i torDon B. DeYoung Book Re view Ed i torLane P. Lester Man aging Ed i tor

Board of DirectorsDon B. DeYoung, Pres i dentEu gene F. Chaffin, Vice-Pres i dentDa vid A. Kaufmann, Sec re taryThe o dore Aufdemberge, Fi nan cial Sec re taryRob ert E. Gentet, Trea surerGlen W. Wolfrom, Mem ber ship Sec re taryEu gene F. Chaffin George F. HoweD. Rus sell Humphreys Lane P. LesterGary H. Locklair Mi chael J. OardJohn K. Reed Ron G. SamecEmmett L. Wil liams

The Cre ation Re search So ci ety Quar terly is pub -lished by the Cre ation Re search So ci ety, P. O. Box8263, St. Jo seph, MO 64508, and it is in dexed in theChris tian Pe ri od i cal In dex and the Zoo log i cal Re cord.

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Send book re views to the Book Re view Ed i tor: DonB. DeYoung, 200 Sem i nary Dr., Winona Lake IN46590.

Au thors’ opin ions ex pressed in the Quar terly are notnec es sar ily those of any one else as so ci ated with the Cre -ation Re search So ci ety.

Copy right © 2002 by Cre ation Re search So ci ety. Allrights to the ar ti cles pub lished in the Cre ation Re searchSo ci ety Quar terly are re served to the Cre ation Re searchSo ci ety. Per mis sion to re print ma te rial in any form, in -clud ing the Internet, must be ob tained from the Ed i tor.

ISSN 0092-9166Pub lished with Corel Ventura

Printed in the United States of Amer ica

De part mentsSe ries: Lest We For get by George Howe

Pre cam brian Pol len in Hakatai Shale, Grand 7Can yon, Ar i zona

Pre cam brian Pol len in the Roraima For ma tion, 15Brit ish Gui ana

Pre cam brian Pol len in Rus sia 23Book Re viewsThe Bib li cal Ba sis for Mod ern Sci ence: The Re vised 16

and Up dated Clas sic by Henry M. Mor risA Beau ti ful Mind by Syl via Nasar 24Dar win, His Daugh ter and Hu man Evo lu tion by 52

Randal KeynesThe Right Ques tions: Truth, Mean ing and Pub lic 62

De bate by Phillip E. John sonLet ters to the Ed i tor 53In struc tions for Au thors 61Er rata 62Mem ber ship/Sub scrip tion Ap pli ca tion 63Or der Blank for Past Is sues 64

Front CoverDe signed by Michael Erkel.In sects col lected by Evan G. Erkel.Wright broth ers pho to graphs from orig i nal glass platestaken by the Wrights, courtesy Library of Congress.

Creation Research Society QuarterlyVolume 40 June 2003 Number 1

Volume 40, June 2003 1

The Wright Brothers’ Airplane Compared to Insect Flight DesignArthur L. Manning*

Abstract

The Wright broth ers’ ac tiv i ties in in vent ing the air -plane are set forth. They in clude li brary re search,con scious imag in ing of a so lu tion to flight’s de -mands, kite ex per i ments, com mu ni ca tion with ex -perts, glider ex per i ments, ex per i ments with a windtun nel, and pro pel ler de sign. Then the aero dy -

nam ics of in sect flight is con sid ered, dem on strat -ing their su perb so phis ti ca tion. It is con cluded thatsince hu man flight was in fact the re sult of such ahigh de gree of in tel li gent plan ning, cer tainly theCre ator’s de sign is even more directly obvious inthe origin of insect flight.

Introduction

This year, 2003, marks the one hun dredth an ni ver sary ofpow ered, con trolled, manned flight. It is prob a bly com -monly be lieved that the in ven tion of the air plane by theWright broth ers was the re sult of a cou ple of or di nary men(bi cy cle me chan ics) tin ker ing around and some how putt -ing to gether a sim ple ma chine that man aged to fly. In re al -ity, how ever, their achieve ment was the re sult of a highlycon trolled sci en tific en ter prise. Part I of this ar ti cle pro -vides an his tor i cal over view of the Wright broth ers’ ac com -plish ment and Part II gives a de scrip tion of the highlycomplex flight design features found in insects.

Part I: The Wright Brothers

The Process of the Invention of the Airplane

As far as we know, be fore 1903 no one in all of the his toryof man kind had ever suc ceeded in de vis ing a heavier-than-air ma chine ca pa ble of car ry ing a man in sus tained, pow -ered, con trolled flight. Be fore the Wright broth ers’achieve ment the great est minds had failed to con quer thisfron tier. Af ter read ing about Otto Lilienthal’s glid ing ex -per i ments in Ger many, Wilbur and Orville Wright de vel -oped an in ter est in manned flight; and in the years 1896through about 1899 they started read ing ev ery thing theycould on the sub ject. Through this re search they learnedmuch from the ex pe ri ences of others (Kelly, 1989, pp. 46–48).

Af ter re al iz ing how much of a prob lem oth ers had ex pe -ri enced in air craft sta bil ity and that no one had suc ceededin solv ing it, Orville de vised a tech nique based on con trol -

*Ar thur L. Man ning, M.S., 431-A Mt. Sid ney Rd., Lan cas -ter PA 17602

Re ceived 31 July 2002; Re vised 17 Jan u ary 2003

ling the in cli na tion of the wing tips. Then Wilbur de visedan other tech nique based on wing warp ing (Kelly, 1989,pp. 48–50). These in ven tions showed in ge nu ity on thepart of the broth ers. In Au gust 1899 they built a bi planekite and con ducted their own ex per i ments on it. Theyfound that they could con trol it by ex tra cords at tached soas to en able them to warp the wings (Kelly, 1989, pp. 50–51). Thus, the broth ers com menced a long process ofscientific experimentation.

In May 1900, Wilbur Wright wrote a let ter to Oc taveChanute (who had ex pe ri ence in glid ing), com mu ni cat -ing his plans for ex per i ment ing with a man-car ry ing kite(Kelly, 1989, p. 52). This prac tice of com mu ni cat ing withex perts in the field of study is an im por tant part of the sci -en tific method. In ad di tion, it is in keep ing with the Bib li -cal wis dom of us ing a “mul ti tude of counselors” ( Proverbs15:22).

Next the Wrights in vented an el e va tor (a de vice for con -trol ling the air plane’s tilt up or down) su pe rior to pre vi ousde signs (Kelly, 1989, p. 54). Then they built and ex per i -mented with a man-car ry ing glider. First they worked withit as a kite, and then they ac tu ally flew it as a glider. Theseex per i ments, con ducted in the fall of 1900 at Kitty Hawk,North Carolina, were highly suc cess ful (Kelly, 1989, pp.64–66).

In 1901 the broth ers re turned to Kitty Hawk and con tin -ued their ex per i ments with a larger glider. They be gan tochange the cam ber of the wing. It is this cam ber, or heightof the wing’s curve, which de ter mines the amount of liftthat a wing can pro vide (Fig ure 1). Cam ber is ac tu ally theheight of the wing di vided by the dis tance from front toback. They then ad justed the cam ber to a ra tio of 1 to 18,which im proved the glider’s per for mance. Also, dur ingthat year, by ex per i men ta tion they learned more about thecen ter of pres sure on a curved sur face (Kelly, 1989, p.71).Dur ing the lat ter months of 1901 the broth ers built a wind-

2 Creation Research Society Quarterly

tun nel and used it to test more than 200 types of wingsurfaces (Kelly, 1989, p.76).

In 1902 the Wrights added a tail to the glider con sist ingof two ver ti cal veins (Kelly, 1989, p.79). The suc cess ofthese flights dem on strated that they were jus ti fied in dis re -gard ing the ta bles of air pres sures used by their pre de ces -sors and build ing their glid ers in ac cor dance with the dataob tained from their own wind-tun nel ex per i ments (Kelly,1989, p.80). This dem on strated the Wright’s quest for andre li ance upon em pir i cal data rather than tra di tion and au -thor ity. This as pect of proper sci en tific re search is also inac cor dance with the bib li cal ad mo ni tion to “prove allthings” (I Thess. 5:21).

Be fore the Wrights ex per i mented with pow ered flightthey built their own mo tor and de vised a highly ef fi cientpro pel ler (Kelly, 1989, pp. 85–89). On De cem ber 17,1903, the broth ers fi nally made their his toric first pow eredflight, fol lowed by three oth ers, each suc ces sively lon ger,that same day. Ac cord ing to Orville Wright:

...faith in our cal cu la tions and the de sign of the firstma chine, based upon our ta ble of air pres sures, ob -tained by months of care ful lab o ra tory work, andcon fi dence in our sys tem of con trol de vel oped bythree years of ac tual ex pe ri ences in bal anc ing glid ersin the air, had con vinced us that the ma chine was ca -pa ble of lift ing and main tain ing it self in the air, andthat, with a lit tle prac tice, it could be safely flown(Kelly, 1989, p.99).

Fig ure 1. Cam ber ra tio. Side view of wing. The cam berof a wing is the ra tio a/b seen here.

Fig ure 3. Side view of air plane il lus trat ing “pitch”, a ver -ti cal move ment of the front of the plane.

The Product

To pro duce a fly ing ma chine the Wright broth ers skill fully brought to gether wings, pro pel lers, an en gine, and a pi lot.These com po nents had to be of a spe cific de sign and com -po si tion. In ad di tion, it was es sen tial to have con trol mech -a nisms. First of all, it was nec es sary to con trol the wings sothat there would not be any ro ta tion about a cen tral axisrun ning from the front to the rear of the air plane. This type of ro ta tion is called “roll” (Fig ure 2). This con trol was ac -com plished by what the Wrights called “wing warping”.

A sec ond mech a nism was nec es sary to con trol themove ment of the plane’s nose in a ver ti cal di men sion.This di rec tion of move ment is called “pitch” (Fig ure 3).Orville Wright was able to con trol pitch by de sign ing an el -e va tor (Wright, 1953, p. 14).

A third mech a nism was nec es sary to con trol the plane’snose from mov ing right or left, a move ment that is called“yaw” (Fig ure 4). The de vice used to con trol this move -ment was a ver ti cal rud der in the rear of the plane whichwas orig i nally con trolled by be ing con nected by wires tothe ca bles that caused wing warp ing. Later this waschanged so that the op er a tor could con trol the rud der sep -a rately (Wright, 1953, p. 19).

Fig ure 2. Front view of air plane il lus trat ing “roll”, a ro -ta tion of the plane about an axis from front to rear.

Fig ure 4. Top view of air plane il lus trat ing “yaw”, a hor i -zon tal move ment of the front of the plane.


This brief anal y sis of the use of de sign and con trol lingde vices by the Wright broth ers shows that they left lit tle ornoth ing to “chance” in their la bors. A study of in sect flightwill like wise show amaz ing ev i dence for design.

Part II: Insect Flight

More than 99.9% of all in sect spe cies ex hibit flight(Dudley, 2000, p. 10). There are more than one mil lionwinged in sect spe cies de scribed and they can be found “...in es sen tially all ter res trial eco sys tems, and on all con ti -nen tal land masses, in clud ing Antarctica” (Dudley, 2000,p. 3).

Some in sects are phe nom e nal fli ers. Horse flies are saidto be able to fly at speeds up to 30 mph (Dal ton, 1975,p.26). Some drag on flies and hawk moths can at tain speedsof up to about 38 mph (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 118). Thehouse fly can travel 250 body lengths per sec ond, com -pared to 80 for div ing swifts, and only 5 or 6 for hu mans(Brackenbury, 1992, p. 118). “Swarms of lo custs oc ca sion -ally make land fall in the Ca rib bean is lands af ter be ing carried from breed ing grounds in North Af rica, sev eralthou sand miles to the east” (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 120).Mon arch but ter flies mi grate 4,000 miles from Can ada toMex ico (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 120). Ac cel er a tion rates ofup to 9 times the force of grav ity (g’s) have been ob servedin some drag on flies and “ac cel er a tion at the tran si tionfrom hov er ing to for ward flight in hover flies and in beeflies reaches... up to 18 g’s” (Brodsky, 1994, p. 71).“...[A]bout 23 mil lion wingbeats were ob tained in a teth -ered sim u la tion of long-du ra tion flight us ing a sin gleDrosophila melanogaster (fruit fly)” (Dudley, 2000, p. 59).In or der for in sects to have such amaz ing ca pa bil i ties, it isev i dent that they are, in deed, not the prod uct of chance;but, in the words of the Psalmist, are “...fearfully andwonderfully made” ( Psalm 139:14).

The flight of in sects is very dif fer ent from the flight ofthe Wright broth ers’ air plane. But the same ba sic fea turesare pres ent in both: a means of power (mus cles in stead ofan en gine), a means of trans lat ing that power into thrust(mov ing wings in stead of a pro pel ler), aero dy namic struc -tures to pro vide lift (flex i ble wings in stead of fixed wings),con trol mech a nisms (for con trol ling flight in three di men -sions), and con trol ( an in sect’s ner vous sys tem in stead ofthat of a human pilot).

Muscles, fuel, and oxygen

The Wright broth ers’ “Flyer” was pow ered by an en ginewhich used fuel, burned in the pres ence of ox y gen. Thepower for in sect flight is pro vided by mus cles which use adif fer ent kind of fuel, con sumed with ox y gen, also. Un likever te brate fly ing an i mals, in sects have no mus cles in their

wings (Dal ton, 1975, p. 19). Their flight mus cles are in the tho rax. The base of each wing is at tached to the tho rax byan axillary ap pa ra tus, which in cludes scler ites, small bod -ies which act as ful crums. In some cases the mus cles pulldi rectly on the wing base and scler ites (di rect mus cles),but in other cases the mus cles pull on the tho rax it self,chang ing its shape and caus ing it to pull on the wings (in -di rect mus cles). The mus cles func tion on both the down-and the upstroke. “Wing el e va tion in all in sect or ders ispri mar ily at tained through ac tion of in di rect dorsoventralmus cles” (Dudley, 2000, p.44). As mus cles con nect ing the in te rior dor sal and ven tral as pects of the tho rax are con -tracted, they pull these sur faces to gether, le ver ing thewings up ward (Fig ure 5). The mus cles them selves are sim -i lar in in sects and in birds; but in sect mus cles can gen er atefar more force than those in birds or bats, since they cancon tract many more times per sec ond, mak ing them“...the most powerful muscle known in any animal”(Brackenbury, 1992, p. 36).

In in sects, the fuel is ei ther fats or car bo hy drates. Fatsare best for long dis tance fly ing, such as in lo cust mi gra -tions; while car bo hy drates are best for fast, short dis tanceflights, such as those made by bees. The fuel is de liv ered tothe mus cles by the blood (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 36).Flight mus cle con trac tion not only en ables in sects to fly, italso ac cel er ates the in sect blood cir cu la tion, bring ing fuelto the mus cles more ef fi ciently when it is most needed(Dudley, 2000, p. 163).

In sects need an enor mous amount of ox y gen when fly -ing—up to 400 times the amount they need at rest(Brackenbury, 1992, p.43). “...[T]he tho racic mus cles ofin sects in flight ex hibit the high est known mass-spe cificrates of ox y gen con sump tion for any lo co mo tor tis sue”(Dudley, 2000, p. 159). In in sects, ox y gen is not de liv eredto the mus cles by the blood (as is the case in birds andbats), but through a sys tem of air tubes (called tra cheae)which bring in air from the out side through open ingscalled spi ra cles. An in sect can move its ab do men in such away as to cause min ute bal loon-like sacs in cer tain re gionsof the tra cheae to ex pand and act like a bel lows, pump ingair through the tubes (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 43). In ad di -tion, the tho racic mus cle pump ing dur ing flight con trib -utes to air flow through the tra cheal sys tem by com press ing and ex pand ing var i ous tra cheal tubes and tracheoles (the

Fig ure 5. Sim pli fied di a gram of wing el e va tion throughin di rect dorsoventral mus cle con trac tion. The wings atthe left (a) are el e vated by con trac tion of mus cles (b).


ends of tra cheal tubes) (Dudley, 2000, p. 162). When theair sacs in some in sects ex pand, the an te rior spi ra cles openand the pos te rior spi ra cles shut. Then when the air sacs are com pressed, the an te rior spi ra cles close and the pos te riorspi ra cles open. The re sult is a one-way move ment of airthrough the body, bring ing in fresh air and ex pel ling staleair (Brackenbury, 1992, p.43). Com plex, co or di nated sys -tems, such as this one, are hardly what one would ex pect to de velop by chance mu ta tions and nat u ral se lec tion. At thetracheoles, ox y gen leaves the re spi ra tory sys tem and en tersinto the mus cle cells where it is needed. The thick ness ofthe tracheole walls is im por tant for the dif fu sion of ox y genthrough them. Dudley com ments per cep tively that “...struc tural de sign would ap pear in this in stance to closelyap prox i mate the op ti mal value for ef fec tive ox y gen trans -port” (Dudley, 2000, p. 161). Even a tiny de tail, like thethickness of the tracheole wall, contributes to makinginsect flight feasible and appears to be the work of a MasterDesigner.

Wing movement

Ac cord ing to Dal ton, in sect wing move ment in fly ing ismore com plex than that of birds (1975, p. 22). When a bird flaps its wings it changes their length by flex ing and ex -tend ing joints in the shoul der, el bow, and wrist. In sectscan not change the length of their wings, and in this re spect are more sim i lar to air planes. But in sects can de form thecon tour of their wings and ro tate them about the lon gi tu di -nal axis to a much greater de gree than can birds (Dudley,2000, p. 333). Torkel Weis-Fogh “...points out that as in -sects move their wings in an ex tremely com pli cated way,they pro duce fluc tu at ing and un steady air flow by means of a va ri ety of novel aero dy namic mech a nisms” (Dal ton,1975, p. 24). I think that such ex treme com plex ity points to an ex tremely in tel li gent De signer. “[A]s soon as flap pingstarts and a flow of air passes around them, [the wings]change shape and be come cam bered into more ef fi cientair foils” (Dal ton, 1975, p. 24). Brodsky lists four dif fer entwing de for ma tions (1994, pp. 44–46). As the wing movesup and down it twists first one way, then the other. A fly’swing moves in an el lipse or a fig ure eight and this cre ates a“...cur rent of air back ward and downward, providing bothlift and thrust” ( Dalton, 1975, p. 25).

Some rates of wing beats for dif fer ent in sects in wingbeats (up and down) per sec ond are as fol lows: me diumbut ter flies: 8–12, large drag on flies: 25–40, bum ble bees:130, house flies: 200, hon ey bees: 225, mos qui tos: 600, andgnats: 1,000 (Dal ton, 1975, p. 26). As for the ex tremelyhigh rate of wingbeat of gnats, Dal ton reveals that:

...there are pe cu liar aero dy namic prob lems at thesespeeds that make the nor mal prop er ties of air foilschange. In these con di tions the in sect is not fly ing inan aero dy namic sense at all, but row ing its way

through the air....A very so phis ti cated method of pro -pul sion indeed (p. 48).

Drag on flies can make their for ward and rear wings beatin uni son, com pletely out of phase, or any thing in be -tween, de pend ing on their need. They can make suchchanges in stantly while in flight (Brackenbury, 1992, p.142). Drag on flies’ four wings each func tions in de pend -ently, en abling these in sects to per form com plex ma neu -vers (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 115). Mem bers of or derDiptera (flies) also have in de pend ent move ment of wingson op po site sides (they only have two wings), but themech a nism re spon si ble for this is dif fer ent from that indrag on flies (Brodsky, 1994, p. 186). These three com monin sects—gnats, drag on flies, and house flies—are phe nom -e nal illustrations of God’s handiwork.

We do not fully un der stand all that takes place in the in -sect body which con trib utes to flight. Dudley ex plains thatthis is be cause of a high num ber of in ter act ing struc tures,such as the 16 mus cles used to con trol a fly’s wing, re sult -ing in com plex me chan ics (2000, p. 50). Of course, all ofhu man his tory (in clud ing the Wright broth ers’ achieve -ment) teaches us that com plex me chan ics is the prod uct of master mechanics.

Wing and Thorax Morphology

In sect wings are not mod i fied limbs, as is the case in fly ingver te brates. The wings con sist of two thin lay ers of chitin,strength ened by a net work of hol low veins (Dal ton, 1975,p. 18). Wing strength and flex i bil ity are es sen tial to flight.These qual i ties come from “...polysaccharide chitinmicrofibers em bed ded in a pro tein ma trix...[ which makesit]... the fin est zoo log i cal ex am ple of this me chan i cal de -sign” (Dudley, 2000, p. 36). The wing’s flex i bil ity ac tu allyim parts con sid er able strength to it (Brackenbury, 1992,p.102). Dudley de scribes a gra di ent of wing stiff ness frombase to tip and also from leading edge to trailing edge (p.55).

In ad di tion, ex tra strength is im parted to in sect wings by pleat ing. Pleat ing in in sect wings not only en ables them tobe folded away but pro duces ex tra strength needed to re sist the stresses of flight (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 85). Most in -sect wings only weigh a few mil lionths of a gram(Brackenbury, 1992, p. 82). The ra tio of wing mass to bodymass var ies from 0.5% to 10% (Dudley, 2000, p. 55). It isim por tant that in sect wings are so light be cause when theyare flapped so rap idly their in er tia pro duces a great in -crease in re sis tance (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 82).

Other struc tural fea tures which en hance wing per for -mance in clude mi cro scopic hairs (which pre vent tur bu -lent ed dies from form ing) (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 142);small vein-sup port ing brack ets; spines; scales; and sen sorystruc tures (Dudley, 2000, p. 57). Fi nally, the hemolymph(in sect blood) pumped through the wing veins ap par ently


helps to keep the wings from dry ing out and be com ing toofrag ile for flight. An te ri orly within the wings, cir cu la tion iscaused by pres sure in duced by the heart; but pos te ri orly,cir cu la tion is caused by ac ces sory pump ing or gans lo catedat the base of the wings (Dudley, 2000, p. 53). So we seethat even the com plex wings them selves plus the struc tures re quired to pro duce their com plex move ments are ap par -ently in suf fi cient to pro duce flight. Ad di tional or gans arenec es sary, in creas ing the com plex ity of the en tire flightsys tem, and decreasing the already remote likelihood of itsorigin by chance.

In ad di tion to com plex wings, in sects also have a spe -cial ized tho rax to en able them to fly:

The tho rax of the in sect, to which the wings areat tached, is a com plex of flight mus cles and mech -a nisms so ut terly so phis ti cated as to bog gle an air -craft de signer’s imag i na tion. The tho rax en ables anin sect in flight to carry out just about any ma neu ver, to loop, swoop, climb ver ti cally, fly up side down,side ways, back wards, to hover, and to vary be tweenall of these in a frac tion of a sec ond (Dalton, 1975,p. 19).

The wings are at tached to the tho rax by a se ries of cou -plings which al low move ment in any di rec tion, much likea ball-and-socket joint (Dal ton, 1975, p. 19). As al readymen tioned, within the tho rax are scler ites — hard, small,peg-like out growths from the wall of the tho rax whichserve as a ful crum for the move ment of the wing and alsoas points of at tach ment for small mus cles that al ter the an -gle of at tack of the wing dur ing flight (Brackenbury, 1992,p. 16). There are also “...many elas tic, rub ber-like el e -ments in the flex i ble wing base... to ab sorb the re peatedshocks and re duce the fric tional stresses...” (Brackenbury,1992, p. 17). Ex tra chitin re in forces the wall of the tho raxto help the wing pivot to with stand the stresses of rapidflap ping (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 20). Since drag on flies usedorsoventral mus cles for both up ward and down ward flap -ping, this causes ad di tional stress on the tho rax which is al -le vi ated by an in ter nal pro jec tion called an apodeme(Dudley, 2000, p. 49). If all of this com plex ity within thein sect’s tho rax would bog gle an air craft de signer’s imag i na -tion, it must be the product of One with an even greaterimagination.

Control Mechanisms

At tached to the scler ites, in sects have small mus cles thatal ter the an gle of at tack of the wing dur ing flight(Brackenbury, 1992, p. 16). Flies have a to tal of eigh teensuch mus cles (Dudley, 2000, p. 45). Lo custs can use theirflex i ble ab do mens as a rud der (Brackenbury, 1992, p.131). Some in sects can turn in flight by ex tend ing a hindleg in the di rec tion they wish to turn. This in ter feres withthe mo tion of the hind wing on that side re sult ing in a turn

in that di rec tion since the op po site wing then pro duces agreater rel a tive force (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 131). Somein sects ob tain aero dy namic con trol by struc tur ally de ter -mined changes of the wing shape dur ing flap ping; but indrag on flies the wing shape is al tered by a small mus clelocated at the wing base (Dudley, 2000, p. 61).

Control of Flight

“...[S]o ad vanced and au to matic is the flight ad just ment mech a nism of most in sects that they are in ca pa ble of fall -ing from the air, en joy ing a per fec tion of fly ing abil ity tomake most pi lots loop with envy” (Dal ton, 1975, pp. 23–24). The ner vous im pulse to fly be gins in the tho racic orab dom i nal gan glia “...and is reg u lated by a com plex net -work of ganglial interneurons” (Dudley, 2000, p. 174). Inone type of flight mus cle (called syn chro nous) the neu rons reg u late the fre quency and am pli tude of con trac tion(Dudley, 2000, p. 172). The other type of in sect mus cle(called asyn chron ous) re quires only one ner vous im pulsein or der to con tract over and over again (Dudley, 2000,p.175). This ex plains how some in sects can at tain suchphe nom e nal wing beat rates as those pre vi ously men -tioned. Such high rates of flap ping would not be pos si ble if the mus cles had to con tract and re cover from each im -pulse. The ner vous sys tem en ables fly ing in sects to rap idly and con tin u ously sense and cor rect any in sta bil ity by awide variety of compensatory, asymmetric wing motions(Dudley, 2000, p. 204).

The great est sen sory in put is through the eyes. In all in -sects the re gion of the brain in volved in vi sion is the larg -est. In drag on flies this re gion com prises about 80% of theto tal brain vol ume. Com pound eyes pro vide much in for -ma tion to the in sect, not only ahead, but sub stan tially lat -er ally, above, and be low (Dudley, 2000, p. 205). It isap par ent that the in sect vi sual sys tem must be able to rap -idly eval u ate the na ture of the chang ing en vi ron ment inor der for flight to be con trolled (Dudley, 2000, pp. 205–206). One rea son for the suc cess of in sects in meet ing thischal lenge is the fact that they are ca pa ble of re solv ing lightim pulses at a much higher fre quency than even ver te -brates — some flies and bees about ten times as fast(Dudley, 2000, p. 206).

Other sense or gans are also in volved in flight. Ocelli(sim ple eyes) are prob a bly used in main tain ing sta bleflight (Dudley, 2000, p. 213). All winged in sects have aspe cial ized struc ture (Johnston’s or gan), lo cated in the sec -ond seg ment of each an tenna, which mon i tors its bend ingdur ing flight (Dudley, 2000, p. 213). “On wings, ar rays ofcampaniform sensillae (dome-shaped mechanoreceptors)mon i tor the rate and ex tent of lo cal bend ing” (Dudley,2000, p. 215). Drag on flies have four beds of hairs be tweenthe head and body that send in for ma tion to the brainabout the ori en ta tion of the body (Dal ton, 1975, p. 29).


Flies have a pair of halteres in stead of a sec ond pair ofwings. These small knob-like struc tures os cil late at thesame fre quency as the wings, and are said to serve asgyroscopes (Dudley, 2000, p. 217).

In ad di tion to hav ing ner vous con trol of flight, in sectsex hibit be hav ior which, though not it self flight, re lates tofly ing. Some of these be hav iors are quite com plex, in clud -ing plac ing the feet in the best po si tion un der the body,and ori ent ing the body to ward the wind in or der to ex pe ri -ence lift (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 45). Some spe cies haveelon gated hind legs which they use to leap into flight(Brackenbury, 1992, p.46). Some jump ing in sects have ad -di tional struc tures to help them get air-borne:

[M]any jump ing in sects... over come the phys i o -log i cal de fi cien cies in their leg mus cles by crank ingup a spring that is then held ready to be re leased athigh speed at the ap pro pri ate mo ment. They canthus cat a pult their bod ies into the air at far greaterspeeds than could ever be achieved by mus cle con -trac tion. The prin ci ple is in ge nious, and the hard -ware to make it work in volves re mark ablein no va tions of de sign (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 59).

Grass hop pers use a sim i lar strat egy with a stretch of elas -tic cu ti cle on the out side of the fe mur-tibia joint of thehind leg. When the cu ti cle has been fully stretched it isheld by a catch un til the mo ment when all the power is re -leased at once (Brackenbury, 1992, p. 59). Our Cre ator has de signed other “re mark able in no va tions” as well.

There is ev i dently much more to in sect flight than justwing flap ping. We see that sens ing and rap idly and ac cu -rately re spond ing to a wide va ri ety of en vi ron men tal stim -uli through in ge nious struc tures and com plex be hav iorstakes place in these min ia ture or ganic ma chines we callin sects, re sult ing in the mar vels of flight that we can ob -serve right in our back yards. What we see is far more so -phis ti cated than not only the Wright broth ers’ air plane,but any air plane ever built by man’s in tel li gence. “Theheav ens de clare the glory of God...” (Psalm 19:1), but fly -ing insects mightily declare His wisdom.

The Origin of Insect Flight

The fol low ing are quo ta tions from pre vi ously cited sources re gard ing their views of the or i gin of in sect flight:

As sum ing that the abil ity to fly arose some wherebe tween the De vo nian and the Car bon if er ous, 20mil lion years of the evo lu tion ary de vel op ment ofwinged in sects are shrouded in mys tery (Brodsky,1994, p. 79).

Un for tu nately, the evo lu tion ary or i gins of flightin in sects are not well known. Paleontological re -cords of tran si tional forms are ab sent, and the likelyse lec tive forces act ing on early winged morphologies can only be sur mised, pre clud ing any paleo bio lo -

gical in ter pre ta tion of this ma jor event in metazoanevo lu tion (Dudley, 2000, p. 261).

The paleontological his tory of winged in sectsstarts from the Up per Car bon if er ous (Namurian).Namurian in sects were rep re sented by three clearlydis tinct groups (Brodsky, 1994, p. 88).

We do not know how and when the three mainlines of evo lu tion of winged in sects di verged... (Brod -sky, 1994, p. 98).

As im pres sive as in sect di ver sity is to day, evenmore re mark able is the fact that most ma jor mor -pho log i cal in no va tions and in deed in sect or derswere pres ent be fore the Me so zoic (245–265 mil lionyears ago)(Dudley, 2000, pp. 8–9).

The drag on fly pro vides an ex cel lent ex am ple ofthe per fec tion of an cient flight; they have changedvery lit tle from their an ces tors... about 300 mil lionyears ago (Brodsky, 1994, p. 66).

Odonata [drag on flies] is the old est sur viv ing or der of fly ing in sects, and... the ae rial equip ment of thedrag on fly has re mained es sen tially un changed (Dal -ton, 1975, p. 28).

So not only do the com plex, or dered flight sys tems of in -sects make fool ish the no tion that they are the prod uct ofmu ta tions and nat u ral se lec tion; but the fos sil re cord alsoof fers no sup port for such a notion.

Conclusion

The Wright broth ers’ air plane was ca pa ble of fly ing be -cause it had an in tel li gence con trol ling many spe cif i callyde signed fea tures which all had to be in place be fore itcould fly. The anat omy of fly ing in sects like wise meets allof the re quire ments for flight. It has been shown that eachof these in sect struc tures re quired for flight is a highlycom plex sys tem (com posed of spe cific ma te ri als). The log -i cal con clu sion is that in sect flight is also the re sult of de -lib er ate de sign. Fur ther more, there is no ev i dence for agrad ual evo lu tion of in sect flight. In deed, with out all ofthe above re quire ments be ing met, an in sect could not ex -pe ri ence flight. Even the evo lu tion ist, Maynard Smith,agreed with this as sess ment when he is quoted as stat ingthat flight con trol is “...a pre req ui site for the ini tial evo lu -tion and sub se quent elab o ra tion of flight” (Dudley, 2000,pp. 203–204). If only one of the re quire ments for flightwere sat is fied, the in sect would not fly, and even that par -tic u lar in no va tion would be se lected against be cause ofthe dis ad van tage in volved in car ry ing around use less struc -tures. The more re quire ments that might be sat is fied, thegreater would be the se lec tive dis ad van tage, un less allwere sat is fied. The only log i cal so lu tion is that these ex -ceed ingly com plex fly ing in sects would have to have beenini tially formed com plete. This is clearly an ti thet i cal to


evo lu tion and sup port ive of cre ation. When one com paresin sect flight to hu man flight, the vast su pe ri or ity of the for -mer re quires a vastly su pe rior in tel li gence. Wher ever there are peo ple, fly ing in sects ex ist, and their “message” ofintelligent design is so clear that no man anywhere has anexcuse for denying the existence of their Designer (seeRomans 1:20).

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Dr. George Howe for his ed i to rial as sis -tance and Rick Herr for draw ing the sketches.

References

Brackenbury, J. 1992. In sects in flight. Bland ford, Lon don.Brodsky, A. 1994. The evo lu tion of in sect flight. Ox ford

Uni ver sity Press, New York.Dal ton, S. 1975. Borne on the wind. Reader’s Di gest Press,

New York.Dudley, R. 2000. The biomechanics of in sect flight. Prince -

ton Uni ver sity Press, Prince ton, NJ.Kelly, Fred C. 1989. The Wright broth ers—A bi og ra phy.

Do ver Pub li ca tions, Mineola, NY.Wright, Orville. 1953. How we in vented the air plane. Do -

ver Pub li ca tions, Mineola, NY.

Lest We ForgetPrecambrian Pollen in Hakatai Shale, Grand Canyon, Arizona

Pol len grains and spores from flow er ing plants and othervas cu lar plants have been found in sam ples of Pre cam -brian Hakatai Shale from the Grand Can yon of Ar i zona.For a re view of ear lier works, con sult Howe, Wil liams,Matzko, and Lammerts (1986). We col lected and pro -cessed our sam ples with rea son able care to avoidcontamination.

Out-of-or der microfossils have been re cov ered by non-CRS work ers also, and re ported in other jour nals. But allsuch Pre cam brian pol len pa pers have been widely re -jected, ne glected, or re in ter preted. This is largely be causethey con flict with the strati graphic no tion that pol len-bear -ing plants did not evolve un til hun dreds of mil lions ofyears af ter Pre-Cam brian sed i ments had ac cu mu lated.Gen er ally all such re ports are “writ ten off” as in stances inwhich microfossils some how en tered the for ma tions longafter the strata formed.

This is the first in a se ries of “Lest We For get” memos in which var i ous non-CRSQ dis cov er ies of Pre cam brian vas -cu lar plant microfossils will be re viewed. It is hoped by this that: (1) some other work ers will be en cour aged to ini ti ateanal y ses of more Pre cam brian sed i ments for pos si ble pol -len con tent, (2) non-creationist work ers will feel obliged to ex er cise less dog ma tism in de fense of their strati graphiclong ages, (3) creationists who es tab lish or i gins mod els will re al ize and rec og nize that rocks called Pre cam brian by

uni for mi tar ians con tain plant fos sils (even pol lengrains)—a no tion that Froede has suc cess fully de fended(1999), and (4) it will be gen er ally ad mit ted that pol lengrains have been re peat edly ex tracted from Pre cam brianstrata. Such pol len grains are at vari ance with the gra tu -itous as sump tions that there was a vast Pre cam brian era,de void of veg e ta tion, and that vas cu lar plants did not existwhen strata called “Precambrian” were deposited.

References

CRSQ: Cre ation Re search So ci ety Quar terly.)Froede, C. R., Jr. 1999. Pre cam brian plant fos sils and the

Hakatai shale con tro versy. CRSQ 36:106–113.Howe, G. F., E. L. Wil liams, G. T. Matzko, and W. E.

Lammerts. 1986. Cre ation Re search So ci ety stud ies onPre cam brian Pol len, Part I—A re view. CRSQ 23:99–104.

Howe, G. F., E. L. Wil liams, G. T. Matzko, and W. E.Lammerts. 1988. Cre ation Re search So ci ety Stud ies on Pre cam brian Pol len, Part III: A pol len anal y sis of Haka -tai shale and other Grand Can yon rocks. CRSQ 88:173–182.

G. F. Howe24635 Ap ple St.Newhall, CA 91321-2614


The Saguaro National Park (east) Mylonites, Ultramylonites, and Cataclasites:Evidence in Support of the Genesis Flood

Carl R. Froede Jr., George F. Howe, and John R. Meyer*

Abstract

Sa guaro Na tional Park (east) is lo cated on the east -ern side of Tuc son, Ar i zona. It en com passes boththe Tanque Verde Ridge and most of the RinconMoun tains. The park af fords a won der ful op por tu -nity to ex am ine a rel a tively un touched desert environment dom i nated by Sa guaro cac tus. We examined the west ern por tion of the Park (de finedby the area along Loop Drive) to better un der standrocks de fined as mylonites, ultramylonites, and

cataclasites. In Ar i zona, these meta mor phic rocksare found in the Ba sin and Range prov ince and areas so ci ated with meta mor phic core com plex moun -tains. The Sa guaro Na tional Park (east) pro vides an ex cel lent set ting to ex am ine these unique shear-al -tered rocks and un der stand the pro cesses in volvedin their for ma tion. Our pre lim i nary as sess ment in -di cates that tectonic processes formed these rocksduring the Genesis Flood.

Introduction

Sa guaro Na tional Park is com posed of two dis tinct ar eas on op pos ing sides of Tuc son, Ar i zona. This ar ti cle lim its dis -cus sion to that por tion of Sa guaro Na tional Park on theeast ern side of the city, iden ti fied as Sa guaro Na tional Park (east) (Fig ure 1). Both the Tanque Verde Ridge and mostof the Rincon Moun tains are con tained within the park.While only a small area is ac ces si ble by au to mo bile, foot-trails cover much of the park. The vis i tor is pre sented witha beau ti ful desert en vi ron ment dom i nated by the Sa guarocac tus and a large variety of wildlife (Figure 2).

Ge ol o gists in the early 1970s re al ized that the rocks un -der ly ing this beau ti ful desert en vi ron ment are some whatunique. They are sim i lar to shear-al tered strata that oc curin spe cific ar eas be tween south ern Brit ish Co lum bia, Can -ada and north ern Sonora, Mex ico (Co ney, 1980; Rehrig,1986). These meta mor phic rocks are iden ti fied asmylonites, ultramylonites, and cataclasites (see Ap pen dix). Our pre lim i nary in ves ti ga tion was lim ited to the areaalong the Loop Drive on the west ern side of the park (Fig -ure 1). This area has pre vi ously been mapped and de -scribed by sev eral ge ol o gists (Wright, 1978; Da vis, 1980;1987a; 1987b). Our find ings are con sis tent with the tre -men dous geo logic en ergy ex pe ri enced by this re gion dur -ing the global Flood. Hav ing stud ied gran ites and tec tonic

*Carl R. Froede Jr., B.S., P.G., 2895 Em er son Lake Drive, Snellville, GA 30078-6644; George F. Howe, Ph.D.,24635 Ap ple St., Newhall, CA 91321-2614; John R.Meyer, Ph.D., Di rec tor, Van Andel Cre ation Re searchCen ter, 6801 N. High way 89, Chino Val ley, AZ 86323

Re ceived 7 June 2002. Re vised 25 October 2002

move ment else where (Froede, 1995a; 1998a) this re gionof fered an in ter est ing challenge to cast these strata into ayoung-Earth Flood framework.

Saguaro National Park (east)

Sa guaro Na tional Park (east) lies within the Ba sin andRange prov ince in south ern Ar i zona (Froede et al., 1997).Ac cord ing to Da vis (1987a; 1987b) it is one of the fin est lo -ca tions in the world in which to rec og nize mylonites,ultramylonites, and cataclasites. These meta mor phicrocks re flect the full range of shear ing (i.e., duc tile through brit tle) thought nec es sary to ex plain the for ma tion of thesemylonitic rocks within the meta mor phic core com plexmoun tains (Da vis, 1987a; 1987b). Ex am ples of each rocktype were readily ap par ent as we fol lowed the Loop Drivearound the west ern por tion of the park (Fig ures 3 and 4).We were greatly aided by the Da vis (1987a) field trip guide and sup ple mented it with ad di tional stops and short hikes.Based on our field work around Loop Drive, we of fer an interpretation of the mylonites, ultramylonites, and cata -clasites, in clud ing their for ma tion and stratigraphicsetting, within a Flood model.

Igneous and Metamorphic RocksWithin the Park

A va ri ety of ig ne ous and meta mor phic rocks are foundwithin the Sa guaro Na tional Park (east), in clud ing gran ite,


gneiss, mylonized gneiss, ultramylonites, and cataclasites.Banks (1980, p. 185) de scribes the four prin ci pal rockunits within the Park as:

...(1) gen er ally light col ored gneissic to myloniticquartz monzonite and gran ite that in trude rocks asyoung as late or post-Me so zoic (Windy Point gneiss); (2) gen er ally darker col ored gneissic rocks de rivedmainly from Pre cam brian gra nitic rocks (grano dio -rite and quartz monzonite); and (3) black to tan my -lo nitic, blastomylonitic, and phyllonitic rocks alsode rived mainly from Pre cam brian Y gran ite rocks;and (4) undeformed granodioritic to gra nitic(mainly quartz monzonitic) rocks that like wise in -trude rock as young as late or post-Me so zoic. Thefirst three of these four main rock units are fo li ated,lineated, and in truded by abun dant peg ma tite dikesand sills, and to gether they com prise the bulk of thecomplex.

Keith et al. (1980, p.232), de scribed the spe cific fea -tures and types of ig ne ous and meta mor phic rocks withinthe Park as:

...com posed of mus co vite-gar net-bear ing gran ite.The gran ite com monly en vel ops a dark biotitic au -

gen gneiss. Some parts of the gran itehave abun dant peg ma tite and alaskite.Both the gran ite and the dark augengneiss ex hibit the dis tinc tive low-an glemylo nitic fo li a tion. This myloniticgneiss com plex is over lain to the north -east by meta mor phosed and lo callyhighly de formed youn ger Pre cam brianand Pa leo zoic rocks which be comelower grade and less deformed up sec -tion. The west ern and south ern bound -aries of the mylonitic com plex are—like those of the south ern SantaCatalina forerange—highly jointed,brecciated, chloritized, and over lain bythe Catalina fault, a dis lo ca tion sur facewhich dips gently off the flanks of therange. The low-an gle my lonitic fab richas been de formed into sev eral broadwest-south west-plung ing arches andone north-north west-trending arch andis in truded by several north-northwest-striking undeformed dikes.
Fig ure 1. Top o graphic map show ing the ex tent of Sa guaro Na tional Park
(east). Note the Park en com passes the Tanque Verde Ridge and most of theRincon Moun tains. Our in ves ti ga tion was lim ited to ar eas ad ja cent to LoopDrive (LD). We found a va ri ety of gneiss, mylonites, ultramylonites, andcataclasites con sis tent with the Da vis (1987) field trip guide. Most of the Parklies within an area of mylonitization. Mod i fied from the United States Geo -log i cal Sur vey Tuc son, Ar i zona Top o graphic Quad ran gle us ing Maptech©2001 soft ware at 1X el e va tion.

Mylonites, Ultramylonites,and Cataclasites

Mylonites, ultramylonites, and cata -clas ites found within the Park are meta -mor phic rocks that have been

sub jected to tre men dous shear forces. The myloniticgneiss ex posed in the Park is so strongly lay ered that it re -sem bles a thick stack of gently dip ping sed i men tary strata(Fig ure 4). How ever, upon closer in spec tion the vari a tions in li thol ogy are ac tu ally the re sult of pen e tra tive fo li a tioncaused by shear ing within the rock (Fig ures 5 and 6). On

Fig ure 2. Pho to graph of the Tanque Verde Ridge cov -ered in desert veg e ta tion dom i nated by the Sa guaro cac -tus.


av er age, the fo li a tion gently dips 30° to ward the Tuc sonba sin. How ever, it is be lieved that the orig i nal fo li a tion dip an gle was as high as 45° (Da vis, 1987a; 1987b). Min erallineation of the quartz and quartz laminae found withinthe mylonites has a gen eral orientation of N60°E–S60°W(Davis, 1987a; 1987b).

The or i gin of the shear force was likely due to the up liftand ro ta tion of the orig i nal moun tain-sized blocks causedby the in jec tion of a leucogranitic melt into the over ly ingPre cam brian gra nitic and meta mor phic strata (Rehrig andReynolds, 1980). Grav i ta tional force acted on the up liftedblock and cre ated shear zones in its up per por tion. Thezone of mylonitization (i.e., shear zone) is be lieved to ex -tend from the sur face ap prox i mately 0.6 to 1.2 miles down -ward through the gneiss (Da vis, 1987a). Ac cord ing toRehrig and Reynolds (1980, p. 151):

The mylonitic fab ric formed by flat ten ing per pen -dic u lar to fo li a tion and ex ten sion par al lel to thelineation. Strain ra tios re corded in the myloniticrocks of ap prox i mately 9:2:1 in di cate that theamount of ex ten sion is significant.

Fig ure 3. A typ i cal augen gneiss. Note the large len tic u -lar feld spar pheno crysts. Scale in cen ti me ters.

Fig ure 5. Several lay ers of mylonized gneiss with pro -nounced fault bound aries.

The depth of up lift and cataclasis is be lieved to haveorig i nated from less than 1.8 to 3.7 miles be neath the for -mer ground sur face (Banks, 1980). How ever, Dickinson(1991) pro posed a depth of mylonitic de for ma tion in therange of 4.7 to 7.8 mi. Pre vi ously, depths were in ter preted from 5 to 7.5 miles (An der son et al., 1988), or per hapseven as deep as 9.3 miles (An der son, 1988). Da vis (1987a; 1987b) sug gests that the mylonitization oc curred from 6to 7.2 miles be low the sur face. While Pre cam brian rocksare more de formed (ductilely and cataclastically) thanthe Ter tiary-age gneiss, fo li a tion and lineation in bothwere ap par ently formed in the same stress field (Banks,1980).

Banks (1980) pro posed that the tec tonic event thatformed the Rincon Moun tains and Tanque Verde Ridge

Fig ure 4. Pho to graph show ing lay ered mylonitic gneiss.Scale in six-inch di vi sions.

Fig ure 6. Pho to graph show ing the lay er ing of themylonized gneiss. Note that a diabase dike is ex posed onthe right side of the ex po sure. These mafic fea tures havelargely been ig nored in con struct ing mod els for meta -mor phic core com plex moun tains. They in di cate agreater (and likely deeper) heat source as so ci ated withthe gra nitic mag mas. The six-inch unit scale is in front of the diabase dike.


oc curred dur ing the mid dle Ter tiary (20 to 30 m.y. B.P.),and Rehrig and Reynolds (1980) sug gest a pe riod from 25 to 15 m.y. B.P. as so ci ated with a pe riod of wide spread volcan -ism and plutonism out side the meta mor phic core com plex.

How ever, an other in ter pre ta tion has been of fered byKeith et al. (1980). Us ing geochronologic meth ods, theyiden ti fied three dis tinct suites of in tru sions and ac com pa -ny ing de for ma tions (Lara mide, 75 to 64 m.y. B.P.; Eo -cene, 44 to 50 m.y. B.P.; and the mid dle Ter tiary, 27 to 25 m.y. B.P.). A va ri ety of age-dat ing meth ods were used tode ter mine the ages of the var i ous gra nitic, gneissic, andmylonitic rocks. This in for ma tion cou pled with trace-el e -ment anal y sis de ter mined the lith o logic and struc tural re -la tion ships of the rocks in an at tempt to re con struct thetim ing and events ex pe ri enced by each in tru sion andcorresponding shear event. They proposed that:

Much of the mylonitic (cataclastic) de for ma tionof the plutonic rocks and recrystallization of the en -clos ing host rocks may be re lated to in tru sion of thevar i ous plutons. At least three ep i sodes of mylonitiza -tion (cataclasis) may be de lin eated by ob serv ing relations be tween mylonitic and nonmylonitic cross -cut ting plutons (Keith et al., 1980, p. 218).

An der son’s (1988) work also sup ports three in tru sive ep -ochs in volv ing 12 plutons and co eval mylonitization en vi -sioned by Keith et al. (1980).

The tim ing and sig nif i cance of the event(s) that re -sulted in the for ma tion of the Tanque Verde Ridge andRincon Moun tains re main open to age-dat ing in ter pre ta -tion. How ever, geochronologic work con ducted on rocksin the nearby Santa Catalina Moun tains ap pears to sup -port the in jec tion of Lara mide melts, but only two pe ri odsof mid-Ter tiary mylonization (Force, 1997). Much re -mains un re solved in de ter min ing the tim ing and eventsthat mag matic in jec tion cre ated in form ing these shearedmetamorphic rocks.

Fig ure 7. Di a gram show ing the con cep tu al ized re la tion -ship be tween the var i ous lay ers com pos ing meta mor -phic core com plex moun tains—es pe cially those foundwithin the Sa guaro Na tional Park (east). Mod i fied fromDa vis, 1987, Fig ure 3.

Metamorphic Core Complex Mountains

Most meta mor phic core com plexes are viewed as be ingde rived from the mid dle crust and were even tu ally ex -posed by tec tonic unroofing in an extensional set ting(Krab bendam and Yardley, 2000). It has been pro posed for the Tanque Verde Ridge and Rincon Moun tains that ap -prox i mately 20 to 30 m.y. ago there was rapid shed ding ofcover from the up lift ing meta mor phic core com plex intoad ja cent bas ins (Banks, 1980; Drewes, 1977). Al thoughsev eral mod els have at tempted to ex plain the for ma tion ofvar i ous meta mor phic core com plex moun tains, none have proven successful on a broad scale.

Ac cord ing to Da vis (1980), meta mor phic core com plex moun tains can be de fined by four dis tinct el e ments: (1) Ig -ne ous core, (2) Meta mor phic car a pace (i.e., decollementzone), (3) Decollement sur face (i.e., de tach ment fault),and (4) Unmetamorphosed sed i men tary cover (Fig ure 7).All four of these char ac ter is tics of meta mor phic core com -plex moun tains are found within the Saguaro NationalPark (east).

Core

The core is com posed pre dom i nately of Pre cam brianquartz monzonite gran ite that has been pen e trated inplaces by Ter tiary quartz monzonite gran ite (Da vis, 1987). Duc tile nor mal faults are abun dant in the core rocks andare al ways ori ented per pen dic u lar to mylonitic lineation(Da vis, 1980). No mat ter the en vi sioned num ber of gra -nitic mag matic pen e tra tions, each event has re sulted insome level of mylonitization. How ever, the last (mid-Ter -tiary) tec tonic event re sulted in the great est level of in tru -sion by gra nitic melts along with the most sig nif i cant levels of mylonitization.

Metamorphic Carapace

The strata within the metasedimentary car a pace are meta -mor phosed to up per greenschist and am phi bo lite grade,are con cor dantly welded or plated to un der ly ing crys tal -line rocks, and form a rel a tively thin sheet (Davis, 1980).

Da vis (1987a; 1980) sug gests that el e vated fluid pres -sure is largely re spon si ble for the zone of microbrecciationwithin the car a pace:

The na ture of frac tur ing and the per va sive al ter -ation re cords the role of flu ids and fluid pres sure inthe fault-in duced con ver sion of mylonites to micro -breccias.

How ever, the ex tent that wa ter played in the de vel op mentof the de tach ment and em place ment of the core com plexre mains the sub ject of much con tro versy (Krabbendanand Yardley, 2000).


A va ri ety of shear re lated rocks can be found within themeta mor phic car a pace (i.e., decollement zone), in clud -ing microbrecciated mylonitic gneiss, ultramylonites andcataclasites. The thick ness of this car a pace is likely a func -tion of in tense shear zone pen e tra tion as a re sult of the ex -ten sive lat eral move ment of the overlying rock.

Decollement

The bound ary sep a rat ing the mylonized rocks from un -meta morphosed strata is com monly a low-an gle dis lo ca tionsur face that de vel ops within the gneiss (Rehrig and Rey -nolds, 1980). Move ment within the fault plane then cre atesthe meta mor phic car a pace. Striations along the top of thedecollement sur face con firm grav ity-driven move ment ofthe over ly ing sed i men tary strata across this plane (Fig ure 8). Ac cord ing to Krabbendam and Yardley (2000, p. 670):

The de tach ment fault and the un der ly ing shearzone are the re sult of a pro gres sive evo lu tion. Thedeep and hot part of the shear zone (at a depth of 20km [12.4 mi] or more) ini tially de forms in a very duc -tile man ner, re sult ing in a wide zone of myloniticgneiss. Dur ing fur ther ex ten sion, the lower plate ispulled to wards higher re gions and brought againstthe cooler up per plate, Duc tile de for ma tion is lo cal -ized in nar row shear zones, cross-cut ting the mylo -nitic gneiss. Con tin u ing ex ten sion cools the shearzone fur ther and drags the rocks through the brit tle-duc tile tran si tion; the duc tile struc tures are lo callyoverprinted by cataclasis and brecciation.

Sedimentary Cover

The sed i men tary cover rocks have largely de tached fromthe un der ly ing base ment rocks and moved un der grav ity

Fig ure 8. Pho to graph of the de tach ment (i.e., decolle -ment) sur face. Striations oc cur along the sur face. Thesur face of the mylonized gneiss is also iron-stained, in di -cat ing the pres ence of wa ter at the time of for ma tion.Scale on left is in inches and cen ti me ters.

to ward the Tuc son Ba sin (Fig ure 9). The fault con tact be -tween the bulk of the over ly ing sed i men tary strata and theun der ly ing mylonites is iden ti fied as the Santa Catalinafault. The trace of this fault ex tends from the south ern endof the Rincon Moun tains north and west across the SantaCatalina Moun tains, a dis tance of 42 miles (Da vis, 1987a). Most of the grav ity-in duced fold ing of the over ly ing sed i -men tary strata is as so ci ated with the fi nal pe riod of up liftas so ci ated with the Rincon Mountains (Davis, 1975).

Ac cord ing to Da vis (1980, p.68), the sed i men tary coverrocks have been af fected by their lat eral move ment to -wards the Tuc son Basin:

Over turned asym met ric folds, de tached iso cli nalfolds, and un bro ken cas cades of re cum bent foldschar ac ter ize the sheets of the Pa leo zoic and Me so -zoic cover rocks. Most of the folds are tran si tional be -tween ideal par al lel and ideal sim i lar folds and, thus,are char ac ter ized by some hinge-zone thick en ing.The scar city of ax ial-plane cleav age, the abun danceof bed ding-plane cleav age, and the ob vi ous in flu -ence of lay er ing on the mor phol ogy of folds in di catethat the folds evolved through slip page betweenlayers and flow within layers.

Co ney (1980) has sug gested that wa ter played a large rolein the de for ma tion and lat eral trans port of the over ly ingsed i men tary strata.

The com plete ness of the sed i men tary cover has alsocome into ques tion. Ac cord ing to Da vis (1980, p.68):

Sed i men tary rocks on the west side of the RinconMoun tains within the Sa guaro Na tional Mon u ment(East) con sist of lime stone, do lo mite, and shale ofPerm ian age, as well as rem nants of Mis sis sip pian(?), Penn syl va nian, and Cre ta ceous for ma tions. Alongthe south east flank of the Tanque Verde antiform,Cre ta ceous shale and lime stone, with interbedded

Fig ure 9. Large hill com posed of sed i men tary strata thathas slumped west ward to ward the Tuc son ba sin. Thestrata are con torted as a re sult of their lat eral dis place -ment.


siltstone, do lo mite, and lime stone con glom er ate, liedi rectly on the decollement. The thick ness of thesheet is less than 90 m (295 ft). Sed i men tary rocksnear Co los sal Cave on the south side of the RinconMoun tains form a sheet ap prox i mately 150 m (492ft) thick that rests on the decollement zone. Therocks con sist of lime stone interbedded shale and in -clude for ma tions of Cam brian through Perm ian age. At the southeasternmost cor ner of the Rincon Moun -tains, a 75 m (246 ft) sheet of Pa leo zoic rocks rests onthe decollement zone. Al though for ma tions fromCam brian to Perm ian time are rep re sented, thethick ness of the se quence is less than 10% of the fullPa leo zoic sec tion exposed in the WhetstoneMountains only 20 km (12.4 mi) south.

The in di vid ual sheets of Phanerozoic strata rangefrom about 40 to 120 m (131 to 394 ft) in thick ness.Strata within each sheet are gen er ally unmetamor -phosed, ex cept near the base where lime stones arecom monly mar ble ized over thick nesses of 10 m (33ft) or so.

A Possible Young-EarthFlood Interpretation

Our field work is not the first in ves ti ga tion seek ing to understand meta mor phic core com plexes within theframe work of the global Flood of Gen e sis. An ex cel lent de -tailed study of the de tach ment fault ing in the north ernTrigo Moun tains (south west ern Ar i zona) was con ductedby young-Earth creationist Scott Rugg (1986). He be lieved that the meta mor phic core com plex moun tains that he in -ves ti gated formed and de vel oped dur ing the global Flood.Our find ings along Loop Drive are com pletely con sis tentwith Rugg’s (1986) in ter pre ta tion. We be lieve that theRincon Moun tains and Tanque Verde Ridge wereformed, up lifted/unroofed, and eroded dur ing the Floodevent when tre men dous tec tonic forces were still in ef fect(i.e., Mid dle Flood Event Timeframe; Froede, 1995b;1998b).

Uniformitarian geoscientists sug gest that abun dant lev els of wa ter played an im por tant part in the de vel op ment of themylonized gneiss. The sed i men tary cover above the gneissalso in di cates by its de for ma tion that it was semi-lithifiedwhen it ex pe ri enced tec tonic up lift and lat eral trans port.Ad di tion ally, the fact that the re gional Pa leo zoic and Me so -zoic strati graphic sec tions are thin ner above the up liftedmy lon ite gneiss com plex than “com plete” sec tions found12.4 miles to the south sug gests that up lift of the meta mor -phic core com plex moun tains pre vented the de po si tion ofthe uniformitarian-en vi sioned full strati gra phic sections.

We of fer the fol low ing young-Earth in ter pre ta tion thatwe be lieve is con sis tent with scrip ture, al though other in -ter pre ta tions are pos si ble. We view the Pre cam brian gran -ites as likely formed dur ing the Cre ation week. Thesegran ites were thou sands of feet be low the ex ist ing pre-Flood ground sur face. We be lieve that the Flood erodedaway any for mer (i.e., pre-Flood) sed i men tary over bur denabove the ig ne ous and meta mor phic base ment rocks. Tur -bu lent Floodwater later de pos ited sed i ments and or ganicmat ter de rived from a va ri ety of source ar eas within thissame area. Up lift of the Tanque Verde Ridge and RinconMoun tains oc curred by gra nitic in tru sion dur ing the mid -dle of the Flood. This cre ated both ero sional con di tionsand grav i ta tional in sta bil ity. The moun tain-sized blocksro tated, caus ing the newly-de pos ited sed i men tary lay ers toslide off the top of the base ment sur face to ward the newlyformed ba sin. Within the semi-mol ten area of the up lift,grav i ta tional force cre ated planes of weak ness that we rec -og nize to day as nor mal faults within the gran ite. As the up -per sec tion of the up lifted base ment rock gave way tograv i ta tional slid ing, it al tered the ver ti cal pro file of thecom po si tion of the gran ite (from gran ite to gneiss, then tomylonitic gneiss, in clud ing ultramylonites and cata cla -sites). We see a tran si tion from soft (at depth) to brit tle(closer to the sur face) de for ma tion of the quartz mon -zonite gran ites along with the de vel op ment of in tenseshear zones as we move up in sec tion to the decollementsur face. The tectonism cou pled with the mylonitic strata is consistent with catastrophic processes that we wouldexpect during the global Flood of Genesis.

Conclusion

The Loop Drive within Sa guaro Na tional Park (east) pro -vides an ex cel lent set ting in which to ob serve mylonites,ultramylonites, and cataclasites in a beau ti ful desert set -ting. These rocks re flect the tre men dous tec tonic forcesthey ex pe ri enced in Earth’s past. Ge ol o gists con tinue tostudy these rocks in an ef fort to un der stand both how andwhy they formed. Found in the Ba sin and Range prov ince, meta mor phic core com plex moun tains re flect uniquecon di tions and unusual tectonic forces.

We be lieve that the ev i dence for the abun dance of wa -ter as a fac tor in both the mylonitization of the gneiss andthe de for ma tion of the over ly ing sed i men tary cover stratapoints to the Flood. Ad di tion ally, the tre men dous tecton -ism nec es sary to form the Tanque Verde Ridge andRincon Moun tains can best be un der stood as oc cur ringdur ing this same pe riod of Earth his tory. All the ev i denceap pears to sup port a rather brief pe riod of time in which all of these events occurred.


Appendix

The fol low ing def i ni tions may prove help ful in un der -stand ing the va ri ety of mylonites found at Sa guaro Na -tional Park (east). All def i ni tions are from Jack son (1997)un less otherwise noted.Cataclastic: Per tain ing to the struc ture pro duced in a

rock by the ac tion of se vere me chan i cal stress dur ingdy namic meta mor phism; char ac ter is tic fea tures in -clude the bend ing, break ing, and gran u la tion of theminerals.

Cataclasite: A fine-grained, co he sive cataclastic rock,nor mally lack ing a pen e tra tive fo li a tion ormicrofabric, formed dur ing fault move ment. The frac -ture of rock and min eral com po nents is a sig nif i cantfac tor in the gen er a tion of a cataclasite, and it may play a sig nif i cant role in the con tin ued deformation of therock.

Cataclastic Flow: Flow in volv ing inter gra nu lar frac tur ing and move ment, i.e., me chan i cal dis place ment of par -ti cles rel a tive to each other; a brit tle flow mechanism.

Microbreccia: A well indurated, mas sive rock that has been crushed to a very fine grain size through cataclasticflow, com monly found within de tach ment faults.

My lon ite: ... a microbreccia with flow tex ture. It oc curs in a va ri ety of dif fer ent forms, in clud ing protomylonite,ultramylonite, and blastomylonite. Ac cord ing to Yard -ley (2000), mylonites oc cur in zones of high strain orshear zones which vary in thick ness from a few mil li -me ters to sev eral ki lo me ters. The mylonitic tex turesre sult mainly from syntectonic recrystallization, inwhich large orig i nal grains be come strained, lead ingto the nu cle ation of small un strained grains that growat the expense of the parent grain.

My lon ite Gneiss: A meta mor phic rock that is in ter me di atein char ac ter be tween my lon ite and schist. Fel sic min er -als show cataclastic phe nom ena with lit tle or no recrys -tallization, and com monly oc cur as augen sur roundedby and al ter nat ing with schis tose streaks and lenticles ofrecrystallized mafic minerals.

Mylonitization: De for ma tion of a rock by ex treme micro -brecciation, due to me chan i cal forces ap plied in a definite di rec tion, with out note wor thy chem i cal re con -sti tu tion of gran u lated min er als. Char ac ter is ti cally, themylonites thus pro duced have a flinty, banded, orstreaked ap pear ance, and un de stroyed augen and lenses of the par ent rock in a gran u lated ma trix. Also spelled:mylonization.

Ultramylonite: An ul tra-crushed va ri ety of my lon ite, inwhich pri mary struc tures and porphyroclasts have beenoblit er ated so that the rock be comes ho mo ge neous anddense, with lit tle if any par al lel structure.

Acknowledgments

The au thors thank the many do nors to the Cre ation Re -search So ci ety Re search Fund, in ter est from which fi -nanced a por tion of these stud ies. We are grate ful for thecon tin ued sup port we re ceive from our fam i lies. Dr. SteveAus tin kindly pro vided a copy of the Scott Rugg the siscom pleted at the In sti tute for Cre ation Re search. Dr.Emmett L. Wil liams and Mr. Jerry Akridge pro vided re -view and com mented on a draft of this ar ti cle. How ever,any mis takes that may re main are our own. We give ourCre ator God and His Son all the glory. Proverbs 3:5–6.

References

CRSQ: Cre ation Re search So ci ety Quar terlyAn der son, J.L. 1988. Core com plexes of the Mojave-Sono -

ran desert; Con di tions of plutonism, mylonitization,and de com pres sion. In Ernst, W.G. (Ed i tor). Meta mor -phism and crustal evo lu tion of the west ern United States. pp. 502–525. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

An der son, J.L., A.P. Barth, and E.D. Young. 1988. Mid-crustal Cre ta ceous roots of Cordilleran meta mor phiccore com plexes. Ge ol ogy 16:366–369.

Banks, N.G. 1980. Ge ol ogy of a zone of meta mor phic core com plexes in south east ern Ar i zona. In Crittenden,M.D., Jr., P.J. Co ney, and G.H. Da vis (Ed i tors). Cordi -ller an meta mor phic core com plexes. pp. 177–215. Geo -log i cal So ci ety of Amer ica Mem oir 153. Boulder, CO.

Co ney, P.J. 1980. Cordilleran meta mor phic core com -plexes: An over view. In Crittenden, M.D., Jr., P.J. Coney, and G.H. Da vis (Ed i tors). Cordilleran meta mor -phic core com plexes. pp. 7–31. Geo log i cal So ci ety ofAmer ica Mem oir 153. Boulder, CO.

Da vis, G.H. 1975. Grav ity-in duced fold ing off a gneissdome com plex, Rincon Moun tains, Ar i zona. Geo log i -cal So ci ety of Amer ica Bul le tin 86:979–990.

. 1980. Struc tural char ac ter is tics of meta mor phiccore com plexes, south ern Ar i zona. In Crittenden,M.D., Jr., P.J. Co ney, and G.H. Da vis (Ed i tors). Cordi -lleran meta mor phic core com plexes. pp. 35–77. Geo log i -cal So ci ety of Amer ica Mem oir 153. Boulder, CO.

. 1987a. Sa guaro Na tional Mon u ment, Ar i zona:Out stand ing dis play of the struc tural char ac ter is tics ofmeta mor phic core com plexes. In Hill, M.L. (Ed i tor).Cordilleran Sec tion of the Geo log i cal So ci ety of Amer -ica: Cen ten nial field guide vol ume 1. pp. 35–40. Geo -log i cal So ci ety of America, Boulder, CO.

. 1987b. A shear-zone model for the struc tural evo -lu tion of meta mor phic core com plexes in south east ernAr i zona. In Cow ard, M.P., J.F. Dewey, and P.L. Han -


cock (Ed i tors). Con ti nen tal extensional tec ton ics. pp.247–266. Geo log i cal So ci ety Spe cial Pub li ca tion No.28. Blackwell Scientific. Boston, MA.

Drewes, H. 1977. Geo logic map of the Rincon Val ley quad -ran gle, Pima County, Ar i zona: U.S. Geo log i cal Sur veyMis cel la neous In ves ti ga tions Map I-997, scale: 1:48,000.

Force, E. R. 1997. Ge ol ogy and min eral re sources of theSanta Catalina Moun tains, south east ern Ar i zona: Across-sec tional ap proach. Mono graphs in Min eral Re -source Sci ence No. 1. Cen ter for Min eral Re sources,Tucson, AZ.

Froede, C.R., Jr. 1995a. Stone Moun tain, Geor gia: A cre -ation ge ol o gist’s per spec tive. CRSQ 31:214–224.

. 1995b. A pro posal for a creationist geo log i caltime scale. CRSQ 32:90–94.

. 1998a. Panola Moun tain, Geor gia: Ex fo li a tionev i dence in sup port of Flood ex po sure. CRSQ 35:41–44.

.. 1998b. Field stud ies in cat a strophic ge ol ogy. Cre -ation Re search So ci ety Books, St. Jo seph, MO.

Froede, C.R., Jr., G.F. Howe, J.K. Reed, J.R. Meyer, andE.L. Wil liams. 1997. An over view of the geo mor phol -ogy of Ar i zona (Van Andel Cre ation Re search Cen terRe port No. 1). CRSQ 34:68–74.

Jack son, J.A. (Ed i tor). 1997. Glos sary of ge ol ogy. Fourthedi tion. Amer i can Geo log i cal In sti tute, Al ex an dria,VA.

Keith, S.B., S.J. Reynolds, P.E. Damon, M. Shafiqullah,D.E. Livingston, and P.D. Pushkar. 1980. Ev i dence formul ti ple in tru sion and de for ma tion within the SantaCatalina-Rincon-Tortolita crys tal line com plex, south -east ern Ar i zona. In Crittenden, M.D., Jr., P.J. Co ney,

and G.H. Da vis (Ed i tors). Cordilleran meta mor phiccore com plexes. pp. 217–257. Geo log i cal So ci ety ofAmer ica Memoir 153. Boulder, CO.

Krabbendam, M. And B.W.D. Yardley. 2000. Meta mor -phic core com plex. In Han cock, P.L., and B.J. Skin ner(Ed i tors). The Ox ford com pan ion to the Earth. pp. 669–671. Ox ford Uni ver sity Press. New York.

Rehrig, W.A. 1986. Pro cesses of re gional Ter tiary ex ten sionin the west ern Cor dil lera: In sights from meta mor phiccore com plexes. In Mayer, L. (Ed i tor). Extensional tec -ton ics of the south west ern United States: A per spec tive onpro cesses and ki ne mat ics. pp. 97–122. Spe cial Pa per 208.Geo log i cal So ci ety of America, Boulder, CO.

Rehrig, W.A., and S.J. Reynolds. 1980. Geo logic and geo -chronologic re con nais sance of a north west-trendingzone of meta mor phic core com plexes in south ern andwest ern Ar i zona. In Crittenden, M.D., Jr., P.J. Co ney,and G.H. Da vis (Ed i tors). Cordilleran meta mor phiccore com plexes. pp. 131–157. Geo log i cal So ci ety ofAmer ica Mem oir 153. Boulder, CO.

Rugg, S.H. 1986. De tach ment fault ing in the north ernTrigo Moun tains, Ar i zona – A cat a strophic in ter pre ta -tion of Ter tiary geo logic pro cesses. In sti tute for Cre ationRe search, San Diego, CA. Un pub lished Masters thesis.

United States Geo log i cal Sur vey. 1994. Tuc son, Ar i zona.30 X 60 Min ute Se ries Top o graphic Quad ran gle.Scale: 1:100,000.

Wright, C.C. 1978. Folds in my lon ite schist in the RinconMoun tains, Tuc son, Ar i zona [Se nior the sis]. CarletonCol lege, North field, MN.

Yardley, B.W.D. 2000. Mylonites. In Han cock, P.L., andB.J. Skin ner (Ed i tors). The Ox ford com pan ion to theEarth. pp. 719–720. Ox ford Uni ver sity Press. New York.

Lest We ForgetPrecambrian Pollen in the Roraima Formation, British Guiana

Stainforth (1966) re ported on re searches con ducted in 1963 by Dunsterville who col lected sam ples of “shale-like” bedsin the Roraima For ma tion of Brit ish Gui ana. Later, palyn o -lo gist Fournier, “... pro cessed the sam ples and re cov eredwell-pre served pol len spores... Sub se quently, L. Nijssen and J. A. Sulek... pro cessed other pieces [of shale-like ma te rialfrom the Roraima] and re cov ered iden ti cal plant micro -fossils” [brack ets are mine], Stainforth (1966, p. 292).

“This dis cov ery of pol len and spores in a for ma tion ofsup posed Pre-Cam brian age was so re mark able that a re -con nais sance ex pe di tion of qual i fied ge ol o gists was or ga -nized to ver ify the facts of the case” (p. 292). Note that itwas only the dis cov ery of pol len in the Roraima ma te rialthat led to fur ther re search; had no pol len been found, it”s

Pre cam brian “sta tus” would prob a bly have gone for everun changed. This sec ond re search ven ture oc curred in1964 and in cluded seven work ers who repeated the col -lection and analysis.

They con firmed the sa lient facts as re -corded by Dun ster ville, “New sam ples of unwea -thered rock were col lected ... On their re turn toCa ra cas, the three paly nolo gists made in de pend entin ves ti ga tions of the new sam ples. Ut most care wastaken to avoid any pos si bil ity of su per fi cial con tam i -na tion... [M]icrofossils of the same type as be forewere recovered” (p. 292).

Fournier con cluded that the fos sils Pre cam brian pol len was “... not the same... “as pol len from plants cur rently


grow ing in that area (p. 293). Dif fer ent work ers con cludedvar i ously that the Roraima pol len was Tertitary, Eocene,Mio cene, or even a “mix ture of Me so zoic and Ce no zoicel e ments... “(p. 293).

Stainforth ex plained that the find ings were in ter pretedin two dif fer ent ways: (1) some of the work ers took the Pre -cam brian “date” as ac cu rate and con cluded that “... thepol len (and spores) must have en tered as sec ond ary con -tam i nants” [sic] p. 294 and (2) a sec ond group gra tu itouslyas sumed that the Roraima for ma tion must be changedfrom its Pre cam brian sta tus be cause the pol len grainscould not have en tered into meta mor phosed sed i mentsfrom the out side [sic]. They were in fact say ing that such in situ grains au to mat i cally proved that the Roraima is notPrecambrian.

A third no tion not en ter tained by Stainforth as a pos si -bil ity is that flow er ing plants were pres ent and shed ding

Book R

pol len when the Pre cam brian Roraima “times” wereelaps ing. A cor ol lary of this third con clu sion is that thesepar tic u lar, valid Pre cam brian sed i ments were laid downquite re cently—not hun dreds of millions of years ago.

Stainforth closed by stat ing: “... we of fer no so lu tion tothe par a dox and this pres ents... a highly in trigu ing geo log i -cal prob lem” (p. 294).

Reference

Stainforth, R. M. 1966. Oc cur rence of pol len and sporesin the Roraima For ma tion of Ven e zuela and Brit ishGui ana. Na ture 210:292-294.

G. F. Howe24635 Ap ple StreetNewhall, CA 91321-2614

eview

The Biblical Basis for Modern Science: The Revised and Updated Classic by Henry M. MorrisMaster Books, Green Forest, AR. 2002, 474 pages, $13.99

In the in tro duc tion, Dr. Mor ris de fends the sci en tific ac -cu racy of the Bi ble. “When ever a bib li cal pas sage deals either with a broad sci en tific prin ci ple or with some par tic -u lar item of sci en tific data, it will in ev i ta bly be found oncare ful study to be fully ac cu rate in its sci en tific in sights”(p. 12). He main tains this un com pro mis ing stancethrough out the book. The four major sections of the bookare• Sci ence and True Chris tian ity: the ol ogy, cos mol ogy,

mir a cles and false sci ence (the is tic evo lu tion and othercom pro mis ing positions).

• The Phys i cal Sci ences: comogony, as tron omy, ther mo -dy nam ics, chem is try and physics.

• The Earth Sci ences: geo phys ics, hy drol ogy, me te o rol -ogy, ge ol ogy and pa le on tol ogy.

• Life Sci ences: bi ol ogy, antropology, de mog ra phy, lin -guis tics and eth nol ogy.The au thor de vel ops a log i cal and bib li cal frame work for

each topic he dis cusses. Like wise he pres ents the youngearth po si tion through out the text: “If the evo lu tion ary agesof ge ol ogy can not be fit ted into the Gen e sis re cord, ei therbe fore the six days of cre ation (gap the ory) or dur ing the sixdays (day-age the ory), and if the Bi ble is in deed true andper spic u ous, then where do we put the geo log i cal ages? The an swer of course is that they don’t need to be put any where,since they never existed in the first place” (p. 113).

He com pares the creationist po si tion vs. the evo lu tion -ist po si tion on many sub jects us ing sci en tific facts as a

foun da tion for the creationist stance. The first and sec ondlaws of ther mo dy nam ics are ex plained in re la tion to thebib li cal worldview (pp. 171-200). Dr. Mor ris shows howthese laws re in force the creationist po si tion as op posed tothe evo lu tion ist’s un sci en tific ap proach to or i gins. Theweak nesses and er rors of his tor i cal ge ol ogy are ex posedand the au thor notes how the dy namic world-wideNoachian De luge re shaped the sur face of the earth (TheGen e sis Flood, coauthored by Dr. Mor ris, is an ex cel lentschol arly in tro duc tion to this topic). Many ar ti cles andbooks in de fense of the Flood have been in spired by thewrit ings of Henry Mor ris who, for tu nately, is an ex pert inhy drau lics. Also he is not im pressed with con ti nen tal driftand plate tec ton ics. Mor ris sug gests that it is pre ma ture forChristians to embrace the tenents of those speculations (p.235).

The book con tains six appendicies, chap ter bib li og ra -phies for fur ther read ing, sub ject in dex, and scrip tural index. I rec om mend this up dated trea tise to any one in ter -ested in the or i gins de bate. Read ing this book may also al -low Chris tians who have never be fore un der stood thesig nif i cance of the or i gins con tro versy to re al ize that thecre ation po si tion is the sci en tific one. May Dr. Mor rishave many more years to defend the faith!

Emmett L. Wil liamsP.O. Box 2006Alpharetta, GA30023-2006


Flood Geology of the Crimean PeninsulaPart II: Conglomerates and Gravel Sandstones of the Demerdji Formation

Alexander V. Lalomov*

Abstract

Con glom er ates and Sand stones of the DemerdjiFor ma tion1 as signed to the Up per Ju ras sic com prise the third ma jor strati graphic se quence of the Cri -mean pen in sula (south east Eu rope, Black Seacoast). The base ment of the Cri mean sed i men taryse quence con sists of highly metamorphized rocksas signed to Pre cam brian and/or Pa leo zoic era -thems. The sec ond struc tural floor con sists of foldedsand stones and shales of Tavrick and Ek siord ianFor ma tions. The con glom er ate con tains ex oticclasts with the prob a ble source area lo cated in the

Ukrai nian Crys tal line Mas sif, up to 400 km to thenorth. This for ma tion has nu mer ous fea tures thatdem on strate its for ma tion in a vig or ous hy drau lic re -gime. Hy drau lic pa ram e ters de rived from grainanal y sis sug gest ranges of hy drau lic con di tions dur -ing the Flood, and ero sion of the un der ly ing flyschin di cates a strong vari a tion of hy drau lic con di tionsdur ing the main phase of the Flood. To the ex tentthat these Cri mean for ma tions are typ i cal of othergeosynclinal settings, they can be used to interpretsedimentary sequences in other fold belts.

Introduction

This ar ti cle is a con tin u a tion of long-term re search of thesed i men tary rocks of Cri mea. In Part I of this se ries (Lalo -mov, 2001) the ge ol ogy of the base ment and lower strata of the Cri mean sed i men tary se quence was de scribed. Thebase ment con sists of faulted, high-grade meta mor phicshale and lime stone, cut by diabase dikes. The shale andlime stone are as signed to the Pre cam brian and Pa leo zoicerathems, re spec tively. Above the base ment are sed i men -tary rocks of the Tavrick and Eksiordian For ma tions. TheTavrick For ma tion con sists of flysch—rhyth mi cally al ter -nat ing sand stones, siltstones, and shales—as signed to theTri as sic Sys tem. Over ly ing the Tavrick For ma tion with out an an gu lar un con formity, are the “flysch-like” shales andsand stones of the lower and mid dle Ju ras sic EksiordianFor ma tion. These rocks are interbedded with lay ers ofgravel, tuff and vol ca nic rocks. Strata of both the Tavrickand Eksiordian Formations are folded.

Nu mer ous fea tures of these strata pro vide ev i dence ofde po si tion in cat a strophic con di tions that would be ex -pected in the Flood. In spite of this ev i dence, uniformitar -ian ge ol o gists of the for mer USSR con sis tently in ter pretedthe Cri mean sed i men tary strata by means of grad u al ism.Lalomov (2001) re in ter preted the ge ol ogy of Crimea in acreationist framework.

*Dr. Al ex an der V. Lalomov, ARCTUR Geo log i cal Re -search Lab. (Mos cow, Russia), [email protected] http://www.creationism.org/arctur/

Received: 9 July 2002. Re vised: 14 No vem ber 2002.

In this pa per, the third Cri mean sed i men tary se quenceis de scribed and in ter preted. It con sists of con glom er ateand gravel sand stones as signed to Up per Ju ras sic se ries

1The con glom er ates and sand stones do not have a for malname. In the geo log i cal lit er a ture they are usu ally called“Up per Ju ras sic con glom er ates” and “Up per Ju ras sicsand stones.” There fore I pro pose the name, DemerdjiFor ma tion, af ter the moun tain where the for ma tion hasits most spec tac u lar out crop (Fig ure 1)

Fig ure 1. Con glom er ate and Sand stone For ma tion (mid -dle mem ber), west ern slope of Demerdji Moun tain.


(Callovian and Oxfordian stages) that over lie the Tavrickand Eksiordian rocks across an an gu lar un con formity. Al -though the ero sion sur face is me chan i cal; there is no intrinsic ev i dence of long pe ri ods interrupting sedi men ta -tion.

Rocks of the Demerdji For ma tion com prise the mainridge of the Cri mean Moun tains, reach ing an el e va tion ofup to 1500 me ters above sea level. The for ma tion ex tendsap prox i mately 80–100 km from west to east and up to 20km from north to south. Its thick ness reaches 750 m. Itcon sists of peb bles, cob bles and boul ders up to 1.0 m in di -am e ter in a sand and muddy-sand ma trix. Lime stones as -signed to the Kimeridgian and Titonian stages of theUp per Ju ras sic grade into (and some times jux ta pose) thecon glom er ates and sand stones with some ev i dence of aparaconformity. Both the con glom er ate and limestonestrata are tilted.

Strata of the Demerdji For ma tion are well ex posed onthe south east ern slope of Cri mean Ridge. They form pro -m i nent cliffs of the up per part of the slope. This for ma tioncon tains many geo log i cal fea tures that in di cate that de po -

N

S

A

B

Mount Demerdji

BlackSea

Novi Svet Meganom Cape

0 20

km

654321

Fig ure 2. Sche matic map of south part of Cri mean Pen -in sula. Dis tri bu tion of Con glom er ate and Sand stoneFor ma tion (af ter Sidorenko, 1969, fig ure 24, with somechanges and ad di tions): A: Late Oxfordian-Early Kim -eridgian stages of Up per Ju ras sic se ries; B:Titho nianstage of Up per Ju ras sic se ries. Leg end: 1. Con glom er -ates; 2. Sand stones; 3. Lime stones; 4. Di rec tion of paleo -flow; 5. Fault; 6. Re searched ex po sures.

si tion in a vig or ous cur rent, and thus al lows a de ter mi na- tion of some hy drau lic parameters of the Flood.

The Cri mean moun tain ridge is part of the Al pine foldsys tem that ex tends from West ern Eu rope to Mid dle Asia.The struc ture of the Cri mean moun tain area is typ i cal offolded belts in the other re gions. There fore, the goals ofthis in ves ti ga tion in clude both a diluvial in ter pre ta tion ofthe sed i men tary se quence of the geosynclinal fold belt inCri mea, and the iden ti fi ca tion of cri te ria to ex tend that in -ter pre ta tion to sim i lar sed i men tary strata in the otherregions.

In the de scrip tion of the geo log i cal struc ture of Cri mea, I use the ter mi nol ogy of the uniformitarian geo log i cal column, such as Tri as sic, Ju ras sic, Cre ta ceous, etc. Use ofthe col umn pre sup poses ac cu rate biostratigraphic dat ingaround the globe, which in turn de mands the as sump tionof evo lu tion (i.e., the same fos sils are of the same age). Inasmuch as the tem po ral iden tify of such strata is ques -tion able, ab so lute dat ing of the strata by use of the uni -formitarian col umn is re jected. How ever, use of theter mi nol ogy is employed for ease of reference.

Lithological Characteristics of theDemerdji Formation

Ex ist ing lit er a ture about the con glom er ates is sparse andthey have ap par ently not been stud ied be fore in de tail.There fore, I de scribed the se quence of con glom er ates andgravel sand stones on sev eral out crops and made a com pos -ite geo log i cal col umn for the Demerdji Formation.

The great est thick ness and the most com plete se quence of the Demerdji For ma tion were ob served on the west ernand south east ern slopes of Mt. Demerdji (Fig ure 2). Themax i mum vis i ble thick ness of the for ma tion there is between 700 and 800 m. Both the un der ly ing Tavrick For -ma tion and over ly ing lime stones are vis i ble in these out -crops. An other ex po sure lo cated north east of Mt.Demerdji near Novi Svet vil lage was stud ied. The up persec tion of the Demerdji For ma tion (about 300–400 m inthick ness) was ob served there. The east ern most sig nif i cant out crop of the Demerdji For ma tion is sit u ated in thecoastal cliff of Meganom cape. The thick ness of theconglomerate strata there is up to 380 m.

The Demerdji For ma tion can be sub di vided into threemem bers (Fig ure 3). These mem bers are not ho mo ge -neous, and the con tacts are not al ways ob vi ous; dif fer entlithologies ex ist within the main con glom er ate. From thebot tom to the top these members include:• Ma trix-sup ported con glom er ate with mud-sand ma trix, • Clast-sup ported con glom er ate with me dium sorted

sandy ma trix, and• Strat i fied gravel sand stone.


Dem

erd

ji F

orm

ati

on G

rave

lSa

ndst

one

Lim

esto

neC

last

Supp

orte

dC

ongl

omer

ate

Mat

rixSu

ppor

ted

Con

glom

erat

e

Tavr

ick

Form

atio

n

1

2

3

4

1

2

3

4

5

6

Fig ure 3. Cor re la tion of lo cal col umns of Con glom er ate and Sand stone For -ma tion. Col umn 1: To the west from Mt. Demerdji; Col umn 2: To south-eastfrom Mt. Demerdji; Col umn 3: North from Novi Svet vil lage; Col umn 4:Coastal cliff of Meganom cape. Leg end: 1. Peb bles, cob bles and boul ders; 2.Heterogranular (vary ing par ti cle size) sand; 3. Silt and clay; 4. Lime stone; 5.Lenses of sand stone with cross-beds; 6. Turbidites of Tavrick For ma tion.

Matrix Supported Conglomerate

Rocks of this mem ber are poorly-strat i fied con glom er atewhose clasts are sup ported by a poorly sorted mud-sandma trix. The clast-sup ported fab ric is not well de vel oped.The ma trix com prises ap prox i mately 40% of the to tal vol -ume, and con sists of heterogranular sand with silt andmont mo ril lo nite-hydromica clay (Sidorenko, 1969). Theclay and silt con tent is up to 30–40% of the ma trix. Clastsare peb ble to cob ble sized, subangular to subrounded,with oc ca sional boul ders up to 1.0 m in di am e ter (Fig ure4). The clasts do not have a pre ferred ori en ta tion andgraded bed ding was not ob served in this mem ber. Oc ca -sional lenses of cross-bed ded, coarse sand, 0.3–0.6 m thickand 3–8 m long occur in the upper part of the member.

The con glom er ate clasts con sist of fine to coarse sand -stones and siltstones (58%), shale (12%) quartz (23%), andfine peb bly coarse sand stone (7%). The quartz gravel ismostly subangular. Sand stones, siltstones and shales aresim i lar to the rocks that com pose the un der ly ing flyschstrata. The un der ly ing flysch also con tains quartz veins,and that quartz is sim i lar to the quartz gravel of theDemerdji For ma tion. How ever, the small (usu ally notmore than 2–3 cm width), rare veins can not ex plain thecon sid er able amount of quartz in the con glom er ates.

There fore, at least part of this quartzshould be pos si bly con sid ered ex otic.The source of the fine peb bly sand -stones is not clear. It may be fromcoarse-grained rocks of un der ly ing for -ma tions (Tavrick or Eksiordian), or itmay also be exotic.

The thick ness of this mem ber is ap -prox i mately 300 m. Its lower con tact isthe eroded sur face of the un der ly ingTavrick For ma tion and the con tact isquite dis tinct . The ero sion sur face ispla nar to mod er ately un du late. The ero -sion sur face does not pro vide ev i denceof a long pe riod of in ter rupted sed i men -ta tion; rather it dis plays me chan i cal ero -sion only. The up per boun d ary of thismem ber is not ob vi ous; there is agradational tran si tion be tween it and the second member of the sequence.

Clast-Supported Conglomerate

Rocks of this mem ber are clearly strat i -fied. The al ter ation of sub-fa cies ofclast-sup ported con glom er ates andlenses of cross-strat i fied, coarse to me -dium-grained sand stones up to 0.5 m iscom mon. Within the sand stone lay ers,

a ma trix-sup ported fab ric is oc ca sion ally pres ent. The ma -trix con tent in the con glom er ate sub-fa cies is about 30%.Its peb bles and cob bles are mostly me dium- to well-rounded. Max i mum particle diameter is 0.4 m.

Clasts in this mem ber are ori ented par al lel to bed dingplanes. Long axes have a west-south west to east-north eastori en ta tion. Graded bed ding is pres ent, clast sizes de crease

Fig ure 4. Ma trix-Sup ported Con glom er ate (lower mem -ber of the For ma tion) con tains boul ders up to one me ter (pho to graph by E. Lalomova).


within the con glom er ate sub-fa cies, and within the al ter -nat ing con glom er ate and sandstone sub-facies.

Finer-grained interbeds are coarse- to me dium-grainedsand. Strongly pro nounced cross-bed ding dips to thesouth-south east. Thick ness of the cross-bed ded unitsranges up to 1.5 m.

The pe trog ra phy of the gravel is sim i lar to the un der ly -ing mem ber. The quartz gravel is much more rounded.Oc ca sional (6 sam ples on four out crops) bi o tite-horn -blende-feld spar gran ite and granodiorite peb bles and cob -bles are pres ent in the con glom er ate (Fig ure 5 and 6).These clasts are well-rounded with a fringe of iron ox ide(weath er ing rinds). The gran ites and granodiorites are ex -otic in Cri mean Pen in sula. The near est source of the gran -ites is on the Ukrai nian Crys tal line Shield 400 km to thenorth (Dobrovolskaya and Snegireva, 1962; Dobrovol ska -ya, 1966), there fore it is likely that the ma te rial was trans -ported that distance, if not farther.

A math e mat i cal model of trans por ta tion of peb bles ofmark ing rocks (Lalomov and Tabolitch, 1991; 1996)shows that with a con sid er able dis tance of trans port (hun -

Fig ure 5. Ex otic peb ble of gran ite with iron ox ide rind.Near est lo ca tion of gran ites is 400 km to the north.

Fig ure 7. Gravel sand stone with strongly marked crossbeds (pho to graph by E. Lalomova).

dreds of ki lo me ters), the con tent of the mark ing peb bles[Mark ing peb bles (or other size par ti cles) mean clasts ofthe rocks that have lim ited in the space source area that al -lows de ter min ing trans por ta tion pa ram e ters such as asource of clastic ma te rial, di rec tion of paleoflow and dis -tance of trans por ta tion.] de creases by three or ders of mag -ni tude. Even if the mark ing clasts near the source are acon sid er able part of the load, as the flow with draw fromthe source area the con cen tra tion de creases to 0.001–0.02% of the source con tent be cause of di lu tion of themark ing clasts by fresh ma te rial and abra sion of the clasts.Thus, the low con cen tra tion of ex otic clasts (along withhigh round ness and weath er ing rings) can be evidence oflong transport (partially, at least) of exotic clasts.

The thick ness of the sec ond mem ber is about 250 m.The up per con tact of the mem ber is not ob vi ous. It is dis -tin guished by a de crease of size and con tent of gravel andby an in crease in the thick ness of the sand stone interbeds.

Stratified Gravel Sandstone

This mem ber in cludes well- to poorly-strat i fied peb blesand stones. The con tent of the coarse clasts var ies from30–40% in the lower part of the mem ber to 10–15% in theup per. The strat i fi ca tion is de fined by the rep e ti tion of fine gravel beds and cen ti me ters-thick, coarse- to me dium-grained sand lay ers that are par al lel or in clined at a low an -gle to the gravel beds. In the up per part of the mem ber, thesand stone has a mostly mas sive fab ric and has limestonecement.

Long axes of the peb bles are aligned par al lel to bed dingplanes with an un clear ori en ta tion in plain view. The peb -bles are smaller than those in the un der ly ing mem ber andare mostly well rounded. Rare cob bles up to 0.2 m wereob served. The pe trog ra phy of this gravel is sim i lar to theun der ly ing mem ber. Cross beds were ob served in thelower me dium to coarse sand and fine gravel (Fig ure 6),

Fig ure 6. Ex otic well-rounded boul der of granodioritewith weath er ing rind.


dip ping from south west to east-south east. Their thicknessis up to 1.0 m.

This mem ber is about 200 m thick. The up per con tactis a thin gradational tran si tion (not more than 3–5 m) orparaconformity with the over ly ing lime stones. The lowerlime stone unit con tains sand (up to 10%) and fine peb blesof sand stones, siltstones and quartz (not more than 5–10%).

All three mem bers of the Demerdji For ma tion wereeval u ated by granulometric anal y sis. Five-me ter sec tionsathwart the bed ding planes were mea sured. Along thosesec tions, the ma trix and clasts were mea sured, and the pe -trog ra phy of the clasts was de scribed. The re sults of the par -ti cle-size anal y ses are dis played in Fig ure 8. All the stratahad a bi modal dis tri bu tion, in di cat ing im per fect sort ing.An in crease in sort ing was ob served up ward from the basalmember to the upper.

In spite of lo cal vari a tions in the granulometric com po -si tion of the sed i ments, there is an ob vi ous trend of fin ingof the sed i ments down stream to the flow and up wardthrough the se quence. To the south east, the con glom er ate is jux ta posed with the gravel sand stone and even lime stone (Tithonian stage of Up per Ju ras sic), pro vid ing a lat eraltran si tion of fa cies sim i lar to what was seen up wardthrough the sec tion. Thus, this se quence rep re sents atransgressive se ries, cor re spond ing to the Law of Fa cies ofWalther-Inostrantsev-Golovkinskii (Middleton, 1973).

Fig ure 8. Granulometric com po si tion di a gram of Demerdji For ma tion.

Paleohydraulic conditions ofDemerdji Formation sedimentation

The fea tures of the Demerdji For ma tion pro vide the ba sisupon which to de ter mine paleohydraulic con di tions dur -ing the de po si tion of this phase of the Cri mea sed i men tary

se quence. The lim its of the range of ve -loc ity of the cur rents can be de rivedfrom es ti mates of the two fac tors of thedepositional pro cesses: erosion andtransport.

Erosion Phase

In as much as the con glom er ate was de -pos ited upon the ero sional sur face thatforms the top of the Tavrick andEksiordian for ma tions, the ini tial ve loc -ity of the cur rent must have ex ceededthe thresh old ve loc ity for ero sion of theun der ly ing flysch de pos its. Aus tin(1994, p.106) de ter mined the ve loc ityof ero sion of solid rock by cav i ta tiondur ing the Flood as 10 m (about 30feet) per sec ond. On the other hand, re -

mov ing blocks of the bed rock by hy drau lic pluck ing re -quires a much greater cur rent ve loc ity than that re quiredfor the move ment of sed i men tary clasts. Lebedev (1959)de ter mined that the max i mum non-ero sive ve loc ity forloose grounds (for boul ders more than 0.5 m) var ied from5.4 to 6.2 m/s, depending on the average flow depth.

The “Up per Ju ras sic” con glom er ates above the un con -formity com monly rest di rectly on the folded strata of theTavrick For ma tion; there fore it is rea son able that ero sionof the Eksiordian and Tavrick For ma tions rocks reached adepth of 300–500 m (the thick ness of the Eksiordian For -ma tion). Un der con di tions of rapid ero sion at Glen Can -yon Dam, the ve loc ity of ero sion of solid sand stonebed rock reached 3 m (about 10 ft) per hour (Aus tin, 1994,pp. 106–107). Thus, the max i mum ex pected ero sion ofthe Tavrick and Eksiordian for ma tions would have takenonly a few days in a cur rent moving with a speed of 6–10m/s.

Transport Phase

Max i mum clast size de ter mines min i mum cur rentstrength, there fore we can de ter mine min i mum cur rentve loc ity from the re la tion ship be tween the av er age di am e -ter of the par ti cles and the av er age crit i cal ve loc ity(Berthault, 2002). All ob served meth ods (Hjulstrom, 1935; Neill, 1968; Van Rijn, 1984a;b; Maza and Flores, 1997)have de ter mined the crit i cal flow ve loc ity for par ti clesmore than 0.5 m in di am e ter to be 4–7 m/s. Since boul ders in the Demerdji For ma tion of ten ex ceed 0.5 m and some -times reach 1 me ter, the paleocurrent ve loc ity dur ing de -po si tion of the ma trix sup ported congomerate mem berwas not less than 4 m/s. Min i mum cur rent ve loc i ties forthe clast-sup ported con glom er ate and strat i fied gravelsandstone members were 2 m/s and 1 m/s, respectively.


Gravel Sand stone lay ers grade into over ly ing lime -stones, per haps across a paraconformity. Thus, as the trans -gres sion reached its max i mum, the flow ve loc ity had beende creas ing from 10 m/s at the very be gin ning of this stageof hy dro dy namic ac tiv ity to near zero at the fi nal stage dur -ing lime stone de po si tion. Since the cal cu lated set tling ve -loc ity for flocculated lime-mud is ap prox i mately 0.15 to0.6 mm/s (Julien, 1995, p. 78), the time of de po si tion ofthe lime stone strata can be es ti mated at be tween 12 and 46 days in a basin 600 m deep.

These data strongly sug gest that the Demerdji For ma -tion rep re sents a sin gle transgressive se ries with an ini tialhigh-ve loc ity paleocurrent that de creased to al most zero at the end of this sed i men tary phase. The ori en ta tions ofclasts and cross-bed dips in di cates flow from north-north -west to south-south east. Dur ing the fi nal stage of de po si -tion of the gravel sand stone mem ber, the cur rent di rec tion fluc tu ated be tween northeast and northwest.

Al though a pre cise du ra tion of sed i men ta tion has notbeen de ter mined for the Demerdji For ma tion at this stageof re search (a cal cu la tion will be per formed later), the en -tire cy cle of ero sion, trans port, and sed i men ta tion of theDemerdji For ma tion should be mea sured in a few days,not in the mil lions of years es ti mated by uni for mi tar iansfor Upper Jurassic time.

Position of the Demerdji Formationin the Flood Model

The Demerdji For ma tion has many no ta ble fea tures thatin di cate the spe cial sig nif i cance of these strata in the struc -ture of geosynclinal fold belts2. The Demerdji For ma tionover lies a flysch for ma tion (turbidites) typ i cal of geo syn -clines. The flysch strata of Cri mea are com monly folded,with as so ci ated in tru sions of dikes and vol ca nic ac tiv ity.The be gin ning of Demerdji For ma tion de po si tion marked the con clu sion of this de for ma tion and ig ne ous ac tiv ity,and an in crease in hy dro dy namic en ergy that re sulted inthe erosion of the newly folded turbidite strata.

Ap par ently, the Demerdji For ma tion is an in ter me di -ate con glom er ate that formed within the Flood se quence.I in ter pret the lower bound ary of the Demerdji For ma tionas cor re spond ing with what Davison (1995, p. 223) de -scribed as a bound ary be tween megasequences that “in di -cate re gion ally- (or glob ally-) con trolled tec tonic or otherac tiv ity which con trolled sed i men ta tion dur ing theFlood.” The Demerdji For ma tion pos si bly cor re lates with

2Geosyncline: a pre-plate tec tonic term de scrib ing one ofthe main el e ments of Earth’s crust (the op po site to “plat -form”) that is char ac ter ized by in ten sive pro cesses of fold -ing and by pow er ful vol ca nic and mag matic ac tiv ity.

the RP-6 megasequences that Davison de scribed for theRussian platform (Davison, 1995, table 3).

Reed et al., (1996) re corded such an ep i sode of in -creased hy dro dy namic ac tiv ity dur ing the Flood in theirgeo log i cal en ergy ver sus time plot, seg ment 6 (Reed et al,1996, Fig ure 1). They con sid ered the in crease to be a re -sult of in creas ing en ergy from a mid-to-late-Flood tectonicreadjustment.

A still more de tailed in ter pre ta tion for the stages of theAl pine geosyncline was pro vided by Baumgardner (1990).He ex plained the fold ing of flysch strata and hy drau lic ac -tiv ity af ter the fold ing by the clos ing of the intra-Pangea ba -sin be tween the Af ri can and Asian lithospheric plates,es pe cially by “rapid move ment of the In dian block to thenorth east ” (Baumgardner, 1990).

Folded and eroded turbidites over lain by con glom er -ates are typ i cal of geosynclines. The con glom er ates areusu ally de scribed as “lower (ma rine) mollasse”. Ac cord ingto the Geo log i cal Glos sary (1960, p. 46):

…it [the mollasse] is de pos ited in the mar ginaltroughs of geosynclines in the main stage of orog eny[moun tain-build ing stage] which fol lows pow er fultec tonic move ments that cause the clos ing of geo -syncline zones and the for ma tion of moun tain ridgeswith sub se quent ero sion. The mollasse con sistsmainly of prod ucts of de nu da tion of the moun tainmas sifs, but partly con tains rocks trans ported fromplat form re gion” (trans la tion from Russian by author).

Thus we see that mollasse for ma tion is typ i cal for foldedbelts, so it can be used as a char ac ter is tic of geosynclinesfor the cor re la tion of megasequences.

Conclusion

In ves ti ga tion of the Demerdji For ma tion dem on stratesthat these strata rep re sent a sin gle transgressive se ries thatbe gan with in tense ero sion of the un der ly ing terrigenous-vol ca nic com plex of the Tavrick and Eksiordian For ma -tions. Dur ing the ero sion, trans port, and de po si tion of theDemerdji For ma tion, hy dro dy namic en ergy de creasedsig nif i cantly and the se quence ended with the depositionof limestones.

Cal cu la tion of the paleohydraulic con di tions for the de -po si tion of the Demerdji For ma tion shows that con di tionswere un like any mod ern ep i sodes of cat a strophic sed i men -ta tion. A pre lim i nary es ti mate of the time of the com pletesed i men tary cy cle (ero sion – trans port – sed i men ta tion) iscon sis tent with the Bib li cal Flood and con tra dicts theuniformitarian geological time-scale.

Fi nally, these Cri mean strata are typ i cal of geosynclinal sys tems, and can be used to cor re late sed i men tary se -quences in other fold belts.


Acknowledgment

I thank Mr. Guy Berthault for sup port of this re search andpro vid ing use ful com ments on the pa per’s con tent. I alsothank the re view ers for ed it ing of the ear lier ver sion of thepa per and for the im prove ment of my Eng lish. I thank DrJohn Reed for im prove ment of my Eng lish and use ful rec -om men da tions. I also thank my wife Elena for her as sis -tance in field research.

References

CRSQ: Cre ation Re search So ci ety Quar terly Aus tin S.A. 1994 . Grand Can yon: mon u ment to ca tas tro -

phe. In sti tute for Cre ation Re search, Santee, CA.Baumgardner, J.R. 1990. 3-D fi nite sim u la tion of the

global tec tonic changes ac com pa ny ing Noah’s Flood.In R.E.Walsh (ed i tor). Pro ceed ings of the Sec ond In ter -na tional Con fer ence on Creationism, Vol ume II, Cre -ation Sci ence Fel low ship, Pittsburgh, PA.

Berthault, G., 2002. Anal y sis of main prin ci ples of stra tig -ra phy on the ba sis of ex per i men tal data. Li thol ogy andMin eral Re sources . Jour nal of Rus sian Acad emy of Sci -ence 37(5):442–446.

Davison, G.E. 1995. The im por tance of un con formity-bounded se quences in Flood stra tig ra phy. Cre ation ExNihilo Tech ni cal Jour nal 9(2):223–243.

Dobrovolskaya, T.I. 1966. Paleogeograficheskie usloviyaKrima vo vremya otlojeniya mezozoiskih konglomera -tov (Paleogeographic en vi ron ment in Cri mea dur ingde po si tion of Me so zoic con glom er ates). pp. 76–83. Pro -ceed ings of the Sci en tific Con fer ence of Geo log i cal De -part ments of Lvov State Uni ver sity, Lvov (Russian).

Dobrovolskaya, T.J. and O.V.Snegireva, 1962. Konglo -merati Bitakskogo yarusa Krima (Con glom er ates ofBitak assise of Cri mea). Pro ceed ings of Acad emy of Sci -ence of USSR 143(6):213–218 (Rus sian).

Hjulstrom F. 1935. The Mor pho log i cal ac tiv ity of rivers asil lus trated by river Fyris. Bul le tin of the Geo log i cal In -sti tute, Uppsala 25:89–122.

Julien, P.Y. 1995. Ero sion and sed i men ta tion . Cam bridgeUni ver sity Press, New York.

Krishtofovich A.N., ed i tor. 1960. Gosgeoltehizdat ( Geo -log i cal glos sary ), vol ume 2. Mos cow. (Rus sian).

Lalomov, A.V. 2001. Flood ge ol ogy of the Cri mean Pen in -sula, Part 1: Tavrick For ma tion. CRSQ 38(3):118–124.

Lalomov, A.V. and S.E. Tabolitch. 1991. Modelirovanievdolberegovogo potoka nanosov I prognozirovanie pri -brejno-morskih rossipei (Mod el ing of lat eral coastaldrift and pre dic tion of coastal sub ma rine plac ers).Vestnic of Le nin grad State Uni ver sity 3(21):72–75(Russian).

. 1996. Catastrophism and mod ern ge ol ogy: mod -el ing of placer gen er a tion pro cess . CRSQ 33(3):186–190.

Lebedev, V.V. 1959. Gidrologiya I gidravlica v mostovomdorojnom stroitelstve (Hy drol ogy and hy drau lic inbridge and road build ing ). Gidrometeoizdat, Le nin -grad (Rus sian).

Maza A.J.A. and M.Gar cia Flores. 1997. Vslocidadesmedias para el inicio del movimiento de particulas. VCongreso Nacional de Hydraulica . pp. 70–88.Guadalajara, Mex ico.

Middle ton G.V. 1973. Johannes Walther’s law of the cor -re la tion of fa cies. Geo log i cal So ci ety of Amer ica Bul le tin84:979–988.

Neill C.R. 1968. Note on ini tial move ment of course uni -form ma te rial. Jour nal of Hy drau lic Re search IAHR.6(2):157–184.

Reed, J.K., C.R.Froede, Jr., and C.B. Bennett. 1996. Therole of geo logic en ergy in in ter pret ing the strati graphicre cord. CRSQ 33(2):97–101.

Sidorenko, A.V. (ed i tor). 1969. Ge ol ogy of USSR, vol umeVIII (Cri mea) . Nauka, Mos cow. (Rus sian).

Van Rijn L.C. 1984a. Sed i ment trans port: Bed-Load trans -port Part I. Jour nal on Hy drau lic En gi neer ing, ASCE10(11):1431–1456.

. 1984b. Sus pended load. Jour nal on Hy drau lic En -gi neer ing, ASCE 10(11):1613–1641.

Lest We Forget Precambrian Pollen in Russia

Evo lu tion ary work ers and some creationists too have beenig nor ing or re ject ing the re ports of vas cu lar plant micro -fossils found in strata des ig nated as “Cam brian” and “Pre -cam brian” from many dif fer ent ar eas of the world.

One such amaz ing re port dis cusses “...mi cro scopic veg -e ta ble re mains from sed i men tary rocks in Rus sia..., Po -

land, Czecho slo va kia, Scot land, and many other coun tries in Eu rope and Asia” (Sci ence News, 1962). The anon y -mous writer noted that “Tiny plant pol len grains havebeen found in rocks up to two bil lion years old.” This hadref er ence to a sci en tific re port de liv ered by Dr. Sofija N.Naumova of the Ge ol ogy In sti tute, Acad emy of Sci ence,


in Mos cow as he spoke to the In ter na tional Con fer ence ofPalynology, at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

More than 650 spe cies of spores and pol len... werede scribed by the sci en tist. These in cluded shreds oftis sue and frag ments of many al gae... Rem nants ofprim i tive pine trees and seed-bear ing plants werefound dur ing the study... the 32 com plexes [ofmicrofossils] can be clearly traced within east ern Eu -rope and Si be ria and, he added, can be suc cess fullyused for the cor re la tion of the old est sed i men taryrocks on earth. (p. 281). We also found pol len and tra -cheids of land plants in Pre cam brian Hakatai shale atthe Grand Can yon (Howe et al., 1988).

It would be valu able for sci ence if the pub lished pro -ceed ings of Naumova’s speeches at this con fer ence couldbe lo cated and re viewed. At tempts are cur rently un der wayto lo cate pub lished ac counts of Sofija N. Naumova’s dis cov -ery of pol len and other vas cu lar plant ma te rial in the Pre -cam brian of many dif fer ent coun tries. Any help in thisre gard will be ap pre ci ated and can be sent to address below.

It is true, as some work ers as sert that God could havecre ated across vast pe ri ods of time if He had so cho sen. Butthe is sue is not “how could God have worked if He hadwanted to” but “how did God cre ate?” Nei ther the Bi ble(God’s Word) nor sci ence (hu man study of God’s work)de mands long ages in earth history.

References

Howe, G. F., E. L. Wil liams, G. T. Matzko, and E. E.Lammerts. 1988. Cre ation Re search So ci ety Stud ies on Pre cam brian pol len Part III: A pol len anal y sis of Jakataishale and other Grand Can yon rocks. Cre ation Re -search So ci ety Quar terly 24:182.

Un known au thor. 1962. Pol len found in rock two bil lionyears old. Sci ence News let ter 81:281.

G. F. Howe24635 Ap ple StreetNewhall, CA 91321-261

Book Review

A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia NasarSimon and Schuster, New York, 1998. 461 pages, $16

This book, made into a pop u lar movie, tells the life story of world-class math e ma ti cian John Nash. Born in 1928,Nash stud ied and taught at Pitts burgh’s Car ne gie Tech,Prince ton Uni ver sity, and MIT. His in sights and pub li ca -tions con cern ing game the ory and eco nom ics were leg -end ary. How ever, around age 30, Nash was struck withse vere schizo phre nia. This in cluded dilusions, para noia,per son al ity change, and a near-home less life style. He wan -dered the Prince ton cam pus for de cades. Around 1990, atage 72, an un usual, spon ta ne ous re cov ery oc curred. To day John Nash func tions nor mally, and he was awarded the1994 No bel Prize in economics for his earliermathematical analysis.

Why in clude this book as a CRSQ re view? John Nash isan ex am ple of a uniquely gifted per son who has failed tohonor his Cre ator. He came from a car ing Epis co pal fam -ily and at tended Bi ble classes (p. 33). He was reared inBluefield, Vir ginia in the Bi ble belt. Nash had a spe cial in -ter est in proph ecy, and there were re li gious over tonesthrough out his 40-year sick ness. He saw him self as “Esau,cast out” (p. 327). One can wish that Nash had found apos i tive men tor to fol low dur ing his early years. In stead hebe came vain, self ish, and so cially snob bish. The bookbrings out a dark side of Nash that is miss ing in the movie.

Nash had ho mo sex ual ten den cies (p. 43) and a four-yearre la tion ship with a mis tress (p. 174). He ex pe ri enced di -vorce, and an il le git i mate son later de vel oped the same af -flic tion of schizo phre nia. This son also be came in volvedwith the rad i cal The Way group.

If only Nash had de vel oped a ma ture faith to bringstruc ture to his life. In stead, how ever, he treated re li gionmuch too lightly, a weak ness that is typ i cal of many in tel -lec tu als to day. On his Prince ton ap pli ca tion, just to raiseeye brows, Nash wrote that his re li gion was “Shinto.”Much later, Nash claimed to “will his re cov ery” fromschizo phre nia by re nounc ing any thing re lated to re li gion(p. 354). In his 1995 au to bi og ra phy, Nash made no men -tion of his mother’s faith or the bib li cal en vi ron ment of hischild hood. It ap pears that the gos pel seed did not find fer -tile soil in the mind of Nash. He is hon ored as one of thegreat minds of our day, and is in deed highly gifted in math -e mat ics. His knowl edge is great, but thus far, there is a sadlack of wis dom con cern ing his Cre ator. It is not yet too late for John Nash to find peace of mind. Only the Cre ator canmake everything beautiful in his time (Eccl. 3:11).

Don [email protected]


La Brea Tar Pits: Evidence of a Catastrophic FloodWilliam Weston*

Abstract

Ac cord ing to the tra di tional view, the La Brea TarPits were pools of en trap ment for un wary an i mals.This view fails to ac count for a va ri ety of anom a lies, in clud ing the disarticulation and in ter min gling ofskel e tal parts, the lack of teeth marks on her bi vorebones, the ab sence of soft tis sues, the in verse ra tioof car ni vores to her bi vores, the nu mer i cal su pe ri or -ity of wa ter bee tles among in sect spe cies, and wa ter

sat u ra tion of wood de bris. An al ter na tive the ory as -sum ing a cat a strophic flood is a better ex pla na tionof the data. This the ory can ap ply to other late Pleis -to cene fos sil sites, where sim i lar anom a lies oc cur.Fos sil de po si tion by cat a strophic flood seems to beglobal in scope. These con sid er ations pro videstrong confirmation for the young Earth-Floodmodel of geologic history.

Introduction

This ar ti cle is the third in a se ries fea tur ing the La Brea Tar Pits as a by-prod uct of a cat a strophic flood. From the ev i -dences ex am ined here, the ap par ent hy drau lic forces re -spon si ble for the fea tures spe cific to this site are not sim plydue to lo cal ized dis tur bances. In stead, the ev i dence pointsto a world wide phe nom e non, namely, the Earth-coveringGenesis Flood.

Disarticulated Insects in aMatrix of Soil and Tar

The fol low ing is from an ar ti cle on in sects:The tur moil in the tar has re sulted in com plete

sep a ra tion of the parts of the skel e ton of most in sects;only rarely are sev eral parts con nected. The eye sock -ets are empty, and mouth parts gone in all La Breama te rial (Pierce, 1947, p. 137).

Pierce pro vided no fur ther elu ci da tion. To learn moreabout what hap pened to these in sects, a first-hand look atthe en to mo log i cal col lec tion stored at the Page Mu seumof Han cock Park, site of the La Brea Tar Pits, was nec es -sary. Closer ex am i na tion in di cated some thing other thantur bu lent tar was in volved in the disarticulation process.

The study be gan with vial num ber 8819, which, ac cord -ing to the spec i men cat a log, con tains six “ce phalic cap -sules” of un iden ti fied bee tles from Pit 4. Each head is darkbrown in color and about 4 mm in di am e ter. The cor neasof the eyes are in tact, but the an ten nae and mouth parts aregone. Ex am i na tion through the fo ra men magna showed

*10291 D’Este Dr., An a heim, CA 92804, [email protected]

Re ceived 2 No vem ber 2002. Re vised 18 Feb ru ary 2003.

that the in te ri ors are hol low. Gone are subcorneal parts ofeyes, brains, esoph agi, pha ryn ges—ev ery thing. In other vi -als, some heads (Fig ures 1 and 2), ab do mens, and tho raxesare hol low, while oth ers con tain a hard mix ture of soil andtar. The in fu sion of soil and tar is the original condition ofall specimens.

Clean ing the spec i mens can be a time-con sum ing and la bo ri ous pro cess. A mu seum worker put chunks of as -phalt into ker o sene-filled jars for a week. Af ter wards, thesoft ened con tents were placed on a tray con tain ing ben -zene. Two more weeks of soak ing elic ited a loose as sem -blage of disarticulated heads, legs, wings, ab do mens,tho raxes, and an ten nae. To clean out the body cav i ties, aworker placed spec i mens in xylene for an other pro longed soak ing. The next step was to use a fine nee dle to probeand ex ca vate the in ner ma trix, cau tiously and pains tak -ingly to avoid dam ag ing the spec i men. Gen tle brush ingwith a camel’s hair brush re moved the loosened debris(Pierce, 1946, pp. 116–117).

Fig ure 1. Ce phalic cap sule of Nicrophorus, a car rionbee tle, show ing the fo ra men mag num in the un der sideview on the left and the empty eye sock ets in the dor salview on the right (Pierce, 1949).


At first, there was no way of de ter min ing whether anypar tic u lar spec i men was pre his toric or mod ern. To ob taindat able sam ples, Pierce soaked a sa ber-toothed cat skull inben zene, which af ter sev eral weeks liq ue fied the in ner ma -trix. He then in serted a sy ringe into the fo ra men mag numand ex tracted the con tents. Pierce was sat is fied that thismethod yielded spec i mens from the Pleis to cene age(Pierce, 1947, p.136).

Skull A-313 from Pit 13 is one of the 27 sa ber-toothedcat skulls se lected for the re trieval of in sect re mains (Fig -ure 3). A con sid er able amount of ma trix ma te rial is still in -side. Chris to pher Shaw, man ager of the La Brea fos silcol lec tion at the Page Mu seum, dem on strated this fact tothe pres ent au thor by shak ing the skull vig or ously. This ac -tion pro duced the sound of par ti cles buf fet ing the cra nialwalls. Like the bee tle heads, skull A-313 was orig i nally fullof soil and tar. In view of these facts, some mat ters to con -sider are the dis so lu tion of soft or ganic mat ter, the en -trance of soil and tar into the empty cav i ties, and therelative duration of these processes.

Fig ure 2. Nicrophorus (Borror, de Long, and Triple -horn, 1981).

The Disappearance of Soft Tissues

Non-skel e tal com po nents such as hair, skin, feath ers, clawsheaths, scales, ten dons, mus cles, and in ter nal or gans have never been found at the La Brea site. The dis ap pear ance of this ma te rial has prompted some dis cus sion re gard ing thecausal factors.

Pred a tors may be one ex pla na tion. A rov ing car ni voremay have found a vic tim trapped in tar and pro ceeded tode vour its flesh, leav ing the skel e tal parts to sink be low thesur face. As more such ep i sodes oc curred, bones ac cu mu -lated as a grow ing mass at the bot tom of the tar pools(Stock, 1929, p. 1, 4). While su per fi cially per sua sive, thisex pla na tion lacks con clu sive ev i dence. Of the thou sandsof her bi vore bones re cov ered, not one ex hib its teethmarks. Signs of car ni vore feed ing, such as rag ged edges onscap u las and man di bles or dentition pat terns on the endsof limb bones and ribs, are ab sent. A sin gle car ni vore bonedoes, how ever, ex hibit teeth marks (Fig ure 4). Etched onthe sur face of the tibia of a large lion are abra sion markssev eral cen ti me ters in length, where teeth scraped againstbone. The bone also has small abra sion grooves, about amil li me ter in width and some times par al lel. A hun gry ro -dent with chi sel-like teeth might have in flicted these

Fig ure 3. Lat eral and un der side views of sa ber-toothedcat skull A-313 found in Pit 13. The pho to graph of theun der side view shows the round hole of the fo ra menmag num into which a sy ringe had been in serted. Themiss ing large ca nines broke off some time af ter the deathof the animal.


grooves (Stock, 1929, p. 4). An other pos si bil ity is that thelion suf fered bone scratches dur ing a des per ate strug glewith larger an i mals. In any case, there is little, if any, proofof predacious activity around the tar pits.

The ef fects of weather may be an other cause. Un der ahot sun, soft tis sues liq uefy and seep into the ground.Bones be come rough, cracked, and scaly. Dur ing rain -storms, shal low floods move the bare skel e tal parts to lower el e va tions, de pos it ing some in tar pools (Stock, 1929, pp.4–5). How ever, this is only a par tial so lu tion. Most of thebones re cov ered from the pits have a smooth, non-weath -ered appearance.

Shaw (1992, p. 43) sug gested bac te rial fer men ta tion asan ad di tional mech a nism for tis sue re moval. Sit u ated inan en vi ron men tal niche that is nor mally toxic to otherforms of life, mi crobes liv ing in tar may have the ca pac ityto con sume dead or gan isms. How ever, stud ies of hu manca dav ers and do mes tic an i mal car casses show that manykinds of bac te ria are in volved in the de com po si tion pro -cess and in ter act in highly spe cific and com plex ways. Forex am ple, Pro teus vulgaris breaks down lysine intocadaverine, a foul-smell ing sub stance. Ba cil lus mycoidesand Ba cil lus mega ther ium trans form pro teins into am mo -nia. Thiobacillus ox i dizes sul fur to pro duce sul fu ric acid.

Fig ure 4. Two views of the tibia of a large lion, Pantheraatrox, show ing teeth marks. (Stock, 1929).

Work ing in tan dem with the bac te ria are var i ous kinds ofin sects. The cadaver ine pro duced by Pro teus vulgaris at -tracts flesh flies, which de posit lar vae into the de cay ingcar cass. These lar vae se crete en zymes that fur ther liq uefytis sue and fa cil i tate di ges tion for still more kinds of bac te -ria. Start ing with a fresh body and end ing with the des ic ca -tion of the skel e ton, there are six stages of de cay that ex tend over a pe riod last ing six to twelve months (Pierce, 1949,pp. 55–58, cit ing Megnin). Al though a com plete de scrip -tion of the de cay pro cess is beyond the scope of this article,the details provided here show the participation of manytypes of organisms.

Pe tro leum-based sol vents such as ben zene, to lu ene,and xylene can also break down or ganic mat ter (Shaw,1992, p. 43). In a pu ri fied state, these liq uids dis solve rub -ber, gum, fat, resin, and other sub stances. How ever, asmen tioned ear lier, re peated im mer sions in sol vent bathscause no dis cern ible harm to in sect re mains. Oil and itsspe cific in gre di ents may have no ef fect on dead tis sue. In -deed, oil may act as a pre ser va tive. Ac cord ing to Greek his -to rian Diodorus Siculus (circa 50 AD), so lid i fiedpe tro leum, or as phalt, was a necessary ingredient inembalming fluids:

The larg est por tion of the as phalt de rived from the Dead Sea is ex ported to Egypt, where among otheruses, it is em ployed to mum mify dead bod ies; forwith out the mix ture of this sub stance with otheraromatics, it would be dif fi cult for them to pre servethese for a long time from the cor rup tion to whichthey are li a ble (quoted in Abra ham, 1960, p. 34).

Nissenbaum (1992, pp. 2, 5) con firmed the tes ti mony ofDio dorus and other an cient au thor i ties. Ad di tional ev i -dence that oil is a pre ser va tive co mes from the fos sil de pos its of Starunia, now lo cated in the south west ern part ofUkraine. In 1907, when Starunia was un der the con trol ofPo land, pieces of woolly mam moth and woolly rhi noc eroswere found with in tact skin, hair, and other soft tis sues. Onear ti cle men tioned the find ing of a complete rhino ceros.

Skin, hair, mus cles and all other tis sues were wellpre served, ow ing to the seal ing up of the mon ster in a kind of oily earth, which kept out the mi cro or gan -isms of de cay for many thou sands of years (anon y -mous, 1930, p. 319).

Sci en tists study ing the car cass con cluded that the rhi -noc eros had died from drown ing.

It was ob served that only the skin of the left sidewas dam aged dur ing the in flux of sed i ment into thein te rior of the an i mal. It would thus ap pear that thean i mal had fallen vic tim to some type of ca tas tro phe, such as the over flow ing of a river, and the dead bodywas swept away by the surge of wa ter.... On the dry ar -eas of the rhino car cass was a crust of salt, eventhough, it must be con cluded, the skin was soakedwith an oily fluid.... This may in cline us to as sume


that—along with fresh wa ter—salt wa ter was alsopres ent (Lengersdorf, 1934, p. 1).

Also in the Starunia de posit are var i ous spe cies of plantsin dig e nous to arc tic re gions. This type of veg e ta tion mayin di cate how the rhi noc eros re mained in tact. Ob ser va -tions of an i mal car casses in cold wa ter show that the de -com po si tion rate reaches a min i mum. Ad di tion ally, de caygases do not ac cu mu late. The wa ters of Lake Su pe rior arevery cold, and an old say ing main tains that, “Lake Su pe -rior never gives up its dead” (Hapgood, 1958, p. 258). If the Starunia rhi noc eros died in cold wa ter, it might have sunkto the bot tom, where sed i men ta tion and oil seepagescovered and preserved it.

As so ci ated with the rhi noc eros are in sects. Un like thefrag mented re mains found at Rancho La Brea, manyStarunia in sects are in tact and so well pre served that sci en -tists can study them “al most like Re cent spec i mens”(Zeuner, 1958, p. 381). Some spec i mens are miss ing onlyan an tenna or a few leg parts. The ex tracted gen i ta lia of anum ber of male spec i mens of the Helophorus (a wa ter bee -tle) have been use ful in tax o nomic stud ies. The qual ity ofpres er va tion even ex tends to col or ations. Pro longedsoakings in ben zene re lease co pi ous quan ti ties of oil, andnat u ral col ors emerge (An gus, 1973, p. 301). In con clu -sion, oil does not de grade fleshly com po nents but ratherpreserves them, even for thousands of years.

Auldaney’s Post-FloodCatastrophism Theory

Auldaney (1994, pp. 25–35) pro posed a cat a strophic the -ory for Rancho La Brea’s fos sils. Us ing a va ri ety of sources,he showed that some tar pit an i mals died at a an other lo ca -tion. Floodwater trans por ta tion brought the car casses tocol lec tion zones at lower el e va tions. Car ni vores seek ingeasy meals scav enged among the re mains. Auldaney sug -gested that earth quake trem ors might have pro duced amas sive upwelling of tar that sur prised and trapped thesescav en gers. Un able to es cape, the car ni vores weredrowned by new waves of floods. Sup port ing this view is a300-square-me ter slab of as phalt only 0.4 me ters thick, fullof bones, mostly of car ni vores. Dis cov ered in 1975 dur ingthe ex ca va tion of the foun da tion for the Page Mu seum, the base of the slab was in contact with silty clay.

Ac cord ing to Auldaney, the an i mals of Rancho La Breadied dur ing the Tower of Ba bel pe riod, when ca tas tro phessuch as huge vol ca noes, tor ren tial rains, and liq ue fac tionof the land scape rav aged the world. While this the ory failsto ac count for the dis ap pear ance of soft or ganic mat ter,Auldaney’s in sight re gard ing flood ac tiv ity is wor thy tocon sider. Wa ter has the ca pac ity to move de bris, sus pendhuge quan ti ties of sed i ment, and thus be come a pos si blesource for the soil found in skel e tal cav i ties of in sects and

an i mals. Dam age ob served on in sect remains may also bedue to the effects of water.

...much of the ma te rial from the La Brea de pos its ap -pears badly abraded, prob a bly by wa ter trans portfrom ad ja cent hills. Promi nen ces such as the elyt ralhu meri, the epipleural ridges and prosternal pro cessare rounded or some times oblit er ated in such spec i -mens, and cu tic u lar sculpt ing and ap pear ance aredras ti cally al tered (Doyen and Miller, 1980, p. 2).

Scratch marks on an i mal bones also in di cate wa tertrans port over rough ter rain. The mo tion of wa ter maythere fore pro duce a mul ti tude of ef fects on fos silmaterial.

The Effects of Water on an Insect Carcass

To test the ef fects of wa ter on an in sect, the pres ent au thorput a live cock roach in side a 5-quart plas tic bucket half-filled with wa ter and placed it out doors. The bucket had alid punc tured with air holes. The in sect swam on the sur -face of the wa ter but was dead the next day and con tin uedto float. There were no changes un til the third week, whenthe rear por tion of the ab do men broke off and sank to thebot tom. Later the rear por tion re turned to the sur face.Grad u ally, over the next two months, an ten nae and legseg ments de tached and floated, along with the rest of thebody. Bub bles formed around the open ings of the mainbody and rear por tion. Flu ids seeped out and pro duced apink ish film that clung to the bot tom and sides of thebucket. By the fourth month an other erup tion oc curred,leav ing a gap ing hole in the main por tion. From this hole,more flu ids and or gans emerged. Later the head de tachedand floated. By the sixth month, the parts sunk to thebottom of the bucket.

Prob a bly the buildup of gases as so ci ated with de com po -si tion caused the rup tures and dis in te gra tion. The re sultsof this ex er cise show that a pro longed pe riod in wa ter candis mem ber an in sect, re move its in ner or gans, and scat terits re mains. These ef fects are com pa ra ble to what ap pearsin the in sect material of Rancho La Brea.

The Prevalence of Aquatic Fauna atPleistocene Fossil Sites

Nearly fifty fam i lies of the Insecta class ap pear in the LaBrea col lec tion with ap prox i mately 6300 iden ti fied re -mains. The most nu mer ous fam ily is Dytiscidae, a pre da -cious div ing bee tle still found in ponds to day (Fig ure 5). Ithas 2057 en tries in the spec i men cat a logs, mainly of rightand left elytra. Hydrophilidae, a fam ily of scav eng ing wa ter bee tles, has 440 list ings, mainly of elytra. Un like the div ing bee tle, which is an ac tive swim mer, the scav eng ing bee tle


pre fers cling ing to un der wa ter plants or crawling along thebottoms of ponds.

The large num bers of wa ter bee tles at Rancho La Breacom pares to that of fos sil sites in Ukraine. Ap prox i mately90% of the in sects in Starunia and nearby Bori slav are wa terbee tles. Other spe cies in clude montane va ri et ies of theOrthoptera or der. An gus (1973, p. 322) men tioned the“strik ing” fact that wa ter bee tles, typ i cally in hab it ing low -land ar eas, mix with in sects liv ing in mountainous habitats.

From a uniformitarian stand point, it is un clear whynon-aquatic spe cies ex ist in much smaller num bers in thePleis to cene de pos its of Ukraine and South ern Cal i for nia.Mod ern in sects such as car rion eat ers and those that are at -tracted to the tar it self of ten be come en trapped (Miller,1983, p. 94; Saylor, 1933, p. 182). Com pound ing the prob -lem even more is the nu mer i cal su pe ri or ity of wa ter bee -tles at two other Pleis to cene sites: the oil sands of Trin i dadand the tar seeps of Talara, Peru (Blair, 1927, p. 138;Churcher, 1966, p. 989).

The pre dom i nance of wa ter bee tles has a coun ter partamong avian fos sils. Water birds form a mi nor ity (about8%) of the Rancholabrean avifauna, yet they ex ist in largenum bers at other sites. At the tar seeps of Talara, Peru,there are about 9000 spec i mens of birds rep re sent ing 89non-passerine spe cies and an in def i nite num ber ofpasserine. The most nu mer ous spe cies is Anas bahamenis,a type of duck, which rep re sents about 30% of the to talnum ber of bones (Camp bell, 1979, p. 7). In a de posit ofsand and pitch, 273 km north of Talara, at La Carolina,Ec ua dor, the Anas bahamenis is the sec ond most abun -dant spe cies of bird, be hind Aratinga roosevelti, a type ofparrot (Campbell, 1976, p. 157).

In the sed i men tary de pos its of San Miguel Is land off the coast of South ern Cal i for nia are the re mains of a smallmam moth, as well as 41 spe cies of birds. Over 75% of theavian fos sils are water birds. At one lo cal ity, puf fin bones lit -er ally form a pave ment (Guthrie, 1992, p. 324).

Fig ure 5. A diving bee tle (fam ily: Dytiscidae) is on theleft. On the right is a scavenging bee tle from the fam ilyHydro philidae. Both types are nu mer ous at the La BreaTar Pits (Borror, de Long, and Triplehorn, 1981).

On the is land of Malta are var i ous kinds of birds, but the most com mon are three spe cies of swans and two spe cies of cranes. These large birds as so ci ate with the bones of an ex -tinct pygmy el e phant (North cote, 1992, p. 285).

In the silty ac cu mu la tions of Fos sil Lake in Or e gon,bones of mam mals ad mixed with bird bones. The larg estnum bers of avian spec i mens come from water birds, suchas swans, ducks, and geese (Miller, 1912, p. 79).

At the tar seeps of McKittrick near Bak ers field, Cal i for -nia, water birds com prise about 18% of the avifauna. Overhalf of these are ducks and geese (Miller, 1935, pp. 73–75).

The high con cen tra tion of wa ter bee tles and wa ter fowl at Pleis to cene fos sil sites may be an ef fect of the Gen e sisFlood. As crea tures moved to ward higher ground in their ef -forts to sur vive, the ones that can swim or float would havehad an ad van tage over the strictly ter res trial types. The spe -cies liv ing in the moun tains would have had an ad van tageover the ones liv ing on the plain. These con sid er ations mayex plain why in Starunia low land-dwell ing wa ter bee tles mix with in sects in hab it ing the high lands. Even tu ally the Floodover whelmed them all, but those that sur vived lon ger intothe Flood pe riod would be bur ied in the up per, or Pleis to -cene, lev els of sed i men ta tion while the ones that diedearlier would be scattered in the lower strata.

The Predominance ofCarnivores over Herbivores

Al most 90% of the mam mal bones found in the La BreaTar Pits are car ni vores, wolves be ing the pre dom i nanttype. Equiv a lent ra tios oc cur with avian spe cies. About70% are flesh eat ers, ea gles be ing the most nu mer ous.These un nat u ral ra tios also oc cur at the tar seeps ofMcKittrick. Pred a tory land birds com prise 65% of theavifauna, ea gles be ing the most com mon (Miller, 1935,pp. 74–75). Mam mal car ni vores, such as coy otes, wolves,lynxes, and sa ber-toothed cats, to tal about 55%. Ac cord ingto Schultz (1938, p. 129), the an i mals of McKittrick areprobably not victims of entrapment:

Dur ing late Pleis to cene time sed i men ta tion wasac tive in the area, and as the oil reached the sur faceand spread out in sheets of a frac tion of an inch or soin thick ness it be came in ter ca lated with clay, sand,gravel, and wind-blown ma te rial.... At theMcKittrick lo cal ity it seems im prob a ble that theseeps could have had much ef fec tive ness as traps; the prin ci pal func tion of oil seems to have been as a pre -ser va tive. [emphasis added]

At the tar seeps of Talara, Peru, where “the main bone-bear ing de pos its oc cur as ir reg u lar lenses up to 6 feet thickand 20 to 30 feet in width” (Lemon and Churcher, 1961.p. 418), the bones of a va ri ety of mam mals ap pear, but themost com mon are car ni vores. From a to tal num ber of


Fig ure 6. Montagne de Santenay (Prestwich, 1894).

16,851 spec i mens, about 78% come from three kinds ofcar ni vores: 7317 spec i mens of fox, 4032 of wolf, and 1866of sa ber-toothed cat (Seymour, 2002).

A fos sil site in France also has a large num ber of car ni -vores. Montagne de Santenay, an iso lated hill ris ing 1030feet above the sur round ing plain, has steep sides and anearly level plat form on top (Fig ure 6). Close to the sum -mit are lime stone fis sures filled with a hard brec cia com -posed of bro ken bones, sharp-an gled rock frag ments, andyel low ish-brown soil. The bones come from a va ri ety of an -i mals, in clud ing lion, fox, bear, horse, deer, ox, el e phant,rhi noc eros, but the most nu mer ous come from wolves. In1876, sci en tists be long ing to the Geo log i cal So ci ety ofFrance saw the mix ture of car ni vores and her bi vores butfound no chew marks on the her bi vore bones. They alsoob served that the brec cia on top of the hill was a wa ter de -posit. The sci en tists con cluded that a flood over a thou -sand feet high had arisen in the val ley of the Saone River.Their dis cus sion in cluded var i ous causes of the flood, such as ex ces sive rain fall, the melt ing of snow fields, or thebreak ing of gla cial dams, but each idea had sig nif i cantdraw backs, and the group failed to reach a consensus(Prestwich, 1894, pp. 935–939).

One sci en tist of the group, Al bert Gaudry, wrote a re -port on this hill. Jo seph Prestwich (1812–1896), a prom i -nent ge ol o gist in Eng land (Fig ure 7), read this re port andsaw con fir ma tion for a the ory he was de vel op ing. From hisown in ves ti ga tions of raised beaches, rub ble drift, andbones in caves, Prestwich be lieved a gi gan tic flood of shortdu ra tion sub merged West ern Eu rope near the end of thegla cial, or Pleistocene, period.

For a sub mer gence of the char ac ter I have de -scribed would nat u rally drive the an i mals in theplains to seek ref uge on the higher hills. Fly ing in ter -ror and cowed by the com mon dan ger, theCarnivora and Herbivora alike sought ref uge on thesame spot, and alike suf fered the same fate wher everthe hill was iso lated and not of a height suf fi cient tothem to es cape the ad vanc ing flood (Prestwich,1894, p. 938).

Ac cord ing to Prestwich, dead an i -mals formed a mat on the sur face of thewa ter. Even tu ally, body parts de tachedand fell ir reg u larly on the sub mergedsur faces be low, which ac counts for thescat tered con di tion of the bones.

The large num ber of wolf bones may in di cate a strug gle for the high ground.Wolves are gen er ally stron ger, more re -source ful, and more so cially or ga nizedthan other an i mals, and they wouldhave used these ad van tages ag gres sively to sur vive. The cir cum stances inFrance may have had an equiv a lent in

Cal i for nia. Wolves fought with sa ber-toothed cats on thelast re main ing hills, while large pred a tory birds, such as ea -gles, hawks, and con dors, fought in the last re main ingtrees. Al though wolves and ea gles were the win ners in thisstrug gle, in the end they lost, for the level of water roseabove the hills.

Fig ure 7. Jo seph Prestwich (Prestwich, 1899).


Not with stand ing, hills which may have served as plat -forms of ref uge in the vi cin ity of the La Brea Tar Pits do not seem to ex ist to day. About three miles to the north of thepits are the Santa Monica Moun tains, com posed of vol ca -nic rock that thrusted up ward through deep sed i men tarystrata. These moun tains prob a bly formed as a late-Flood or post-Flood up lift and thus could not have been a con verg -ing area for fright ened an i mals. Prob a bly, the an i mals died else where, and the tidal power of the Flood trans portedtheir re mains over long dis tances. The vic tims bur ied inthe tar pits may not even be native to California.

Diluvial Sorting and the Geologic Periods

The geo logic strata found around the world have a false ap -pear ance of sup port ing the evo lu tion of life-forms be causein ver te brates some times ap pear in lower strata des ig natedas “older,” while “youn ger” strata higher in the geo logiccol umn may con tain ver te brate fos sils. Creationists

Fig ure 8. The Mancalla, a flight less auk from the Plio -cene pe riod of Cal i for nia (Howard, 1955).

Whitcomb and Mor ris (1961, p. 275) said that ver te bratesare in the higher lev els of strata be cause they “pos sessmuch greater mo bil ity.” Typ i cally, mam mals and birds are in the top lay ers. Semi mo bile crea tures, such as am phib i -ans and rep tiles, oc cur in mid dle lay ers, and the least mo -bile crea tures, such as trilobites and brachi o pods, oc cur inthe deeper lay ers. Thus the geo logic col umn can bereinterpreted along the following lines:

(1) of in creas ing mo bil ity and there fore in creas ingabil ity to post pone in un da tion; (2) of de creas ing den -sity and other hy dro dy namic fac tors tend ing to pro -mote ear lier and deeper sed i men ta tion, and (3) ofin creas ing el e va tion of hab i tat and there fore time re -quired for the Flood to at tain stages suf fi cient to over -take them (Whitcomb and Morris, 1961, pp. 276).

Greater mo bil ity is ev i dent with wolves, which typ i callytravel 30 miles a day, and oc ca sion ally go as far as 60 ormore miles per day (Mech, pp. 50–53). This abil ity to runlong dis tances may have fa vored them in the race from im -pend ing di sas ter. The same line of rea son ing can also ap plyto birds. The va ri ety and large num bers of birds at Pleis to -cene sites may be due to their abil ity to fly. Sub stan tial num -bers of water birds may be due to an ad di tional abil ity toswim. Cor re spond ingly, birds not fa vored with ei ther orboth of these abil i ties lie in the lower lay ers of geo logicstrata. Over 90% of the pre-Pleis to cene avian fos sils of Cal i -for nia are those of the Mancalla, a flight less auk of the Plio -cene (Fig ure 8). By 1970, close to 500 Mancalla bones hadbeen found (Howard, 1955, pp. 13–19; Howard, 1970, p. 1).

Sparse num bers of birds in the lower lay ers of Cal i for niastrata are com pa ra ble to those of other parts of North Amer -ica. Frag men tary re mains from eight spe cies are in Eocenelay ers, in clud ing owl, wood pecker, goose, fla mingo, andtwo spe cies of pheas ant. The best-pre served is Diatrymasteini, a large ostrichlike bird, and Neocathartes gralla tor, orStilt Vul ture. The lat ter had the ca pa bil ity of flight, yet itslong legs made it more suited for ground travel (Howard,1955, pp. 8–10; Swinton, 1965, pp. 41, 44–45, 48–49).

The gen eral ten dency to ward lim ited volantationamong birds bur ied in lower strata com pares with the lim -ited per am bu la tion of lower-strata mam mals and rep tiles.Eocene river for ma tions of Wy o ming and Utah in cludesuch low-mo bil ity types as tur tles, croc o diles, ro dents, rhi -noc er oses, and the gi ant titanotheres. So birds and an i mals least able to flee the on slaught of a flood are in lowersedimentation levels.

Speculations on the Order of Eventsat Rancho La Brea

When the Rancholabrean an i mals died in the Flood, in -ter nal gases of de cay buoyed up their car casses. With theon set of fur ther de cay, body parts de tached and sank. An i -


mals dy ing in the ear lier stages of the Flood fell apart first,and their re mains scat tered in the lower lev els of the build -ing sed i men ta tion be low. Re mains of an i mals dy ing in thelat ter stages of the Flood scat tered in the upper layers.

Af ter the con ti nents upheaved, the sur face land scapecom pris ing South ern Cal i for nia was lit tered with bones.Strong cur rents of wa ter re treat ing off the land in the lateFlood pe riod and dur ing the flu vial ac tiv ity of the post-Flood pe riod trans ported and re dis trib uted the bones tolower el e va tions. Some bones and soggy wood de bris en -tered a small num ber of fun nel-shaped pits, newly formedby nat u ral gas blow outs caused by earth quake trem ors. Oilfrom rup tured un der ground res er voirs seeped into thesepits and flowed over the sur round ing bone-strewn plain.This lake of oil thick ened into tar, and its sur face de vel -oped a hard crust, which sealed the pits and kept the ma -trix in a semiliquefied state. The slab of boniferous as phaltfound in 1975 was part of this lake. Bones be yond thereach of the lake dissolved from decay and weathering.

Concluding Remarks

Part 1 of this se ries of ar ti cles pre sented fea tures of the tarpits that chal lenge the en trap ment the ory: (1) bro ken, frag -mented bones, cha ot i cally dis ar ranged; (2) car ni vore pre -dom i nance; (3) tight di men sions of some pits (five feet orless in di am e ter); (4) tran sient na ture of tar pools, whichform a sur face crust af ter a short time; and (5) wa ter-drenched logs and veg e ta tion ad mixed with the bones.Part 2 showed how new data from Pit 91 led pa le on tol o -gists to dis card the idea of open pools of tar as an i mal trapsand de velop two al ter na tives: the tar pud dle en trap mentthe ory and a wa ter trans port the ory, which incorporates alimited role for entrapments.

A wa ter trans port the ory that does not in clude the entrapment con cept may pro vide the most cred i ble in ter -pre ta tion of the com plex data of the as phalt fos sil beds. Ev -i dences pre sented in this ar ti cle dem on strate how acat a s trophic flood might have caused the re sults seen to -day at the La Brea Tar Pits. These ev i dences fit best withinthe con text of the young Earth-Flood model of Earth his -tory. Fur ther creationist re search at this site should showpromise.

References:

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ern Ukraine, with a re in ter pre ta tion of M. Lomnicki’sspe cies, de scrip tion of a new Si be rian spe cies, and com -par i son with Brit ish Weichselian fau nas. Philo soph i calTrans ac tions of the Royal So ci ety of Lon don. Se ries B,Bi o log i cal Sci ences 265:299–326.

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Camp bell, K. E. 1976. The late Pleis to cene avifauna of LaCarolina, South west ern Ec ua dor. In Storrs L. Olson(ed i tor), Col lected pa pers in avian pa le on tol ogy: hon or -ing the 90th birth day of Al ex an der Wetmore. Smith so -nian con tri bu tions to pa le on tol ogy 27:155–168.

. 1979. The non-passerine avifauna of the Talaratar seeps, north west ern Peru. Royal On tario Mu seum,Life Sci ences Con tri bu tion 118:1–203.

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Doyen, J. T. and S. F. Miller. 1980. Re view of Pleis to cenedark ling ground bee tles of the Cal i for nia as phalt de pos -its (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae: Zopheridae). Pan-Pa -cific En to mol ogy 56(1):1–10.

Guthrie, D. A. 1992. A late Pleis to cene avifauna from SanMiguel Is land, Cal i for nia. Pa pers in avian pa le on tol -ogy: hon or ing Pierce Brodkorb. Pro ceed ings of the II International Sym po sium of the So ci ety of Avian Pa le on -tol ogy and Evo lu tion, Camp bell, K E. (ed i tor), pp. 319–327. Nat u ral His tory Museum of Los Angeles, CA.

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In the Be gin ning GodThomas G. Barnes

There is no means by which sci ence, per se, can de ter mine with cer tainty how mat ter and en ergy or liv ing things came about. From a strictly sci en tific point of view their be gin -nings are in de ter mi nate. This prin ci ple of in de ter mi natein cep tion is com pa ra ble to the un cer tainty prin ci ple which plays such a fun da men tal role in quan tum me chan ics. Itpoints out the fu til ity of sci en tific ef forts to pro vide an ab -so lute so lu tion to the prob lem of the be gin nings.

The prin ci ple of in de ter mi nate in cep tion rests on theprem ise that the be gin nings must have taken place out -side the do main of the two most in clu sive laws of sci ence, namely the first and sec ond laws of ther mo dy nam ics, be -cause those laws re nounce any thing older than a full-blown sys tem and its ir re vers ible tran si tions to ward alower-or dered sys tem.

There are great weak nesses in the uniformitarian-evo -lu tion ary the o ries. They can not give a pos i tive in sight

into the be gin nings be cause this is in de ter mi nate sci en -tif i cally. They run coun ter to the great est laws of sci ence.The ex per i men tal method can not be em ployed to checkthose the o ries. The the o ries them selves re quire too manyamend ments to check with known sci en tific data.

The sci en tist who is will ing to ac cept the Scrip tures atface value is then able to dis card the uniformitarian-evo lu -tion ary con cepts and finds that sci ence and Scrip tureblend into a har mo ni ous re la tion ship that opens new av e -nues to both life and sci ence.

From: Barnes, Thomas G. 1964. Su pe ri or ity of sci en -tific ap proach that ac cepts its lim i ta tions and makes use ofthe scrip ture. CRSQ 1:56. This vol ume and all oth ers ofthe CRSQ are now avail able in printed and elec tronicform. An or der form is at the end of this is sue.


Helioseismology: Im pli ca tions for the Stan dard So lar ModelJon a than F. Henry*

Ab stract

Helioseismology, the study of so lar vi bra tions, hasre vealed a higher de gree of ho mo ge ne ity in the sun than is com monly as sumed. This is con trary to thestan dard so lar model (SSM), in which the sun is as -sumed to be seg re gated into a core re gion and ra di -a tive and con vec tive re gions which do notex pe ri ence sig nif i cant mix ing with the core. Fur -ther more, a de gree of so lar ho mo ge ne ity and con -com i tant mix ing im plies a lower core tem per a ture

than is typ i cally as sumed, which in turn means that sig nif i cant he lium pro duc tion may not be oc cur -ring in the sun. Deu te rium pro duced via hy dro genfu sion there fore may not be con sumed in pro duc -ing he lium. The deu te rium abun dance of the in -ter stel lar me dium ap pears to be con sis tent with thepos si bil ity that deu te rium is not con sumed in thesun via he lium pro duc tion, but es capes into in ter -plan e tary space due to the sun’s ho mo ge ne ity.

In tro duc tion

In the SSM, nu clear burn ing of hy dro gen into he lium issup posed to oc cur in the so lar core. Neu tri nos should alsobe pro duced as he lium forms, but un til 2001, sev eral de -cades of so lar neu trino de tec tion ef forts had con sis tentlyshown that neu tri nos are not pro duced at the rate pre -dicted by the SSM. This short age was termed the “so larneu trino prob lem” (SNP). The SNP im plied that the suiteof nu clear re ac tions as sumed in the SSM may not be oc -cur ring, with deu te rium pro duc tion from hy dro gen fu sionbe ing pos si bly the only sig nif i cant nu clear re ac tion in thesun. The core tem per a ture im plied by this re ac tion is onthe or der of 1 mil lion K or less, in con trast to the 15 mil lion K com monly as sumed. In 2001, re sults from the SudburyNeu trino Ob ser va tory (SNO) re solved the SNP by re port -edly de tect ing the “miss ing” neu tri nos. Since the an -nounce ment of the SNO re sults, the claim has beenpub li cized that the SNP has been “cleared up” and thatthe SSM has been con firmed “with a 99% con fi dencelevel” (Seife, 2001, pp. 2227, 2228).

How ever, even be fore the SNO re sults re port edly con -firmed the SSM, the SNP was not the only dif fi culty forthe SSM. In the SSM the sun has a nu clear “burn ing” core which ex tends some 25 per cent of the dis tance out fromthe cen ter of the sun and is of ten as sumed to in clude about 10 per cent of the so lar mass. The den sity of the core is usu -ally de scribed as hav ing about 150 times the den sity of wa -ter, or roughly 15 times the den sity of lead. Tra di tion ally

*Jon a than F. Henry, Ph.D., Sci ence Di vi sion, ClearwaterChris tian Col lege, 3400 Gulf-to-Bay Bou le vard,Clearwater, FL 33759

Re ceived 23 De cem ber 2001; Re vised 26 July 2002

the core has been mod elled as phys i cally iso lated from theso lar struc ture above it. The only trans fer which oc curs out of the core is that of ra di a tive en ergy (ex cept for the trans fer of neu tri nos). In re cent years, how ever, the He-3 in sta bil ity prob lem has gen er ated spec u la tion that there must besome mix ing be tween the core and outer lay ers. But thereis an other phe nom e non which in di cates a high de gree ofmix ing in the sun, namely, the ex is tence of cer tain so larmodes of os cil la tion. The study of so lar os cil la tions, orhelioseismology, be gan in 1960 with the dis cov ery, fromDopp ler shift photospheric ob ser va tions, of vi bra tions with pe ri ods of about 5 min utes. Such os cil la tions are now awell rec og nized as pect of so lar be hav ior (Fix, 1999, p.395).

Helioseismology In di cates that the SunIs Some what Ho mo ge neous

High fre quency (short pe riod) modes, such as the 5 min -ute os cil la tion, “res o nate within the out er most parts of theSun and give very lit tle in for ma tion about the in te rior.Lon ger wave length modes... pen e trate much more deeplyinto the Sun” (Fix, 1999, p. 395). Modes of suf fi ciently low fre quency should be able to pen e trate the sun’s cen tral re -gion.

How ever, the pres ence of a large core as called for inthe SSM would place a max i mum limit of about one houron the pe riod for so lar os cil la tions. As tro phys i cal the o ristKeith Davies has noted that “os cil la tions greater than onehour would in volve such enor mous amounts of en ergythat they would re sult in the dis rup tion of any large core


that might be pres ent in the Sun” (Davies, 1996, p. 2). De -spite the im pli ca tions of the SSM that such an os cil la tionshould not ex ist, an os cil la tion with a pe riod of 2 hr 40 minwas ob served in the sun dur ing the 1970s. This dis cov erywas dis cussed in two key ar ti cles, one writ ten by Rus siancol lab o ra tors, and the other by a Brit ish team of sci en tists(Severny et al., 1976, pp. 87–89; Brooks et al., 1976, pp.92–95).

The Brit ish team de vel oped a so lar model which wouldpro duce the ob served long-pe riod os cil la tion, but in do ingso, found that their model sun must be nearly ho mo ge -neous with out a well-de vel oped cen tral core. Their model(Brookes et al., 1976, p. 94) in di cated that a to tally ho mo -ge neous sun would have an os cil la tion with a fun da men tal of 2 hr 47 min. The Rus sian team noted that a “most strik -ing fact is that the ob served pe riod of 2 hours 40 min utes isal most pre cisely the same... as if the Sun were to be a homogeneous sphere” (Severny et al., 1976, p. 88). TheBrit ish group stated a sim i lar con clu sion: “Cur rent so larmod els pre dict a pe riod of about 1 hour cor re spond ing to a steep den sity in crease in the so lar in te rior, in marked con -trast to the ob served 2.65-hour pe riod, which is con sis tentwith a nearly ho mo ge neous model of the sun” (Brookes etal., 1976, p. 94).

Of course, a nearly ho mo ge neous sun would not sup -port the ex tremely high core tem per a tures as sumed todrive most of the fu sion re ac tions of the SSM. With themix ing which ho mo ge ne ity im plies, He-3 pro duc tioncould take place with hy dro gen brought into the core, ex -cept that the cen tral tem per a ture of the sun would be toolow. In deed, the only fu sion re ac tion which ap pears to beoc cur ring is hy dro gen fu sion at a low rate which sup pliesonly a por tion of the sun’s lu mi nos ity. Thus the sun ap -pears to be a young, rel a tively un dif fer en ti ated star whichhas not yet de vel oped the mas sive and ex tremely densecore as sumed by the SSM.

As tron o mer Ian Nichol son rec og nized this chal lenge to the SSM, for he stated that if the ob ser va tion of the 2 hr 40min pe riod were cor rect, the “stan dard model could not be cor rect” and that the “cen tral tem per a ture of the Sunwould be less than half the con ven tional value” (Nichol -son, 1982; Davies, 1996, p. 3). Other as tron o mers madesim i lar com ments, writ ing that it was “ev i dent that a verydras tic change in the so lar model would be nec es sary” andthat “it is un likely that any such model can be found”(Christensen-Dalsgaard and Gough, 1976, p. 90)—atleast, not any model that would sup port a 10 bil lion yearmain se quence chro nol ogy for the sun.

The im pli ca tions for evo lu tion of the 2 hr 40 min os cil -la tion led to spec u la tion that per haps this os cil la tion might be a deep seated grav ity wave or “g wave,” dis cussed atmore length be low. In deed, Christensen-Dalsgaard andGough (1976, p. 90) opined that un less this were so, “a

very dras tic change in the so lar model would be nec es saryto en able the 2 h 40 min os cil la tion to be in ter preted as [a]fun da men tal ra dial mode,” yet this was the very claimmade by Severny et al. (1976, p. 89). In a sim i lar vein, Vander Raay (1980, p. 535) noted that “the mea sured pe riod of 160 min utes raised an im me di ate con flict with the stan -dard so lar model since if these were sim ple ra dial os cil la -tions the lon gest pe riod pre dict able was ap prox i mately 60min utes.” The way out of this evo lu tion ary quan dary, Vander Raay em pha sized, would be for “the os cil la tions [to] be in ter preted in terms of more com plex g mode os cil la tions”(Van der Raay, 1980, p. 535). As will be dis cussed be low, g-waves have not been de tected in the sun to date, yet sev eral years later the 2 hr 40 min pe riod con tin ued to be ac cepted as a gen u ine phe nom e non (Grec et al., 1980, p. 544).Even later, Ando (1985, p. 177) ex pressed doubt that the 2hr 40 min os cil la tion could be a g-wave, but rather was a ra -dial wave, as had been orig i nally pro posed by Severny et al. (1976, p. 89).

An other pos si bil ity brought forth to avoid re vis ing theSSM is to ex plain the 2 hr 40 min os cil la tion as a beat fre -quency re sult ing from “p-modes” near the 5 min pe riod.This pos si bil ity, how ever, was shown to be in valid (De -lache and Scherrer, 1983, p. 653). Scherrer and Wilcox(1983, p. 37) de scribed this idea as “in cor rect.” Woodardand Hud son (1983, p. 67) stated that they did “not de tectthe 160-min os cil la tion,” but ac knowl edged that such de -tec tion “might not have been ex pected in [the] data set”they em ployed, mak ing their claim of non-de tec tionmoot.

It was also pointed out that 2 hr 40 min (160 min) isone-ninth of a 24-hr day, and “could there fore ap pear in[the so lar] spec trum as a har monic” (Scherrer and Wilcox, 1983, p. 37). This was ruled out by the im proved ob ser va -tion that the so-called 160-min os cil la tion in fact had a period of 160.0095 ± 0.001 min, mean ing that this os cil la -tion was not a sim ple frac tion of the day and was there forenot a har monic. This con clu sion was later con firmed byHill et al. (1986, p. 560).

It can not be ruled out that the 2 hr 40 min os cil la tionmay not be a per ma nent so lar phe nom e non. In deed, ithas been pro posed that so lar os cil la tions may be re latedto vari able in ter nal core ro ta tions within the sun (Isaak,1982, p. 131). Fur ther more, al though the sun is an “ex -cep tion ally sta ble” star (Seife, 1999, p. 15), it is grad u allybe com ing rec og nized as some what vari able in much ofits be hav ior, a point first made some two de cades ago dueto the evo lu tion ary ques tions raised by the SNP, helio -seismology, and ob ser va tions of so lar shrink age (Frazier,1979, pp. 86–87). How ever, even the tem po rary ex is -tence of such a phe nom e non as the 2 hr 40 min os cil la -tion opens a win dow on the sun which re veals that theSSM is not ac cu rate.


So lar Mix ing May Re veal In ter nalIso tope Abun dances

The ev i dent near-ho mo ge ne ity of the sun has the in ter est -ing im pli ca tion that sur face gas com po si tion would be re -lated to core com po si tion. In the SSM this is held not to be true (Da vis, 1994, p. 24), and all in te rior com po si tionabun dances must be mod elled. In turn, the com po si tionof sur face gases and re lated phe nom ena such as so lar flares and so lar wind is taken to rep re sent the pri mor dial com po -si tion of the so lar neb ula (Bahcall, 1989, p. 174).

If the sun were gen er ally rec og nized as ho mo ge neous,then the sur face com po si tion could be taken as in dic a tiveof in ter nal com po si tion, but of course this is not con ven -tion ally done. In deed, it has not been done since the earlyyears of the twen ti eth cen tury, when Saha de rived a quan -ti ta tive re la tion ship be tween stel lar spec tra and tem per a -ture (1920, 1921), thus some what di vorc ing stel lar spec trafrom in ti ma tions of com po si tion (Ed ding ton 1926, pp. 1–2, 345–346), and evo lu tion ary as tron o mer A.S. Ed ding tonas sumed that stars like the sun un dergo no con vec tivetrans fer from the core to outer lay ers. It is gen er ally as -sumed there fore that in ter nal com po si tion must be mod -elled. But in a to tally ho mo ge neous sun, in ter nal Heabun dance, for in stance, would equal sur face abun dance,and there would be no cen tral de ple tion.

Let us as sume the sun was cre ated with no deu te rium,and based on a so lar neu trino de tec tion ra tio of about 1/2(the de tec tion rate ac knowl edged be fore the SNO re sultswere an nounced), that hy dro gen fu sion to deu te rium issup ply ing half of the sun’s lu mi nos ity ac cord ing to the re -ac tion H + H 6 D + e+ + íe. Let us fur ther as sume that thedeu te rium pro duced is not con sumed. Would the amountof deu te rium thus pro duced at the lower rate over the bib -li cal age of the sun (of the or der of thou sands of years) cor -re spond to the mea sured abun dance of deu te rium in thesun to day?

The sun has a lu mi nos ity of about 4 x 1026 J. The deu te -rium-pro duc ing re ac tion men tioned in the pre vi ous para -graph is thought to re lease 1.44 MeV of en ergy, or 2.3 x 10–

13 J. Ev ery sec ond this re ac tion oc curs 1.7 x 1039 times.Over the age of the sun, say, some 6000 yr or 1.89 x 1011 s,this re ac tion has oc curred 3.3 x 1050 times. Each re ac tionpro duces one atom of deu te rium, so 3.3 x 1050 at oms of Dhave been pro duced, or 1.1 x 1024 kg of D. The mass of thesun is about 2.0 x 1030kg, so the pres ent mass frac tion ofdeu te rium through out the sun would be 5.3 x 10–7, or0.00005 per cent, as sum ing that the sun is ho mo ge neous. A deu te rium mass frac tion of 5 x 10–7 in the sun is equiv a lent to a ho mo ge neous D/H ra tio of 7 x 10–7. For the in ter stel -lar me dium (ISM), the D/H ra tio is in the range 3 x 10–6 to3.9 x 10–5 (Ferlet et al., 2000, p. 3). Thus the D/H ra tio in a ho mo ge neous sun is within an or der of mag ni tude of theob served abun dance of deu te rium in the in ter stel lar me -

dium. For a slightly older sun, say on the or der of 10,000years, the agree ment is im proved with a so lar D/H ra tio of1.2 x 10–6. Fur ther, if the SNO re sults can be taken to im -ply that per haps deu te rium pro duc tion pro duces morethan half the sun’s lu mi nos ity, the agree ment be tween thesun’s sur face deu te rium abun dance and that of the ISMwould be im proved yet again. One must be care ful, how -ever, not to in fer from such a pos si bil ity that SNO has con -firmed the SSM, since the pre sumed re ac tions of the SSMare con tra dicted by helioseismology.

In con trast to these con clu sions, the sun is typ i cally as -sumed to be de pleted in deu te rium at pres ent due to pro -duc tion of He-3, and the pri mor dial D/H ra tio is usu allytaken as 2 x 10–5 (Hub bard, 1984, p. 10; Ouyed et al.,1998, p. 371). This value is loosely in ferred from the D/Hra tio now ex ist ing in the Jovian plan ets on the as sump tionthat plan e tary deu te rium rep re sents the pri mor dial abun -dance in the so lar neb ula (Hub bard, 1984, p. 8). How ever,plan e tary abun dances of deu te rium do not agree well withthe pu ta tive pri mor dial D/H ra tio (Hub bard, 1984, pp.244, 272, 284), and plan e tary D/H ra tios them selves arenot uni form. In a bib li cal creationist frame work, this pu ta -tive ra tio never ex isted, and the per ceived dif fi culty ofsquar ing plan e tary abun dances of deu te rium with that ofthe sun dis ap pears.

Thus the D/H ra tio in the sun af ter some thou sands ofyears of hy dro gen fu sion would be nearly com pa ra ble tothe ob served D/H ra tio in the ISM. In the SSM (and instel lar evo lu tion mod els in gen eral), it is as sumed that deu -te rium is con tin u ously con sumed within the stel lar core to pro duce He-4, and that deu te rium in the ISM and in thein ter ga lac tic me dium (IGM) is pri mor dial ma te rial pro -duced in the Big Bang.

One would there fore ex pect that the D/H ra tio wouldbe more or less uni form through out the cos mos if this were true. That is not at all the case. In stead, the D/H ra tio isfound to vary within the so lar sys tem as men tioned above,but also within gal ax ies, and even within the IGM in waysthat evo lu tion ary mod els can not pre dict. Dis cov er ies ofun ex pected D/H ra tios are of ten de scribed as a “sur prise.”Re gard ing the D/H ra tio in the so lar sys tem (Sat urn), Grif -fin (2000, p. 1) calls it a “big sur prise.” The D/H ra tio out -side the so lar sys tem (in Orion) to Schil ling (1999, p. 1) isalso a “sur prise.” The low D/H ra tio in Orion (50 per centof that pre dicted) may be ex plained by the fact that onlymo lec u lar D and H were de tect able, and un de tectedatomic D and H may make up the de fi ciency. How ever,the evo lu tion ary pre dic tion did not take this pos si bil ityinto ac count, and this pos si bil ity was for mu lated only af terthe orig i nal evo lu tion ary pre dic tion had failed.

If the sun were ho mo ge neous, and had gen er ated deu -te rium since cre ation via hy dro gen fu sion, the deu te riumwould even tu ally mix with sur face gases, some of whichwould leave the star to form the ISM. The re sem blance be -


tween the sun’s D/H ra tio, and that of the ISM, wouldseem to im ply that this may be the case. Other stars in thegal axy would sim i larly con trib ute to the IGM.

Let us con sider the D/H ra tio in the ISM from acreationist per spec tive. We can not go back to ob serve theorig i nal sin less state of the uni verse, but we have the bib li -cal re cord to guide us in vi su al iz ing that con di tion. Gen e -sis 1:14–18 states that the stars were cre ated to be timetell ers, which would re quire that they be eas ily vis i ble.Fur ther more, Gen e sis 1:31 tells us that the sin less cre ation was very good, mean ing among other things, that the or -dained pur poses of each part of the cre ation were ful filledwith out ob struc tion or dim i nu tion. A pos si ble con clu sionis that there may have been orig i nally lit tle or no ISM orIGM to re sult in the ex tinc tion of star light trav el ling toearth.

This last state ment is but tressed by the fact that the ISMis now be lieved to have come pri mar ily from the starsthem selves, which means that when the uni verse was ex -tremely young, there would have been lit tle ac cu mu la tionof ISM. Fix (1999, pp. 505–513) pres ents an over view ofthe ISM which con firms this anal y sis. He es ti mates that 20per cent of the Milky Way is ISM (Fix, 1999, p. 505), pres -ents the typ i cal sce nario of stars evolv ing in cer tain in ter -stel lar gas struc tures, but then also de scribes the for ma tionof in ter stel lar dust grains from ma te rial flow ing into spacefrom stars. The ac knowl edg ment that dust grains orig i natefrom stel lar ma te rial is a change from what was be lievedamong evo lu tion ists in the past. Dust grains in the pastwere as sumed to be formed di rectly from pri mor dial ma te -rial. How ever, the im prob a bil ity of gen er at ing dust grainsin this man ner was even tu ally rec og nized. Slusher (1980,pp. 17–19) pres ents a sum mary of the prob lems as so ci atedwith the al leged for ma tion of pri mor dial ISM.

Cou pled with this as sess ment is the fact that plan e taryand stel lar ca tas tro phes are known to gen er ate dust and de -bris. In the so lar sys tem, col li sions be tween plan e tary ringde bris, or be tween as ter oids, are com monly ac knowl edged to form dust (though of course dif fer ent in com po si tionfrom the ISM). Like wise, it is com monly ac knowl edgedthat un sta ble stars of var i ous sorts add ma te rial to the ISMand to the IGM. Fur ther more, all stars pro duce a stel larwind which adds to the ISM/IGM. These known facts arein di rect con trast to the evo lu tion ary be lief that the ISM/IGM is some how pri mor dial and is the source from whichall the struc ture of the uni verse arose.

Stud ies of pres ent-day pro cesses such as deu te rium frac -tion ation in in ter stel lar dust grains will ul ti mately shed nolight on the or i gins of the uni verse, be cause the ISM andthe IGM do not have to do with the or i gin of the uni verse.They have to do with stel lar de cay. Fur ther more, it can beex pected that mis sions such as the Ad vanced Com po si tion Ex plorer (ACE) which are mea sur ing so lar wind com po si -tion will con tinue to re veal more ques tions than an swers,

as long as the so lar wind is be lieved to rep re sent pri mor dial com po si tion.

Mod ern Helioseismic Data Con firm aDe gree of So lar Ho mo ge ne ity

How has evo lu tion ary phi los o phy dealt with the im pli ca -tions of the 2 hr 40 min os cil la tion? The os cil la tion is ac -knowl edged to ex ist, but the im pli ca tions are ig nored, andthe SSM con tin ues to be taught and ap plied as if it were re -al ity. As tron o mer John D. Fix (1999, p. 396) pres ents a typ -i cal treat ment. Fix does not deny that the 2 hr 40 minos cil la tion ex ists. In deed, a di a gram is used to show that“long wave length os cil la tions probe the deep in te rior ofthe Sun” (Fix, 1999, p. 396). Fix does not mis rep re sentthat very low fre quency os cil la tion in any way con firms the SSM. He is merely si lent on the mat ter.

Yet Keith Davies points out that new ev i dence con tin -ues to in di cate that the sun is at least some what ho mo ge -neous. One such find ing is that “the tem per a ture at thecen ter of the Sun seems to be vary ing over a pe riod of sev -eral months. This is ex tremely hard to un der stand if theSun has a huge cen tral core with a re sult ing enor mousheat ca pac ity. How ever, such rapid tem per a ture changesare ex pli ca ble if the Sun is young and ho mo ge neous”(Davies, 1996, p. 2; Chown, 1995, p. 16). Such tem per a -ture vari a tion may also be re lated to the os cil la tory neu -trino flux found by ex per i ments such as GALLEX.

In to tal con trast to the as ser tions of Keith Davies, it iscom monly stated that helioseismology ac tu ally sup portsthe SSM. A typ i cal state ment is the fol low ing: “In re centyears acous tic os cil la tions of the sun’s sur face have beenused to in ves ti gate its in ter nal struc ture; the fre quen cies ofthe os cil la tions cal cu lated from the stan dard model agreewith the thou sands of ob served val ues to better than 1 per -cent” (Bahcall, 1990, p. 56). How can two such op po sitepo si tions be true si mul ta neously? Of course, they can not.In deed, there is a type of cir cu lar rea son ing in volved in an -a lyz ing helioseismological re sults to bring about a fit withthe SSM: “The o rists turn to cur rent mod els of the sun todif fer en ti ate and an a lyze the var i ous acous tic modes; themodes, in turn, help to re fine the stan dard model of thesun” (Bartusiak, 1990, p. 25). Such model-fit ting is basedul ti mately on the as sump tion of high opac ity for the ra di a -tive re gion of the sun. But the as sump tion of high opac ity is ul ti mately based on the as sump tion that the sun can not beyoun ger than the evo lu tion ary age of the earth. The highopac ity has never been ob ser va tion ally ver i fied, only mod -elled.

Nev er the less, with the as sump tion of high opac ity andthe cor re spond ing low rate of ther mal en ergy trans mis sion, one can as sume that so lar modes trans fer en ergy adi a bat i -cally through out most of the ra dius, there fore re sult ing in


lit tle or no mix ing, and in turn pre serv ing the con ven tional pic ture of the sun with its high ther mal gra di ent and seg re -gated core. Along this line of thought, Bartusiak (1990, p.29) has noted, “Es ti mat ing the sun’s opac ity... af fects howmodal fre quen cies are cal cu lated from the Dopp ler in for -ma tion.” Thus, the com puted fre quen cies are model-de -pend ent.

In a sim i lar vein, Christensen-Dalsgaard et al. (1996, p.1288) state, “In al most the en tire so lar in te rior, the ther mal time scale is so long, com pared with the pe ri ods of os cil la -tion, that the os cil la tions can be re garded as adi a batic.”They then write:

The adi a batic ap prox i ma tion breaks down nearthe sur face. Here the full en ergy equa tion for the os -cil la tions must be con sid ered, in clud ing the per tur -ba tion in the ra di a tive flux and the highly un cer tainper tur ba tion in the con vec tive flux. [One sus pectsthat these con di tions ought to be as sumed for thedeeper in te rior as well.]... [Be low the sur face lay ers] we con sider only the adi a batic os cil la tions and generally treat con vec tion ac cord ing to the sim plemix ing-length pre scrip tion, ne glect ing ef fects of tur -bu lent pres sure [i.e., large-scale mix ing is ruled out]; it is then straight for ward to com pute nu mer i callypre cise fre quen cies for a given so lar model (Christ -ensen-Dals gaard et al., 1996, p. 1288).

Con cern ing the as sump tion of adi a batic be hav ior,Gough et al. (1996b, p. 1299) state, “Ex cept in the sur facelay ers of the sun, the char ac ter is tic cool ing time is muchlon ger than the pe ri ods of the seis mic waves, so the wavemo tion is es sen tially adi a batic.” But the con di tion of longcool ing time, or long ther mal time-scale, is only an as -sump tion based on the prior as sump tion of high opac ity.

How ever, mod i fi ca tions of the SSM to fit helio seis -mological modes do not fit other so lar char ac ter is tics.Douglas Gough and col leagues have writ ten,

Im me di ately be neath the con vec tion zone and atthe edge of the en ergy-gen er at ing core, the sound-speed vari a tion is some what smoother in the sunthan it is in the model. This could be a con se quenceof chem i cal in homo geneity that is too se vere in themodel... or to ne glected mac ro scopic mo tion thatmay be pres ent in the sun (Gough et al., 1996b, p.1296).

In other words, there is a de gree of mix ing in the so larin te rior, as dis cussed above, but which the SSM has typ i -cally ig nored.

Gough et al. have pro posed that core mix ing with outerso lar lay ers may in fact con sti tute a res o lu tion to the SNP:

The dis crep ancy in the en ergy-gen er at ing coremight also be a symp tom of mac ro scopic mo tion,which trans ports the prod ucts of the nu clear re ac -tions from their sites of pro duc tion. That wouldmod ify the neu trino emis sion rates and thereby

change the sta tus of the so lar neu trino prob lem...(Gough et al., 1996b, p. 1299).

Other re search ers have also rec og nized the prob a bil ityof core mix ing with outer so lar lay ers. Newkirk (1983, p.431–432) has dis cussed sev eral mod els which would al le -vi ate the SNP by mix ing time scales of the or der of 105

years or more. From a bib li cal creationist per spec tive,how ever, lengthy time scales do not ex ist, and it is sig nif i -cant that both Homestake and GALLEX neu trino re -search ers have pro posed in ter nal so lar mix ing over shortertime scales as a way of ex plain ing the de fi ciency of bothhigh en ergy neu tri nos (Homestake) and low en ergy neu tri -nos (GALLEX) (Da vis, 1994, p. 30; Kirsten, 1994, p. 34). It re mains to be seen whether this pos si bil ity will con tinue to be con sid ered, with the SNO re sults hav ing re port edlycon firmed the SSM. To ig nore this pos si bil ity, how ever,would be to ig nore the di ver gence be tween the SSM andhelioseismology.

Other data con firm that a rel a tively high de gree of mix -ing may be oc cur ring in the sun. The high an gu lar mo -men tum of the plan ets com pared to the sun has been along-stand ing prob lem for evo lu tion ary mod els of so lar sys -tem or i gins. It has be come ac cepted that the sun, which al -leg edly pos sessed high an gu lar mo men tum ac quired fromthe so lar neb ula, has un der gone a pro cess of an gu lar mo -men tum trans fer to the plan ets me di ated by the so lar mag -netic field. This model of the sun’s rel a tively low an gu larmo men tum leads to the ex pec ta tion that the sun wouldnow have a rel a tively small in ter nal ro ta tion. Over 4.5 billion years “it is there fore be lieved that the sun has beenlos ing an gu lar mo men tum over its life time through itsmag ne tized wind, thereby spin ning down its outer con vec -tion zone and prob a bly the bulk of its in te rior” (Thomp son et al., 1996, p. 1300).

Con trary to this ex pec ta tion, helioseismic ob ser va tionsim ply the ex is tence of a rel a tively high spin rate in the so lar in te rior (Claverie, et al. 1981, p. 443; Isaak, 1982, p. 130).Such a con clu sion im poses con straints on the al leged 4.5bil lion year age of the sun, since ev i dently the sun has nothad so much time to spin down. But more to the point, therel a tively high in ter nal spin rate im plies sig nif i cant in ter -nal shear and mix ing, two con di tions con sis tent with a de -gree of ho mo ge ne ity. Al though in a bib li cal creationistmodel spin down over 4.5 bil lion years has not oc curred,there is nev er the less “rap idly ro tat ing plasma deeper in the con vec tion zone” than pre vi ously be lieved (Thomp son etal., 1996, p. 1301).

In ter pret ing such plasma mo tion as an arte fact of spindown, GONG (Global Os cil la tion Net work Group) re -search ers have ac knowl edged that, “The spin down to thepres ent state... may have in volved ma te rial mo tion or in sta -bil i ties, lead ing to mix ing in the so lar in te rior and thus af -fect ing the struc ture of the pres ent sun...” (Christensen-Dalsgaard et al., 1996, p. 1287). The ro ta tion rate of the


core is not cer tain at this time (Thomp son et al., 1996, p.1301). How ever, it is thought that per haps the core ro ta -tion rate may be “con sid er ably faster than that of the so larsur face” (Thomp son et al., 1996, p. 1304), a con clu sionecho ing the ear lier claim of Claverie et al. (1981, p. 443)that the core ro ta tion is “2–9 times [faster] than the ob -served sur face ro ta tion,” a point which fur ther in di cates so -lar ho mo ge ne ity.

There are other im pli ca tions of the ap par ent ho mo ge -ne ity of the sun. If the sun is nearly ho mo ge neous, then ahighly seg re gated, dense core as pre dicted in the SSMwould not ex ist. Os cil la tions of the sun which are de tect -able from Dopp ler shift ing at the sur face are called “p-modes.” If the sun’s core were dense, it should sup port theex is tence of grav ity waves or “g-modes” (Bartusiak, 1990, p. 26). How ever, “no in ter nal grav ity wave has yet been un -am big u ously seen” (Gough et al., 1996a, p. 1201). The ab -sence of g waves seems to im ply that the so lar core may notbe as dense as typ i cally ex pected. GONG sci en tistChristensen-Dalsgaard has in di cated his hope that g waves will be de tected, be cause “they would re ally al low us tonail down the con di tions in the core” (Hellemans, 1996, p. 1265). He ap par ently ex pects that the de tec tion of g waveswould ver ify the ex is tence of the dense core as sumed in the SSM, a ver i fi ca tion which has not yet hap pened.

Helioseismology has not con firmed the SSM, but has re -vealed fur ther dis crep an cies be tween the SSM and re al ity.The SSM has been mod i fied to en large the con vec tionzone to some 30 per cent of the so lar ra dius, com pared withthe 20 to 25 per cent it was as sumed to oc cupy be fore the ad -vent of helioseismology (Bartusiak, 1990, p. 28;Christensen-Dalsgaard et al., 1996, p. 1287). Nev er the less,the SSM most likely can not be made to fit the helioseismicdis cov er ies dis cussed above while si mul ta neously sat is fy ingthe SNP. Christensen-Dalsgaard et al. (1996, p. 1290) state,“No so lu tion of the neu trino prob lem can be found by mod -i fy ing the com pu ta tion of so lar mod els while at the sametime pre serv ing agree ment with the helioseismic data...”

Of course, if the re stric tive and un re al is tic as sump tionsof the SSM were dropped, and a re al is tic so lar model de -vel oped, con sis tency would ap pear among so lar prop er -ties, so lar neu trino data, and helioseismic data. How ever,aban don ing the SSM would mean aban don ing the evo lu -tion ary chro nol ogy for the sun. Rather than tak ing thatroute, Christensen-Dalsgaard et al. (1996, p. 1290) opinethat the lack of agree ment be tween the SSM and real datastrength ens “the case for a so lu tion in volv ing the prop er -ties of the neu tri nos.” Neu tri nos have typ i cally been as -sumed to be mass less, but if the neu trino mass were notzero, it is felt that the SNP might be re solved if it could beshown that such neu tri nos might trans form or “os cil late”into other forms in a phe nom e non known as theMikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein (MSW) ef fect. The sun

pro duces “elec tron neu tri nos” (íe), but there also arethought to ex ist mu neu tri nos íì and tau neu tri nos íô.

Ac cord ing to the neu trino os cil la tion the ory, íe gen er -ated in the sun might “os cil late” be fore ar riv ing at earth,be com ing vir tu ally un de tect able íì or íô, and thus ex plain -ing the so lar neu trino short age (Bahcall, 1989, pp. 28–32,258–284). It is be lieved that mass less neu tri nos could notex pe ri ence such a trans for ma tion, how ever, thus neu tri nos must have a non-zero mass for the MSW ef fect to ex plainthe SNP. Be fore the an nounce ment of the SNO re sults,this idea had not been con firmed (Antia, 1998, p. 155;Normille, 1999, p. 1910), but the SNO re sults re port edlycon firmed the MSW ef fect (Seife, 2001, p. 2227). Theirony since the an nounce ment of the SNO re sults is thatthe dis crep an cies be tween the SSM and helioseismologyare still un ex plained. The im pli ca tion of these dis crep an -cies is that rather than us ing the SNO re sults as a win dowto see what is re ally hap pen ing in the sun, the MSW ef fecthas served more as a ve hi cle for “sav ing” the SSM in par tic -u lar and evo lu tion ary chro nol ogy in gen eral.

Con clu sion

Re cent ex per i ments in helioseismology such as GONGand SOHO have not re solved the dis crep an cies be tweenthe SSM and the im pli ca tions of helioseismology con -cern ing the in ter nal struc ture of the sun. The helioseismicim pli ca tions of re ports pub lished in the 1970s re main es -sen tially true to day, namely, that the sun is some what ho -mo ge neous with a rel a tively low core den sity. Suchcon di tions limit the max i mum core tem per a ture for thesun, im ply a rel a tively low opac ity, and are con sis tent withthe im pli ca tion of the SNP as un der stood be fore the pub li -ciz ing of the SNO re sults, namely, that hy dro gen fu sioninto deu te rium is oc cur ring at a tem per a ture of some 1mil lion K or less in the core.

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Notes from the Panorama of Science

Natural History or Natural Science?John K. Reed*

We have heard that knowl edge is power and that he whocon trols the past owns the fu ture. Two of the three 20th

cen tury at tempts to re write his tory in the pur suit of powerfailed; the jury is still out on the other. Na zis and com mu -nists both briefly flour ished, but ul ti mately failed to hi jackhis tory from its Chris tian foun da tion. Like Chris tian ity,both rec og nized in his tory an ir re sist ible force mov ing to auto pian fu ture, but their ma te rial fu ture re quired kill ingmil lions. Those two scourges have with ered, but a sub tlersec u lar ism con tin ues, sur round ing us in ed u ca tion, en ter -tain ment, the arts, and science. Especially science.

The com mon bond of the three sec u lar his to ries is a de -nial of both God’s act ing and re veal ing. How ever, all threere tained the Chris tian sense of his tory’s im por tance andthe mis sion con scious ness de rived from it. A ro bust senseof his tory is a mark edly Chris tian en deavor (Glover, 1984), but in most other re gards, sec u lar his tory is mark edly anti-Chris tian; most clearly so in the arena of nat u ral his tory. In one cor ner is the tag team of Lyell and Dar win. In theother, the Word and the Spirit.

Sec u lar ism’s weak link in nat u ral his tory is an in ter nalcon flict be tween its path to knowl edge, pos i tiv ism, and itshistoriographic tenet of uniformitarianism (Reed, 2001).Pos i tiv ism is the view that “sci ence” en com passes allknowl edge re ally worth hav ing, at the ex pense of the ol ogy,phi los o phy, and his tory. Thus, nat u ral his tory is by def i ni -tion a sub set of sci ence. Uniformitarianism is the means ofex trap o lat ing mod ern ob ser va tion into the re mote past.The di lemma is ob served by not ing that any flex i bil ity inuniformitarianism in creases un cer tainty in nat u ral his tory, but ob ser va tion de mands such flex i bil ity. By sac ri fic ingthe ol ogy for sci ence, sec u lar ism fails to jus tify 1) the im -por tance of his tory, 2) its philo soph i cal foun da tions, and3) an ac cu rate re cord of many im por tant events. There -fore, creationists need to maintain a strong distinctionbetween science and history to avoid similar errors.

The bib li cal ap proach to his tory is quite dif fer ent fromthe sec u lar. Be liev ing his tory to be just an other vari ant ofsci ence, sec u lar schol ars per pet u ate an epis te mol ogy thatis anti-Chris tian in its el e va tion of sci ence above rev e la -tion. This in turn leads to un war ranted con fi dence in theirin ter pre ta tions of sin gu lar past events. Iron i cally, it alsoleads to con fu sion in try ing to think about theo log i cal andphilo soph i cal is sues af ter hav ing de nied the va lid ity ofthought in those do mains. This fi nal point is well il lus -

*John K. Reed, Ph.D., 915 Hunt ing Horn Way, Ev ans, GA 30809

trated by a re cent pa per (Cleland, 2001) that gamelyattempts to justify “historical science.”

Cleland (2001) sets out to ex plain “why his tor i cal sci -ence is not in fe rior to ex per i men tal sci ence when it co mesto test ing hy poth e ses.” (p. 987). She writes in op po si tion toa state ment by Henry McGee, ed i tor of Na ture, who stated that hy poth e ses per tain ing to the re mote past “… cannever be tested by ex per i ment, and so they are un sci en -tific…” (McGee, 1999, cited in Cleland, 2001). Her con -cern is ex ac er bated by “The star tling num ber of phys i cistsand chem ists who at tack the sci en tific sta tus of neo-Dar -win ian evo lu tion…” (p. 987). Since in her mind there can -not be any thing wrong with neo-Dar win ism, then all thephys i cists and chem ists need ed u cat ing (or is it re-ed u cat -ing?) to see that nat u ral his tory is the same science thatthey have embraced in their laboratories.

I share Cleland’s in ter est in de fin ing the proper homeof nat u ral his tory, but be lieve that she has be come lostalong the way. Our mu tual in ter est can be seen in twoques tions: • can sci ence pro vide knowl edge of the past? and• if so, how?

I agree with Cleland that the an swer to the first ques tion is “yes”, but rad i cally dis agree on her an swer to the sec ond. Be fore ex plain ing how I be lieve creationists should an swer the sec ond ques tion, I will re cap Cleland’s an swer, cri -tique her ap proach, and then dis cuss some im pli ca tionsfor creationism.

Justifying Historical Science: A Positivist Approach

Cleland up holds the posi tiv ist view that knowl edge of pastevents is “sci ence” of the same epistemic qual ity as ex per i -men tal sci ence. The two are only dis tinct in meth od ol ogy.She re lies upon two ar gu ments to sup port her case: (1) ex -per i men tal sci ence re ally does not test hy poth e ses as ad ver -tised (low er ing the bar for “his tor i cal sci ence”), and (2) the na ture of time forces a change in the method of hy poth e sistest ing be tween ex per i men tal and his tor i cal sci ence,without changing their epistemic value.

Cleland be gins by de scrib ing the two mod ern sci en tificap proaches to hy poth e sis test ing, Baconian inductionismand falsificationism (com monly as so ci ated with Karl Pop -per). The for mer al lows for the ac cu mu la tion of pos i tiveev i dence suf fi cient to prove a hy poth e sis, and the lat ter,rec og niz ing that no amount of fi nite ev i dence can prove auni ver sal gen er al iza tion, re lies in stead on at tempt ing todis prove a hy poth e sis by sub ject ing it to dif fi cult tests. The


lon ger it avoids be ing disproven, the more con fi dence itgen er ates. Cleland points out two flaws in falsificationism:(1) the pres ence of an in de ter mi nate num ber of aux il iarycon di tions so af fect any at tempts at fal si fi ca tion that one isleft with no meaningful conclusion, and (2) scientistsreally do not work this way.

The dif fer ence in method be tween ex per i men tal andhis tor i cal sci ence is at trib uted to “the asym me try of over -determination” (p. 989).

Lo cal ized events tend to be caus ally con nected intime in an asym met ric man ner. As an ex am ple, theerup tion of a vol cano has many dif fer ent ef fects…but only a small frac tion of this ma te rial is re quiredin or der to in fer that it oc curred… Run ning things in the other di rec tion of time, how ever, pro duces strik -ingly dif fer ent re sults. Pre dict ing the oc cur rence ofan erup tion is much more dif fi cult than in fer ringthat one has already occurred. (p. 989).

Un der that con straint, the “sci ence” of test ing his tor i calhy poth e ses is en dued with a wealth of data, or clues to thecauses of his tor i cal events and sci en tists sim ply sift through it all look ing for a “smok ing gun” that will ad vance one hy -poth e sis over an other. Cit ing the im pact hy poth e sis of di -no saur ex tinc tion and plate tec ton ics, she ad vo cates afo ren sic model of nat u ral his tory with geo-de tec tivessearching eagerly for clues.

Christian Critique of “Historical Science”

The key to ex am in ing dif fer ences be tween Cleland’s(2001) ap proach to nat u ral his tory and its Chris tian al ter -na tive is found in their un der ly ing the o ries of knowl edge.Chris tians con strain all knowl edge within the bounds ofrev e la tion; nat u ral ists deny its con tent, au thor ity, and epis -te mol ogy. Re sid ual sim i lar i ties be tween Chris tian and nat -u ral ist ap proaches to sci ence re main as a re sult ofnat u ral ists’ co vert use of as sump tions jus ti fied by Chris tian the ol ogy. Un cov er ing this presuppositional pil fer ingdemonstrates formal errors in Naturalism (Reed, 2001). A con se quence of these dif fer ences is the mud dle that re -sults when Chris tians buy into the epis te mol ogy of nat u ral -ists. At best, it re sults in lip ser vice to rev e la tion and anexegetical style driven by “sci ence.” The sub or di na tion ofrev e la tion to sci ence (e.g., Hugh Ross) warps Chris tianthe ol ogy and ul ti mately de stroys the pos si bil ity for es tab -lish ing a Chris tian ba sis for truth in any thing. Iron i cally, aca pit u la tion to pos i tiv ism is de struc tive of sci ence: if therecan be no truth, then there can be no truth in sci ence, ei -ther. Cleland (2001) ig nores the epistemological con flict(as do most nat u ral ists), but can not escape the conse -quences of her choice of ultimate truth.

One con se quence is the loss of sharp dis tinc tions be -tween var i ous forms of knowl edge. This fun da men tal er ror bred into positivistic ap proaches is ev i dent in Cleland’s ef -

forts to force the square peg of sci ence into the round holeof his tory. Her task would be much eas ier if she only hadmore con fi dence in her own pro fes sion of phi los o phy.Adler (1965) not only pro vided a clear dis tinc tion be tweensci ence, his tory, phi los o phy, and math e mat ics, but henoted that the ba sis for this clas si fi ca tion was philo soph i -cal, not sci en tific. Or der ing both his tory and sci ence asem pir i cal, he made the cru cial dis tinc tion be tween thetwo by not ing that sci ence pur sues gen eral rules by use ofspe cial ex pe ri ence (i.e., con trolled observation), whilehistory investigates specific past events.

Cleland misses Adler’s dis tinc tions com pletely. She at -tempts to tie ex per i men tal sci ence and nat u ral his tory together by as sert ing that ex per i men tal sci ence pre dictspres ent events. This term is im por tant, be cause she uses itto min i mize the dis tinc tion be tween the meth ods of sci -ence and his tory. In her as ser tion, she skips an im por tantlog i cal step—that of ex trap o lat ing from gen eral rules developed from re peated, con trolled ob ser va tion to a par -tic u lar “event” pre dic tion. For ex am ple, she states that ex -per i men tal sci ence de ter mines that “all cop per ex pandswhen heated” (p. 987), and states that this is a pre dic tion of a pres ent event, not a gen eral rule from which the pre dic -tion rises. In con fus ing the two steps, she im plies a pre dic -tive abil ity greater than war ranted. Her im pre ci sion at thispoint al lows her to later de fend “his tor i cal sci ence” as pre -dict ing spe cific “events” when the pre dic tion in the past isthat of fo ren sic deduction and that of the present is extra -polation of effect when the causes are known.

Out side of the lab o ra tory, pre dic tion of spe cific eventsis of ten sty mied by un cer tainty, even in the pres ent. For ex -am ple, me te o rol ogy ap plies sci en tific re search (de rivedrules) to spe cific pre dic tions of events ev ery day, and ev eryday we see a va ri ety of un con trol la ble un cer tain ties dashtheir pre dic tions. Pre dic tion of fu ture events by ex per i -men tal sci ence is al ways an ex trap o la tion of gen eral rulesun der an as sumed set of con di tions that may or may noten com pass re al ity. In other words, any pre dic tions are con -tin gent upon the chain of cause and ef fect con tain ing allthe “links” in the proper se quence. The less is knownabout the chain in gen eral, the more uncertain the pre -diction of a particular sequence will be.

What about “his tor i cal sci ence”? Does Cleland’s“asym me try of overdetermination” al low sci en tific cer -tainty in his tor i cal pre dic tion? Once the im pres sive vo cab -u lary is peeled away, what she is es sen tially say ing is that itis eas ier to see the past than the fu ture be cause events haveal ready oc curred and left their mark on this world. Sheseems to have erected a straw man to force the com par i sonand her de ter mi na tion that there are more clues aboutwhat hap pened in the past than will hap pen in the fu tureshould elicit the response of “so what?”

Her prob lem lies in the lim its of sci en tific pre dic tion tospe cific, well-de fined cir cum stances. Both past and fu ture


are re plete with com pli cat ing fac tors. The real ques tion iswhether or not nat u ral his tory is open to purely sci en tificin ves ti ga tion in the first place, and Cleland does not an -swer that ques tion; she merely assumes that it is true.

Chris tians should rec og nize the dif fi cul ties ris ing froma past that is more than sim ply the ster ile in ter play of phys i -cal laws. It in cludes the vo li tional ac tions of both God andman, re sult ing in a tan gle far greater than Cleland’s purelyphys i cal “aux il iary con di tions.” Vo li tion is by def i ni tionun pre dict able, re gard less of the time con tin uum. Nat u ral -ists re act to the in tro duc tion of vo li tion by clos ing theireyes to it; Chris tians man age the re sult ing un cer taintythough the use of rev e la tion. Ab sent rev e la tion, any history is unreliable, both in content and structure.

Al though nat u ral ists deny rev e la tion, their re jec tion ofGod does not re move His in flu ence over the events of his -tory. They are left co vertly re tain ing the Chris tian as sump -tions that pro vide struc ture and method to his tory, whilestill try ing to stamp out any di vine in ter ven tion. Their dilemma can be il lus trated by their de pend ence on uni -formitarianism. They can not jus tify uniformitarianismwith out ref er ence to Chris tian the ol ogy (Reed, 1999), butthey have no history without it.

The as sump tion of pos i tiv ism leads to yet an other er rorin Cleland’s de fense of his tor i cal sci ence. Re fus ing to ad -mit the ol ogy or phi los o phy onto the play ing field, she de -fines the struc tural re la tion ship be tween his tor i cal sci enceand ex per i men tal sci ence sci en tif i cally, by of fer ing a phys i -cal ex pla na tion for the asym me try of overdetermination.She states: “The phys i cal source of the asym me try of cau -sa tion is con tro ver sial” (p. 989). But how does she knowthe source is phys i cal? Ex pla na tions of cau sa tion are philo -soph i cal or theo log i cal, not sci en tific. Her com mit ment to nat u ral ism is re quires a phys i cal source for any non-ma te -rial conceptual construct. Cleland begins to founder atthis point in her explanation.

It has been var i ously ex plained in terms of the sec -ond law of ther mo dy nam ics (sta tis ti cally in ter -preted), the ra di a tive asym me try—wave phe nom ena (e.g., wa ter, light) di verge into the fu ture from theirsources—and the ini tial con di tions of the universe(p. 989).

Al though it might sound more so phis ti cated, a lit tlethought shows that Cleland is squarely back to earth, air,fire, and wa ter. Ma te ri al ism can not ex plain im ma te rialreality.

Cleland also does not ap pear to grasp the rel a tive role of data and con cep tual mod els. All sce nar ios de vised in theprac tice of nat u ral his tory in clude both data and a frame -work that is not sci en tif i cally de fined. For ex am ple, Cle -land cites ex tinc tion events and plate tec ton ics with outcom ment on the com plex in ter ac tions be tween con structand data. Both are more than data-tested hy poth e ses, in -clud ing un sci en tific pre sup po si tions. Some times the pre -

sup po si tions drive the model against the data. Clelandshould con sider, for ex am ple, that evo lu tion ists and crea -tion ists can eval u ate the same data and pro pose wildly vari -ant hy poth e ses of ex tinc tion events. It is not the data thatdif fer, but clearly pre con ceived no tions of what the datashould re veal are at work on both sides. And even withinthe nat u ral ist camp, she misses the data-rich op po si tioncogently offered to both plate tectonics and the Alvarezextinction model.

How Should Science and History Cooperate inCreationism?

So we re turn to the cru cial ques tions,• can sci ence pro vide knowl edge of the past? and • if so, how?

The an swer to the first is “yes,” and the an swer to thesec ond is much more com plex. I would sug gest sev eralprop o si tions that would form a part of that answer:• Ac knowl edge ment of Chris tian worldview is es sen tial in

de fin ing a frame work within which both sci ence and his -tory ex ist and can cooperate.

• His tory and sci ence are dis tinct ar eas of in quiry; eachwith their own spe cial meth ods and ques tions (Adler,1965);

• Nat u ral his tory is a sub set of his tory, not sci ence (Reed,2001);

• In ves ti ga tions in nat u ral his tory are “mixed ques tions”(Adler, 1965)—ques tions about which dif fer ent dis ci -plines can all con trib ute. The rel a tive roles of the dif fer -ent dis ci plines must be gov erned by a method con ge nialto the Christian worldview.

• Thus, cer tainty in his tory de pends on rev e la tion, both for some of the es sen tial facts of his tory (i.e., cre ation, fall,flood, etc.) as well as for the frame work within which sci -ence can be ap plied to ad duce de tails not pro vided byrevelation.

• Out side of rev e la tion, cer tainty in nat u ral his tory re -mains more ten ta tive than that within ex per i men tal sci -ence. Fo ren sic in ves ti ga tion is ap pro pri ate, but the scope and lim its of those in ves ti ga tions must be identified andhonored. Creationists are pro foundly in ter ested in nat u ral his -

tory, evo lu tion and uniformitarianism be ing the ma jorpoints of dis agree ment with nat u ral ists. We can agree withCleland that sci ence has a place in nat u ral his tory, wemust dif fer in how it is ap plied. Sci ence can be one of sev -eral modes of gain ing his tor i cal knowl edge, but not theonly one, or even the pri mary one. One out come of acreationist ap proach to nat u ral his tory should be the rec og -ni tion that prop o si tions ab sent the spe cific sup port ofScrip ture pos sess greater un cer tainty than those groundedin rev e la tion. Fea si ble ex pla na tions of what might havehap pened, given a spe cific set of cir cum stances, is the goal


of the nat u ral his to rian; the un due con fi dence of the posi -tiv ist must be abandoned, no matter how attractive it maybe.

References

Adler, M.J. 1965. The con di tions of phi los o phy. AtheneumPress. New York.

Cleland, C.E. 2001. His tor i cal sci ence, ex per i men tal sci -ence, and the sci en tific method. Ge ol ogy 29(11):987–990.

Glover, Wil lis. 1984. Bib li cal or i gins of mod ern sec u lar cul -ture. Mer cer Uni ver sity Press. Macon, GA.

Reed, J.K. 2001. His to ri og ra phy and nat u ral his tory, inNat u ral His tory in the Chris tian Worldview. Cre ationRe search So ci ety Books, St. Jo seph, Missouri.

The Possible Origin of Fossil Wood and Pollen in the Aguja and Javelina Formations, BigBend National Park, TexasGeorge F. Howe, Emmett L. Wil liams, Carl R. Froede, Jr. *

The Aguja and Javalina Rock Formations

Sec tions of the Cre ta ceous Aguja and the Javelina for ma -tions we stud ied were within the Big Bend Na tional Park,near Study Butte, Texas (Fig ure 1). The for ma tions we ex -am ined con tained abun dant quan ti ties of fos sil ized woodin de pos its of ben ton ite. We pre vi ously dis cussed the stra -tig ra phy of these for ma tions and their pos si ble modes of or -i gin in a Flood geo log i cal con text (Wil liams and Howe,1993; see also Froede, 1994).

Over a pe riod of about five years sev eral re ports werepro duced deal ing with the anat omy and chem is try of thefos sil wood spec i mens and the min er al ogy of the ben ton ite clay de pos its. We re view our work and three ar ti cles by oth -ers, two on fos sil wood and one on fos sil pol len in the BigBend. We will com pare their data and con clu sions withour own.

Gymnosperm Fossil Wood in the Javelina and AgujaFormations

We col lected three forms of fos sil ized wood in the Dawson Creek area of Big Bend: charcoalified wood, si lici fiedwood, and opalized or agatized wood (Wil liams andHowe, 1993). Charcoalified wood is also known as fusain,while si lici fied wood is some times re ferred to as per min -eralized wood or sim ply pet ri fied wood. We found and collected sam ples of charcoalified wood in the Aguja for -ma tion but lo cated no charcoalified wood in the Javelinaat the re gion where we worked (Fig ures 4 and 7, Wil liamset al., 1998).

*George F. Howe, 24635 Ap ple St., Newhall, CA 91321-2614

Emmett L. Wil liams, P.O. Box 2006, Alpharetta, GA30023-2006

Carl R. Froede, Jr., 2895 Em er son Lake Dr. Snellville,GA 30078-6644

We found si lici fied wood in both the Aguja andJavelina For ma tions (Fig ure 1, Wil liams 1993; Fig ures 5,6, 11, and 12, Wil liams et al., 1993; Fig ures 8 and 9, Wil -liams et al., 1995; Fig ure 9, Wil liams et al., 1998). Ouropalized wood sam ples came from the Aguja (Fig ures 8and 9, Wil liams et al., 1993). See also Fig ures 2–5 of thisreport.

Light mi cro scope pho to graphs were taken of thin sec -tions made from one si lici fied wood spec i men and twocoalified sam ples. Scan ning elec tron pho to mi cro graphswere taken of two si lici fied wood sam ples and onecharcoalified sam ple (see Fig ures 3 and 4 as well as Wil -liams et al., 1995).

Chemical Analysis and Trace Fossils

We car ried out chem i cal anal y sis on charcoalified and si -lici fied wood sam ples (Wil liams et al., 1993; Wil liams etal., 1995). The min eral con tent of three dif fer ent ben ton -ite clay sam ples was de ter mined (Wil liams et al., 1998a).

Fig ure 1. The in ves ti ga tion of pet ri fied plant ma te rialand paleosols cov ered most of Big Bend Na tional Park.


Fig ure 5 shows a pet ri fied log from the Javelina For ma tionwith fos sil ized ter mite gal ler ies in it. (Wil liams andGoette, 1998b).

The Origin of Charcoalified Wood

While it was be ing ex humed, a charcoalified branch thatwe col lected emit ted a strong aroma of burned wood.Based on the fact that these vol a tile ar o matic com poundswere still lin ger ing in the sam ple, and on other facts aswell, we the o rized that the log had un der gone rapid char -coalification in rel a tively re cent times. We dis cussed prob -a ble fac tors in volved in the or i gin of such spec i mens(Wil liams et al., 1993). We think that ex qui site cel lu lar de -tail of the charcoalified wood is a trib ute to the Cre ator’sawe some de sign skills and to the ob vi ous ra pid ity of fos sil -iza tion, which pre vented decay (see Figure 3 and Figure4).

The Origin of Silicified Wood

Wil liams (1993) eval u ated var i ous mech a nisms by whichthis wood may have be come si lici fied. In two other pa pers(Wil liams and Howe, 1993; Wil liams et al., 1998a) pos si -ble fac tors lead ing to the gen e sis of the Javelina and Agujaben ton ite beds them selves were dis cussed. The ben ton iteis com posed of al tered vol ca nic ash, which sug gests a cat a -

Fig ure 2. The end of this pet ri fied log is ex posed in theAguja For ma tion in a clay side wall. Note scale in inchesand cen ti me ters.

strophic mode of or i gin for the two rock for ma tions andthe silicified wood found in them.One and the same set of cat a strophic en vi ron men tal con -di tions could have fos tered the pro duc tion of all three:charcoalified wood that was baked by hot ash fall, si lici fiedwood, and the ben ton ite beds. These fac tors are: 1. am plewa ter (for the de po si tion and trans port of trees, the weath -er ing of vol ca nic ash for the ben ton ite beds, and for the wa -ter-log ging of the wood), 2. low ox y gen con cen tra tions (forpre vent ing de cay of the wood), 3. vast quan ti ties of vol ca -nic ash (for pro duc tion of ben ton ite and cre ation of sil ica-rich so lu tions for sili ci fi ca tion of the wood), 4. nu mer ousfloat ing logs, and 5. lo cal ized high tem per a tures (for thecharcoalification and sili ci fi ca tion of logs). It is likely thatin the Dawson Creek re gion the fos sil wood was trans -ported from an other lo ca tion (allochtonous) and did notcome from for ests fos sil ized in situ (autothonous).

All of these es sen tial cri te ria would be sat is fied in a cat a -strophic sce nario si mul ta neously in volv ing vol ca nic erup -tions, tec tonic ac tiv ity, and flood ing of ma jor pro por tions.The ev i dence sup ports just such a swift de po si tion, char -coal ification, and permineralization of this wood.

Gymnosperm Wood Anatomy and Catastrophism

The two si lici fied and two charcoalified wood spec i menswhich we pho to graphed (Wil liams et al, 1995) all lackedves sels in the xy lem. This dem on strates that they weregym no sperms (seed plants with out flow ers) and not an gio -sperms (flower-bear ing seed plants). The di am e ter of thexy lem tra cheids was sev eral times larger than the di am e terof tra cheids from the wood of pine, a mod ern gym no -sperm. There were vir tu ally no an nual rings in these four

Fig ure 3. Thin sec tion of fos sil si lici fied gym no spermwood from ben ton ite clay mound, south of park Road,Dawson Creek Re gion, Big Bend Na tional Park. Notethe many light-col ored tra cheids and the darker, ra di ally ar ranged ray pa ren chyma cells. Scale bar is 100 mi crom -e ters (mm).


pho to graphed fos sil wood sam ples, in di cat ing that thetrees had de vel oped in a more uni form cli mate than thatwhich cur rently pre vails in west Texas. Pos si bly these treesgrew in a mod er ate, pre-Flood en vi ron ment. The clearcel lu lar de tail of the ray pa ren chyma and xy lem tra cheidsseen in each, sug gest fur ther that they were not fossilizedslowly (see Figures 1 and 2).

Angiosperm Wood from the Aguja and the Javelina

Wheeler and Lehman (2000) col lected, pho to graphed,and iden ti fied twelve types of fos sil an gio sperm wood:eight from the Aguja and four from the Javelina. Thin sec -tions made from sam ples were com pared to known woodsin an a tom i cal text books, wood col lec tions, and com puterda ta bases. The breadth of this re search and the pre cise de -tails vis i ble in their 93 dif fer ent pub lished pho to mi cro -graphs are phenomenal.

But such clear def i ni tion is also a trib ute to the ex ac ti -tude of pres er va tion in these fos sils. Al though si lici fied,they dis play al most as much struc tural in teg rity as can befound in prep a ra tions from fresh an gio sperm wood. Minu -tae of pa ren chyma cells, xy lem ves sel el e ments, performa -

Fig ure 4a. Scan ning elec tron pho to graph of fos sil char -coalified wood found in the same area as si lici fied wood(Fig ure 1). It was 59% car bon. Both tra cheids and rays,con tain ing ray parenchema cells, are vis i ble. Mag ni fi ca -tion is 70x.

tion plates, pat terns of sec ond ary wall thick en ing, and pitde tails, for ex am ple, can be eas ily dis cerned. This is the ap -par ent con se quence of permineralization oc cur ring un der proper con di tions of cat a strophic burial. We also thinkthat the in tri ca cies of xy lem anat omy in fos sil gym no sperm and an gio sperm wood pro vide tes ti mony to the punc til i -ous microengineering demonstrated by God in producingthese plants.

Are the Xylem Vessels of Cretaceous Fossil AngiospermWood “Primitive”?

Wheeler and Lehman (2000, pp. 83, 88, and 89) as sertedon sev eral dif fer ent pages that some of their wood sam pleswere “… prim i tive in the Baileyan sense” (p. 83), be causethey pos sessed “…prim i tive fea tures as de fined by theBailyean trends” (pp. 88–89).

In the first half of the twen ti eth cen tury, the out stand ing wood anat o mist I.W. Bailey de vised a list of cri te ria bywhich one can sup pos edly de duce the de gree of evo lu tion -ary “ad vance ment” seen in xy lem ves sels. For an in tro duc -tion to this work, con sult Bailey (1957). For fur ther

Fig ure 4b. Closer view of up right tra cheids and hor i zon -tal ray pa ren chyma cells from Fig ure 2a. Mag ni fi ca tionis 250x. Pits can be seen to con tain small pores whichcon nect ing a tracheid with its neigh bor ing cells. Theexquiste cel lu lar de tail still vis i ble in fos sil wood is a trib -ute to de sign and later to rapid fos sil iza tion.


anal y sis of Bailey’s or i gins pre cepts, lists of his many pub li -ca tions, and an ex e ge sis of his var i ous evo lu tion ary ten ets,see text books of plant anat omy like Carlquist (1961) andEsau (1953).

It is be yond the scope of this re view to ex am ine all ofBailey’s dog mas crit i cally, but a care ful look at his one ba -sic prem ise ought to dem on strate the na ture of his logic.Un der ly ing all of Bailey’s cri te ria is the foun da tional pre -sup po si tion that xy lem ves sels of an gio sperms must havearisen by evo lu tion from the xy lem tra cheids of their sup -posed gym no sperm an ces tors. By find ing out how sim i lar(or dis sim i lar) the xy lem ves sels of any plant spe cies are totra cheids, Bailey be lieved one could dis cern the de gree ofevo lu tion from “prim i tive” (sim i lar to tra cheids) to “ad -vanced” (relatively dissimilar to tracheids).

The flaw in Bailey’s rea son ing is that he as sumed whathe needed to prove—that xy lem ves sels had in deedevolved from an ces tral tra cheids. This has never beendem on strated, and so all of Bailey’s phylo gen etic dicta aredis torted by his hav ing “begged the ques tion”—a log i calfal lacy know as pe titio principi, or “as sum ing what needs to be proved.” Hence, aside from all the splen did plant an a -tom i cal de tail he de scribed, we think his con cepts of xylem evo lu tion have lit tle ob jec tive value for or i gins stu -dents. Bailey was not alone in em brac ing the pe titio prin -cipi fal lacy; many evo lu tion ists rou tinely do the same atvarious points in their argumentation.

As an evo lu tion ist, Carlquist un der stood the po ten tialfor mis us ing Bailey’s pro nounce ments:

One must re mem ber that only char ac ter is tics, not plants or spe cies, are prim i tive or ad vanced. If thisprin ci ple is kept in mind, phylo gen etic hy poth e sesare likely to be con ceived with greater ac cu racy.Carlquist (1961, p. 7).

Fig ure 5. Large pet ri fied tree that con tained the ter mitegal ler ies along its outer sur face. There was no in di ca tion of any bark, limbs, or root mass, sug gest ing trans port and burial and not in situ or i gin.

We hold that dif fer ences in xy lem ves sel tubes con formto func tional de sign rather that to evo lu tion. For ex am ple,Carlquist pointed out in one in stance that a smaller di am e -ter and greater num ber of ves sels per unit area helps prevent dam ag ing air em bo lisms in con duct ing chan nels (Carl -quist, 1977, p. 888.) re flect ing on Carlquist’s data, Howe(1978, p. 71) the o rized that “…the wa ter tubes of plantsfrom each eco log i cal zone were fit for life un der those par -tic u lar con di tions.” We think that dif fer ences in xy lem ves -sel anat omy are matters of providence, not phylo geny.

Cretaceous Wood is Actually Contemporary

Wheeler and Lehman (2000, p. 89) re ported that theirCre ta ceous wood sam ples “…of ten have a gen er al izedstruc ture that is seen in more than one ex tant fam ily, or der, or even sub class [of an gio sperms] …” Just four lines af terhav ing called their Baileyan Big Bend Wood Type I “prim -i tive,” on page 98, they said that its “… com bi na tion ofchar ac ters is wide spread in ex tent an gio sperms, oc cur ringin 14 fam i lies … and six sub classes.” Such a dis tinct com -bi na tion of xy lem traits now widely found in cor po rated indi verse mod ern taxa points to ward de sign, not evo lu tion;to ward the view that Cre ta ceous wood is “con tem po rary”in its anat omy, not “prim i tive.” We will soon dis cuss thepos si bil ity that Cre ta ceous an gio sperm wood anat omy wasquite well suited for the “Cre ta ceous” en vi ron men tal con -di tions. Con cern ing the contemporary character of suchwood, Bailey (1924, p. 439) remarked that:

It is a strik ing and well-known fact that the An gio -sperms, from the time they first ap pear abun dantly in the Cre ta ceous, are highly dif fer en ti ated and are in

Fig ure 6. Color band ing in clays is more sug ges tive ofdiaenetic changes rather than paleosols. Note the con -cen tra tion of band ing to ward the sur face, with the colorband ing fad ing with depth. Per haps the color band ingis a weath er ing phe nom e non, more study is re quired.Pho to graph from an ex po sure along Dawson Creek.


gen eral re mark ably sim i lar to their de scen dants inextant flora.

It is hard to ac count for this close sim i lar ity be tween fos -sil wood and many mod ern woods if these fos sil spec i mensrange be tween 84 and 66 mil lion years old (Wheeler andLehman, 2000, p. 84). Why has so lit tle change oc curredin such a vast time pe riod, one might le git i mately ask. One can also pon der why a con vinc ing fos sil an ces try for flow -er ing plants in gen eral has never been found.

Reversal of Evolutionary Expectations?

Ac cord ing to the mod ern syn thetic the ory of evo lu tion,gene pools are ex pected gen er ally to be come more di verseacross elapsed time be cause mu ta tions orig i nate and thenac cu mu late in the gene pool. This would seem to lead togreater spe cies di ver sity as eons go by. Yet in their dis cus -sion of work done on fos sil wood of syc a more fam ily mem -bers (Wheeler and Lehman, 2000, p. 94) in di cated that“In the past the Platanaceae [syc a more fam ily mem bers]were more di verse [Cretaceous] than at present…”

Stratigraphic Revisions Required

As a re sult of their re search (Wheeler and Lehman, 2000),showed that cer tain pre vi ously held strati graphic con clu -sions needed to be mod i fied. Here are some of the changes that are re quired:• In the Cre ta ceous, an gio sperm trees were for merly as -

sumed to be quite small. But here the trees were 70 cm in di am e ter and larger.

• The Cre ta ceous an gio sperm tree flora ap pear to bemuch more di verse than was pre vi ously thought.

• An an a tom i cally pre served, in situ, dicot tree was notknown to ex ist in the Cre ta ceous. In Wheeler and Leh -man (2000), how ever, sev eral are claimed to have beenfound and we shall dis cuss them later in this review.

• The an gio sperm or der Malvales was not known to ex istin the Cre ta ceous. Yet it is found to be pres ent in strataas signed to the Cre ta ceous.

• Wood they call Bombacoxylon was not thought to ex istany far ther back than the Paleocene but is iden ti fied inthe Cre ta ceous by Wheeler and Lehman. Judg ing fromsuch mod i fi ca tion, it would ap pear wise not to build anyor i gins the o ries on the pres ence or ab sence of plant spe -cies in var i ous strati graphic levels.In sum mary, this re search pa per (of Wheeler and Leh -

man 2000) has brought sweep ing changes to many strati -graphic no tions. One can only won der what per cent age ofall strati graphic gen er al iza tions are pa tently false and justwait ing to be struck down when more study is un der taken.Is it pos si ble that strati graphic gen er al iza tions can be comehin drances, rather than aids, in ad vanc ing historicalgeology?

Ecological Relationships Mirrored in the Fossils?

Wheeler and Lehman (2000, pp. 83 and 86) found an interesting cor re la tion be tween cer tain kinds of fos sil an -gio sperm wood and the re mains of par tic u lar spe cies of di -no saurs in the Aguja as op posed to the JavelinaFor ma tions. They noted that their eight types of Agujawood were bur ied with the re mains of the duck bill (ahadrosaur), and with the horned Chasmosaurus di no saur(p. 83). At one lo ca tion in the Aguja, for ex am ple, theirBailey’s Big Bend Wood Type I was found en tombed withhadrosaur re mains (p. 98). The four kinds of Javelina an -gio sperms, on the other hand, were con sis tently found bur -ied with fos sils of a dif fer ent plant-eat ing di no saur,Alamo saurus: “Javelinoxylon wood oc curs at all lev elswhere re mains of the gi ant sauropod Alamosaurus occur”(p. 83).

As they point out on page 86, it is pos si ble that this pres -ence of par tic u lar her biv o rous di no saurs with cer tain an -gio sperm wood types re flects an “eco log i cal re la tion ship”by which they prob a bly mean a feed ing pref er ence. Butsuch an in ter est ing dis cov ery may have noth ing to do withthe vast time dif fer ences that have been as signed to theJavelina ver sus the Aguja For ma tions. In stead, it may havere sulted from the burial of dif fer ent, co ex is tent, eco log i calcom mu ni ties in suc ces sively de pos ited Flood strata. Itcould pos si bly rep re sent a re cord of var i ous life zonesfossilized one after another in the same catasrophe.

CO2, Dinosaurs, and Plant Anatomy

Pa ren chyma is a sim ple plant tis sue com posed of softwalled, stor age cells and it is found in many dif fer ent plantor gans. Pa ren chyma is pres ent in the trucks of trees, es pe -cially in hor i zon tally ori ented, rib bon-like patches of cellscalled wood rays (See Fig ure 3 and Fig ure 4). Pa ren chyma cells in the wood re main alive long af ter nearby ves sel el e -ments and tracheids have died.

Wheeler and Lehman dis cov ered that Big Bend an gio -sperm wood con tained a rel a tively large amount of ray parenchyma tis sue. Some of their spec i mens were 33% pa -ren chyma (per cent age by vol ume), and one par tic u larwood they called Baasoxylon parenchymatosum (p.96 andp.106) was 50% pa ren chyma. They re marked that “One ofthe more strik ing fea tures of the late Cre ta ceous Big Benddicotyledonous [an gio sperm] wood is the abun dance ofapotracheal dif fuse-in-ag gre gates pa ren chyma and/or rayparenchyma” (p. 113).

They sug gest that this large amount of pa ren chyma may have been a very for tu nate fea ture be cause there prob a blywere “… el e vated at mo spheric CO2 lev els …” (p. 84) inthe past. The ex tra CO2 would have fos tered greater photo -synthetic pro duc tion, with a cor re spond ing need for morestor age parenchyma tissue.


An other for tu nate con se quence of this ex tra ray tis suere lates to di no saur feed ing hab its. Ray pa ren chyma cellsare ar ranged from the cen ter of the stem out ward, likespokes in a wheel. They would there fore have af fordedgreater phys i cal re sis tance to the side ways tug ging onstems by “… in tense di no saur herbivory” (p. 84). The au -thors thus sug gested that the ex tra pa ren chyma tis sue inthese Cre ta ceous stems “… may re flect a re sponse to el e -vated Cre ta ceous at mo spheric CO2 lev els, or to in tense dinosaur herbivory” (p. 84). They have wisely avoided sug -gest ing any evo lu tion ary mech a nism by which the ex trapa ren chyma tis sue may have orig i nated. They haveallowed their readers to speculate as they wish, such as:• at trib ut ing these fa vor able amount of pa ren chyma to the

ac tion of nat u ral se lec tion on gene mu ta tions over ex -tended time periods, or

• at trib ut ing them to Di vine ge netic en gi neer ing in thecre ation.

No Annual Growth Rings

As we found with our gym no sperm fos sil wood from theDawson Creek area, their an gio sperm wood sam pleslacked an nual rings. In de scrib ing all but one spec i men,they stated that growth rings were ei ther “ab sent,” “in dis -tinct,” or “not ob served.” Only in the case of Pageoxyloncretaceum (p. 93) did they in di cate growth rings, and evenin that case, the growth rings were “faint”.

The au thors were puz zled con cern ing how to rec on cile such a lack of growth rings in Javelina wood with “sedi -mentological ev i dence” which they thought sug gest ariden vi ron men tal con di tions (p. 113). Their spec u la tionsabout arid ity arise from their thoughts about an cient soilscalled “paleosols”. A more ob vi ous con clu sion, how ever,would be that all these an gio sperm trees grew in a mild,maybe even hu mid, seasonless environment.

Paleosols in Big Bend National Park

Ex ten sive work, from a uniformitarian per spec tive, hasbeen con ducted on the pur ported paleosols within BigBend Na tional Park (Lehman, 1989; 1990). This workbuilds on the con cept that color-band ing of the clays, hard -pan lay ers within the clays, and cal cite nod ules found in thevol ca nic ash de rived clay lay ers rep re sent a well-draineddelta-plain fa cies (McBride, 1974). Field ex per i ments con -ducted on the weath er ing of a vol ca nic ash lo cated out sideof Jack son, Wy o ming has re vealed the im por tance that or -ganic mat ter con trib utes to its diagenesis (Antweiler andDrever, 1983). Or ganic ac ids break down the vol ca nic ashand the ses ac ids are be lieved to be the rea son that soilcaliche nod ules and rhizoliths form in the subsurface(Lehman, 1989). Does the pet ri fied plants and bones, color-band ing of the clay lay ers, oc cur rence of car bon ate hard pan

lay ers and cal cite nod ules found in both the Aguja andJavelina for ma tions re ally rep re sent deltaic flood-plainpaleosols that ex isted on Earth mil lions of years ago or arethere other pos si bil i ties? Young-earth cre ation sci en tistsmust seek out other in ter pre ta tions con sis tent with the dataas we lack both the “time” and purported paleosettingssuggested by uni formitarians (Froede, 1998).

An in ter pre ta tion of this set ting more con sis tent withScrip ture might be that the orig i nal vol ca nic ash was de -rived from nearby sources and de pos ited in sub aque ouscon di tions dur ing the Flood (Froede, 1996). Large vol -umes of con nate wa ter mov ing through the newly de pos -ited sed i ments leached min er als that served to en hancethe pet ri fac tion of or ganic ma te ri als (e.g., plant ma te ri alsand di no saur bones). At a later point dur ing the Flood, thediagenetic al ter ation of clay min er als could have con trib -uted to the dis so lu tion of car bon ate (Wintsch and Kvale,1994). The dis solved car bon ate would have moved withcon nate wa ter and pre cip i tated due to var i ous pH and Ehchanges. The even tual with drawal of Flood wa ter cou pledwith likely sig nif i cant fluc tu a tions in the ground wa ter ta -ble and changes in subsurface geo chem is try would haveserved to pre cip i tate any re main ing car bon ate at or nearvar i ous lev els of bur ied or ganic mat ter and/or along lith o -logic con tacts within the subsurface. The al ter ation of theorig i nal ash to clay would also re sult in the multi-col oredband ing ob served within the clay lay ers to day (Fig ure 6).Within the in ter pre ta tion, the pet ri fied or ganic ma te ri als,soil caliche car bon ate nod ules, sheet-like “hard pan” car -bon ate lay ers, and color band ing found within the Agujaand Javelina for ma tions clearly re flect pro cesses expectedduring and following the global Flood of Genesis. None of these features support the occurrence of paleosols.

Transported and Deposited versus an In-Place Burial?

At a site in the east ern por tion of Big Bend Na tional Park,Lehman and Wheeler (2001) found 18 permineralizedtree trunks in a par tic u lar strati graphic ho ri zon of theAguja For ma tion. Of the to tal of 18 spec i mens, six stumpswere ob served in an up right po si tion. As the authors stated:

…six are up right stumps that re main def i nitely inplace, rooted in an un der ly ing paleosol. An ad di -tional three con sist only of parts of root masses inplace (p. 102).

Nine spec i mens were parts of trunks, “that have beentop pled over and dis place from orig i nal growth po si tions”(p. 102). Lehman and Wheeler con cluded that this fos silas sem blage was formed in situ. Also they spec u lated thatthe trees “… may have died in re sponse to burial by up to ame ter of sed i ment, prob a bly ac cu mu lated dur ing a se vereflood” (p. 104).

It is quite pos si ble that all 18 spec i mens are alloch -thonous in or i gin. We have pre vi ously re viewed the pos si -


bil ity and like li hood of the trans por ta tion and burial offos sil trees like these (Wil liams, 1993, p. 110–111). One ofthe places where there has been con sid er able dis cus sion of autochthonous vs. allochthonous burial of wood is at Spec -i men Ridge in Yel low stone Na tional Park. This was notedin Williams (1993, p. 110):

Har old Cof fin (1976, pp. 539–543) has done con -sid er able work on the Yel low stone pet ri fied for ests.In his ex cel lent book Or i gin By De sign, he de votedan en tire chap ter (1983, pp. 134–151) to the sub ject.He of fered ev i dence that fa vors the trans por ta tion hy -poth e sis against in situ burial. These ev i dences arecat e go rized as abrupt root ter mi na tions, over lap pinglev els of the tree lay ers, ori en ta tion of ver ti cal andpet ri fied trees, eco log i cal di ver sity of fos sil trees,bands of or ganic mat ter in var i ous “soil” lev els, ar -range ment of the or ganic mat ter in the lev els, ev i -dence of wa ter sort ing, type of or ganic mat ter in“soil” lay ers, geo chem is try of lay ers, na ture of thesed i ments in which the trees are con tained and a dis -cus sion of the ver ti cal flo ta tion of trees. In ter estedread ers should con sult this trea tise. Also since thepet ri fied for ests are pre served in a National Park,they offer research opportunities for creationistsinterested in this topic.

Cof fin (1983, pp. 117–133) also dis cussed the clas sicJoggins pet ri fied trees and con ducted ex per i ments on trees that float up right with in tact root sys tems. He then listed 10 ev i dences for allochthonous or i gin of up right fos sil trees.Cof fin then noted: “Ge ol o gists have un crit i cally taken up -right trees as a pri ori ev i dence of un changed growth po si -tions, but it is best to be cau tious about such an au to maticas sump tion” (pp. 126, 127). He further stated that:

… Stevenson (1911–1913) in his mono graph in thefor ma tion of coal beds de cided that up right trees arenot im por tant in set tling the prob lem of autoch -thonous or allochthonous or i gin of coal (p. 127).

Steve Aus tin (1986, p. 4) in his work on the Mount St.Hel ens ex plo sion of 1980, dis cussed find ing up right de pos -ited logs in Spirit Lake. As he noted (p. 4):

The land slide-gen er ated waves on Spirit Lakestripped the for ests from the slopes ad ja cent to thelake and cre ated an enor mous log mat…. Care fulob ser va tion of the float ing log mat in di cates thatmany trees float in up right po si tion with a root ballsub merg ing the root end of the trunk while the op po -site end floats out of the wa ter… These trees if bur ied in sed i ment, would ap pear to have been a for estwhich grew in place over hundreds of years…

Also Aus tin re lated the re sults of sidescan so nar and scubadiv ing work in sur vey ing the lake bot tom (p. 4).

Hun dreds of up right, fully sub merged logs werelo cated… Ex trap o lat ing from the small area of lakefloor sur veyed to the en tire lake bot tom, we es ti mate

more than 15,000 up right stumps ex isted on the floor of the lake in Au gust 1985. The av er age height of anup right de pos ited stump is 20 feet. So nar re cords and scuba in ves ti ga tion ver i fied that many of the up rightde pos ited trees have root masses ra di at ing away fromthe bases of the trunks.

In this dis cus sion, we do not in tend to de mean the workof Lehman and Wheeler. We think that what they have ex -am ined, how ever, were trees that had been up rooted andde pos ited by Flood wa ter, then to be cov ered and per -mineralized un der sil ica-rich ma te rial. This shows that the very same em pir i cal data can be used to sup port long agesor rapid flood ing based on the set of pre sup po si tions withwhich one starts.

Fossil Pollen at Big Bend

Baghai (1994) pub lished the re sults of ex ten sive pol lenand other microfossil anal y ses per formed on 40 sam plestaken from var i ous strati graphic lev els in the Aguja for ma -tion. These sam ples came from Rat tle snake Moun tain,which is south east of the Dawson Creek area. Microfossilsfrom 112 gen era of plants were iden ti fied in his study, in -clud ing 36 fern gen era, 11 gym no sperm gen era, and 43gen era of an gio sperms. These microfossils sug gest thatwhen the Aguja strata were be ing de pos ited, there pos si blewere for ests of great spe cies di ver sity nearby, per haps pre-Flood for ests, unlike the desert ecosystems of today.

Fossil Pollen and Proported Environmental Settings

In a sum mary ta ble (pp. 64–65) Baghai listed an “En vi ron -men tal set ting” and var i ous “Com ments” for 30 of thesemicrofossil sam ples. A few ex am ples of the en vi ron men talset tings that these sam ples sup pos edly in di cated were“Coas tal floodplain swamp,” “Lower deltaic coastalswamp (mi nor ma rine trans gres sion),” “Flu vial con ti nen -tal floodplain,” “Deltaic coastal floodplain swamp,” etc.(p. 64). Baghai as sumed that each of these 30 sam ples cor -re lated with grad ual, long-term de po si tion within a stablepaleoenvironment.

The au thor’s com ments con cern ing the pres ence ofmicrofossils in the var i ous sam ples were some what vagueand sub jec tive as seen here:

fewer, few, some, co pi ous, oc ca sional, abun dant, nu -mer ous, dom i nated by, sparse, some, di verse, largequan ti ties of, etc.

From data such as these, it is not clear how Baghai wasable to de duce the very spe cific strati graphic paleo en -vironments listed for each of the 30 sam ples re ported. If infact Baghai and oth ers who be lieve in paleoenvironmentsthat changed grad u ally over long pe ri ods of time want tocon vince skep tics, they will need to de velop quan ti ta tivemeth ods that are tax o nom i cally more pre cise. That task,


how ever, might be daunt ing since it would ne ces si tate de -ter min ing the num bers of each spe cies of microfossil perunit vol ume, for each and ev ery sam ple. A com ment like“as sorted gen era of an gio sperms” is hardly the in for ma tionre quired to con clude, as Baghai did, that the par tic u lar en -vi ron ment was “mar ginal ma rine to brack ish, pos si bly la -gonal.” To draw such pre cise con clu sions, one wouldneed to know which an gio sperms were found and in whatnum bers for that sam ple. Paleoenvironmental specu -lations are replete with assumptions.

Even the un der ly ing con cept that these de pos its eacharose grad u ally in a sta bi lized microenvironment is it selfques tion able be cause the Aguja and Javelina wood fos silsare allochthonous in or i gin. But if we as sume that the pol -len-based, pu ta tive en vi ron ments have some mea sure ofva lid ity, it is well to note how reg u larly they in di cate wa ter-re lated paleoenvironments by uniformitarian inter -pretation:• mar ginal ma rine to near shore/in ner shelf• fresh wa ter to coastal flood plain swamp• flood plain• lower deltaic coastal swamp• high coastal flood plain swamp• flu vial-deltaic flood plain• flu vial con ti nen tal flood plain• flu vial levee on lower delta• mi nor ma rine in flu ences from high tides and storm ac -

tion• ma rine re gres sion• con ti nen tal floodplain• mar ginal ma rine….etc.

Big Bend Pollen and Catastrophism

If the time scale is short ened and spec u la tions about slowde po si tion are aban doned, most of Baghai’s depositionalphe nom ena would find some rea son able po si tion in aFlood-re lated or i gins model. It is pos si ble thus to re in ter -pret these microfossil data in a cat a strophic con text. There sults ap pear to sup port sev eral rapid trans gres sions andre gres sions dur ing the Flood event, as we pro posed in Wil -liams and Howe (1993). We spec u late that these micro -fossils came from pre-Flood forests.

Var i ous Baghai sam ple as says con tained such items asfrag ments of car bon ized wood, char coal, leaf cu ti cles, andox i dized plant ma te ri als, all of which fit with cat a strophicdepositional pro cesses. Fur ther study of microfossils at Rat -tle snake Moun tain and many other Big Bend lo cal i tiesought to pro vide the ad di tional data re quired to bol ster thespec u la tions on one side or the other of the or i gins ques -tion. Mean while it is quite ob vi ous that the data from fos sil pol len and fos sil wood re search at the Big Bend fit verywell with a Flood Catastrophe Model.

We wel come other re search ers to carry out fur ther work on fos sil wood and pol len at the Big Bend Na tion Park.Such stud ies might en tail iden ti fy ing all of the gym no -sperm spec i mens that we have pre vi ously col lected. Morecol lect ing needs to be done in an at tempt to char ac ter izethe na ture of what we con sider to be pre-Flood for ests. And sev eral com pre hen sive re views of the vast body of ex ist ingdata on fos sil wood and pol len are needed from the cat a -strophic, Flood-geo log i cal van tage. Soi Deo Glo ria.

References

CRSQ: Cre ation Re search So ci ety Quar terly.Antweiler, R.C., and Drever, J.I. 1983. The weath er ing of

as late Ter tiary vol ca nic ash: Im por tance of or ganic sol -utes. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 47:623–629.

Aus tin, S.A. 1986. Mount St. Hel ens and catastrophism,Pro ceed ings Of the First In ter na tional Con fer ence onCreationism, Vol ume I, pp. 3–9. Cre ation Sci ence Fel -low ship Pittsburg, PA.

Baghai, N.L. 1994. Clas si fi ca tion and anal y sis of palyno -morphs of the Aguja for ma tion (Campanian), Big Bend Na tional Park, Brewster County, Texas. Trans ac tions ofthe Gulf Coast As so ci a tion of Geo log i cal So ci et ies 54:63–70.

Bailey, I.W. 1924. The prob lem of iden ti fy ing the wood orCre ta ceous and later di cot y le dons: Paraphyllanthoxy lonarizonense. An nals of Bot any 38:439–452, with plate.

. 1957. The po ten ti al i ties and lim i ta tions of woodanat omy in the study of phy log eny and clas si fi ca tion ofan gio sperms. Jour nal of the Ar nold Ar bo re tum 38:243–254.

Carlquist, S. 1961. Com par a tive plant anat omy. Holt,Rine hart, and Winston. New York.

. 1977. Eco log i cal fac tors in wood evo lu tion: afloristic ap proach. Amer i can Jour nal of Bot any 64: 887–896.

Cof fin, H.G. 1976. Or i gin by de sign. Re view and Her aldPub lish ing, Wash ing ton, D.C.

Esau, K. 1953. Plant anat omy. John Wiley and Sons. NewYork.

Froede, C.R., Jr. 1994. Fos sil wood of Big Bend Na tionalPark. CRSQ 30:187–189.

. 1996. Ev i dence of cat a strophic suaqueous phys i -cal pro cesses at Goat Moun tain, in Big Bend Na tionalPark, Texas, U.S.A. CRSQ 33:115–126.

. 1998. Field stud ies in cat a strophic ge ol ogy. Cre -ation Re search So ci ety Books. St. Jo seph, MO.

Howe, G.F. 1978. Do plant ves sels vary with cli mate? Aplumb ing prob lem. CRSQ 15:71–72.

Lehman, T. M.. 1989. Up per Cre ta ceous (Maastrichtian)paleosols. Geo log i cal So ci ety of Amer ica Bul le tin 101:188–203.


. 1990 Paleosols and the Cre ta ceous/Ter tiary tran -si tion in the Big Bend re gion of Texas. Ge ol ogy 18:362–364

Lehman, T.M.and E.A. Wheeler. 2001. A fos sil dicotyle -donous wood land/for est from the Up per Cre ta ceous ofBig Bend Na tional Park, Texas. Palaios 5:102–108.

McBride, E.F. 1974 Sig nif i cance of color in red, green,pur ple, ol ive, brown, and gray beds of Difunta Group,North east ern Mex ico. Jour nal of Sed i men tary Pe trol ogy44:760–7733.

Stevenson, J.J. 1911–1913. For ma tion of coal beds. Pro -ceed ings of the Amer i can Philo soph i cal So ci ety vol umes50–52 (as listed in Cof fin 1976).

Wheeler, E.A. and T.M. Lehman. 2000. Late Cre ta ceouswoody di cots from the Aguja and Javelina For ma tions,Big Bend Na tional Park, Texas. In ter na tional As so ci a -tion of Wood Anat o mists Jour nal 21:83–120.

Wil liams, E.L. 1993. Fos sil wood from Big Bend Na tionalPark, Brewster County, Texas. Part II—Mech a nism ofsili ci fi ca tion of wood and other per ti nent fac tors.CRSQ 30:106–111.

Wil liams, E.L., and G.F. Howe. 1993. Fos sil wood of BigBend Na tional Park, Brewster County, Texas. Part I—geo logic set ting. CRSQ 30:47–54.

Wil liams, E.L., G.F. Howe, G.T. Matzko, R.R. White,and W.G. Stark. 1995. Fos sil wood of Big Bend Na -tional Park, Brewster County, Texas. Part IV—woodstruc ture, nod ules, paleosols, and cli mate.CRSQ 31:225–232.

Wil liams, E.L., G.T. Matzko, G.F. Howe, R.R. White,and W.G. Stark. 1993, Fos sil wood of Big Bend Na -tional Park, Brewster County Texas. Part III—chem i cal tests per formed on wood. CRSQ 30:169–176.

Wil liams, E.L., R.L. Goette, W.G. Stark, and G.T.Matzko. 1998a. Fos sil wood from Big Bend Na tionalPark, Texas. (Dawson Creek Re gion): Part V—or i ginand diagenesis of clays. CRSQ 35:31–38.

Wil liams, E.L., and R.L. Goette. 1998b. Trace fos sils inpet ri fied wood Big Bend Na tional Park, Texas. CRSQ35: 93–95.

Wintsch, R.P., and Kvale, C.M. 1994. Dif fer en tial modil -ity of el e ments in burial diagenesis of siliciclastic rocks.Jour nal of Sed i men tary Re search A64:349–361.

Book Review

Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution by Randal KeynesRiverhead Books, New York. 2002, 384 pages, $28

This book gives con sid er able “in side in for ma tion” on thelife of Charles Dar win. The Lon don au thor is a great greatgrand son of Charles with ac cess to pri vate pa pers. An hon -est pic ture is given of Dar win’s trou bled life, in clud ing anun known chronic ill ness. His un suc cess ful hydrotherapytreat ments, pop u lar in the 1800s, are described in detail.

Dar win was a fam ily man who en joyed his ten chil dren. Along the way he care fully tab u lated their emo tions andde vel op ment (p.62). But the Dar win fam ily also suf feredgreat pain.The book cen ters on the sec ond born, An nieDar win, a great joy to her par ents. How ever, Dar winwatched An nie’s health de cline, re sult ing in her death in1851 at age 10, prob a bly from tu ber cu lo sis. Seven yearslater the youn gest child, Charles War ing, born withDowns Syn drome, died of scar let fe ver at age 2. In 1876, adaugh ter-in-law died giv ing birth to the first Dar win grand -child (p.305). Such trag e dies were not un usual in Dar -win’s day: 1/5 of new borns died dur ing their first year.How ever, Charles was greatly sad dened by these fam ilydeaths. He could not un der stand why God per mit ted suchsuf fer ing. As he aban doned the Chris tian faith, he wrote“dis be lief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at lastcomplete” (p.136).

Dar win ob vi ously had an in suf fi cient view of the curseor Fall of man kind. Other writ ers have de scribed how thisprob lem of evil led nat u rally to Dar win’s ac cep tance of evo -lu tion the ory (Hunter, 2001). Dar win con cluded that un -di rected chance ruled na ture with cruel com pe ti tion forex is tence be tween liv ing things. Dur ing all his adult yearsDar win was not with out a pos i tive ex am ple. His lov ingwife (and cousin) Emma was a godly woman of faith. Shechal lenged Charles to trust in the Cre ator but he de clinedand called him self an ag nos tic (p.308). Af ter the death ofAn nie, Charles still walked his fam ily to church on Sunday but no lon ger en tered the door (p.243). This book causesone to have a mea sure of pity for Dar win’s per sonal painand also for his misguided legacy of evolutionary error.

Reference

Hunter, Cornelius. 2001. Dar win’s God Brazos Press,Grand Rap ids. This book was re viewed in CRSQ 38(3):125–126.

Don [email protected]


Letters to the Editor

The Improbable Same-Site Reappearance of the Tigris-Euphrates River System

Woodmorappe (2002) has pre sented an ar gu ment for thepos si bil ity that the mod ern Tigris and Eu phra tes Rivers ac -tu ally ap prox i mate their an te di lu vian po si tions. I be lievehe has suc ceeded in this task. His pri mary line of rea son ing is the pres ence of deep-seated faults that gov ern depo -centers and the courses of ma jor rivers. This is a suc cinctstate ment of the ob vi ous. Years ago, ge ol o gist Da vidMcQueen pointed out to me that vir tu ally all val leys arestrata-con trolled or fault-con trolled. In gen eral, smallfaults re sult in small val leys, large faults in large val leys.Wa ter runs where the to pog ra phy dictates. There isnothing new here.

There are some spe cial con di tions that would havebeen nec es sary for Woodmorappe’s pos si bil ity to have ac -tu ally hap pened:• The pres ent Tigris-Eu phra tes ba sin must have been a

con ti nen tal en vi ron ment in an te di lu vian times.• The an te di lu vian Tigris-Eu phra tes ba sin must have been

geo met ri cally some what sim i lar to the modern one.• Tec tonic move ments must have fol lowed the se quence

he out lined to pro duce the depositional ba sin and thenrise above sea level while re main ing be low sur round inghighlands.

• Noah and his fam ily must have en coun tered these riversand ap plied these names to these same rivers rather thanap ply ing the names to other rivers or other names tothese.The first of these points is an as sump tion that many will

be com fort able mak ing. In gen eral, rock den sity dif fer -ences be tween sialic-dom i nated con ti nen tal crust andmafic-dom i nated oce anic crust are be lieved to pre servethe con ti nents in that they iso stat i cally “float” on the man -tle above the level of oce anic crust. Was this true of the an -te di lu vian world? No one knows. Nor is it cer tain thatmod ern Iraq rep re sents part of a stable antediluvian con -tinent.

The sec ond of these points I would ven ture is pos si blebut very im prob a ble. As other diluvialists have noted(Molén, 2000, p. 248; Mor ris, 1976, pp. 89–90), the ref er -ence of Gen e sis 2:10–14 seems to in di cate a di vi sion offour rivers, two of which bear the names Tigris and Eu -phra tes. These ap pear to have run from Eden in var i ous di -rec tions, since three dif fer ent coun tries are namedthrough which three of the rivers ran, though az i muths are not given. This is an hy drau li cally im prob a ble ar range -ment ex cept where a sig nif i cant de crease in gra di ent oc -curs, as is typ i cal of river del tas in mod ern en vi ron ments(form ing distribu taries). It ap pears nec es sary for a verylarge spring to have fed these four rivers, the source be ing

un known. With a com mon source, the two rivers withmod ern names would prob a bly have rap idly joined if theywere fol low ing a top o graphic low in a sin gle graben; theywould not have justi fied two names and a designation asseparate rivers.

The third point seems pos si ble. Ev i dence of ep i sodicver ti cal mo tion on faults, es pe cially deep-seated faults, isvery com mon. Whether the faults bound ing the Mesopo -ta mian graben meet the nec es sary con di tions to sat isfy there quire ments of this his tor i cal sce nario I am in no po si tionto say. From the in for ma tion pre sented in Wood mor -appe’s pa per, it ap pears pos si ble. Of course, move mentalong these faults could just as eas ily have pro duced a horst and a resulting mountain range.

Woodmorappe also ar gues that Noah’s ark may havedrifted in the gen eral vi cin ity and landed not so very farfrom the point whence it dis em barked, which would sat -isfy the fourth con di tion listed here. This sce nario ap pearspartly mo ti vated by the thought that the Mid dle East forms a par tic u larly stra te gic cen ter of mod ern con ti nents for ei -ther gath er ing or dis pers ing land an i mals. Such a sce nariois not re quired by plate tec ton ics or by some other nat u ralhis tory sce nar ios, but it would be sig nif i cant to a fixed-con -ti nent model. It is also un likely. I do not dif fer with Wood -morappe in his pos tu late of di vine guid ance to the re gionof Ara rat at the end of the De luge; how ever, I re main thor -oughly un con vinced that there was any thing “theo log i -cally spe cial” about this re gion be fore the global floodcat a clysm. For all we know, it may have been a sea. Someother place on earth may then have been more suit able tothe di vine gath er ing of an i mals. That the ark may havedrifted many thou sands of miles can be dem on strated.Barnette and Baumgardner (1994) showed that ex tremelystrong cur rents would nat u rally de velop rather rap idly onthe global ocean. Even with out the work of Barnette andBaumgardner, one would have a hard time con vinc ing abeach comber of such a short voy age as Woodmorappeposits–short of the miraculous, naturally, and for that wehave no Scriptural record.

Woodmorappe seems to think the Najd fault sys temmay be unique. That is clearly an unproveable the sis, butit can cer tainly be disproven if other sim i lar fault sys temsare lo cated. It may well be that some have been. I am notfa mil iar with the Najd sys tem and can not, there fore, de ter -mine whether deep fault sys tems in Green land, in Mon -tana, or in other places are com pa ra ble. This may be worth researching.

In con clu sion, Woodmorappe’s point that the mod ernTigris and Eu phra tes may oc cupy roughly the same po si -


tions as they did in an te di lu vian times ap pears sound.How ever, I con sider it very, very un likely. The com monbe lief of diluvialists that these names arose in much theway that York, Penn syl va nia; Lan cas ter, Cal i for nia; orMalta, Montana, were named ap pears much more likely.

References

Barnette, Dan iel W., and John R. Baumgardner. 1994.Pat terns of ocean cir cu la tion over the con ti nents dur -ing Noah’s Flood. In Walsh, R.E. (ed i tor), Pro ceed ingsof the third In ter na tional Con fer ence on Creationism,

pp. 77–86. Cre ation Sci ence Fel low ship. Pittsburgh,PA.

Molén, Mats. 2000. VDrt ursprung? [Our or i gin?]. XP Me -dia, Haninge, Swe den.

Mor ris, Henry M. 1976. The Gen e sis re cord. Baker BookHouse, Grand Rap ids, MI.

Woodmorappe, John. 2002. The fea si ble same-site re ap -pear ance of the Tigris-Eu phra tes river sys tem af ter theglobal flood. Cre ation Re search So ci ety Quar terly 39:106–116.

Pe ter Klevberg, B.S., P.E.512 Sev enth Av e nue NorthGreat Falls, Montana 59401

Tigris-Eu phra tes River Sys tem: A Re ply

Mr. Klevberg and I are in sub stan tial agree ment about al -most ev ery is sue that he has raised. No doubt that, were the Ark moved around the Earth in com pletely free and ran -dom man ner, it would be quite im prob a ble for it to havelanded within rea son able dis tance from where it waslaunched. But the fact of the mat ter is that we sim ply donot know the net move ments of the Ark dur ing the Flood.In fact, this is prob a bly not even know able (this side of eter -nity any way).

Ap ro pos to this, I be lieve that it is much more fruit ful tocon sider things that can be known (ge ol ogy) than to behin dered by spec u la tions that can not be re solved (nettravel dis tance of the Ark). We should ex am ine the world'sge ol ogy on its own mer its. And it is this very ex am i na tionthat leads to the strik ing fact that much of the Phanerozoic(Flood-de pos ited) strata par al lels the pres ent Tigris-Eu -

phra tes val ley. This is what leads to the se ri ous con sid er -ation that the an te di lu vian Tigris-Eu phra tes River and itsmod ern coun ter part were and are lo cated at nearly thesame geo graphic lo ca tion. There is no re quire ment for the Najd fault sys tem to be ab so lutely unique on Earth. Nei -ther is there any need for the an te di lu vian and post di -luvian rivers to have been ex actly alike, and there has beenmuch spec u la tion about the iden tity of the two other rivers (trib u tar ies?) men tioned by Klevberg. The fact that largeriver sys tems, far from be ing merely surficial fea tures, tendto be con trolled by deep-seated geo logic fea tures force usto re-ex am ine the Tigris-Eu phra tes River sys tem in thisnew light.

John Woodmorappe6505 N. Nash ville #301Chi cago, IL 60631-1724

Infallibility and Order in the Fossil Record: A Response to Edward C. Lain

In his re sponse to Dr. Reed, Ed ward Lain (2002) ap pealsto sup port from ex tra-bib li cal doc u men ta tion such as thebook of Jashar. He de fends his ap peal by ob serv ing that theBi ble it self cites the book of Jashar. This logic does not fol -low. The Bi ble is in spired by God and is inerrant, so if a Bi -ble text cites a par tic u lar point from an other lit er ary source then we may be as sured that lit er ary source is cor rect onthat point. But it is er ro ne ous to as sume that this meansthat ev ery thing else in the ex tra-bib li cal source is in fal li -ble. Lain can not claim blan ket in fal li bil ity for an ex tra-bib -li cal source just be cause the Bi ble cites it on one point.The “weight” given to it by the au thors of Joshua and IISam uel is re ally quite ir rel e vant, for God may have se -lected one ac cu rate point from the book of Jashar amid amul ti tude of er rors. Or must we also accept Epimenides asinfallible? (Titus 1:12–13)

Lain also writes:“…Dr. Reed has just blown his flood ge ol ogy model out

of ex is tence. He freely ad mits that the fos sil re cord doeshave or der in it and that it is not ran dom. If the en tire geo -logic re cord had been the re sult of Noah’s flood, it is hardto see how there would be such pre cise fos sil or der, in fact,any fos sil or der. It would all be ran dom… The whole thing would be ran dom and mixed up.”

Lain re peats a com mon er ror made by anti-creationists,that a cat a strophic global Flood would nec es sar ily re sult in dis or dered fos sil de pos its. This false prem ise is foundedupon con fu sion over the dif fer ence be tween ero sional en -ergy (on the one hand) and depositional con di tions (onthe other).

It is ap par ent that high lev els of en ergy (in the form ofmo tion of wa ter, etc.) are re quired to achieve large amounts


of ero sion dur ing the Cat a clysm. This would likely also in -volve a high de gree of tur bu lence, which might ini tiallypro duce the dis or der Lain ex pects. How ever de po si tion offos sils (and rock strata gen er ally) would not oc cur at thispoint pre cisely be cause of the high energy level.

Only when en ergy lev els sub sided would de po si tion ofstrata dom i nate over ero sion. The en ergy of Flood waterscould dis perse in two ways: in stantly or grad u ally. Wherein stant, as in a wave of wa ter strik ing against a cliff, tur bu -lently dis or dered fos sil de pos its might result.

How ever, by far the more com mon form of de po si tionwould be un der con di tions where en ergy dis per sion was atleast some what grad ual. As the en ergy lev els de cline sort -ing of sed i ments and of fos sils car ried in the mix will re sult. The ex per i ments of Guy Berthault et al (Snelling, pp.125–126) prove that sed i ment sort ing can oc cur quickly.The very fact that sed i ments from rap idly de pos ited stratasuch as turbidites are sorted shows that sort ing of ma te ri alscar ried in sus pen sion by Flood waters would occur duringthe Cataclysm.

The prob lem for uni for mi tar ians is that the sort ing offos sils in the fos sil re cord goes too far, be yond what would

Fig ure 1. Mid-sized nautiloid fos sil, Hook Is land, On -tario. Length ap prox i mately 50 cm.

Fig ure 3. Large conic sec tions of nautiloid shell washedup on shore, Hook Is land, On tario. Lighter for scale.

be ex plained by evo lu tion ary suc ces sion. For ex am ple,near the towns of Ar kona and Thedford, On tario, arefound dis tinct va ri et ies of fos sil Mucrospirifers dubbedarkonensis and thedfordensis re spec tively, the for mer hav -ing a wider shell than the lat ter (Southworth, 1967). Arewe to be lieve only fat, stubby Mucrospirifers lived in oneep och and wide, slen der Mucrospirifers lived in an other? If so why do we find their fos sil re mains in such close as so ci a -tion only a few ki lo me ters apart? If they evolved over longpe ri ods of time we would ex pect to find the dis tinct pop u -la tions more widely dis persed geo graph i cally. More likelywa ter cur rents sorted a mixed as sem blage of the fos silssuch that one type be gan drop ping out of the Floodwatersa short time before the other type.

Near Hook Is land in the North Chan nel of Lake Hu ron I have ob served an even more im pres sive ex am ple of sort -ing. In a flat pave ment-like area of rock level with the lakeone can ob serve sig nif i cant num bers of mid-sized (40–60cm.) nautiloid shells [Fig ure 1]. Al most no other fos sils ofany spe cies are pres ent in this layer.

Im me di ately above this layer one ob serves rocks with ascat ter ing of very small nautiloid shells (<10 cm.), and acom plete ab sence of the mid-sized nautiloid shells apartfrom one tilted ver ti cally and ex posed in cross-sec tion,with a smaller spec i men within the shell [Fig ure 2]. Fromthis I in fer that the mid-sized spec i men was an empty shellfrom a dead nautiloid be fore the Cat a clysm, and be inglighter it only came to rest later and in a dif fer ent ori en ta -tion than its more re cently de ceased com rades. It then en -trapped other ma te ri als still in the mov ing wa ter such asthe smaller nautiloid. Like the layer be low it spe cies di ver -sity in this strata was very low.

On the lakeshore I made one other dis cov ery. Cast upon shore by wave ac tion I found two sec tions of rock aboutthree me ters apart that fit per fectly when as sem bled to -gether [Fig ure 3]. These were sec tions of a much larger

Fig ure 2. Cross-sec tion of nautiloid shell with smallnautiloid in up per por tion. Lighter for scale.


nautiloid shell with at least twice the di men sions of themid-sized spec i mens on the shore line. It had ap par entlybro ken out of rock strata be low the waterline.

What did I make of these ob ser va tions? A strictuniformitarian would have me be lieve that the largenautiloids evolved first and then be came smaller overtime, with only adult nautiloids (not any of their young) re -corded in the lower strata! Strict uni for mi tar ians fur therhave to be lieve that these nautiloids ex isted in seasstrangely lack ing any kind of func tional eco sys tem, har bor -ing lit tle other life.

In my fos sil col lect ing it is abun dantly ap par ent that low spe cies di ver sity is the rule rather than the ex cep tion. Ev i -dence of hy drau lic sort ing ac tiv ity is fre quently ob served.It is worth not ing that the gen eral or der of ter res trial lifefound in the fos sil re cord (am phib ian-rep tile-mam mal-bird) was rep li cated by Dr. Leon ard Brand in a sort ing ex -per i ment (Brown, 1995, p. 141), some thing that would bepre dicted nei ther by Dar win ism nor by the ecologically-focused CCC model.

I pro pose that all the nautiloids at Hook Is land col lec -tively were sorted into a dis tinct group ing (based on shape)that was largely seg re gated from other con tem po ra ne ousforms of life from the same hab i tat. It is ap par ent that thelarg est and heavi est nautiloids dropped out of Flood cur -rents first, then the mid-sized ones, and fi nally the small estones. One is not re quired to be lieve the CCC model toadopt this interpretation.

In sum mary, a cor rect un der stand ing of en ergy lev elsdur ing the Flood and their sort ing ef fects leads to the fol low -ing pre dic tions: (1) sort ing of fos sils will gen er ally be be -yond what would be ex pected due to sort ing by hab i tat ortime (evo lu tion); (2) there will be low spe cies di ver sity inmost fos sil de pos its due to hy drau lic sort ing; (3) tur bu lentde po si tion and re sul tant fos sil dis or der will be the ex cep tion and not the rule, oc cur ring pri mar ily where there is ev i -dence of rapid energy loss in the sediments themselves.

References

CRSQ: Cre ation Re search So ci ety Quar terlyBrown, Wal ter. 1995. In the be gin ning. Cen ter for Sci en -

tific Cre ation, Phoe nix, Az.Lain, Ed ward. 2002. Flood ge ol ogy model ver sus the

CCC model: A re sponse to John K. Reed. CRSQ 39:137–139.

Snelling, An drew. 1997. Sed i men ta tion ex per i ments: Na -ture fi nally catches up! Cre ation Ex Nihilo Tech ni calJour nal11:125–126.

Southworth, Charles. 1967. A guide to the fos sil bear ing ar -eas of Ar kona, Thedford and Vi cin ity. Lambton CountyHis tor i cal So ci ety, Petrolia, Ontario.

Eric Blievernicht940 E. Sun set Pike Terre Haute, IN [email protected]

Gradualism and Catastrophism are not Scientific

The ar ti cle by John K. Reed, “Re in vent ing Stra tig ra phy atthe Palo Duro Ba sin,” printed in the June 2002 is sue of the Cre ation Re search So ci ety Quar terly (CRSQ) pp. 25–39has moved me to write this let ter. While I ques tion some of the as sump tions, in ter pre ta tions, and graphs of this ar ti cle,they are be yond the scope of this let ter and de mand fur ther re search. I would like to ex press my gen eral con cern aboutar ti cles of this type that fre quently ap pear in the CRSQ.

Here is my con cern. Near the be gin ning of this ar ti cleReed writes, “Our dif fi cul ties be gin to be re solved by rec og -niz ing that nat u ral his tory is a sub set of his tory, not sci ence(Reed, 2001)”. Does he fol low his ex cel lent ad vice? No, in -stead he writes a pa per sug gest ing an al ter na tive in ter pre ta -tion to the more com mon, gradualistic or, as he calls it,uniformitarian in ter pre ta tion usu ally found in ar ti cles onstra tig ra phy. He takes the same geo log i cal ob ser va tions butin ter prets them us ing an aug mented ver sion of the Gen e sisFlood to pro duce a dif fer ent sce nario for the or i gin of therock strata of the Palo Duro Ba sin. In other words, he wrotea nonscientific pa per which as ge ol ogy ed i tor he saw fit topub lish in one of the world’s lead ing creationist sci en tificjour nals. I do not get it. When are ge ol o gists go ing to stopfall ing for the temp ta tion to try to ex plain how the earth as a

whrocseahee

saiwittiolaidWhstre

Duplethejecpreal b

ole and spe cific places in par tic u lar came to have thek strata they have? When will the aban don this vainrch for the unverifiable? Christian creationists ought tod what is written in Job 38:1–5:

Then the LORD an swered Job out of the storm. Hed: “Who is this that dark ens my coun sel with wordsh out knowl edge? Brace your self like a man; I will ques -n you, and you shall an swer me. Where were you when I the earth’s foun da tion? Tell me, if you un der stand.o marked off its di men sions? Surely you know! Whotched a mea sur ing line across it?” NIVReed cor rectly re jects in ter pret ing the rocks of the Paloro Ba sin us ing the nat u ral is tic, uniformitarian prin ci - in gradualistic fash ion to at trib ute great age to most of rock re cord of the Palo Duro Ba sin. Yet he does not re -t nat u ral ism. In this ar ti cle he tries to ex plain, or in ter -t, the rock re cord of the Palo Duro Ba sin in nat u ral,eit, cat a strophic terms. For example, on page 30,

I be lieve the ma rine wa ters of the Flood cov eredthis area quickly … As wa ter (a nat u ral com pound)cov ered (flooded, a nat u rally oc cur ring phe nom e -non) the area, car bon ate de po si tion (a nat u ral pro -cess) rap idly over came clas sic depostion (a nat u ral


pro cess). This could have … (3) a sig nif i cant geo -chem i cal (nat u ral) im pe tus to ward car bon ate pre -cip i ta tion prob a bly caused by hear ing and CO2de gas sing of the upwelling marine waters.

I sub mit that this is not a creationist ex pla na tion. This isa the is tic-cat a strophic ex pla na tion based on the is tic uni -formi tarianism where “geo logic en ergy,” a non quan ti fiedmea sure, is sub sti tuted for time.

By the way, Reed’s Fig ure 7 on page 36 seems to vi o latethe first law of ther mo dy nam ics. Am I wrong? It shows ama jor in put of en ergy at the on set of the Food and a mi norin crease mid way through the Flood. Where is that en ergycom ing from? It seems to me if creationist the o ries vi o latea well doc u mented law of na ture, we have lost our best rea -son for not ac cept ing mega-evo lu tion ary theories.

His ex pla na tion of how the rock re cord of the Palo Duro Can yon came to be is as un satis fy ing as a the is tic-evo lu -tion ary ex pla na tion on how life as we know it ap peared onthis earth. I am glad that I, as a self pro claimed sci en tist, donot have to choose be tween these two in cred i ble, non -scientific, his tor i cal the o ries. I can choose to be lieve thatGod the Fa ther, Al mighty, cre ated the heav ens and theearth and still preserves them.

I do not fault John Reed and his peers. I fault their men -tors and my self. I have been read ing ar ti cles writ ten bytheir men tors for more than 30 years, and lately, those writ -ten by this gen er a tion of creationist ge ol o gists with out giv -ing any feed back. Thus I fear my si lence has im pliedagree ment. Please per mit a short di gres sion. Some thirtyyears ago I was forced to read Pres ton James, a re spectedmem ber of the geo graphic pro fes sion. He de scribed “En -vi ron men tal de ter min ism,” a false no tion used at the timeto ex plain many geo graphic facts, as a “de vi ant stream.”He claimed that it was tak ing ge og ra phy down to a deadend and that it had to be dis carded if ge og ra phy as a pro fes -sion was to ad vance. He iden ti fied a false idea and gave it aname. This fos tered com mu ni ca tion among ge og ra pherswhich over the course of time put academic geographyback on the right track.

As a proud mem ber of the creationist move ment, Iwould like to sug gest that sci en tific creationist may be fol -low ing a “de vi ant stream,” as they at tempt to com bat a belief in an an cient earth. I see the at tempt to use an aug -mented Gen e sis Flood as the mech a nism God used to cre -ate much of the sed i men tary rock strata of the earth as a“de vi ant stream.” It causes sci en tific creationists to be comepaleohistorians. I like to re fer to them as writ ers of sci encefic tion be cause they have to ex trap o late pres ent day sci en -tific knowl edge back ward in stead of for ward to cre ate theirsce nar ios. It causes Reed and oth ers to in vent in cred i ble sce -nar ios such as this one found in the ar ti cle un der dis cus sionwhere on av er age 25 to 50 feet of car bon ate sed i ment perday had to be pre cip i tated in or der to create the rock re cordof the Palo Duro Ba sin. The gradua listic ap proach is lit tle

better. Gradu al ists have the rock being deposited at anaverage rate of around 0.0003 inches per year.

Let us face the fact that God, the cre ator, did not tell ushow or when he cre ated the rock strata of the earth. Hedoes say that it shows forth His glory (Psalm 19:1 or Psalm148:1–13). When we sci en tific creationists at tempt to tellthe world how He did it we are at tempt ing to glo rify our -selves rather then glo ri fy ing God.

Fur ther more, in the “Notes From the Pan orama of Sci -ence” sec tion of the June 2002 (CRSQ), p.55, John K.Reed and John Woodmorappe crit i cize positivists who af -firm be lief in the Bi ble with the words, “but we find it [hisbe lief in the Bi ble] is al ways in his own warped exegeticalterms, with sci ence driv ing in ter pre ta tion.” I find this acase of the pot call ing the ket tle black. Reed and Wood -morappe and other Flood ge ol o gists have their ownwarped exegetical in ter pre ta tion of Gen e sis 6, 7, and 8.For what ever rea son they read into this ac count all sorts ofvi o lent geo logic ac tiv ity and in sist that a world-wide Floodwas not a big enough ca tas tro phe to “put an end to all peo -ple, for the earth is fill with vi o lence be cause of them..” …“to de stroy both them and the earth” Gen e sis 6:1. Fur ther -more I be lieve that in Genesis 7:21–23 God explains whatthe Flood did.

Gen. 7:17–23 For forty days the flood kept com -ing on the earth, and as the wa ters in creased theylifted the ark high above the earth. The wa ters roseand in creased greatly on the earth, and the arkfloated on the sur face of the wa ter. They rose greatlyon the earth, and all the high moun tains un der theen tire heav ens were cov ered. The wa ters rose andcov ered the moun tains to a depth of more thantwenty feet. Ev ery liv ing thing that moved on theearth per ished—birds, live stock, wild an i mals, allthe crea tures that swarm over the earth, and all man -kind. Ev ery thing on dry land that had the breath oflife in its nos trils died. Ev ery liv ing thing on the faceof the earth was wiped out; men and an i mals and thecrea tures that move along the ground and the birdsof the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah wasleft, and those with him in the ark. NIV

The pur pose of the Flood was to de stroy the peo ple of the earth and the vi o lence found in the earth be cause of them.No where in this ac count are other geo log i cal pro cesses in -voked to de stroy man kind and the vi o lence that filled theearth be cause of man kind. I be lieve the rea son these ad di -tional ca tas tro phes are read into the Gen e sis ac count is sothat “Flood ge ol o gists” can give a “sci en tific” in ter pre ta tionof the rock strata of the Palo Duro Ba sin and other suchplaces. To de mand that the Flood was ac com pa nied bythese ad di tional ca tas tro phes is an ex am ple of “warpedexegetical terms with science driving interpre tations.”

I be lieve that “aug mented Flood ge ol ogy (by which Imean the add ing of ex tra-Bib li cal ca tas tro phes to the Gen -


e sis Flood) is a de vi ant stream and will not, in my opin ion,help the creationist cause. Sci en tific creationists must con -tinue point ing out how the pro cesses found in na ture, pro -cesses that have been dis cov ered by sci en tific re search,can not ex plain how the uni verse and its life forms orig i -nated. Their job is to de bunk for the nonscientific com mu -nity the false in ter pre ta tions of these or i gins that are taughtas if they were facts. This is what the nonscientific trainedpub lic needs to coun ter act the in cred i ble his to ries they are be ing asked to be lieve by sec u lar hu man ists to day. Theydo not need sci en tific creationists tell ing them how theirom nip o tent Cre ator used a ca tas tro phe de signed to de stroy to ex plain how things we find to day came to be. Flood ge -

ol o gists may find this fun and in tel lec tu ally chal leng ing. Itmay ful fill their de sire to share their sce nar ios with likeminded peo ple but it will not con vince the un be liever norwill it glo rify our Cre ator. It may in fact have the oppositeeffect on those in the scientific community with whom wedisagree.

Ted Aufdemberge, Ph.D.Prof. of Ge og ra phy and EarthSci ence, Re tiredCon cordia Univ.–Ann Arbor9020 Gross RoadDex ter, MI 48130

Lack of Rig or ous Anal y sis of the CCC Model

I was read ing the con tin u ing con tro versy sur round ingGentet’s CCC model and no ticed the fol low ing:

The point is that the CCC geo log i cal model atleast al lows for the pos si bil ity that in the long, pre-Flood times gla ciers could have also ex isted and lefttheir mark. The Flood Ge ol ogy model does not allow such a [sic] pos si bil ity in flood de pos its. Anyim par tial eval u a tion of al leged gla cial re mains isthere fore [sic] im pos si ble with the Flood Ge ol ogymodel (Gentet, 2002, p. 142).

It seems to me that when you ini ti ate a new model itshould be the re sult of long study and the weigh ing ofwhat has pre vi ously been writ ten. Nei ther Gentet norLain, how ever, has re ferred to work that I per formed onthe ques tion of pre-Pleis to cene glaciations and the Flood(Oard, 1994; 1997a). Pre vi ously, Mats Molen (1990) ad -dressed the sub ject that these “gla cial” de pos its show ev i -dence that they are the re sult of sub ma rine land slides and not gla cial de pos its at all. Gentet and Lain should havecited these works, since pre-Pleis to cene glaciations seems to be one geo log i cal ar gu ments that com pels them tomake up a new model. At least they should at tempt to re -fute these works, if they do not be lieve them. This tellsme that the de duc tions of the CCC model are the re sultof hasty anal y sis.

An other ex am ple is how di no saur tracks, eggs, and nests are so eas ily seen as ev i dence of pre-flood di no saur ac tiv ity, with out an a lyz ing pre vi ous works or see ing if the fea turescan be made dur ing the Flood. Gentet (2000, p. 207) pro -claims:

To spec u late that di no saurs, for just one ex am ple,would be putt ing down nests, lay ing eggs in them,etc. dur ing such an [flood] event is be yond my com -pre hen sion.

These di no saur data seem to be some of the main rea -sons for pos tu lat ing a pre-flood model for the sed i men taryrocks and their con tained fos sils, as well as for the post-Flood model (Woodmorappe, 2000). If Gentet re ally be -

lieves that tracks, eggs, and nests could not be made in theFlood, I would have ex pected a through ref u ta tion of pre -vi ous work, which in di cates such fea tures can be madeearly in the Flood (Oard, 1995; 1997b; 1998).

With out such rig or ous anal y sis of all the ev i dence thatGentet and Lain con sider prob lem atic, how can one takethe CCC model se ri ously?

Ref er ences

CRSQ: Cre ation Re search So ci ety Quar terlyCEN Tech. J: Cre ation Ex Nihilo Tech ni cal Jour nalGentet, R.E., 2000. The CCC model: a re ply to Froede;

Reed; Ackridge; Woodmorappe; and Klevberg. CRSQ37:207.

Gentet, R.E. 2002. Re sponse to Ackridge’s re flec tions onthe CCC model. CRSQ 39:141–142.

Lain, E.C. 2001. De fense of CCC Model. CRSQ 38:165–168.

Molen, M. 1990. Diamictites: ice-ages of grav ity flows? InWalsh, R.E. and Brokks, C.L. (ed i tors). Pro ceed ings ofthe Sec ond In ter na tional Con fer ence on Creationism.Vol ume II Tech ni cal Sym po sium Ses sions and ad di -tional top ics, pp. 177–190. Cre ation Sci ence Fel low -ship, Pitts burgh, PA.

Oard, M.J. 1994. Sub ma rine mass flow de po si tion of pre-Pleis to cene “ice age” de pos its in Walsh, R.E. (ed i tor).Pro ceed ings of the Third In ter na tional Con fer ence onCreationism. Tech ni cal Sym po sium Ses sions.pp.407–418. Cre ation Sci ence Fel low ship, Pitts -burgh, PA.

. 1995. Po lar di no saurs and the Gen e sis Flood.CRSQ 32:237–239.

. 1997a An cient ice ages or gi gan tic sub ma rine land -slides. Cre ation Re search So ci ety Mono graph No. 6.,Cre ation Re search So ci ety books, St. Jo seph, MO.

. 1997b The ex tinc tion of the di no saurs. CENTech. J. 11(2):137–154.


. 1998c Di no saurs in the Flood: a re sponse. CENTech. J. 12(1):69–86.

Woodmorappe, J. 2000. Five let ters about Gentet’s CCCmodel (CRSQ 37:10–21) fol lowed by a re sponse fromthe au thor. CRSQ 37:203–204.

Mi chael J. Oard34 West Clara CourtBozeman, MT 59718

Rapid Erosion of Rock

I have per formed sev eral ex per i mentsre lated to the ero sion rates of rocks. I al -ways found that they erode too rap idly.Now I un der stand why. The fi nal cal -cu lated re sults are very sen si tive to theas sump tion of the fi nal mass of theprod uct. I as sumed the fi nal mass to be0.001 gm, which is of the or der of themass of a grain of sand. How ever,“0.001 gm” is not “noth ing,” which issup posed to mean “to dis ap pear.”When I place 0 in the equa tion, ob vi -ously the nat u ral log of 0 is not defined.

Us ing the Ha waii Oahu rocks as an ex am ple, the av er -age num bers of years to dis ap pear un der dif fer ent fi nalmass as sump tions is shown in Ta ble I. Us ing the fi nal mass of 0.001 gm as a base line, the ra tios of the above num bersare shown in Table II.

The nat u ral log of 10–300 ap pears to be the limit of mycom puter. More pow er ful com put ers may give smallernum bers for the nat u ral log a rithm. Af ter I re cal cu lated thenum bers of my other ex per i ments, I ob tained re sults in the or der of thou sands of years for a spec i men to dis ap pear.More so phis ti cated com put ers can con ceiv ably ex tend thenum ber of years by a certain percentage.

For ex am ple, when I ap plied the above tech nique tothe group of lo cal rocks, which was par tially pub lished inthe Tech ni cal Jour nal in Oc to ber 1997, the av er age num -bers of years to dis ap pear are shown in Table III.

The tum bling ef fect was ob tained by sub ject ing the rocks to tum bling ac tion with wa ter. The rocks were ro tated at arate of about 60 cm/sec, caus ing rapid ero sion and abra sion.The wa ter fall ef fect was ob tained by sub ject ing the rocks tothe bom bard ment of a col umn of wa ter about 1.6 cm di am -e ter. The wa ter source was sus pended about 150 cm abovethe rock sam ples in a plastic container.

The av er age num bers of years to dis ap pear for the rocksam ples to dis ap pear, (sam ples sup plied by the ge ol o gistWil liam Waisberger), from the Klamath Moun tains innorth ern Cal i for nia are shown in Table IV.

I hope that the above clar i fi ca tion will shed some lighton my pre vi ous ex per i ments.

Fi nal mass Ba s0.001 gm 010–80 gm 1410–300 gm 53

Ta ble I.

Fi nal mass Ba s10–80/0.001 1810–300/0.001 67

Ta ble II.

alt Iron stone Slate Lime stone Mudstone Coral lite.79 3.96 1.89 2.55 1.77 1.50.37 71.69 36.89 48.04 31.62 28.16.16 265.21 136.88 178.01 116.89 104.34

alt Iron stone Slate Lime stone Mudstone Coral lite.16 18.10 19.48 18.84 17.85 18.81.20 66.96 72.30 69.81 66.00 69.70

Chris to pher Chui20501 Michale St. Canoga Park, Ca. 91306-1229chris to [email protected]

Rock Types Tum bling Wa ter fall W/T*Ef fect Ef fect

Mex i can Beach Rock 15.93 4341.03 272.43Norco Gran ite 8.22 1423.73 173.31

San Bernardino Gran ite 6.01 1888.26 314.22Box Springs Gran ite 4.97 1320.93 265.61

Cal i for nia Desert Rock 6.21 969.48 156.19Lava Rock 3.48 268.96 77.28Sand stone 3.78 1007.25 266.71

Cal cite 0.66 346.17 523.95

Ta ble III.

*Ra tio of Wa ter fall/Tum bling

Rock Types Tum bling Wa ter fall W/T*Ef fect Ef fect

Am phi bo lite 0.78 1713.83 2187.25Phyllite 3.73 1267.96 339.80

Quartz Vein 9.20 2518.33 273.63Metarhyolite 13.53 3107.09 229.66Greenstone 8.17 1911.52 234.10

Ta ble IV.

*Ra tio of Wa ter fall/Tum bling


Or i gin of Ge netic Dis or ders: Re sponse to Mastropaolo

In his ar ti cle “Evo lu tion is Le thal Antiscience” (CRSQ 38:151–158) Dr. Mastropaolo claims “per ma nent ge netic ex -tinc tion in this cen tury” for the hu man race, based on arapid in crease in re ported ge netic dis or ders from 1966–1999 (p. 155). In my let ter (CRSQ 39:62–63) I pointed out his data re flected the dis cov ery of such dis or ders, not theiror i gin in the hu man ge nome.

In his re ply (CRSQ 39:63–64) Dr. Mastropaolo writes“He [Blievernicht] ar gues that once phy si cians sur mounttheir na ivete, then new ge netic dis or ders are bound to de -cline and level off.” I did not ac cuse phy si cians of na ivete.It is Dr. Mastropaolo’s in ter pre ta tion I was chal leng ing,not that of phy si cians, none of whom, so far as I know,agree with Mastropaolo on this point.

Mastropaolo writes “At the end he [Blievernicht] ar gues that life is in deed in a devolutionary pat tern, which is thethe sis of the pa per that he ar gues against.” It is the rate ofde vo lu tion, not the fact of it, that is the point of de bate. Inhis re ply he pro vides no proof for the claim that re portedge netic dis or ders are nec es sar ily new ge netic dis or ders,which was the main point at is sue in my ini tial let ter. In -stead he claims, with out ref er ence, that ge netic dis or dersstrike ear lier in suc ceed ing gen er a tions. This tac itly ac -knowl edges my main point, that ge netic dis or ders werepres ent in prior gen er a tions be fore their dis cov ery as suchin the 1966–1999 time frame!

As Dr. Da vid Demick (1999) points out: ...re cent re search has re vealed lit er ally tens of thou -sands of dif fer ent mu ta tions af fect ing the hu mange nome, with a like li hood of many more yet to bechar ac ter ized. These have been as so ci ated withthou sands of dis eases af fect ing ev ery or gan and tis -sue type in the body. The med i cal de scrip tions ofmany forms of in her ited dis ease have a com montheme: 80–90% of cases have af fected in di vid u als in the fam ily tree, but the re main ing cases are spo -radic—the re sult of ever in creas ing num bers of new mu ta tions.

These data sug gest that new mu ta tions ac count for nomore than a small per cent age of ob served ge netic dis or -ders, the re main der be ing trans mit ted from their or i gin ingen er a tions past. The per cent age may be less, since med i -

cal in for ma tion on mem bers of a fam ily tree is some timeslimited or nonexistent.

Mastropaolo also as serts, “Yet in spite of these med i calad vances, birth de fect fa tal i ties con tinue to in crease ex po -nen tially.” This is based on his in ter pre ta tion of Fig ure 5in his pa per, show ing an in crease in the pro por tion of in -fant deaths at trib ut able to birth de fects. These are two to -tally dif fer ent things, and Mastropaolo’s claim that birthde fect fa tal i ties are in creas ing “ex po nen tially” is flatly in -cor rect. They are not in creas ing ex po nen tially. They arenot in creas ing at all. In fact they are decreasing.

Ac cord ing to the Cen ters for Dis ease Con trol (1998)from 1980–1995 in fant mor tal ity for all causes de clined39.8% in the United States. In fant mor tal ity due to birthde fects de clined a lesser amount, 34.2%, so the pro por tionof deaths due to birth de fects in creased as shown inMastropaolo’s chart. As the CDC stated, “Birth de fects arethe lead ing cause of in fant mor tal ity, but in fant mor tal ityat trib ut able to birth de fects (IMBD) has not de clined asrap idly as over all in fant mor tal ity.” But the point is that the ac tual rate of deaths due to birth de fects de clined by over athird—hardly the ex po nen tial increase Mastropaoloclaimed.

Over all IMBD de clined from 2.6 per thou sand births in 1980 to 1.7 in 1995. At pres ent there fore im prove ments inmed i cal care are out pac ing the in creas ing ge netic loadcar ried by the hu man race. Hu man ex tinc tion due to ge -netic de fects is not im mi nent as Mastropaolo claimed, it isnot even foreseeable.

Ref er ences

Cen ters for Dis ease Con trol. 1998. Trends in in fant mor -tal ity at trib ut able to birth de fects, 1980–1995. Mor bid -ity and Mor tal ity Weekly Re port 47:37.

Demick, Da vid. 1999. The blind gun man. In sti tute forCre ation Re search Im pact No. 308.

Eric Blievernicht940 E. Sun set PikeTerre Haute, IN [email protected]

Stel lar FormationMost dis turb ing, how ever, is the fact that de spite nu mer ous ef forts, we have yet to di rectly ob serve the pro cess of stel lar for -ma tion. We have not yet been able to un am big u ously de tect the col lapse of a mo lec u lar cloud core or the irifall ofcircumstellar ma te rial onto an em bry onic star. Un til such an ob ser va tion is made, it would prob a bly be pru dent to re gardour cur rent hy poth e ses and the o ret i cal sce nar ios with some de gree of sus pi cion.

C.J. Lada and F.H. Shu, Sci ence, 248:572 (1990).


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Quar terly ref er ences]Cockman, Joneen. 1988. Col lect ing plants for the Cre ation

Re search So ci ety Her bar ium. CRSQ 24:187–193.Margulis, Lynn. 1971a. The or i gin of plant and an i mal

cells. Amer i can Sci en tist 59:230–235. . 1971b. Or i gin of eukaryotic cells. Yale Uni ver sityPress, New Ha ven, CT.Hitch cock, A. S. 1971. Man ual of grasses of the United

States. Do ver Pub li ca tions, New York.Walker, Tas man B. 1994. A bib li cal geo logic model. In

Walsh, R.E. (ed i tor), Pro ceed ings of the third In ter na -tional Con fer ence on Creationism (tech ni cal sym po -sium ses sions), pp. 581–592. Cre ation Sci ence Fel low-ship, Pittsburgh, PA.

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Bo

Errata
In the March, 2003 CRSQ, the let ter on p. 279, “FloodGe ol ogy Does Not Ex plain the Fos sil Re cord” should have had the au thor in for ma tion at the end:
E.C. Lain915 W. Miner St. Apt. 45Yreka, CA [email protected]

ok R

In the De cem ber, 2002 CRSQ on p.203, the ref er ence:Hunter, M.J. 2000b. Fos sils and the pre-Flood bound ary at

the base of the earth’s tran si tion zone. CENTJ 14(1):60–74.

should read:Hunter, M.J. 2000b. The pre-Flood/Flood bound ary at the

base of the earth’s tran si tion zone. CENTJ 14(1):60–74.

eview

The Right Questions: Truth, Meaning and Public Debate by Phillip E. JohnsonIntervarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. 2002, 191 pages, $16

This is a dis turb ing pub li ca tion; the es sence sum ma rizedwell in its fi nal para graph:

Above all, what went wrong in the de vel opedcoun tries where sci ence pre dom i nates was that thepre vail ing cul ture, through its opin ion-mak ers, gaveup on the search for truth. They sorted all thoughtsinto two bas kets, “re li gion” and “sci ence.” Thenthey kept ev ery thing in the “sci ence” bas ket, how -ever con trary to the ev i dence, and threw out ev ery -thing in the “re li gion” bas ket, how ever, of ten it hadbeen con firmed by ex pe ri ence. That left the mosttech no log i cally ad vanced so ci et ies with a def i ni tionof knowl edge that al lowed knowl edge only of meansand rel e gated all ques tions of ul ti mate ends to therealm of sub jec tiv ity and spec u la tion. Like a trav eler with out a map or a com pass, these so ci et ies no lon -ger had any knowl edge of where they should begoing. Not surprisingly, they lost their way (p. 191).

Law yer Phillip John son is a re tired Uni ver sity of Cal i -for nia pro fes sor who jus ti fi ably may be iden ti fied as to day’s most vis i ble and in flu en tial anti-evo lu tion ist (mol e cules to man the ory), and he re lent lessly op poses the athe is ticmindset char ac ter is tic for most sci en tists. He feels that theevo lu tion ary view rep re sents a “di sas trous ac com mo da -tion” (p. 137). The book is John son’s sixth since he ini ti -ated his at tack against Dar win ian nat u ral ism (ma te ri al ismor athe ism); and as Nancy Pearcey says in her ex cel lent 19-page For ward, “this cur rent book is the most personal ofJohnson’s published works” (p. 8).

The text deals with the main evo lu tion vs. anti-evo lu -tion is sues and not with other mat ters which are con tro ver -sial among anti-evo lu tion ists them selves. The mostper sonal in ti mate sec tions be gin in chap ter three whereJohn son re lates how he, just past age 61 in 2001, re -sponded to and was re stored from a de bil i tat ing stroke. As

a re sult he re al ized in a pow er ful man ner that Je sus Christis the foun da tional rock of his life (pp. 86-92; Matthew 7:24).

John son fur ther stresses the im por tance of bib li cal rev e -la tion and em pha sizes par tic u larly the early verses of Gen -e sis and in the Gos pel of John. More than two dozenques tions are pro posed and am pli fied by John son whoclearly iden ti fies him self as a Chris tian. His Ul ti mateQues tion is “What is the Most Im por tant Event in Hu manHis tory?” For John son, the an swer is God’s be com ing hu -man in the per son of Je sus Christ and Christ’s res ur rec -tion. These are vi tally im por tant Chris tian doc trines, but Iwould have in cluded the cru ci fix ion of Christ which wasnec es sary for the for give ness of sin. The sym bol of thecross points us back to this piv otal event. How ever, John -son did rec og nize that he had a sin ful na ture (p. 98), andhe of fered “the hy poth e sis that the un der ly ing de fect inMarx ist the ory was that it con tained no pro vi sion for sin,which is the inherent corruptibility of human nature” (p.180).

John son does not di rectly an swer ev ery ques tion hepres ents in the book, but he pro vides ideas about what thean swers may be. Many cur rent is sues in volv ing pol i ticsand re li gion (in clud ing Is lam) are cov ered. John son ap -pro pri ately un der stands that ge nome re search has not pro -duced ex pected pat terns for dif fer ences among or gan isms.Es pe cially for Chris tian ed u ca tors and other in tel lec tu als,the book is well worth read ing, pon der ing, and re act ing onthe ba sis of John son’s rec om men da tions that in clude there vamp ing of popular science teaching in our educationalinstitutions.

Wayne Frair1131 Fel low ship RoadBask ing Ridge, NJ 07920-3900


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Creation Research Society
His tory—The Cre ation Re search So ci ety was or ga nized in 1963, with
Dr. Wal ter E. Lammerts as first pres i dent and ed i tor of a quar terly pub li ca -tion. Ini tially started as an in for mal com mit tee of 10 sci en tists, it has grownrap idly, ev i dently fill ing a need for an as so ci a tion de voted to re search andpub li ca tion in the field of sci en tific cre ation, with a cur rent mem ber ship ofover 600 vot ing mem bers (grad u ate de grees in sci ence) and about 1000 non-voting mem bers. The Cre ation Re search So ci ety Quar terly has been grad u -ally en larged and im proved and now is rec og nized as the out stand ing pub li -ca tion in the field. In 1996 the CRSQ was joined by the news let ter Cre ationMat ters as a source of in for ma tion of in ter est to creationists.

Ac tiv ities—The so ci ety is solely a re search and pub li ca tion so ci ety. Itdoes not hold meet ings or en gage in other pro mo tional ac tiv i ties, and has noaf fil i a tion with any other sci en tific or re li gious or ga ni za tions. Its mem berscon duct re search on prob lems re lated to its pur poses, and a re search fund ismain tained to as sist in such pro jects. Con tri bu tions to the re search fund forthese pur poses are tax de duct ible. As part of its vig or ous re search and fieldstudy pro grams, the So ci ety op er ates The Van Andel Cre ation Re searchCen ter in Chino Val ley, Ar i zona.

Mem ber ship—Voting mem ber ship is lim ited to sci en tists who have atleast an earned grad u ate de gree in a nat u ral or ap plied sci ence and sub scribeto the State ment of Be lief. Sus taining mem ber ship is avail able for those whodo not meet the ac a demic cri te rion for vot ing mem ber ship, but do sub scribeto the State ment of Be lief.

State ment of Be lief—Mem bers of the Cre ation Re search So ci ety, which in clude re search sci en tists rep re sent ing var i ous fields of sci en tific in quiry,are com mit ted to full be lief in the Bib li cal re cord of cre ation and early his -tory, and thus to a con cept of dy namic spe cial cre ation (as op posed to evo lu -tion) both of the uni verse and the earth with its com plex ity of liv ing forms.We pro pose to re-evaluate sci ence from this view point, and since 1964 havepub lished a quar terly of re search ar ti cles in this field. All mem bers of the So -ci ety sub scribe to the fol low ing state ment of be lief:

1. The Bi ble is the writ ten Word of God, and be cause it is in spiredthrough out, all its as ser tions are his tor i cally and sci en tif i cally true in all theorig i nal au to graphs. To the stu dent of na ture this means that the ac count ofor i gins in Gen e sis is a fac tual pre sen ta tion of sim ple his tor i cal truths.

2. All ba sic types of liv ing things, in clud ing hu mans, were made by di rectcre ative acts of God dur ing the Cre ation Week de scribed in Gen e sis. What -ever bi o log i cal changes have oc curred since Cre ation Week have ac com -plished only changes within the orig i nal cre ated kinds.

3. The Great Flood de scribed in Gen e sis, com monly re ferred to as theNoachian Flood, was a his tor i cal event world wide in its ex tent and ef fect.

4. We are an or ga ni za tion of Chris tian men and women of sci ence whoac cept Je sus Christ as our Lord and Sav ior. The act of the spe cial cre ation ofAdam and Eve as one man and woman and their sub se quent fall into sin isthe ba sis for our be lief in the ne ces sity of a Sav ior for all peo ple. There fore,sal va tion can come only through ac cept ing Je sus Christ as our Sav ior.

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CREATION RESEARCH SOCIETY Q · ing to gethe r a sim ple ma chin e that man aged to fly. In re al - ity, however, their achieve ment was the result of a highly con trolled sci en tific