The Rock Walls of Rockwall County | The Institute for Creation Research

The Rock Walls of Rockwall County

Situated just to the northeast of Dallas County is the county of Rockwall, with its capital city Rockwall, both derived from the frequent occurrence of underground rock "walls" that crop up around the area. On occasion, intrepid Texans have dug down beside a wall to see how far it goes, but they’ve never reached the bottom.

Often the walls are thin, just an inch or so thick. Others are several inches thick. When exposed, they really do look something like a manmade brick wall consisting of beveled "bricks" with mortar in between them. In recent decades, the city of Rockwall has witnessed rapid growth and the walls have been destroyed or covered, so that now none can be seen. Local folklore has arisen that a race of prehistoric giants built the walls.

Geologists have occasionally studied the walls and have each concluded that they are a natural phenomenon, much to the dismay of local romantics. In the mid-1970s, several local historians contacted the Institute for Creation Research for a creationist’s opinion. They may have thought that if anyone would acknowledge prehistoric giants, creationists would. I was a member of the geological engineering faculty of Oklahoma University at the time and was asked to investigate.

First, I reviewed all the scant scientific literature on the subject. All the geologists had concluded that the walls were sandstone dikes, cracks filled in with sand squeezed up from below like toothpaste, followed by hardening of the sand into sandstone over millions of years. Next, I collected field observations of the dikes and concluded that they had indeed come up from below and couldn’t have simply been cracks filled in from above.

My uniformitarian colleagues may have correctly identified the dikes and their source, but they completely misunderstood the dikes’ significance. The sand seems to come from a deeply buried sand stratum that was squeezed up at some point after its deposition. Several other layers had been deposited on top of the sand layer. Regional torsion of the area had applied the squeezing pressure, perhaps associated with the uplift of the Rocky Mountains.

At any rate, the timing of the squeezing was, according to uniformitarian thinking, many millions of years after the mother sand bed had been deposited. Yet the sand had not yet hardened into sandstone, for it was still able to flow. But how long does it take for sand to harden? Not long at all, if the conditions are right, and particularly if a cement is present to bind the grains together.

Let’s put this sequence of events together.

Event Creationist View Uniformitarian View
Deposition of mother sand bed Mid-Flood 160 million years ago (my)
Deposition of overlying beds Mid- to late-Flood Surface rock < 100 my
Squeezing Late-Flood 65 my
Hardening Post-Flood < 65 my

The sandy material had to be soft when emplaced in the dikes, but according to uniformity it was already millions of years old and should have been hard. What’s wrong with this picture? Evidently, it is the millions and millions of years timeline that is wrong.

The evidence supports a shorter chronology.

Image credit: Dr. John Morris

* Dr. Morris is President of the Institute for Creation Research.

Cite this article: Morris, J. 2011. The Rock Walls of Rockwall County. Acts & Facts. 40 (9): 16.

The Latest
CREATION.LIVE PODCAST
Searching for Truth Across the Globe | Creation.Live Podcast:...
How can we bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the truth of creation to others outside our small spheres of influence?   Host...

NEWS
Marine Mammals: Designed for Deep Diving
While you’re reading this, hold your breath. What is now happening is your blood is delivering the last of oxygenated blood cells to your tissues...

CREATION PODCAST
Humanity's Demise at the Hands of Genetic Entropy | The Creation...
Welcome to the fourth episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old earth...

NEWS
''Inside-Out'' Fossil is Amazingly Preserved
It is widely known that vast numbers of fossils—vertebrate and invertebrate—have been discovered incredibly well-preserved.1,2...

NEWS
The Resurrection and the Origin of Life
At Easter time we focus on the cardinal Christian doctrine of the Resurrection. Without the Resurrection, Christianity is a sham. The truth that Jesus...

NEWS
Is an Ancient Extinct Tree-Dweller Our Relative?
Human evolution has always been hazy with seemingly as many attempted explanations for how we evolved from animals as there are paleoanthropologists. Evolutionists...

NEWS
The Return of the Dire Wolf?
There’s been much recent excitement about the birth of three dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus) puppies by a Dallas-based biotech company: Colossal Bioscience....

CREATION PODCAST
Cracks in the Layers: Lake Suigetsu and the Old Earth Illusion...
Welcome to the third episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old earth...

NEWS
Fish Fossil Vomit
A rather unsavory news story recently appeared regarding fossilized vomit. Although it’s hardly dinner table conversation, it nonetheless supports...

NEWS
Dino Footprints Down Under
Dinosaur trackways1 are once again making the news. Australia is the setting of a remarkable series of dinosaur tracks attributed to ornithischian...