Understanding the Noahic Flood and the Fossil Rocks - an introduction.

Last night my wife and I turned on a show that had already begun on the Discovery Channel, a program that was called "Megalodon: The Monster Shark That Lives."   We've become accustomed to the constant Darwinist propaganda that accompanies shows on Discovery and other "Science/History/Animal" channels.   But this one was particularly compelling and we were drawn in...but then about 20-25 minutes into the show I began to have doubts about the veracity of the program.  I had never heard of all of these supposed evidences of a 62-foot Megalodon being filmed or sighted or being credited with destroying a fishing vessel.   So as the show played I checked the internet and quickly saw that the show was a hoax.  Had we caught it at the beginning, we apparently would have seen a disclaimer and there was a disclaimer at the end (yes, we still watched it to the end) that clued in the viewer that the "documentary" was actually at least partly fictional.   Yes, we were kind of ticked off at Discovery Channel but we had an episode of "Foyle's War" saved on the DVR and we watched that afterwards and therefore ended the evening on the upbeat.  Foyle's War is billed as fiction and it is wonderful fiction at that, we are certainly glad that the Brits brought the show back again.

But the sad fact is that the world of so-called origins science is a phony as that Megalodon program and people do not realize they have been believing a set of very bad lies for a very long time.   There is so much fake teaching out there that the only way to comprehend the evidence is to try to start out with a blank slate.  Pretty much every single thing you have been told about the rock layers and the surface of the Earth and the origins of organisms and the Solar System is far less truthful than that Discovery Channel show and has less basis in fact than the series we enjoy, Foyle's War.   At least the Discovery show did eventually put up disclaimers that, if the viewer followed the logic, meant that all the so-called scientists were actors and that most if not all of the visuals were faked.  At least Foyle's War is presented as a work of fiction, but the scenery and time period is presented as close to accurate as possible.   The uniforms and automobiles and the events of history depicted and referenced are real and this reality is the canvas upon which the fictional stories of Foyle and Sam and Milner and other characters are depicted.

Darwinism is a series of lies based upon lies, 19th Century conjecture that has been falsified by modern science BUT perpetuated for religious reasons by Humanists and Naturalists and Atheists and Materialists who I tend to describe as Darwinists.   In order to perpetrate this continual fraud, the media continually insert propaganda into virtually all science and nature shows you see on television and also magazine articles and the vast majority of online sites as well.   The lies are presented to young minds in textbooks and incorporated into the curriculum of our universities.  If you grew up in the USA, you were systematically indoctrinated in Darwinism while going through the public school system.  If you also went to church, you would have been told the classic Bible stories in Sunday School and then later, as you got older and began to read the Bible, you would see a giant disconnect between what the Bible says about the origins of everything and what the Darwinists teach in school and the media.   Since I did not grow up as a church-goer, I did not have much knowledge of the Bible but I certainly learned my Darwinism very well.  

So lets be realistic, you probably know the myth of Darwinism very well and the facts behind it?  It is unlikely that you know the actual evidence behind the mythology.   Shall we do an analogy?

Let's pretend that you have been told that automobile engines are filled with springs that get heated up and push against levers, thus causing a screw to move and then when they springs move far enough they are bathed in cooling liquid and they retract, again turning a screw.  Inside your engine and transmission are all sorts of springs, levers and screws, all working to propel the wheels that turn and cause your automobile to move.  Suppose that everyone is told this and everyone repeats it?  Well, you are certainly going to believe it!   After all, EVERYONE knows that automobiles are powered by springs, levers and screws!

Then someone comes along and tells you that you have an internal combustion engine that works a completely different way...that the fuel you put into the automobile is shot into a cylinder where a sparkplug causes the mixture of fuel and air to explode and push a piston that is attached to a camshaft which is turned by the force of the downward pressure and then other pistons are going to push or be pulled in a specific order so that the four or six or eight pistons are all either being pushed down to move the camshaft or being pushed back up to be ready to be pushed back down again.   They tell you that the camshaft turns and this turning is transferred to the transmission, which uses gears to pass the turning along to the wheels via various methods.   In a front engine rear-wheel drive automobile, the transmission will pass the spinning via a driveshaft to a rear differential, again using gears to transmit the spin to the axle which turns the rear wheels.  In a front wheel drive vehicle the transmission converts and passes the spin to the wheels using (at least in most vehicles) a transaxle, moving your car down the road.  The same method is used for rear engined rear wheel drive vehicles.  You scoff and walk away wondering why anyone would say anything so preposterous, because EVERYONE knows that automobiles are powered by springs, levers and screws!

You have fallen victim to THE BIG LIE.  

"Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels was the master of the “big lie” tactic in which a lie, no matter how outrageous, is repeated often enough that it will eventually be accepted as truth. Goebbels explained:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”"

Adolf Hitler had mastered the concept of the big lie and had written on the subject in "Mein Kampf" in his description and vilification of the Jews.  If you substitute Darwinism for State in the quote, you understand why the Darwinist propaganda is a constant assault upon your eardrums in every science and animal show you watch - organisms "evolved" or "adapted" or "evolved" features but there is never an explanation of how such a thing may have happened.   There is a reason why they do not explain, because organisms only vary within kind, using genetic material that already exists within the organism.  Mutations are harmful and never change one kind of organism into another.  Darwinism is the biggest lie ever perpetrated on mankind by man himself, a complete pack of lies and fairy tales bereft of evidence.   When you understand the rock layers and surface of the Earth and see it for what it is, you will then easily see that Darwinism is preposterous.

Before I begin presenting evidence I will present an overview.  It goes like this:

The Earth was created by God and all organisms were also created by God in the beginning as described in the Book of Genesis.   All kinds ("baramin") were made to reproduce after their kind. So therefore only dogs come from dogs, only salmon from salmon, only giraffes from giraffes, only stegosaurs from stegosaurs and so on and so forth.  As we know from the study of organisms, there are all sorts of varieties within kinds possible, so that we can have wolves and hounds and terriers and retrievers but all are varieties of the dog kind.

The Earth as an ecosystem was different before the Flood.  People and apparently organisms could live a very long time and therefore dinosaurs could grow to impressive sizes.  In fact, the larger dinosaur fossils represent animals that could not even exist in our current conditions, for the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere would be insufficient to support the animal.  It is probable that the Earth had only one large continent surrounded by a shallower ocean or perhaps a continent with inlets allowing shallow seas to extend far inland.  No one can know for certain.

Suggested reading-Genesis from Chapter 1:1 to 11:9...this describes the creation of the Universe and the history of mankind up to the dispersion of the descendants of Noah and his sons after the Tower of Babel.   This section of Bible will be a reference point for the series, although the posts will primarily deal with evidence from observation and history rather than the Biblical text.

God decided that mankind had become too evil to allow him to continue.  Only one family had kept their faith in God, the family of Noah.   So God instructed Noah to build a massive Ark, a boat designed to carry a large cargo and be able to withstand great stormy conditions on the open ocean...only Noah built this on dry land.   He was likely the source of much laughter...until the day the Flood began.

How the Flood began is conjecture, other than God willed it to happen.   There is evidence of meteor showers and possibly a comet may have been involved or perhaps a massive earthquake began the event?  Did God miraculously cause the Flood entirely by fiat or did He use meteors and comets and earthquakes in concert to begin the event?  In any case, there was rain for 40 days and 40 nights and we have good evidence that the entire surface of the planet was subducted as tectonic plate movements (subduction) sped up to freight train speeds.   The rocks show massive volcanic activity and cataclysmic flood waters beyond anything we have seen...an event that makes the recent Japanese tsunami seem like a drop of water compared to the Amazon river basin!   At the end of my introduction is an article by Tas Walker in which he suggests that volcanoes were an integral factor in the start of the Flood event and a related study of the Columbian River basalts by Woodmorappe and Oard.

Eventually the water covered the entire globe, so that even the tops of the mountains were covered by a depth of 15 cubits (the length of this cubit is not certain, but probably around 20 inches) and the water covered the Earth for 150 days.   God Himself had shut Noah and his family and the animals sent to Noah to keep in the Ark on the second month and seventeenth day of the 600th year of Noah's life.  One year and ten days later the waters had subsided and the face of the Earth (at least around the Ark) had dried to the point that God directed Noah and his family and his cargo to go ahead and leave the Ark and begin to repopulate the planet.

The sedimentary rock layers of the Earth cannot be explained in any other way than a world-wide flood.  The surface of the Earth is only explicable in a scenario of the Flood runoff plus the events of the post-Flood ice age.  I will demonstrate why this is so using logic and showing the actual rock layering of the Earth.  Once it is clear that the rock layers of the Earth are catastrophic and not a result of millions of years of existence, then you will realize the true nature of the lies you have been taught and can look at the evidence and see that life is clearly designed, the Earth and Solar System are quite young and Darwinism is a fantastic fairy tale, primitive 19th Century science clung to desperately by Darwinists who cannot bear the thought of God.  

My life is full of work and family and friends, so I cannot blog every day and will not.  But when I do, it will tie in to the idea of a global Noahic Flood and the various aspects of the evidence will be presented to you, in hopes you will be willing to consider it and not simply keep your Darwinist blinders on.

There is no standard geologic column.

There is no way the numerous anomalies of the fossil rocks can fit into the Darwinist scenario.

The fossils are not a record of gradual evolution, they are a record of mass extinction.

The assertions made by Darwin in his first book were almost entirely made up of the plagiarized work of others, expansion on those themes, and his assertions have been disproven.  All of the conjectured findings that Darwin himself said would falsify his claims have come to pass.  The fossil record is still full of complete animals and bereft of transitional forms.  Organisms have been shown to be full of information and coding and obviously designed.  The reproductive systems of organisms preclude one kind of organism becoming another kind of organism.   Darwin thought the fossil record was incomplete and that the cell was some simple "protoplasm" that would be easily explained.  He had no clue that a cell would be more complex than any factory he'd ever seen.  He had no clue as to the true nature of the sedimentary layers and the fossils therein.

There are places where we find organisms from all sorts of environments all mixed together but mostly organisms are found buried where the Flood overcame them.  Most importantly is the huge number of fossils...organisms begin to deteriorate immediately upon death.   To perfectly preserve an organism requires a quick anaerobic burial.   Such an event would be remarkably rare in normal life.  Yet we have all these massive layers of water-formed sedimentary rocks that contain such well-preserved fossils that we find even jellyfish preserved and now have discovered that flesh and blood and skin remains can be found rather than actual fossil rock!

Remember, pretty much everything you have been told about the rock layers and about origins has been a lie.   Be prepared to consider a completely different story than the Darwinists tell and lets see who has the evidence and who does not, shall we?

Volcanoes shaped our planet

Fiery catastrophe greater in the past

by Tas Walker

Swirling clouds of ash and dust belched high above the Andes, disrupting air traffic and settling over the landscape. The sudden eruption of the Puyehue volcano in Chile in June 2011 demonstrated the power of untamed energy beneath the earth. Volcanic eruptions can devastate the countryside with burning lava, deadly ash and destructive mud. In fact, volcanoes are to blame for many of the world’s worst natural disasters.

But volcanoes also have their good points. Some of the most beautiful mountains are volcanoes, such as Mount Fuji in Japan. Also, the ash deposited by volcanoes forms fertile soil, outstanding for agriculture.

One remarkable effect of the Mount St Helens eruptions is that geologists are now more accepting of catastrophic geologic processes.

Right now at least 20 volcanoes are erupting around the globe,¹ concentrated on the boundaries between the earth’s crustal plates. The Pacific plate has so many volcanoes around its edge that it has been called the ‘Ring of Fire’.

Deadly fire clouds

During a volcanic eruption, clouds of superheated gas and broken rock, called tephra, can surge down the flanks and blast across the countryside. Dubbed ‘pyroclastic flows’,² these ash clouds are so hot that they glow red in the dark.³ They skim the ground with the speed of a jetliner, destroying everything in their path.

The Ring of fire surrounding the Pacific

On 8 May 1902, Mount Pelêe erupted on the island of Martinique in the Caribbean, producing a pyroclastic flow. Within minutes, the deadly cloud engulfed the nearby town of St Pierre, killing almost the entire population of some 30,000 people.

American volcano lessons

Mount St Helens volcano in Washington State, north-west USA, would be one of the most studied volcanoes on earth. On 18 May 1980, at 8:32 am, a surge of magma deep underground triggered an avalanche on the mountainside. Like a cork popped from a bottle of soda, the pressure inside the mountain unleashed the deadliest and costliest volcanic disaster in the history of the US: 57 lives were lost.

One remarkable effect of the Mount St Helens eruptions is that geologists are now more accepting of catastrophic geologic processes. Previously they were wedded to the idea that geological features formed slowly over millions of years. But their ideas changed after they saw that thick beds of ash, deposited in less than an hour, displayed fine laminations. That proved that long periods of time are not essential for fine layers to form.

Some of the large canyons in the area, now containing small streams, did not take ages to erode but were carved by catastrophic mudflows in less than a day. Rocky surfaces with grooves and striations were not chiselled by glaciers, but scraped by rock blasted along the ground.

Radioactive dating of rock that formed since the 1980 eruption gave ‘ages’ of hundreds of thousands, even millions of years, showing that the fundamental assumptions behind radioactive-dating were wrong.⁴

Mount St Helens ejected 1 km³ (0.24 cubic miles) of ash and dust from its vent, yet that was a small eruption compared with the ejecta from volcanoes of the distant past. For example, the ash deposited by the post-Flood⁵ Huckleberry Ridge eruption in Yellowstone Park, Wyoming, was 2,500 times greater than for Mount St Helens.

During Noah’s Flood some volcanic eruptions covered enormous areas.

Volcanic activity on the earth has been tapering off from a time in the past when eruptions were much greater.⁶ During Noah’s Flood, 4,500 years ago, water not only rained from the heavens but also burst from underground from “the fountains of the great deep” (Genesis 7:11). These fractures and upheavals in the earth’s crust caused great volcanic activity. It was many hundreds of years after the Flood ended before the earth settled down.

Sometimes, after a huge volume of magma erupts from a volcano, the overlying ground will collapse into the empty magma chamber to form a caldera. This is a circular depression on the surface of the earth that has a flat floor and steep walls. After its collapse, more lava is often forced up through cracks around the rim.

Calderas can range in diameter from a few kilometres to more than 50 kilometres. Water often fills the depression to form a lake, as with beautiful Lake Rotorua in New Zealand, created by a volcanic explosion after Noah’s Flood.⁷

Huge eruptions in the past

During Noah’s Flood some volcanic eruptions covered enormous areas, such as the Columbia River Basalt Group in north-western USA. Here, as many as 300 individual lava flows engulfed some 163,000 km² (63,000 sq. miles) of the countryside to a depth of more than 1.8 km (1.1 miles).⁸ The lava gushing from the earth was so hot and runny that it flowed across the landscape for vast distances. The flood waters were still around when the eruptions took place, and they deposited sediment, as well as wood (now petrified) and gravel, between some of the lava flows. The individual flows followed each other so quickly that there was not much erosion between them. But when the lava finally stopped, as the waters of Noah’s Flood receded into the ocean they eroded deep valleys into the basalt complex.⁸

Some of the Large Igneous Province of the world

These enormous volcanic deposits have been called ‘Large Igneous Provinces’ (or LIPs). Contrasting with today’s volcanoes, LIPs are usually found within the earth’s plates instead of along their edges.

Because LIPs are so much larger⁹ than the volcanoes we see today, long-age geologists are puzzled. What could have produced the titanic volume of magma, and how was so much lava erupted so quickly? They suggest that mantle plumes, large upward movements of hot rock from deep in the earth, were responsible. But the puzzle remains. What caused the plumes? We do not see plumes of this magnitude beneath volcanoes today. However, enormous volcanic eruptions like this are to be expected from Noah’s Flood catastrophe, which impacted the deep interior of the earth.¹⁰

Next time we see a volcano in the news spraying fountains of red-hot lava into the air and blackening the sky, we should be thankful that these eruptions are small compared to the mammoth eruptions during Noah’s Flood. That was the greatest catastrophe of water and fire this world has ever seen.

Shapes made by different lavas

Molten rock, while it is inside the earth, is called magma, but once it erupts onto the surface is called lava. Rocks that harden from magma are called plutonic (after the Greek god of the underworld, Pluto), and usually have large crystals, while rocks hardening from lava are called volcanic, and usually have very fine crystals. The composition of the magma depends on the source rock and how much of it melted.

Magma that is rich in magnesium and iron is described as mafic. It is highly fluid (thin, runny) and gushes out of fissures in the ground at over 1,000 °C. This lava solidifies into a black rock called basalt (if the magma cools inside the earth, it forms gabbro). Like a fountain, basaltic eruptions in Hawaii and Iceland spray red-hot lava into the air, which then flows in glowing red streams into nearby valleys or the ocean. These eruptions are placid and predictable, and popular as tourist attractions. The lava forms large, flat cones called shield volcanoes.

Magma with less iron and magnesium is less fluid, and can solidify into a grey rock called diorite. If this type of magma becomes lava, it will solidify into andesite. Eruptions can be violent and build steep cones. Andesite was named after the Andes Mountains in South America which mostly have andesitic composition.

With even less iron and magnesium the magma is thick and tacky. It is called felsic magma because it is rich in elements that produce feldspar and silica minerals. Felsic magma can erupt explosively or ooze like toothpaste to form a blob. The lava solidifies into a yellow, pink or pale-grey rock called rhyolite (the plutonic equivalent is granite). Mt St Helens erupted into a lava dome of dacite, between andesite and rhyolite in composition.

Related Articles

• How do you date a New Zealand volcano?
• Excess argon within mineral concentrates from the new dacite lava dome at Mount St Helens volcano
• Field studies in the Columbia River basalt, Northwest USA

References and notes

1. How many active volcanoes are there in the world? volcano.si.edu/faq/index.cfm?faq=03, accessed 15 September 2011. Return to text.
2. From the Greek: πῦρ pyr=fire, κλαστός klastôs=broken in pieces. Return to text.
3. At temperatures of 1,000 °C (1,830 °F) or more. Return to text.
4. Swenson, K., Radio-dating in Rubble: The lava dome at Mount St Helens debunks dating methods, Creation 23(3):23–25, 2001; creation.com/radio-dating-in-rubble. Return to text.
5. Uniformitarian geologists claim the Huckleberry Ridge eruption occurred 2.1 million years ago, but that was actually the early post-Flood era. Return to text.
6. Austin, S.A., The declining power of post-Flood volcanoes, Acts & Facts 27(8), 1998; icr.org/article/declining-power-post-flood-volcanoes/. Return to text.
7. The eruption of Rotorua and the formation of the caldera are quoted as occurring some 200,000 years ago according to uniformitarian assumptions, but in real time this is within the post-Flood era. Return to text.
8. The total volume was more than 170,000 km³. Woodmorappe, J. and Oard, M.J., Field studies in the Columbia River basalt, Northwest USA, Journal of Creation 16(1):103–110, April 2002. Return to text.
9. Often covering an area of several million km² and having a volume of lava of a million km³. Return to text.
10. Baumgardner, J.R., Runaway subduction as the driving mechanism for the Genesis Flood; in: Walsh, R.E. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, Technical Symposium Sessions, Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, pp. 63–75, 1994. Return to text.

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Aaaaaaaaaaaaand the follow-up post...I had presented this before but it fits here:

Field studies in the Columbia River basalt, Northwest USA

by John Woodmorappe & Michael J. Oard

Summary

The thick lava flows comprising the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) in the US state of Washington, and adjacent parts of the state of Oregon, contain a significant number of pillow lavas and palagonites—all indicative of subaqueous extrusion. Individual lava flows invariably show ‘knifesharp’ contacts between flows, which is consistent with the flows occurring one after the other in rapid succession. The nature of these contacts is inconsistent with the uniformitarian time intervals of millions of years indicated by isotopic dating. Claimed ‘weathered horizons’ and ‘fossil soils’ between individual lava flows are very uncommon, suggesting they are the product of chemical reactions between the hot lava and water, not fossil-soil material. The observations are consistent with the lava flows being extruded catastrophically, emplaced rapidly and cooled quickly, all during the global Flood recorded in the Bible. Taken together, the features of the Columbia River basalts suggest that they were mostly extruded and emplaced during the Late Abative Phase of the Recessive Stage of the Flood.

During the summer of 2001, the authors conducted a field trip to the extreme north-west part of continental USA (Figure 1). We covered parts of the states of Washington (WA) and Oregon (OR) and were episodically joined by creationist geologist Dennis Bukovoy, as well as John Hergenrather and Steven Sparkowich. The rectangular area studied extended approximately 300 km east to west, and 150 km north to south (bound by 45^o30' N to 47^o30' N and 117^o30' W to 120^o00' W). Observations of the Channeled Scabland, left over from the Lake Missoula glacial flood, were a highlight of the trip. In addition, some 50 outcrops of Columbia River basalt were observed or examined closely, and these are the subject of this report.

General characteristics of the Columbia River basalts

Figure 1. Outcrops of Columbia River basalts (shaded), most of which occur in Washington (WA) and Oregon (OR). THe entire geographic outcrop region, with the exception of its extreme eastern and extreme southern portions, was visited during this field trip.

The Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) is one of about a dozen very large continental flood basalts of various geological ages that exist on planet Earth. The CRBG covers an area of 163,700 km² with a volume of about 174,000 km³ in eastern Washington, northern Oregon, and portions of western Idaho (Figure 1).¹ The group is composed of about 300 flows, some with volumes as high as 2,000 km³. A few of the flows advanced up to 750 km.² Each flow has:

‘… similar structural characteristics: a) 2–3 tier columnar jointing; b) nearly planar upper and lower surfaces; c) few surface features suggestive of pahoehoe or aa flows; d) uniform thicknesses for many miles; e) few if any flow units or lava tubes.’³

In terms of uniformitarian geology, the Columbia River basalts are believed to span the Miocene Epoch, having been extruded at intervals from about 17 million years ago to 6 million years ago on the uniformitarian timescale.⁴ These thick and widespread extrusives are divided into a number of time-stratigraphic units.⁵

Inferred rate of emplacement

Were these lava flows emplaced gradually over many millions of years? Not likely. To begin with, textural evidence, reported by others, indicates that the lava flows responsible for the Columbia River basalts have traveled some 750 km without significant changes in temperature,⁶ and this implies ‘extraordinarily rapid emplacement.’ At this speed, the torrents of advancing lava flows must have overwhelmed and entrapped much of the surface material that lay before them on the earth. We observed several instances where material was overlain by the lava flows. Figure 2 shows one such case where a large mass of fossil wood, shaped like a lens, was entrapped beneath a lava flow. Even the textural features of the wood are evident.

At another location, Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park at Vantage, WA, we observed many petrified logs. However, the term ‘petrified forest’ is misleading because none of the trees appeared to stand in place as if in a forest. Many were tilted at an angle to the horizontal. It is interesting that over 200 species of petrified trees have been identified in Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park and these represent a large climatic range, from cool temperate (spruce and birch) to subtropical (Eucalyptus and bald cypress).⁷ The petrified logs have been stripped of limbs and bark⁸ and are found in a basal pillow complex of the Ginkgo Flow, implying that water preserved the logs from the heat of the lava.⁹

Figure 2. A large lens of fossil wood sandwiched between lava flows, near Lyle, WA. The upper contact shows the underside of pillows (‘elephants toes’—marked by arrow). The horizontal later marked by the hammer (circled) contains actual fibres of wood. This lens extends a considerable distance normal to the outcrop, as proved by the continuation of the lens in the outcrop face located on the other side of the road (not shown).

Scientists researching the CRBG have often commented on the rapidity of eruption. For instance, Reidel and Tolan state:

‘The important conclusion is that these eruptions were orders of magnitude larger than have ever been observed.’¹⁰

This clearly precludes any actualistic analogies with extant volcanic processes! It is further observed that two or three basalt flows seem to mix, suggesting that some flows did not even have enough time to solidify before the successive flow occurred.^10,11 There is also evidence that basalt flowed onto wet sediments, with incorporation within the lava. All things considered, the uniformitarians are baffled:

‘Little is known about the processes that produced these flood-basalt flows.’¹²

The rapid emplacement of basalt in flows up to 750 km in length is especially enigmatic to conventional geologists.^13,14 Even the very high melting rates needed to mobilize the lava are a challenge to the uniformitarian mindset.¹⁵

Figure 3. A row of coplanar solitary colonnades, near George, WA. The banding in the lava above John Woodmorappe’s head indicates differential shrinkage during the cooling of the basalt.

Naturally, if there is any indication at all of slow flow, some uniformitarian geologists are bound to highlight it. A number of geologists have done just this, providing an apparent mechanism for slower flow.¹⁶ The main evidence is pahoehoe or ropy lava texture at the top of some flows. Stephen Reidel, who researched the CRBG for 25 years, does not accept these arguments (although we believe he would like to, because rapid emplacement poses a major problem for the uniformitarian viewpoint). In any case, the apparent evidence for pahoehoe lava is largely restricted to the periphery of the flows, where the rate of advance would have slowed considerably.^17,18 This is also the area where pillow palagonite¹⁹ complexes and most interbeds are observed.

Inferred rate of cooling

Entablatures and colonnades are common structural features of basalt. They are named by analogy to the respective horizontal and vertical architectural structures prevalent in classical antiquity.²⁰ Entablatures commonly comprise well over half the thickness of a flow.²¹ They do not, by themselves, give unambiguous information about the cooling rate of the lavas.²² However, entablatures can solidify and cool very rapidly by water-steam convection.^11,20,23 The columnar jointing observed in basalts implies rapid cooling. As described elsewhere,²⁴ water at first only cools the outer ‘skin’ of the lava flow, forming a thin, solid ‘crust.’ The huge temperature gradient between the crust above and the still-hot lava below creates tensional stresses that crack the crust. Water then percolates into the cracks, and the cycle repeats itself. In the end, this rapid, cyclical cooling process produces a thick slab of rock with columnar jointing.

Roughly a quarter of the outcrops we observed showed some degree of columnar jointing. In extreme cases (Figure 3), giant colonnade ‘chimneys’ stand alone in eerie silence, having resisted the erosion which removed the surrounding basalt. In other outcrops, the colonnades resemble organ pipes emplaced within the basalt (Figure 4). Often, there are several horizons of columnar basalt in a large outcrop, interlayered with entablatures. Viewed from a distance, these narrow horizons of colonnades resemble ‘stitchwork’ on the outcrop surface. In other outcrops, the columns are not fully developed, and resemble superficial vertical ‘slices’ within the basalt.

Subaerial or subaqueous?

Figure 4. A layer of colonnades within the basalt, overlying basalt containing numerous pillow structures. The pillow lavas are indicated by the ‘ellipses’ (light-colored palagonite bands around each of the usually oval-shaped pillows). Near Dallas, OR. The scale is provided by a road sign (circled, extreme left-bottom).

Were the Columbia River basalts extruded under Floodwater or onto dry land, perhaps after the Flood? One obvious indicator of subaqueous extrusion is pillow lava and palagonite (Figure 5). These features are found mostly near the periphery of the lava flows, where one would expect the flows to slow down enough to form pillows. Waters writes:

‘Pillow lava-palagonite complexes are widespread along the margins of the Columbia River basalt … . Such foreset bedded breccias and associated pillow lava complexes are found at hundreds of localities along the margins of the Columbia River basalt … .’²⁵

We observed that at least a few pillow lavas occur in one out of ten or fifteen outcrops. The actual frequency of pillow lavas, however, is probably significantly greater than this estimate, for at least two reasons. To begin with, most pillows are small, and most outcrops we observed were from a fair distance. Second, most pillow lavas occur at the base of individual flows. These would not be readily seen unless there is some local erosion immediately under the pillow-containing flow, and the observer happens to be situated at the appropriate angle to see the underside of the lava flow. For instance, note that in Figure 2 the small pillows resemble ‘elephants toes,’ and can only be seen because there is a slight gap between them and the underlying fossil-wood layer. One would have to lie on the ground to get a reasonable view of the pillow lavas.

Figure 5. Closeup of a prominent pillow structure, near Vantage, WA. Note the layered bottom contact (arrow) and palagonite grains surrounding the pillow.

In most outcrops, pillow structures cover only a few square meters of the outcrop. However, there are a few outcrops where tens of metres of vertical outcrop and hundreds of meters of horizontal outcrop consist entirely of interfingered pillow structures. The entire bottom half of Figure 4 shows an example of this. In other locations, pillow structures are prominent in all three dimensions (Figure 5). In the figure, the sand-like material surrounding the pen is palagonite, a greenish-yellow reaction product of hot lava and water. The arrowed layering immediately underneath the pillow structure is a series of rapidly-cooled contact layers between the lava and water.

Although pillow lavas clearly indicate underwater deposition, it cannot be overemphasized that lavas can be extruded subaqeously without producing pillow structures.²⁶ The potential to form pillow lava decreases as the volume of extruded lava increases. The volume of lava increases as the third power but surface area only as the second power. Thus, the effective contact area between lava and water (where pillow lavas can potentially form) becomes proportionately smaller as the volume of lava extruded becomes larger. So also, for similar reasons, the probability becomes smaller that a subsequently-formed erosional surface (outcrop) will happen to expose pillow structures.

There are a variety of additional evidences, which indicate that most, if not all, of the Columbia River basalts were extruded underwater. These include marine fossils (such as sponge spicules, diatoms, and dinoflagellates) between lava flows, and numerous areas of well-rounded, exotic quartzite gravel, cobbles, and boulders locally interbedded with the flows (but mostly lying above the basalt).^27–29 The quartzite clasts, some of which lie 1,000 m ASL (above sea level) upon lava anticlines and 2,500 m ASL on ridges of the Wallowa Mountains, north-east Oregon,³⁰ indicate high-energy transport over long distances. The indicators of much subsequent erosion, such as smoothly eroded lava anticlines in the Yakima fold belt, and water gaps, are also consistent with a submarine origin for the basalt flows.^29,31 Considering all these evidences, we conclude that the Columbia River basalts were deposited during the Flood, not after the Flood.

Destroying intervals of ‘geologic time’

Figure 6. ‘Missing’ geologic time, near Bingen, WA. Note the three layers of partly-covered basalt in the center of the photo, each separated by a knifesharp contact. There is no evidence of an irregular contact with gullies as would be typical of an erosional surface. To the contrary, despite the fact that a few millions of years are supposed to have elapsed between the lowest and its overlying layer, the contacts are astonishingly conformable.

We address the question of whether there were appreciable intervals of geologic time between different layers of Columbia River basalt as claimed by uniformitarian geologists. Potentially, supportive evidence would be the presence of extensive valleys or gullies cutting into lava flows, and filled with successive lava flows. Another would be the presence of thick beds of basalt boulders between successive layers of basalt. It is almost astonishing to report that both are conspicuously lacking. To the contrary, in most locations, interbeds between lava flows are essentially nonexistent, and, when they do occur, they are thin, uniform in their thinness, and found mainly at the periphery of the flows. The lava flows themselves consist of monotonously thick layers. Nowhere did we observe anything resembling a valley, or boulder bed, between successive lava flows.

What about those superposed lava flows, which, according to isotopic dating, are anywhere from hundreds of thousands to several millions of years apart in time? One such location is shown in Figure 6.

The top two layers are assigned to the Pomona Member of the Saddle Mountain Basalt. The lowest layer (just above the road) is the Grande Ronde Basalt. The in-between Wanapum Basalt, and the few millions of years it supposedly represents, is absent and there is no undulating erosional surface to mark this supposed ‘missing’ time. James Anderson, referring to the flows in the Columbia River Gorge, concludes:

‘The apparent absence of significant erosion between eruptions suggests little or no coeval deformation.’³²

Is this example from the Columbia River basalt unusual? No! It is common for ‘ghost’ uniformitarian time intervals, and much greater ones than those discussed above, to be inserted into vertically (and also horizontally³³) contiguous lava flows. For example, the Plio-Pliestocene Rampart beds of California (USA) yielded isotopic dates ranging from 1.4 Ma to 2.56 Ma, but this range of dates is admittedly difficult to accept because of the absence of deep erosion or soil horizons between superjacent lava flows.³⁴ As another example, the Lincoln Porphyry of Colorado (USA), was originally mapped as a single unit because of the geographic proximity of the outcrops and the mineralogical and chemical similarity of the igneous body throughout its extent. It is therefore incongruous to find that parts of the Lincoln Porphyry are 29 million years apart in time, according to isotopic dating.³⁵ As a final example, consider the Garrawilla Lavas of New South Wales, Australia. These are bracketed between Upper Triassic and Jurassic sedimentary rock. Yet these lavas, over a large horizontal scale, grade imperceptibly into lavas which overlie Lower Tertiary sedimentary rock. Consequently, the latter lavas are considered younger, on an ad hoc basis.³⁶ Otherwise, geologists would have to acknowledge that there is actually only one set of lava flows, and that everything between Jurassic and Early Tertiary is contemporaneous!

Ancient ‘weathered horizons’ and ‘fossil soils’

Figure 7. Claimed weathered layer (supposed laterite) of Columbia River basalt (bottom half of picture, sandwiched between near-horizontal layers of grass growing on the outcrop), and overlain by a layer of unweathered Columbia River basalt (top half of picture). Near Kahlotus, WA. The contact zone between unaltered and altered basalt is marked by a hammer (circled).

Although we could not locate convincing field evidence for long periods of time, we realized we needed to be cautious. We did not want to be guilty of selecting evidence that supports a young-earth position and overlooking contrary evidence. For this reason, we asked local creationist geologists, very familiar with the geology of the area, to show us any apparent field evidence for ancient soils. On an earlier field trip, Harold Coffin had shown Mike Oard the location shown in Figure 7. During the present field trip, Dennis Bukovoy called our attention to the area shown in Figure 8.

First of all, it is interesting that these supposed laterites become an extreme type of laterite called bauxite near the west coast of Washington and Oregon.³⁷ Based on present-day occurrences, bauxites are interpreted to form in a hot, wet equatorial climate. However, this does not square with the much-cooler paleoclimate in Washington and Oregon during the Miocene,³⁸ also inferred from standard uniformitarian thinking. It is more reasonable that bauxites, as well as laterites, formed by processes not observed today, most likely during the Flood.

Figure 8. Alleged fossil soil underneath layer of basalt, near Hood River, OR. Creationist geologist Dennis Bukovoy (right) provides the scale. The ‘soil’ consists of the recessed, horizontal layer occurring at the same level as Bukovoy’s torso.

Black and white photography does not do justice to these ‘weathered’ surfaces. Consider Figure 7. In color, the overlying basalt is the usual gray-black, but the underlying ‘laterite’ layer, occurring below the grass-covered basalt layer, is a bright, fire-truck red. When broken by the hammer, the allegedly-weathered basalt displays a somewhat-friable, dull pink-orange texture. The vertical grass-free zone near the hammer (contact zone) represents the unsuccessful attempt by Woodmorappe to excavate enough talus to show the exact point of contact and reveal whether or not a conglomerate is present. Consequently, for now, the only evidence suggestive of long periods of time is the altered state of the subjacent basalt layer.

Even more visually impressive is Figure 8. The ‘soil’ is reddish-pink and crumbles into a powder when handled. Under magnification, some small quartz and feldspar crystals can be seen. The remainder of the material is too fine to be identified in hand sample and has been sent to a lab for analysis. We suggest that the material is a palagonite-like product of a reaction between hot lava and water, not fossil-soil material. In other words, it is likely a product of hydrothermal reactions.³⁹

What are we to make of these alleged indicators of long periods of time between basalt flows? Pending a detailed investigation of the composition of these ‘laterite’ and ‘soil’ features, and an understanding of all of the processes that can lead to their origin, we must put them in perspective. In spite of their visual prominence, even at a distance, which makes them difficult to miss, they are the only such features that we have seen, out of some 50 outcrops visited on this field trip, and then only because we were deliberately led to them. By any standard, they are very uncommon. It stands to reason that, if long intervals of time had elapsed between the supposedly-episodic lava flows, weathered horizons, and fossil soils should be common. At least one such ‘soil’ should occur in every tall (tens of meters high) outcrop. To the contrary they are rare and were most probably caused by localized processes as the basalts extruded.

Flood depositional history

Figure 9. Remnant of an intracanyon basalt flow, which trapped exotic quartzite and basalt boulders below it (arrow indicates contact). In the back ground, to the left, is the Snake River, below the Lower Monument Dam.

We will now attempt to place the CRBG within the Flood model of Walker.⁴⁰ Much evidence indicates that the CRBG was extruded from remarkably consistent N to NNW feeder dikes in south-east Washington, north-east Oregon, and adjacent Idaho during the orogeny that produced the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon, the Idaho batholith of western Idaho,⁴¹ and the Blue Mountains of Oregon.⁴² These fissures are parallel to the uplifted mountains and we suggest that they are tension cracks caused by vertical tectonics. Carlson agrees that the CRBG was extruded during extension:

‘Columbia River volcanism is part of the region-wide volcanism accompanying extension in the northern Basin and Range Province … .’⁴³

Thick gravel deposits are frequently found between flows of the Columbia River basalts (Figure 9). Most of the gravel is comprised of rounded basalt clasts, but the deposits also contain large exotic quartzite clasts from the Rockies. The basalt flows and gravel deposits were lifted to high altitudes by continuing upward tectonics. This is believed to explain the occurrence of quartzite gravel on top of the Wallowa Mountains of northeast Oregon. Some quartzite boulders in central Oregon are several mountain ranges west of their assumed source in the Rocky Mountains. We place this vertical tectonics mostly within the Abative Phase (sheet flow) of the Recessive Stage of the Flood in Walker’s³⁹ model (see Oard⁴⁴). A Late Abative Phase for the emplacement of practically all the CRBG is consistent with the exotic gravel boulders and the fact that the basalt flows are practically all sheet flows.

Figure 10. Thick boulder conglomerate near Lower Monument Dam comprised of rounded basalt clasts (dark) and exotic quartzite clasts (light). The overlying basalt flow can be seen in the background.

It was after the vast majority of the lava was emplaced that the deep canyons were cut, but this would have been mostly during the Dispersive Phase (channelized flow) of the Recessive Stage. For example, the Snake River dissects the basalt flows to a depth of up to 600 m. Intracanyon lava flows can be found in this valley, together with deposits of quartzite gravel (Figure 10). These intracanyon flows are quite patchy, indicating that after the canyon was cut through the basalt sheets, smaller volumes of basalt flowed into the canyons, locally trapping the gravel. These intracanyon flows make up a very small amount of the total volume of the CRBG and would be from the Dispersive Phase. It is possible that that these intracanyon flows could represent basalt that extruded from the middle of the various voluminous sheets of lava before it had time to completely solidify. In other words, the deep canyon was cut so quickly during the Dispersive Phase that the middle of the basalt flows had not yet consolidated. Additional research may help to demonstrate the speed of deposition and erosion of the CRBG.

It is not likely that the intracanyon lava flows continued into the immediate post-Flood period. Too much erosion is evident for it to have occurred under ‘normal’ geologic conditions. The extent of erosion is illustrated in Figure 9, which shows a thick erosional remnant of an intracanyon flow on top of a thick gravel deposit containing quartzite boulders near Lower Monument Dam.

Conclusions

Field studies of the Columbia River basalts reveal a variety of evidences that point to rapid extrusion, rapid cooling, and rapid succession of lava flows. Field evidences also indicate that the lavas were extruded under water.

Some features that have been claimed to indicate long periods of time between basalt flows, such as ‘weathered horizons’ and ‘fossil soils,’ are very rare. This suggests that these features did not develop over long periods of time but would be better explained by nontemporal processes.

The evidence is consistent with the Columbia River basalts being extruded en masse during the global Flood recorded in the Bible. In fact, the field relationships and landforms suggest that the majority of the Columbia River basalts were emplaced during the Late Abative Phase of the Recessive Stage of the Flood.

This, and earlier, studies should be extended to other larger basalt flows found on planet Earth such as Karoo of South Africa, Deccan Traps of India, Parana Basalts of Brazil, and the Siberian basalts. Attention should be focused on indicators of rapid vs. prolonged extrusion and on interpreting the flows within a biblical flood model.

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References and notes

1. Tolan et al., Revisions to the estimates of the area extent and volume of the Columbia River Basalt Group; in: Reidel, S.P. and Hooper, P.R. (Eds), Volcanism and Tectonism in the Columbia River Flood-Basalt Province, Geological Society of America Special Paper 239, The Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado, pp. 1–20, 1989. Return to text.
2. Reidel et al., The Grand Ronde Basalt, Columbia River Basalt Group; stratigraphic descriptions and correlations in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho; in: Reidel and Hooper, Ref. 1, pp. 21–52. Return to text.
3. Shaw, H.R. and Swanson, D.A., Eruption and flow rates of flood basalts; in: Gilmour, E.H. and Stradling, D. (Eds), Proceedings of the Second Columbia River Basalt Symposium, Eastern Washington State College Press, Cheney, Washington, p. 272, 1969. Return to text.
4. Swanson et al., Revisions in stratigraphic nomenclature of the Columbia River Basalt Group, United States Geological Survey Bulletin 1457-G, 1979. Return to text.
5. These divisions consist of four main subgroups, starting with the lowest: Imnaha, Grande Ronde, Wanapum, and Saddle Mountains (see Swanson et al., Ref. 4). The Grande Ronde Basalt subgroup comprises about 85% of the total volume of the CRBG. Individual flows are claimed to be similar, but distinctive enough from other flows, to correlate over most of the area. The CRBG averages 1.1 km deep with a maximum depth of 3.5 km in the Pasco Basin, generally the center of the area. The CRBG thins towards the periphery, where most of the evidence for water contact exists. Interbeds within the CRBG are mainly found along the periphery of the flow (see Reidel et al., Ref. 2, p. 18). Return to text.
6. Snelling, A.A. and Woodmorappe, J., The cooling of thick igneous bodies on a young earth; in: Walsh, R.E. (Ed.), Proceedings of the 4^th International Conference on Creationism, Technical Volume, p. 541, 1998. For primary source, see: Ho, A.M. and Cashman, K.V., Temperature constraints on the Ginkgo flow of the Columbia River Basalt Group, Geology 25(5):403–406, 1997. For further evidences and discussions concerning rapid emplacement of these basalts, see: Cashman, K., Pinkerton, H. and Stephenson, J., Introduction to special section: long lava flows, J. Geophysical Research 103(B11):27281–27289, 1998. See also: Oard, M.J., Very rapid emplacement of Columbia River basalts in non-turbulent flow, CEN Tech. J. 13(2):8–9, 1999. Return to text.
7. Coffin, H.G. with Brown, R.H., Origin by Design, Review and Herald Publishing Association, Washington, p. 213, 1983. Return to text.
8. Beck, G.F., Ancient forest trees of the Sagebrush area in Central Washington, J. Forestry 43(5):334–338, 1945. Return to text.
9. Carson, R.J., Tolan, T.L. and Reidel, S.P., Geology of the Vantage area, south-central Washington: an introduction to the Miocene flood basalts, Yakima Fold Belt, and the Channeled Scabland; in: Hill, M.L. (Ed.), Geological Society of America Centennial Field Guide-Cordilleran Section, Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado, pp. 357–362, 1987. Return to text.
10. Reidel, S.P. and Tolan, T.L., Eruption and emplacement of flood basalt: an example from the large-volume Teepee Butte member, Columbia River Basalt Group, Geological Society of America Bulletin 104:1670, 1992. Return to text.
11. Reidel, S.P. and Fecht, K.R., The Huntzinger flow: evidence of surface mixing of the Columbia River Basalt and its petrogenetic implications, Geological Society of America Bulletin 98:664–677, 1987. See also: Reidel, S.P., Emplacement of the Columbia River flood basalt, J. Geophysical Research 103(B11):27393–27410, 1998. Return to text.
12. Reidel and Tolan, Ref. 10, p. 1650. Return to text.
13. Cashman et al., Ref. 6, p. 27281. Return to text.
14. Kerr, R.A., Throttling back the great lava floods?, Science 264:662–663, 1994. Return to text.
15. Carlson, R.W., Physical and chemical evidence on the cause and source characteristics of flood basalt volcanism, Australian J. Earth Sciences 38:525, 1991.Return to text.
16. Self et al., A new model for the emplacement of Columbia River basalts as large, inflated pahoehoe lava flow fields, Geophysical Research Letters23(19):2689–2692, 1996. Thordarson, T. and Self, S., Sulfur, chlorine and fluorine degassing and atmospheric loading by the Roza eruption, Columbia River Basalt Group, Washington, J. Volcanology and Geothermal Research 74:49–73, 1996. Thordarson, T. and Self, S., The Roza member, Columbia River Basalt Group: a gigantic pahoehoe lava flow field formed by endogenous processes?, J. Geophysical Research 103(B11):27411–27445, 1998. Return to text.
17. Cashman et al., Ref. 6, p. 27285. Return to text.
18. Reidel, Ref. 11, p. 27409. Return to text.
19. Palagonite is a reaction product of hot lava and water, commonly replacing glass forming in subaqueous environments, such as rinds on pillows. Palogonite consists of poorly crystalline montmorillonite (clay), is greenish-yellow to orange-brown and is commonly concentrically banded. Return to text.
20. In terms of architecture, colonnades are the vertical columns (e.g. pillars), and entablatures are the horizontal structural features, which span multiple pillars and are supported by them. In geologic usage, entablatures are the horizontal slabs of lava, which rest upon the vertically-jointed lavas (the colonnades).Return to text.
21. Degraff, J.M., Long, P.E. and Aydin, A., Use of joint growth directions and rock textures to infer thermal regimes during solidification of basaltic lava flows, J. Volcanology and Geothermal Research 38:314, 1989. Return to text.
22. Snelling and Woodmorappe, Ref. 6, p. 539. Return to text.
23. Long, P.E. and Wood, B.J., Structures, textures, and cooling histories of Columbia River basalt flows, Geological Society of America Bulletin 97:1144–1155, 1986. Return to text.
24. Snelling and Woodmorappe, Ref. 6, pp. 535–536. Return to text.
25. Waters, A.C., Determining direction of flow in basalts, American J. Science 258-A:361–362, 1960. Return to text.
26. Williams et al., An introduction to the geology of Verde Valley: a different perspective, CRSQ 36(2):86, 1999. Welded tuffs can also cool underwater without producing pillow structures. Return to text.
27. Barnett, J. and Fisk, L.H., Palynology and paleoecology of a sedimentary interbed in the Yakima Basalt (Miocene), Palouse Falls, Washington, Northwest Science 54(4):259–278, 1980. Return to text.
28. Coffin, H.G., Columbia River basalts: rapid submarine deposition (unpublished manuscript), 1996; (cited with permission of the author). Return to text.
29. Oard, M.J., Where is the Flood/post-Flood boundary in the rock record, CEN Tech. J. 10(2):267–273, 1996. Return to text.
30. Oard, M.J., Antiquity of landforms: objective evidence that dating methods are wrong, CEN Tech. J. 14(1):38, 2000. Return to text.
31. Oard, M.J., Vertical tectonics and the drainage of Floodwater: a model for the middle and late Diluvian period–Part II, CRSQ 38(2):79–95, 2001. Return to text.
32. Anderson, J.L., Pomona member of the Columbia River Basalt Group: an intracanyon flow in the Columbia River Gorge, Oregon, Oregon Geology 42(12):195, 1980. Return to text.
33. Lava flows can have different ages horizontally as well as vertically, just as sedimentary strata can (e.g. part of the same sandstone formation can be Cambrian and part can be Ordovician). Because lava can overlap a previous flow, the same horizontal ‘level’ traced laterally can be younger than the identical stratigraphic level at another location. Return to text.
34. Woodmorappe, J., Studies in Flood Geology, 2^nd Edition, Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, p. 167, 1999. Return to text.
35. Woodmorappe, J., The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods, Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, p. 9, 1999. Return to text.
36.  Woodmorappe, Ref. 34, pp. 141–142. Return to text.
37. Alt, D.D., Profiles of Montana Geology, Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology Special Publication 89, Butte, Montana, p. 92, 1984. Return to text.
38. Oard, M.J., What can 10,000 dinosaur bones in a bauxite lens tell us?, CEN Tech. J. 13(1):8–9, 1999. Return to text.
39. Oard, Ref. 29, p. 272. Return to text.
40. Walker, T., A biblical geologic model; in: Walsh, R.E. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, Technical Symposium Sessions, Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, pp. 581–592, 1994. Return to text.
41. Camp, V.E. and Hooper, P.R., Geologic studies of the Columbia Plateau: Part I. Late Cenozoic evolution of the southeast part of the Columbia River Basalt Province, Geological Society of America Bulletin 92:659–668, 1981. Return to text.
42. Reidel et al., The geologic evolution of the Central Columbia Plateau; in: Reidel and Hooper, Ref. 1, pp. 247–264. Return to text.
43. Carlson, Ref. 15, p. 528. Return to text.
44. Oard, M.J., Vertical tectonics and the drainage of floodwater: a model for the middle and late Diluvian period–Part I, CRSQ 38(1):3–17, 2001. Return to text.