Empirical evidence of catastrophic geology: Case 1

In 2002, Canyon Lake (man-made lake north of San Antonio, NW of New Braunfels) flooded after the watershed feeding the lake was subjected to 35 inches of rain in one week.  The embankment dam has a wide emergency spillway that did its job and concentrated the overflow to a certain area of the embankment and its downstream target area.  In just 3 days, the flood waters carved a canyon 1.5 miles long and up to 80 feet deep.  The waters did not erode massive soil deposits, they cut through a limestone rock formation !  The geology in this area consists of materials of the Glen Rose geologic formation, that consists of inter-bedded limestone rock, marly limestone, nodular limestone, weak limestone, and rocky clay-marl.  Although the marly materials are relativley erodible, the rock layers are not.




Here is a photo during the flooding as it carved through a road crossing (South Access Road):

Someone considering only uniformitarian geology concepts might typically believe canyons and gorges are formed by rivers slowly eroding the landscape over "millions of years".  The Canyon Lake gorge is one of many examples of empirical evidence that this is not the case.  At the deepest cut this 3 day localized flood carved out up to 80 feet deep inter-bedded limestone materials.  Are canyons formed by baseline flow river water over a long period of time, or a lot of flood water over a short period of time?  Evidence before us indicates the latter actually occurs.  The former is hypothesized and not empirical.

Here is another photo of the gorge carved in 3 days:

Here is one exposing faulting and also exposing boulder deposits (left):

Here is a close up of the boulder deposits that were placed during the 3 day flood event:

And here is another view of the eroded gorge.

Texas Geologic Physiographic Provinces

Texas geology is best categorized by starting with the largest area distinctions known as the physiographic provinces. This map shows you the provinces.

The Gulf Coastal Plains (red, orange and yellow) are composed of massive sedimentary deposits. 

In uniformitarian (atheists and long-age creationists/agnostics) geology terms these deposits are "Quaternary" and "Tertiary" age ("Cenozoic").  For creationist geologists these include recent age sedimentary deposits (post primary catastrophic events / post ice age) but otherwise predominantly deeper sedimentary deposits of either the initial catastrophic period (eruptive to dispersive phases of the catastrophic flood period - aka "Noah's" flood and meteor/asteroid impacts; the "eruptive" to "dispersive" phases can be seen in the Tas Walker geologic model) or the post-flood catastrophic events as described by others (e.g. the Steven Robinson model).  

The Central Texas Uplift (purple) consists of a mound of igneous (ie granite) and metamorphic rock (ie schist; gneiss) surrounded by sedimentary deposits.  These rocks are categorized as "Precambrian" to "Cambrian" (early "Paleozoic") formations (i.e. original continental crustal bedrock).

The Edwards Plateau (green) consists of massive hardened sedimentary deposits (rock) and includes a cavernous (cave forming) zone within the formation known as the "Edwards Limestone" formation. The Grand Prairie province (brown; Ft Worth area) also consists of sedimentary rocks similar to those found in the Edwards Plateau.  The Edwards Plateau deposits are categorized as "Mesozoic" age (triassic, jurassic, cretaceous) in the uniformitarian model, or inundation phase of one of the catastrophic models.

The Basin and Range province (brown) includes volcanic mountains and sedimentary rock. Large flows of volcanic ash and thick deposits of volcanic debris flank the slopes of most former volcanoes. There is no current measurable seismic activity in this region. Eroded craters exist where cores of volcanoes collapsed.

The High Plains (pale brown) consist of recent age and older sedimentary soils and rock that are categorized as "Cenozoic" and "Mesozoic" in the uniformitarian model, or inundatory, recessive, and post ice-age phases of the catastrophic (creationist) models.

The North Central Plains (blue) consist of sedimentary deposits also known as "Permian" rocks.  Some recent age deposits are identified but the materials are mostly categorized as "Paleozoic" age in the uniformitarian model, or biotic phase of creationist model.

The political boundary or county boundary map used by geologists and the oil and gas industry is presented below and is different:

Perspective by Dr. David Stone

The creation vs evolution debate unfortunately has a direct impact on our notions of geologic history, so it has to be included in any discussion of the geologic history of Texas and of the planet. Unlike geologic processes that can be observed and quantified today, historical geology is another matter. Dr. David Stone was chairman of the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan Tech, was a professor of laser physics, engineering, and electromagnetics, and earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan State. He also served in the Air Force in a research program and worked for Lockheed Martin. In a recent interview with Creation Ministries International he offered the following insights:

"My work in statistical physics and engineering design connects with the question of the origin of the nano-machines of life. Scientists are careful with use of the word 'impossible', but I will state categorically that it is impossible for any protein, not to mention the larger structures inside the cell or the cell itself, to arise by undirected chemical processes. [consider the complexity of biochemical systems, and compare to the difficult process required by man to design even simple functioning electrical systems, and we can discern that intelligence is involved]. God's designs are so intriate and efficient that biochemists find it difficult even to sketch the structure of some basic bio-tools such as enzymes. Perhaps the most useful and painful lesson our brightest engineering students learned in our design course was just how incredibly difficult it is to design, build, test, prototype, and produce ANY useful electrical or mechanical system that actually works. Once a good design concept is on the table, painstaking calculations and relentless prototyping and testing, while suffering failure after failure, are inevitably on the path to a successful product. Anyone proposing a design approach equivalent to mutations, natural selection, and infinite time would be laughed at. [Consider as an example] laser technology [it] is the designed application of God's physical laws. [...] If evolutionary biologists would take an engineering design course - and pass it - they might get worried about their Darwinian faith."

A Creationist Geology Model

One model of how global catastrophic events might be the origin of our current geologic profile, and cause a cataclysmic global flood (i.e. events must still obey the laws of physics within the model formed by our creation entity), is the catastrophic plate tectonic model. This model follows much of the evidence used to support uniformitarian (gradual) plate tectonic theory but also solves inconsistencies or failures of the uniformitarian model. The creation model recognizes that cold rock denser than the mantle materials below surrounded the original super-continent and began to sink at the start of the flood year. Runaway subduction would sink the ocean floor in that area, displacing mantle material and start large-scale movement throughout the mantle. In areas where the mantle was pulling apart, rifts would form in the ocean floor. As ocean plates separated rapidly, hot mantle material would rise, vaporizing copious amounts of water (super-heated jet streams of steam along rift lines). Steam condenses in the atmosphere and falls as rain, a lot of rain ("and the flood gates of heaven were opened" Genesis 7:11). The catastrophic model has been supported by computer modeling that impressed even uniformitarian geologists (Beard, J,. "How a super-continent went to pieces", New Scientist 137:19, 16 January 1993) and provides reasoning to support magnetic field reversals and large cave formation, and explains high-pressure minerals and uplift of today's mountain ranges. The model is more complex than i am explaining, you can review the scientific literature for more information such as:


"Catastrophic Plate Tectonics: A Global Flood Model of Earth History", 1994, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creation, authored by PhD scientists Steven Austin, John Baumgardner, D. Russel Humphreys, Andrew Snelling, Larry Vardiman, and Kurt Wise.


"Catastrophic Plate Tectonics: The Geophysical Context..."

Runaway-Subduction-the-Driving-Mechanism-for-the-Genesis-Flood


As noted by Jonathan Sarfati of Creation Ministries International (CMI):

"under Uniformitarian plate tectonic theory, plates are moving too slowly to penetrate past the upper layers of the mantle; rather, they should blend in long before they reach the lower mantle. Yet studies show that the subducted plates have penetrated much further, and are still relatively cool. This is consistent with the subduction being fast enough to penetrate the mantle, and recently enough so they have not had time to heat up."

Some suggest that the catastrophic volcanism of mantle origin associated with extinction events was triggered by asteroid impacts. Tectonic plate motion over the hotspots was periodically disturbed, as shown by clearly marked bends in the sea mount ranges, the Hawaii-Emperor chain being probably the best example. The idea of impact-triggered volcanism became more and more common in the literature in the early 1990s. It is reasonable to attribute these disturbances to impacts during the overall catastrophe on a global scale. Extraterrestrial impacts might explain a sudden conversion of metastable material in the upper mantle to a denser phase—a prerequisite for the catastrophic plate tectonics model.


As a side note, an interesting theory related to impact dynamics is "shock dynamics":

http://www.newgeology.us/

but this theory has not received sufficient vetting.

The geologic record associated with asteroid craters is a topic of its own and quite fascinating.  Some references that relate crater evidence with catastrophic geology:

A Biblically Based Cratering Theory

Impacts and Flood - How Many? and Other Issues

Catastrophic Impact Bombardment Surrounding the Genesis Flood

An Impact Flood Submodel - Dealing with Issues

Geologist Tas Walker has developed a geology model consistent with catastrophic events including a massive flood, and this model is graphically illustrated below. The hydrological considerations explain many geological features that are difficult to explain under uniformitarian models (Oard, M., Defining the Flood/post-Flood boundary in sedimentary rocks, Journal of Creation 21(1):98–110, 2007).

Of continuing debate today among creationist scientists and geologists who are encouraged by the remodeled geology type theory is where the flood to post-flood boundary is located within the framework of the uniformitarian geology theory.  Although there are many non-conformities, gaps, and inverted formations (old ones on top of supposed younger ones), and therefore some creationist geologists (reconstruction model type theory) suggest dumping the geologic column entirely and redeveloping a new one.