Chapter 17 Appendix Part 5

Evolution Encyclopedia Vol. 1

*Lawson adds additional reasons:

"It seems therefore, mechanically impossible [a priori] that a single intact prism of the earth's crust could move more than a small fraction of a mile by real overthrusting as a mobile block past a passive under-lying block, owing to the fact that strain is relieved by a succession of limited ruptures and the development of an imbricated structure." *A.D. Lawson, Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, (1928), Vol. 33, P. 340.

The truth is that the geologic time scale seen in the books is nowhere to be found in nature! It simply does not exist. Instead we find missing strata and mixed-up strata.

"There is no spot on earth to which one can go and see more than a few thousand vertical feet of stratified rocks. And in no one of these places can the evolutionary story of any animal or plant be seen." Frank Marsh, Evolution, Creation and Science, p. 221.

Yet evolutionary geologists attempt to impose this unnatural, artificial "geologic column" on strata everywhere on the planet:

"The more or less orderly evolution of life forms throughout geologic time makes fossils particularly valuable in time correlations of strata and in fossil age dating, and in placing of rocks in a world-wide geologic time scale." *H.D. Hedberg, "Stratigraphic Classification and Terminology," in Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Vol. 8, p. 42, (1881-1896).

In order to make this circular reasoning universal, an attempt has been made to fit all the rock strata in the world into one giant, artificial worldwide "onion-skin" system:

"The regional stratigrapher is supposed to define existing divisions of rocks and then to relate them to the international scale which stands for standard reference. Thus, regional classification can be conceived as natural, and the international scale as artificial at least outside the stratotype area." *V. Krassilov, "Organic Evolution and Natural Stratigraphic Classification," in Lethaia, 11(2)101.

The attempt to impose the synthetic "geologic column" on the world requires the invention of "reworking," "downwashing," "overthrusting" and other strange theories. The truth is that if the geologic column really existed anywhere, it would be nearly 100 miles (160.9 km) thick!

"Grabau states that it is of first importance that the stratigrapher should find a continuous record, in order that they may have a measure whereby to judge the partial records. But there is no such continuous record. The type section [theoretical total layers) of the timetable is said to be 95 miles thick. But the thickness of the stratified rocks in any place varies from less than one foot to a few thousand feet. The type section is a composite affair, built up by combining well-developed sections found in widely steered areas of the earth.' And T.H. Huxley states, 'All that geology can prove is a local order of succession . . Devonian fauna and flora in the British Isles may have been contemporaneous with Silurian life in North America and with carboniferous fauna and flora in Africa.' " H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation (1986), p. 24.

Other writers maintain that a complete, theoretical standard geologic column would be 150 miles (241.39 km) thick:

"Theoretically, this geologic column should be essentially the same all over the world, so that wherever a particular rode a fossil is found, the age and history could be dearly determined. But actually, each local "column" will usually be radically different from the "column" at any other locality. The standard column has been erected on paper by superposition of formations from all over the world, until the total column is about 150 miles in depth. At any one place, however, the local column will normally be only a few thousand feet in depth, or at most a few miles. In fact, at many places the crystalline "basement" rocks are exposed right at the surface, with none of the "column" deposited on it. The whole system is thus basically artificial." H.M. Morris, W.W. Broadman, and R. F. Koontz, Science and Creation (1971). p.25.

*Ager pleads with fellow geologists to accept the fact of the massive confusion existing in the strata, worldwide.

"For any part of the stratigraphical column of which we are particularly fond in our own backyard, we can almost always find somewhere else in the world where the same division is a hundred or a thousand times thicker. We are only kidding ourselves if we think that we have anything like a complete succession for any part of the stratigraphical column in any one place." *Derek Ager, Nature of the Stratigraphic Record (1973). pp. 30-31.

Evolutionists claim that there are places where the total strata are actually as much as 50,000 feet (152,400 dc) thick. But Siegler says No:

"The claim is also made that the fossiliferous rocks may attain a thickness of up to 50,000 feet. However, there is no place on earth where sedimentary rocks of such thickness have ever been found; in fact, normally one strikes bedrock after going down a few thousand feet. In only a few places have oil wells been drilled to depths of 10,000 to 16, 000 feet without hitting rock bottom." H.R. Siegler, Evolution or Degeneration: Which? (1972), p. 67.

Overthrusts stand out as a monstrous problem to the 100-year-old strata theory.

"Professor S.J. Bole says that 'one of the questions that the evolutionary geologists cannot answer is that of the upside down condition of rocks found far and wide.' " H. Epoch, Evolution or Creation (1966), p. 24.

In order to satisfy the theory in places where mixed-up strata occur, younger appearing rocks have been classified as "older," and older rocks have been labeled "younger."

"There is no place in the earth where the theory of the successive ages can be proven. Although charts have been made, the rock strata does not conform to the arrangement anywhere on earth. The appearance of the rocks does not harmonize with the theory. Rocks which are classified as older because of the fossils which they contain, often appear to be younger. Others which appear to be younger, having a greater degree of crystallization and solidification, are said to be older." E.R. Hooper, Does Science Support Evolution? (1947), p.111.

Consider the paradox of Chief Mountain. This is a high mountain composed of sedimentary strata, which rests on top of "younger" strata at its base, while in every direction the land is lower in altitude.

"Chief Mountain stands out alone with majestic grandeur, some 9,000 feet high, exploited in many a textbook as a "floating mountain" without roots, composed of Allyn Precambrian dolomite sitting atop soft Cretaceous shale. It is said to be an erosional remnant of a giant overthrust, postulated as such to try to explain why "older" or more primitive fossils, according to evolutionary time-scale, should lie apparently conformably atop the much younger Cretaceous shale." C.L Burdick, "Adventures in Field Geology, " in The Creative Alternative (1970), p. 65.

At this point in this appendix section, we will discuss several well-known examples of mixed-up strata or overthrust formations. Here is a description of the strata problem in the Grand Canyon:

"Two field trips were made to study the supposed unconformity between Mississippian Redwall Limestone and Cambrian Muav Limestone along the North Kaibab Trail, Grand Canyon. Characteristics indicative of unconformable stratigraphic relationships are described. Such characteristics were not observed along the Redwall-Muave contact line. Field evidence supports the belief that continuous deposition of sedimentary strafes occurred, one formation after the other. Thus there need not be any 200 million year depositional hiatus [gap] between the two formations." William Waisgerber, George F. Howe, and Emmett L. Williams, Introduction to "Mississippian and Cambrian Strata Interbedding: 200 Million Years Hiatus in Question," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, Match 1987, p. 160.

[See complete 8 page article for details.]

Lammerts provides us with a second description:

"In the Grand Canyon, for example, no Pennsylvania fossils are to be found, the Permian fossils resting upon the Mississippian, and yet there is no evidence of erosion during that assumed hiatus of perhaps some 30,000,000 years. [l] Even in our brief time since measurements have been recorded, coastlines are rising and sinking, in Scandinavia, for instance. h is then inconceivable that the crust of the earth would remain so stable and at just the right elevation that it would be unaffected by either erosion a sedimentation of millions of years. Edward Suess says such things, 'may well be cause for astonishment.' Field has this to say concerning this paraconformity in the Grand Canyon: 'Without the aid of fossils, disconformities are usually very difficult to determine the physical evidence of an hiatus between the Mississippian and the Permian periods is therefore not represented by a well defined plane of erosion.' But this is not the most acute stratigraphical problem in the Grand Canyon, which, incidentally, is one of the best places in the world to study stratigraphy. Below the Mississippian in most places the Devonian is not present, and nowhere does the Silurian or the Ordovician appear, which means that the Redwall formation, which is Lower Mississippian, actually rests upon the Cambrian Muav limestone, a time gap of over 50,000,000 years. [1] Surely in this immerse space of time we would expect to find effects of very extensive erosion, perhaps warping and folding with angular discordance, but what do we actually find? The appearance of perfectly conformable series of beds, laid down in fairly quick succession. Surely there is 'cause for astonishment'." W.E. Lammerts, Scientific Studies in Special Creation, (1971), pp. 127-128.

Next we turn our attention to a "rather small" overthrust that is not discussed very much. Geologists would rather not discuss it! Known as the Muddy Mountain overthrust, it is located in the Western States and includes parts of California and Nevada. The "minimum width of the thrust sheet" is 24 to 40 kilometers [14.9-24.9 miles], and may be 88 kilometers [49.7 miles] wide! It is "at least" 240 kilometers [149 miles] long, with a "minimum area" of about 3,800 square kilometers [2,361 square miles]1 "Minimum thickness" of this upper "older" rock is about 2-2.5 kilometers [1.2-1.6 miles] which rests on top of 22.5 kilometers [1.2-1.6 miles] of "younger" rock! All that vast quantity of rock is supposed to have traveled eastward overland from somewhere in California, and come to rest on "younger" rock below it. There is speculation that it is an illegal immigrant from the Pacific Ocean. And it is all just part of an even larger "belt," or series of western North American thrust sheets that extends all the way up into the Canadian Rockies! Did you know that part of the Canadian Rockies is an overthrust also?

As we said earlier, men are willing to move mountains in order to defend an obsolete 19th century theory about rock strata. But they will continue to defend it to the endbecause that theory dates the rock strata, and declares that the fossils in the "younger" strata in some mystical way evolved from fossils in the "older" strata.

"The Muddy Mountain overthrust is at the southern end of a heft of imbricated thrust sheets that extend into the Canadian Rockies. In Utah and Nevada, these imbricated thrusts comprise the Lake Jurassic through Late Cretaceous Sevier orogenic belt in which thick sections of Paleozoic geosynclinal rocks have been thrust eastward over thinner sections of younger shelf sedimentary rocks. The Muddy Mountain thrust sheet is imbricated with Dry Lake and Gass Peak thrust sheets.

"The Muddy Mountain overthrust may also be exposed in the Spring Mountains, where it is called the Keystone thrust. This Muddy Mountain Keystone overthrust extends at least 210 km [130 mi] along strike from the Clark Mountains, California, to the Muddy Mountains and is offset by the Las Vegas shear zone. Minimum width of the thrust sheet (distance parallel to movement) is that of the Muddy Mountains, or approximately 24 to 40 km [14.9-24.9 mil, depending on the assumed direction of movement, but it can be as much as 88 km [49.7 mi]. Its minimum area is about 3,800 km2[2,361 sq mi]. The youngest formation preserved in the thrust sheet is a Triassic sandstone in the northern area of the Muddy Mountains. Thus, the minimum thickness of the thrust sheet is about 4 to 5 km [2.5-3.1 mi] (2 to 2.5 km [1.2-1.6 mil of Paleozoic dolomite and limestone overlain by 2 to 2.5 km [1.2-1.6 mi] of Mesozoic sandstone and shale)." *J.W. Gregory, "Deformation Associated with the Movement of the Muddy Mountain Overthrust, " Nature, 77:272-274 (1908).

Here is a scientific report on an overthrust in the Apennines, part of the European Alps, which discusses a rather sizable piggy-back ride in ancient times.

"Maria concluded that the overturned slab, as well as the overlying Loiano Series, rode 'piggyback' style on top of the chaotic masses of the argille scagliose during an episode of late Miocene land-slipping, prior to the depositation of the parautochthonous Pliocene sediments of the Monghidoro area. The slab might have been transported as much as 100 kilometers [62 miles] northeastward because the Llano Series probably was deposited near the present Ligurian Tyrrhenian Coast." *K Jinghwa Hsu, "Origin of Large Overturned Slabs of Apennines, Italy, " American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, 51:85-72 (1987).

Discussing the Heart Mountain overthrust, a few miles north of Cody, Wyoming, Burdick pinpoints the problem and it is not in the rocks:

"A major objection to both the thrust and gravitational gliding theories [offered by evolutionists] is that the thrust contact is practically level; also there is no down grade to explain the gliding, nor rock competency sufficient to allow pushing these blocks over long distances without fracturing and making breccia and rubble. Furthermore, no source has been found from where such a thrust could have started. Authorities readily admit such deficiencies in the whole thrust hypothesis. They seem unable to visualize that the defect is in the fossil sequence dogma rather than in rock structure." Clifford L. Burdick, "Heart Mountain Revisited," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1977, p. 208.

*Pierce describes the imaginary journey of this mammoth quantity of rocks over nearly horizontal ground to its present location.

"The concept is here advanced that, near the close of early Eocene time, the Heart Mountain thrust originated as a detachment or shearing-off of strata at the base of the Bighorn dolomite. Near Dead Indian Hill the advancing southeastern edge of this bedding thrust sheet passed upward into a shear thrust and thence southeastward onto and across the land surface as an erosion thrust . .

"In broad outline, the structural features of the Heart Mountain thrust are those of a nearly horizontal thrust fault, which in its frontal part has ridden out upon an erosion surface. It has long been recognized, however, that this fault has uncommon features which can not be accounted for." *William G. Pierce, "Heart Mountain and South Fork Detachment Thrusts of Wyoming," in American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, 41:591-626 (1957).

In the same article, * Pierce goes on to explain that there is no evidence that the upper "older" strata levels ever slid over the lower "younger" levels. (The "fault contact" or "fault plane" which he mentions is that point where the "older" strata rests on top of the "younger" strata below it.)

"The fault contact or fault plane is usually concealed or at best is poorly exposed where it is an erosion thrust or a shear thrust, but the bedding thrust contact is well exposed in places. The fault contact of the bedding thrust may either be clean-cut and sharp, with essentially no brecciation [crumbling] of the beds above or below the fault, as observed at several places, or it may have a zone of broken limestone and limestone debris, such as observed at the northwest end of Sugarloaf Mountain. There the broken limestone zone is about 30 feet thick; the lower contact with the Grove Creek formation is sharp, but its upper contact is indistinct.

"As can be seen from the preceding description, the Heart Mountain thrust is an exceptional feature in several respects, and to account for it requires some new and perhaps unorthodox reasoning and deductions . . [*Pierce then proceeds to explain in complicated technical terms how the overthrust may have occurred, but later in the article he expresses his despair:] . .

"What kind of fault movement can be invoked to account for these occurrences? The thrusting of younger beds on older strata is the unusual relationship [sic.], in contrast to the common relationship of older beds thrust on younger strata. A method whereby blocks of Madison limestone can here and there be thrust down onto the Grove Creek [level] between fault blocks of Bighorn and Jefferson formations resting on Grove Creek, becomes most difficult if not impossible to explain as long as the fault blocks are in tight laterial contact with one another." * William G. Pierce, "Heart Mountain and South Fork Detachment Thrusts of Wyoming, " in American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, 41:591-626 (1957).

Then there is what some geologists privately refer to as "that infamous Lewis overthrust:"

"We previously mentioned Heart Mountain in Wyoming as showing disconformities. It also has strata in the wrong order, according to fossil ages. It is capped with Paleozoic limestone, and lower down is supposedly younger Jurassic and Tertiary sediments. The same is true of nearby Sheep Mountain, and last but by no means feast is the afore-mentioned Lewis thrust extending from glacier Park in Montana at least 500 miles along the Rockies, wherein an area covering several thousand square miles is assumed to have been pushed from the west toward the east from thirty to sixty miles. The capping of the Rocky Mountain range in this section is composed of Cambrian, Precambrian, or Paleozoic strata. This mighty Rocky Mountain Cordillera rests upon a base of Cretaceous rocks, in some places showing dinosaur remains. The fossil flora of the mountain capping is mostly an alga flora." W.E Lammerts, Scientific Studies in Special Creation, (1971), p. 130

Lammerts says that the movement of such a block, if it could have been done, would have carved out a massive trench in the process.

"Where there has been movement of many miles, as is postulated for the 40-mile Lewis thrust in Glacier National Park, Montana, one would expect a gorge layer of great thickness. Where is the evidence of such a layer?" W.E. Lammerts, Scientific Studies in Special Creation, (1971), p. 12s.

It would have required the horizontal movement of 800 trillion tons of rock 35 miles overland!

"At many places in the world there are extensive areas in which the sedimentary strata are out of order according to the evolutionary theory of the order in which life evolved. An outstanding example is the so-called Lewis Overthrust which covers an area of some 13,000 square miles in the northern Rockies. Here whole mountain ranges composed of Pre-Cambrian rocks rest on top of Cretaceous rocks which, because of their fossil content, are dated as being at least a million years younger. The only explanation offered by uniformitarian geologists is that an overthrust pushed 800 trillion tons of old rocks some 35 miles over younger rocks.

"However, no field evidence exists for such massive thrusting and sliding, which would have produced at the sliding surfaces a layer of crushed, ground-up faun breccia probably hundreds of feet thick. No thick layers of fault breccia are found at the interface of the alleged overthrust. In any case, the law or physics would not permit the sliding to occur since the frictional forces would be too great in comparison with compressional strength of the rocks. Thus the actual facts at the Lewis Overthrust wipe out 400 million years of alleged evolutionary geological history." A.E. Kofahl and K.L. Segraves, The Creation Explanation (1975), pp. 47-48.

There is no force on earth capable of that massive horizontal movement of rock.

"It is quite inconceivable that sufficient force could be generated in the earth's crust to move eight hundred thousand billion tons of rocks with both a vertical and lateral component [move it against both the weight of gravity and the frictional force along the sliding plane]. Henry M. Morris has demonstrated that, on the basis of known friction coefficients for sliding blocks, so much shearing stress would be developed in a large block that the material itself would fail in compression and, therefore, could not be transported as a coherent [held-together] block at all." *John Whitcomb, The World that Perished (1988), p. 87 [ italics his].

A 1979 science article explains about the galloping Appalachians! Not content to be deposited by sediments in the uniformitarian way, the entire upper 2/3s or so of the entire Appalachians are now said to have come out of the Atlantic. "Go west, young man," was the advice, not of Horace Greeley, but of the Atlantic Ocean!

Yes, unbelievably so, in order to salvage their "older ages" and "younger ages" strata theory, the geologists claim that the entire African continent packed up and moved several times up into the North Atlantic and bashed several times against North America and in the process pushed up a mass of "older" material from the Atlantic Ocean onto the "younger" strata of the Appalachians!

Of course, their explanation ignores how Africa got there several times. Did it float over? Also ignored is the fact that all the upper 2/3s of the Appalachians would thus now be totally chaotic, and not stratified at all! Yet a major part of the coal in America comes out of very orderly coal beds in the Appalachians. Also ignored is the fact that the bashing produced no equivalent mountain ranges in Africa only in North America.

You will note in the following statement that the excuse is given that the upper 6 to 10 kilometers [4-6 miles] of the Appalachians is nothing more than jumbled "fragments of ocean floor, parts of island areas and continental rock." Tell that to the coal and petroleum geologists, and see what they have to says The imaginative powers of the evolutionists are seemingly without end.

"Old theories often fall to new technology. In a recent example, reported at the AGU [American Geologic Union] meeting, a powerful tool called deep seismic reflection profiling may have overthrown current beliefs about the formation of the Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachians, which run from Newfoundland to Alabama, were probably famed not by upward thrusting, as previously believed, but by a thick conglomerate of oceanic and continental rock that was shoved horizontally at least 250 kilometers [155 miles] over existing sediments, according to researchers from Cornell University and Florida State University . .

"The Tennessee-Georgia profile shows, as expected, that the upper 6 to 10 km [3.73-6.2 miles] of the crust is made of fragments of ocean floor, parts of island areas and continental rock. But beneath that jumble of rock, says Cook, lies a younger, flat, thin (f to 5 km thick [.62-15.5 miles]) layer of sediments that `no one thought existed.' The unbroken, wide extent of the layer researchers estimate it covers 150,000 kmz [150 thousand square kilometers or 93,206 square miles!] from near the coastal plain to the western coast indicate that the mountains 'couldn't have bean pushed up.' More likely, the researchers suggest, the accordion-like conglomeration of rocks was bulldozed over the younger sediments by repeated collisions of Africa and North America between 450 million and 250 million years ago. " "Thin View of Appalachian Formation," Science News, 115:374 (1979).

19 - CONSIDERING COAL

Earlier in this chapter we discussed several facts about coal which disprove evolutionary theory. Here are a few additional statements on this.

The plant material, which turned into coal, was not originally growing in the location where the coal is today found! Yet that fact most assuredly disagrees with evolutionary theory:

"The most common evolutionary view of the origin of coal is that plant materials were collected and converted into coal in the same location in which they grew. Much evidence, however, supports the view that many or perhaps most coal deposits were transported by water to their present locations, then buried and transformed by pressure and heat into coal. Polystrate coalified tree trunks and snags, for example, are often found extending through several layers of coal and the intermediate rock strata. Fossil tree trunks as long as forty or a hundred feet have been found extending either vertically or diagonally across many sedimentary layers. A notable example was a 60 foot tree trunk having a diameter of five feet at the base, found at an angle of 40 degrees intersecting ten separate layers of coal in a coal mine at Newcastle, England.

"Such evidence can only indicate a very rapid, catastrophic deposition of sediments. A tree would decompose to dust long before the passage of the millions of years required for uniformitarian deposition of forty or more feet of sediments and ten distinct layers of coal.

"Perhaps it can be added at this point that recent investigations have demonstrated that wood can be transformed to coal, and garbage into petroleum, in less than an hour by the application of pressure and high temperature." R.E. Wahl and ICL Segraves, The Creation Explanation (1975), p. 49.

Here is additional evidence pointing us toward the Genesis Flood as the cause of our worldwide coalbeds:

"Another important fact about coal deposits which makes the unformitarian explanation difficult to accept is the large number of successive layers of coal which are found in many locations. In Nova Scotia up to 76 layers of coal are found, one above the other; in England and Germany as many as 80 and 100 layers, respectively, Supposedly, the historical geologists tell us, each layer represents a period during which the land surface sank to a low level and swamps and peat bogs formed. Then the collected vegetable materials were covered by sediments and the land level rose to complete a cycle. Many such repeated cycles produced the sequences of coal layers observed today.

"But the imagination is severely strained by the assumption that the land rose and fell 80 or 100 times in a single location on the earth's surface. Furthermore, coal is almost entirely composed of trees, not of the kinds of materials which are deposited in peat bogy. Finally, certain types of marine fossils are often found in coal deposits. The great weight of evidence points to rapid, catastrophic deposition of coal beds, rather than slow growth in position during millions of years." R.E. Wahl and K.L Segraves, The Creation Explanation (1975), p. 49.

20 - MAKING PETROLEUM AND COAL

The existence of petroleum and coal are cited as another evidence that the earth has been here for long ages. The fact that there is petroleum and coal in sedimentary strata is offered as an additional reason for believing that the long periods of time assigned to the strata and their fossils must be true. Evolutionary theory requires millions of years to produce coal and oil. But scientific researchers have disproved that concept.

Evolutionists maintain that oil and gas require millions of years to form, and could not be rapidly produced from vegetation as Flood geology would require. But recent experiments prove that petroleum can be quickly made:

"There is great promise in a system being developed by government scientists that converts organic material to oil and gas by treating it with carbon monoxide and water at high temperature and pressure . . By using the waste-to-oil process, 1.1 billion barrels [131 billion liters] of oil could be gleaned from the 880 million tons (798 trillion kg] of organic wastes suitable for conversion [each year]." *L.L. Anderson, "Oil from Garbage," in Science Digest, July 1973, p. 77.

Here is an instance in which recently-formed coal occurred:

"Petzoldt (1882) describes very remarkable observations which he made during the construction of a railway bridge at Alt-Breisach, near Freiburg. The wooden piles which had been rammed into the ground were compressed by overriding blocks. An examination of these compressed piles showed that in the center of the compressed piles was a black, coal-like substance. In continuous succession from center to surface was blackened, dark-brown, light-brown and finally yellow-colored wood. The coal-like substance corresponded, in its chemical composition, to anthracite [hard coal], and the blackened wood resembled brown coal." *Otto Stufzer, Geology of Coal (1940), pp. 105-106.

MAKING PETROLEUM

Petroleum can be made in a short period of time. Laboratory experiments have produced it in as little as 20 minutes.

Yet evolutionists maintain that it required millions of years to make the coal and petroleum we now have.

"In one experiment, Bureau of Mines scientists heated cow manure at 380C (716F), at 2,000 to 5,000 p.s.i. [pounds per square inch] for 20 minutes in the presence of carbon monoxide and steam. The product was a heavy oil of excellent quality. The yield was about three barrels of oil per ton of manure. Other cellulosic materials such as wood, bark, corn husks, rice hulls, wheat straw, sewage, sludge, and garbage could also be used." G.L. Johnson, "The Genesis Flood and the Geological Record," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, September 1974, p. 109.

Here, in more detail, is how it was done:

"It has now been experimentally demonstrated that cellulosic material, such as garbage or manure, can be converted into a good grade of petroleum in twenty minutes.. The experiments of Bureau of Mines scientists in which cow manure was converted to petroleum are described in Chemical and Engineering News, May 29, 1972, p. 14. The process could also utilize other cellulosic materials such as wood, bark. . The manure was heated at 716 degrees F, at 2,000 to 5,000 pounds per square inch for twenty minutes in the presence of carbon monoxide and steam. The product was a heavy oil of excellent heating quality. The yield was about three barrels of oil per ton of manure.

"Protoplasm and chlorophyll are present in marine organisms. These components readily decompose, so there should be no difficulty in getting the reaction started, even at relatively low temperatures, during the conversion of these organisms to gas and oil.

"The heat generated by compression, the increase of temperature with depth, and the heat generated by friction of crustal thrusting caused by the tremendous cataclysmic burial and earth movements which occurred at the time of the Flood would have caused the temperature to rise sufficiently to initiate the exothermic reaction [heat produced by the chemical reaction]." Duane T. Gish, "Petroleum in Minutes, Coal in Hours," in Acts and Facts, Vol. 1, No. 4.

Evolution teaches that petroleum was formed more than 25 million years ago, but, as mentioned in chapter 6, Age of the Earth, the great pressures in deep oil wells around the world would render impossible such long ages of prehistory:

"Such high pressures require sudden deep burial. Moreover, to retain them for periods greater than 10,000 to 100,000 years is apparently impossible under the observed permeabilities [ability to trap leakage of fluids] of the oil reservoir and trap formations. " *Melvin Cook, Prehistory and Earth Models, p. 341 ]also see pp. 233-253].

MAKING COAL

Coal can also be made in a relatively short period of time.

"The formation of coal from woody or other cellulosic material in a very short time was demonstrated by experiments performed by Dr. George R. Hill of the College of Mines and Mineral Industries of the University of Utah. His report may be found in Chemical Technology, May, 1972, p. 296 . . The significance of these results with reference to the Flood and other catastrophic models is evident from Dr. Hill's remarks. He stated that, 'These observations suggest that in their formation, high rank coals, i.e., anthracite and low volatile bituminous, . . were probably subjected to high temperature at some stage of their history. A possible mechanism for formation of these high rank coals could have been a short time, rapid heating event." Duane Gish, Acts and Facts, Vol. 1, No. 4.

"(Dr. Hill] subjected samples of cellulose, glucose, xylose, and other woody materials to high temperatures and pressures for various lengths of time.

"Dr. Hill found that when the material was heated at the rate of 5C per minute, a dramatic temperature rise occurred in the temperature range of 220 to 260C. This sudden rise in temperature, which amounted to 200 to 400, indicated the onset of a highly exothermic reaction. Properties of the products were similar to those found in anthracite and low volatile bituminous coals. Hill concluded:

" 'These observations suggest that in their formation, high rank coals, i.e., anthracite and low volatile bituminous, which contain large concentrations of mufti-ring carbon hydrogen structures, were probably subjected to high temperature at some stage of their history. A possible mechanism for formation of these high rank coals could have been a short time, rapid heating event.'

"I suggest that the heat of decomposition of the chlorophyll and protoplasm in flood buried materials, the heat generated by compression, and the increase in temperature with depth could easily have been adequate to initiate the noted exothermic [heating] reaction. The reaction would then have proceeded to completion, producing our oil and coal deposits in a matter of days or weeks after being buried by flood sediments. " G.L. Johnson, "The Genesis Flood and the Geological Record," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, September 1974, p. 109.

In connection with the above, keep in mind that freshly dead plant materials, when piled together, naturally heat up. All aside from pressure and other factors, which will produce a sizable additional amount of heat, the decay of the materials will alone quickly produce temperatures up to 150. Consider compost heaps, which gardeners primarily make from leaves, stalks, and similar materials:

"Within a few days [after the heap is piled together], the heap begins to heat up and starts shrinking in size.. The heap heats up to almost 150 at the outset. After the first turn, the temperature will again rise, but it will then settle to a steady temperature of about 130." "The temperature in an active heap can rise to 160." *J. I. Rodale, et. al., Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening (1959), pp. 215, 214.

Compost heaps are primarily composed of leaves and stalks, yet it is well known that the higher the nitrogen content of heap, the better it will heat up. Manure is generally added for this purpose. During the Genesis Flood, dead plants and animals were intermingled, and then great pressure was applied to them.

Here is another brief report on the manufacture of petroleum from various materials: Note the rather low temperatures used in producing it:

"Kerogen, humic acid, and lipid material from marine sediments were heated at 150C-410C for 5-120 hours. Tests of the results showed that: ' . . the distribution pattern approached that of petroleum hydrocarbons . . other organic sediment fractions (lipid and humic acid). . also have an ability to produce pariffinic hydrocarbons.' " "Petroleum Need Not be Very Old," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1974, p. 70 (Quotation from R. Ishiwatari, et al., "Thermal Alterations of Young Kerogens in Relation to Petroleum Genesis," Nature, 264(5584):347-349 (1976).

Here is a description of the production of coal as a result of the Flood:

"Enormous masses of vegetation that existed all over the works just before the Flood were swept into huge piles here and there, repeatedly covered with layers of mud, and carbonized through heat caused by enormous thrust and weight pressures." John C. Whitcomb, World that Perished (1988), p. 85.

"From all available evidence it would appear that coal may form in a very short time, geologically speaking if conditions are favorable." *E. S. Moors, Coal, (1940), p. 143.

21 - THE GEOLOGIC CLOCK

The sedimentary strata, found all over the world, simply do not glue us any indications of TIME. There are no dates written on the rocks, and there are none written on the fossils in the rocks. The dating of those rocks and fossils is just a conjectured myth.

There are no time marks written on the rocks:

"The sedimentary rocks by themselves, however, do not yield any specific time marks, setting aside the old law of superposition, which can provide relative age indicators only in a restricted manner, and which is unfit for age correlations. Moreover, it may be misleading in some cases: the beds in a section may be overturned or, owing to a hidden thrust plane, older beds may over lie younger ones." *Schindewolf, "Comments on Some Stratigraphic Terms, " in American Journal of Science, Vol. 255, June, 1957, p. 394.

Another factor in this flawed time theory is the concept of uniformity. According to the theory, all the rocks and their fossils must have been laid down at an unvarying rate over the centuries; never faster, never slower, but always at the same speed:

"The idea that the rates or intensities of geological processes have been constant is so obviously contrary to the evidence that one can only wonder at its persistence. . Modern uniformitarianism . . asserts nothing about the age of Earth or about anything else." *James H. Shea, "Twelve Fallacies of Uniformitarianism," Geology, Vol. 1 9 (September 1982), p. 457.

This next quotation is dynamite, and it comes from a prominent geologist:

"Does our [geologic] time scale, then, partake of natural law? No... I wonder how many of us realize that the time scale [theory] was frozen in essentially its present form by 1840 . .? How much world geology was known in 1840? A bit of western Europe, none too well, and a lesser fringe of eastern North America. All of Asia, Africa, South America, and most of North America were virtually unknown.

"How dared the pioneers assume that their scale would fit the rocks in these vast areas, by far most of the world? Only in dogmatic assumptiona mere extension of the kind of reasoning developed by Warner from the facts in his little district of Saxony. And in many parts of the world, notably India and South America, it does not fit. But even there it is applied!

"The following of the founding fathers went forth across the earth and in Procrustean fashion made it fit the sections they found, even in places where the actual evidence literally proclaimed denial. So flexible and accommodating are the "facts" of geology." *Edmund M. Spieker, "Mountain-Building Chronology and Nature of Geologic Time-Scale, " in Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, vol. 40, August 1958, p. 1803.

*Spieker's summary ably concludes the matter: The only evidence available to vindicate the geologic column time-dating theoryis the theory itself!:

"And what essentially is this actual timescaleon what criteria does it rest? When all is winnowed out, and the grain reclaimed from the chaff, it is certain that the grain in the product is mainly the paleontologic record and highly likely that the physical evidence is the chaff. "*Edmund M. Spiekei, "Mountain-Building Chronology and Nature of Geologic Time-Scale, " in Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Vol. 40, August 1956, p. 1806.

STRATA AND FOSSILS
CHAPTER 17

STUDY AND REVIEW QUESTIONS

Special note: This chapter did not explain how these facts relating to strata and fossils apply to the Flood; that will be given in chapter 19. So, in replying to the following questions, the student may not yet have clarity in analyzing how fossil/strata evidence points to the Flood at this time.

1 - Define the following: fossils, sedimentary strata, paleontologist.

2 - Why is it so extremely important whether or not fossil evidence supports the claims of evolution?

3 - What is the basic teaching of uniformitarianism?

4 - The fossil/strata dating theory is quite old. It is today listed as having 11 periods and 3 eras. What is the oldest and most recent date when all those 14 categories were initially developed?

5 - Darwin believed that later fossil discoveries would prove evolution true. Is there enough evidence now? Has it vindicated the theory?

6 - How did the evolutionists really get those strata dates; from the strata, from the fossils? If not, from what?

7 - Why has it been said, "The strata prove the fossils, the fossils prove the strata, and the theory proves both"?

8 - The great complexity at the very bottom of the fossil strata, the Cambrian, disproves evolutionary theory and supports Creation and/or the Flood; why is that true? (Principle of complexity at the bottom.)

9 - In what way does the remarkable little trilobite witness against evolutionary theory?

10 - The sudden appearance of life at the very bottom of the strata, the Cambrian, disproves evolutionary theory and supports Creation and/or the Flood; why is that true? (Sudden appearance.)

11 - The fact that, for practical purposes, there is no fossilized life below the Cambrian disproves evolutionary theory and supports Creation and/or the Flood; why is that true? (No life below Cambrian.)

12 - The fact that there are no transitional fossil species anywhere in the strata disproves evolutionary theory and supports Creation and/or the Flood; why is that true? (No transitional species; only gaps between species; missing links.)

13 - The fact that every major phylum has been found at the bottom, in the Cambrian, disproves evolutionary theory and supports Creation and/or the Flood; why is that true? (All phyla at the bottom.)

14 - The fact that, at all strata levels species suddenly appear with no transitional fossils leading up to them, disproves evolutionary theory and supports Creation and/or the Flood; why is that true? (Abrupt appearance.)

15 - The fact that all the fossils which did not become extinct are practically identical to those alive today, disproves evolutionary theory and supports Creation and/or the Flood; why is that true? (No change in species from past to present.)

16 - According to evolutionary theory, there ought to be 100 times as many species in the strata as have been found there. Why does that disprove evolutionary theory and support Creation and/or the Flood? (Not enough species.)

17 - The fact that there are such massive fossil graveyards in various places, each containing billions of fossils, disproves evolutionary theory and supports Creation and/or the Flood; why is that true? (Fossil graveyards.)

18 - The fact that fossils are not made now, disproves evolutionary theory and supports Creation and/or the Flood; why is that true? (Fossils not made now.)

19 - The fact that animals had to be rapidly buried in order to turn into fossils, disproves evolutionary theory and supports Creation and/or the Flood; why is that true? (Rapid burial.)

20 - The fact that those animals died extremely fast, disproves evolutionary theory and supports Creation and/or the Flood; why is that true? (Sudden death.)

21 - The fact that footprints have been found well below the strata where their fossils were buried, disproves evolutionary theory and supports the Flood; why is that true? (Fossil footprints.)

22 - At Burgess Pass and elsewhere, the finest details of fossil soft parts have been found, disproving the claim that proto-life is not found in fossil form because it was soft. Research into the Burgess Pass fossils and write a report on them.

23 - Singly and together in forests, upright trees have been found buried in the strata. How does this disprove evolutionary theory and support the Flood? (Polystrate trees.)

24 - The discovery of "living fossils"--fossils which have been dead for "millions of years" and recently have been found to still be alive, disproves evolutionary theory and supports Creation and/or the flood; why is that true? (Living fossils.)

25 - The presence of amino acids in the lowest strata disproves evolutionary theory and supports Creation and/or the Flood; why is that true?

26- Human footprints, fossils, and artifacts have been found in strata far below where the theory first places them. How does this disprove evolutionary theory and support Creation and/or the Flood? (Human prints and other remains.)

27 - Briefly discuss 5 of the 12 facts about coal which disproves the strata/fossil theory and supports Creation and/or the Flood.

28 - Write a paragraph on the mixed-up fossil problem, giving special attention to down wash and reworking.

29 - Explain the missing strata problem, and its implications for the strata/fossil theory.

30 - Prepare a report on the mixed-up strata and overthrust problem, and what those facts do to the entire strata/fossil theory: Focus on one of the following: (1) The problem as a whole; (2) Heart Mountain; (3) Lewis Overthrust; (4) Swiss mountains; (5) Appalachians.

31 - Summarize 8 or 10 of the most fundamental of the evidences against the strata/fossil theory.

You have just completed

APPENDIX 17-E

NEXT Go to the next chapter in this series,

CHAPTER 18- ANCIENT MAN

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