The Flood shaped the earth's surface in other ways (Talk.Origins)
Claim CH580:
- All geological features are consistent with a global flood, including plateaus, overthrusts, canyons, submarine trenches, geosynclines, and more.
Source:
- Brown, Walt, 1995. In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation.
- Whitcomb, John C. Jr. and Henry M. Morris, 1961. The Genesis Flood. Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co..
CreationWiki response:
(Talk.Origins quotes in blue)
1. A major flood leaves distinctive features.
- giant ripple marks
- braided channels
- poorly sorted sediments with a single fining upwards cycle
- relict streamlined islands
Such features are observed on a local scale in the Channeled Scablands [McMullen 1988; Parfit 1995] and on Mars [NASA Quest n.d.]. They are far from global, though.
This claim by Talk Origins is based on the erroneous comparison of the Genesis Flood to stream-type floods. All of the above features result from water rushing quickly and unidirectionally through the flooded area. A global flood would produce what amounts to a global ocean and as such the effects of a global flood cannot be accurately compared to this type of flooding. Talk Origins even concedes this point in the last sentence.
2. Almost all features of the earth can be explained by conventional geology, including processes such as plate tectonics and glaciation. A global flood does not help to explain any of the exceptions.
Given Talk Origins' clear misunderstanding of the Genesis Flood, this claim has no basis in reality. The Genesis Flood not only explains the exceptions, but everything that uniformitarian geology can explain as well. The main difficulties stem from having to work around uniformitarian interpretations.
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