However, there is also independent evidence within these Norwegian eclogites of these flows of hot fluids that were responsible for the rapid metamorphism of the precursor granulites. A sample of related eclogite containing biotite flakes was closely examined and polonium-210 radiohalos were found in it (7 polonium-210 radiohalos in 50 microscope slides, each containing 20-30 biotite flakes).21 This discovery, the first time any radiohalos have been documented in eclogites, is highly significant.


	Biotite was not in the precursor granulites, so it had to form as a result of both their metamorphism to eclogite and the fluid flows. Of course, these radiohalos could only have been produced in the biotite grains after they formed. Furthermore, because there was no source of either parent uranium-238 or its radioactive decay products within either the eclogites or the precursor granulites, the large quantities of polonium-210 required to generate these radiohalos had to have been transported from external sources into the biotite flakes within these rocks by the hot fluids.22 But the polonium-210 only has a half-life of 138 days, and the radiohalos would only have formed and survived after the temperature in the rocks fell below 150°C. So this drastically restricts the duration of the earthquake-triggered hot fluid flows and associated eclogite metamorphism even more, perhaps to only a few weeks or months! And because the heat flow into the granulites to metamorphose them would have been primarily by convection associated with the fluid flows, rather than just by conduction,23 such a drastically short timescale of only weeks for this eclogite metamorphism is entirely feasible.

	Conclusion

	Of course, in conventional geological dogma which primarily envisages slow and gradual processes over long ages, even a timescale of ten years is almost too radical and controversial to be readily accepted. However, in the context of accelerated catastrophic erosion, deposition of thick strata sequences, earth movements, plate tectonics and continental collisions during the year-long global Genesis Flood, it is entirely feasible that rapid flows of hot fluids triggered by earthquakes were injected into shear zones within the granulites to transform them into eclogites within weeks. Once again, continued research has provided evidence that confirms the feasibility of another aspect of the Creation-Flood model of Earth history, namely, rapid metamorphism of rocks during the Genesis Flood, consistent with the infallible record of God's Word.

	References  

	

		Bucher, K., and M. Frey, 2002. Petrogenesis of Metamorphic Rocks, 7th edition, pp. 67-68, Springer-Verlag, Berlin. 
	

		Snelling, A. A., 1994. "Towards a Creationist Explanation of Regional Metamorphism." Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, 8(1):51-77. 
	

		Snelling, A. A., 1994. "Regional Metamorphism Within a Creationist Framework: What Garnet Compositions Reveal." In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, R. E. Walsh (editor), pp. 485-496. Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA. 
	

		Kelley, S., 2005. "Hot Fluids and Cold Crusts." Nature, 435:1171. 
	

		Wain, A. L., D. J. Waters, and H. Austrheim, 2001. "Metastability of Granulites and Processes of Eclogitisation in the UHP Region of Western Norway." Journal of Metamorphic Geology, 19:607-623. 
	

		Austrheim, H., and W. L. Griffin, 1985. "Shear Deformation and Eclogite Formation within Granulite Facies Anorthosites of the Bergen Arcs, Western Norway." Chemical Geology, 50:267-281. 
	

		Boundy, T. M., and D. M. Fountain, 1992. "Structural Development and Petro-fabrics of Eclogite Facies Shear Zones, Bergen Arcs, Western Norway: Implications for Deep Crustal Deformational Processes." Journal of Metamorphic Geology, 10:127-146. 
	

		Austrheim, H., M. Erambert, and T. M. Boundy, 1996. "Garnets Record Deep Crustal Earthquakes." Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 139:223-238. 
	

		Austrheim, H., and T. M. Boundy, 1994. "Pseudotachylytes Generated During Seismic Faulting and Eclogitization of the Deep Crust." Science, 265:82-83. 
	

		Kühn, A., J. Glodny, K. Iden, and H. Austrheim, 2000. "Retention of Precambrian Rb/Sr Phlogopite Ages through Caledonian Eclogite Facies Metamorphism, Bergen Arc Complex, W-Norway." Lithos, 51:305-330. 
	

		Bingen, B., W. J. Davis, and H. Austrheim, 2001. "Zircon U-Pb Geochronology in the Bergen Arc Eclogites and Their Proterozoic Protoliths, and Implications for the Pre-Scandian Evolution of the Caledonides in Western Norway." Geological Society of America Bulletin, 113(5):640-649. 
	

		Jamtveit, B., K. Bucher-Nurminen, and H. Austrheim, 1990. "Fluid Controlled Eclogitization of Eclogites in Deep Crustal Shear Zones, Bergen Arcs, Western Norway." Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 104:184-193. 
	

		Austrheim, H., and T. M. Boundy (1994), op. cit. 
	

		Camacho, A., J. K. W. Lee, B. J. Hensen, and J. Braun, 2005. "Short-lived Orogenic Cycles and the Eclogitization of Cold Crust by Spasmodic Hot Fluids." Nature, 435:1191-1196. 
	

		Kelley, S. (2005), op. cit. 
	

		Camacho, A., J. K. W. Lee, B. J. Hensen, and J. Braun (2005), op. cit. 
	

		Jamtveit, B., H. Austrheim, and A. Malthe-Sorenssen, 2000. "Accelerated Hydration of the Earth's Deep Crust Induced by Stress Perturbations." Nature, 408:75-78. 
	

		Austrheim, H., and T. M. Boundy (1994), op. cit. 
	

		Bjornerud, M., H. Austrheim, and M. G. Lund, 2002. "Processes Leading to Eclogitization (Densification) of Subducted and Tectonically Buried Crust." Journal of Geophysical Research, 107(B10):2252-2269. 
	

		VanHaren, J. L. M., J. J. Ague, and D. M. Rye, 1996. "Oxygen Isotope Record of Fluid Infiltration and Mass Transfer During Regional Metamorphism of Pelitic Schist, Connecticut, USA." Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 60(18):3487-3504. 
	

		Snelling, A. A., 2005. "Radiohalos in Granites: Evidence for Accelerated Nuclear Decay." In Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: Results of a Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, L. Vardiman, A. A. Snelling, and E. F. Chaffin (editors), chapter 3, pp. 101-207 (especially Table 4, p. 188). Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, CA, and Creation Research Society, Chino Valley, AZ. 
	

		Snelling, A. A. (2005), op. cit. 
	

		Snelling, A. A., and J. Woodmorappe, 1998. "The Cooling of Thick Igneous Bodies on a Young Earth." In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, R. E. Walsh (editor), pp. 527-545. Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA.


	* Dr. Snelling is an associate professor in the Geology Department at ICR.
    [body_edit] => 

	Where thick sequences of sedimentary rock layers have been deposited in large basins, the deepest layers at the bottoms of the sequences may subsequently have become folded by earth movements when subjected to elevated temperatures and pressures that were sufficient to transform them into metamorphic rocks. Thus the clay particles in shales and the mineral grains in sandstones were metamorphosed into the new minerals found today in schists and gneisses. Geologists conventionally envisage these metamorphic processes as having required millions of years.1

	In contrast, creation geologists maintain that just as thick sequences of sedimentary rocks were rapidly deposited and movements of the tectonic plates of the earth's crust occurred rapidly during the year-long Flood catastrophe, these associated metamorphic processes were likewise rapid. The hot waters that saturated the deeply buried sedimentary and other rocks, and/or that flowed rapidly through them, were responsible for the rapid mineral transformations.2,3

	Norwegian Metamorphic Rocks

	Conventional geologists were surprised recently by documented evidence for rapid metamorphism.4 Along the southwest coast of Norway, in the Bergen area, former igneous (intrusive) rocks were radically transformed into high-grade metamorphic rocks known as granulites by the high pressures exerted on them deep in the earth's crust late in the Precambrian.5 During a subsequent continental collision in the Silurian, hot fluids penetrated along closely-spaced shear zones, where rocks are believed to have deformed plastically as they moved sideways against each other, and transformed most of the granulites into another metamorphic rock called eclogite.6

	These eclogites are strikingly beautiful, coarse-grained, and characterized by large pink garnets in a green matrix, rich in pyroxene. They are conventionally believed to have formed at depths of some 60 km and temperatures of around 700°C.7 However, these Norwegian eclogites paradoxically exhibit features more commonly associated with tectonic processes at lower temperatures closer to the earth's surface.8,9 Furthermore, rubidium-strontium radioisotope dating of the granulite lenses immediately adjacent to these eclogites yields an "age" closer to that of the untransformed granulite,10,11 even though the temperatures supposedly required for formation of the eclogites should have obliterated that earlier "age."12 Thus it has been suggested that the Norwegian granulite-eclogite transformation must have occurred during short-lived fluid flow events over less than a million years.13

	A Radical Short Timescale

	However, a drastically shorter timescale has now been proposed,14 one that "will make many geologists draw breath!"15 An ultraviolet laser was used to measure profiles of argon-argon radioisotope "ages" across individual mineral grains in the untransformed granulite lenses.16 In this technique the abundance of argon-40 (which forms from the radioactive decay of potassium-40) supposedly indicates the elapsed time since the temperature was last high enough for the argon (a gas) to diffuse rapidly through these minerals and escape at the boundaries between grains. The "ages" thus obtained not only confirmed the earlier rubidium-strontium "dates," but demonstrated just how little the granulite lenses had been affected by the later formation of the immediately adjacent eclogites.

	Furthermore, these argon-40 data were then used to estimate what the temperature must have been in the granulite lenses during formation of the eclogites. The estimate—less than 400°C—is dramatically lower than the conventional requirement of around 700°C for formation of the immediately adjacent eclogites. The only way this glaring inconsistency can be reconciled is if the time period over which the heat was applied to these granulites during their adjacent metamorphism to eclogites was drastically shorter than the previously suggested one million years or less. It was calculated that the total heating duration must have been around only 18,000 years to explain the argon-argon "age" profiles in the mineral grains.

	However, even more radical is the conclusion from heat-conduction calculations that the individual fluid flow "events," when hot fluids (at 700°C) flowed through the shear zones in the granulites and metamorphosed them to eclogites, had to have lasted just ten years or less, otherwise there would have been significant heating beyond 400°C of the surviving granulite lenses between the shear zones. Furthermore, it was concluded that this is exactly what would be expected if fluid migration was triggered by multiple, spasmodic deformation events associated with earthquakes, in which the hot fluids were repeatedly injected into, and pumped along, the shear zones by earth movements. This is consistent with the evidence of hydraulic fracturing17 and rocks formed by friction melting along fractures18 associated with these eclogite-bearing shear zones.19 Thus this model overturns conventional long-age thinking by evoking a radically different picture for the conditions responsible for eclogite metamorphism, in which the exceedingly rapid metamorphic transformation occurs in only ten years or less!

	Confirming Evidence

	Such rapid fluid flow events are not without precedent, having been associated with vein formation during regional metamorphism of schists in Connecticut (USA).20

	However, there is also independent evidence within these Norwegian eclogites of these flows of hot fluids that were responsible for the rapid metamorphism of the precursor granulites. A sample of related eclogite containing biotite flakes was closely examined and polonium-210 radiohalos were found in it (7 polonium-210 radiohalos in 50 microscope slides, each containing 20-30 biotite flakes).21 This discovery, the first time any radiohalos have been documented in eclogites, is highly significant.

	Biotite was not in the precursor granulites, so it had to form as a result of both their metamorphism to eclogite and the fluid flows. Of course, these radiohalos could only have been produced in the biotite grains after they formed. Furthermore, because there was no source of either parent uranium-238 or its radioactive decay products within either the eclogites or the precursor granulites, the large quantities of polonium-210 required to generate these radiohalos had to have been transported from external sources into the biotite flakes within these rocks by the hot fluids.22 But the polonium-210 only has a half-life of 138 days, and the radiohalos would only have formed and survived after the temperature in the rocks fell below 150°C. So this drastically restricts the duration of the earthquake-triggered hot fluid flows and associated eclogite metamorphism even more, perhaps to only a few weeks or months! And because the heat flow into the granulites to metamorphose them would have been primarily by convection associated with the fluid flows, rather than just by conduction,23 such a drastically short timescale of only weeks for this eclogite metamorphism is entirely feasible.

	Conclusion

	Of course, in conventional geological dogma which primarily envisages slow and gradual processes over long ages, even a timescale of ten years is almost too radical and controversial to be readily accepted. However, in the context of accelerated catastrophic erosion, deposition of thick strata sequences, earth movements, plate tectonics and continental collisions during the year-long global Genesis Flood, it is entirely feasible that rapid flows of hot fluids triggered by earthquakes were injected into shear zones within the granulites to transform them into eclogites within weeks. Once again, continued research has provided evidence that confirms the feasibility of another aspect of the Creation-Flood model of Earth history, namely, rapid metamorphism of rocks during the Genesis Flood, consistent with the infallible record of God's Word.

	References  

	

		Bucher, K., and M. Frey, 2002. Petrogenesis of Metamorphic Rocks, 7th edition, pp. 67-68, Springer-Verlag, Berlin. 
	

		Snelling, A. A., 1994. "Towards a Creationist Explanation of Regional Metamorphism." Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, 8(1):51-77. 
	

		Snelling, A. A., 1994. "Regional Metamorphism Within a Creationist Framework: What Garnet Compositions Reveal." In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, R. E. Walsh (editor), pp. 485-496. Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA. 
	

		Kelley, S., 2005. "Hot Fluids and Cold Crusts." Nature, 435:1171. 
	

		Wain, A. L., D. J. Waters, and H. Austrheim, 2001. "Metastability of Granulites and Processes of Eclogitisation in the UHP Region of Western Norway." Journal of Metamorphic Geology, 19:607-623. 
	

		Austrheim, H., and W. L. Griffin, 1985. "Shear Deformation and Eclogite Formation within Granulite Facies Anorthosites of the Bergen Arcs, Western Norway." Chemical Geology, 50:267-281. 
	

		Boundy, T. M., and D. M. Fountain, 1992. "Structural Development and Petro-fabrics of Eclogite Facies Shear Zones, Bergen Arcs, Western Norway: Implications for Deep Crustal Deformational Processes." Journal of Metamorphic Geology, 10:127-146. 
	

		Austrheim, H., M. Erambert, and T. M. Boundy, 1996. "Garnets Record Deep Crustal Earthquakes." Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 139:223-238. 
	

		Austrheim, H., and T. M. Boundy, 1994. "Pseudotachylytes Generated During Seismic Faulting and Eclogitization of the Deep Crust." Science, 265:82-83. 
	

		Kühn, A., J. Glodny, K. Iden, and H. Austrheim, 2000. "Retention of Precambrian Rb/Sr Phlogopite Ages through Caledonian Eclogite Facies Metamorphism, Bergen Arc Complex, W-Norway." Lithos, 51:305-330. 
	

		Bingen, B., W. J. Davis, and H. Austrheim, 2001. "Zircon U-Pb Geochronology in the Bergen Arc Eclogites and Their Proterozoic Protoliths, and Implications for the Pre-Scandian Evolution of the Caledonides in Western Norway." Geological Society of America Bulletin, 113(5):640-649. 
	

		Jamtveit, B., K. Bucher-Nurminen, and H. Austrheim, 1990. "Fluid Controlled Eclogitization of Eclogites in Deep Crustal Shear Zones, Bergen Arcs, Western Norway." Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 104:184-193. 
	

		Austrheim, H., and T. M. Boundy (1994), op. cit. 
	

		Camacho, A., J. K. W. Lee, B. J. Hensen, and J. Braun, 2005. "Short-lived Orogenic Cycles and the Eclogitization of Cold Crust by Spasmodic Hot Fluids." Nature, 435:1191-1196. 
	

		Kelley, S. (2005), op. cit. 
	

		Camacho, A., J. K. W. Lee, B. J. Hensen, and J. Braun (2005), op. cit. 
	

		Jamtveit, B., H. Austrheim, and A. Malthe-Sorenssen, 2000. "Accelerated Hydration of the Earth's Deep Crust Induced by Stress Perturbations." Nature, 408:75-78. 
	

		Austrheim, H., and T. M. Boundy (1994), op. cit. 
	

		Bjornerud, M., H. Austrheim, and M. G. Lund, 2002. "Processes Leading to Eclogitization (Densification) of Subducted and Tectonically Buried Crust." Journal of Geophysical Research, 107(B10):2252-2269. 
	

		VanHaren, J. L. M., J. J. Ague, and D. M. Rye, 1996. "Oxygen Isotope Record of Fluid Infiltration and Mass Transfer During Regional Metamorphism of Pelitic Schist, Connecticut, USA." Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 60(18):3487-3504. 
	

		Snelling, A. A., 2005. "Radiohalos in Granites: Evidence for Accelerated Nuclear Decay." In Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: Results of a Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, L. Vardiman, A. A. Snelling, and E. F. Chaffin (editors), chapter 3, pp. 101-207 (especially Table 4, p. 188). Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, CA, and Creation Research Society, Chino Valley, AZ. 
	

		Snelling, A. A. (2005), op. cit. 
	

		Snelling, A. A., and J. Woodmorappe, 1998. "The Cooling of Thick Igneous Bodies on a Young Earth." In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, R. E. Walsh (editor), pp. 527-545. Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA.


	* Dr. Snelling is an associate professor in the Geology Department at ICR.
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The tranquil-flood theory is even more ridiculous. It is difficult to believe anyone could take it seriously and yet a number of modern evangelical geologists do believe in this idea. Even local floods are violent phenomena and uniformitarian geologists today believe they are responsible for most of the geologic deposits of the earth’s crust. A universal Flood that could come and go softly, leaving no geologic evidence of its passage, would require an extensive complex of miracles for its accomplishment. Anyone with the slightest understanding of the hydraulics of moving water and the hydrodynamic forces associated with it would know that a world-wide "tranquil" flood is about as reasonable a concept as a tranquil explosion!
As far as science is concerned, it should be remembered that events of the past are not reproducible, and are, therefore, inaccessible to the scientific method. Neither uniformitarianism nor catastrophism can actually be proved scientifically. Nevertheless, the Flood model fits all the geologic facts more directly and simply, with a smaller number of qualifications and secondary assumptions, than does the uniformitarian model.
An obvious indication of global water activity is the very existence of sedimentary rocks all over the world which, by definition, were formed by the erosion, transportation, and deposition of sediments by moving water with the sediments gradually converted into stone after they had been deposited.
Similarly, an obvious indicator of catastrophism is the existence of fossils in the sedimentary rocks. The depositional processes must have been rapid, or fossils could not have been preserved in them.
"To become fossilized, a plant or animal must usually have hard parts, such as bone, shell, or wood. It must be buried quickly to prevent decay and must be undisturbed throughout the long process."5 
The importance of this fact is obvious when one realizes that the identification of the geologic "age" of any given sedimentary rock depends solely upon the assemblage of fossils which it contains. The age does not depend on radiometric dating, as is obvious from the fact that the geologic age system had been completely worked out and most major formations dated before radioactivity was even discovered. Neither does the age depend upon the mineralogic or petrologic character of a rock, as is obvious from the fact that rocks of all types of composition, structure, and degree of hardness can be found in any "age". It does not depend upon vertical position in the local geologic strata, since rocks of any "age" may and do rest horizontally and conformably on rocks of any other age. No, a rock is dated solely by its fossils.
"The only chronometric scale applicable in geologic history for the stratigraphic classification of rocks and for dating geologic events exactly is furnished by the fossils. Owing to the irreversibility of evolution, they offer an unambiguous time-scale for relative age determinations and for world-wide correlation of rocks."6 
Thus, the existence and identification of distinctive geologic ages is based on fossils in the sedimentary rocks. On the other hand, the very existence of fossils in sedimentary rocks is prima facie evidence that each such fossiliferous rock was formed by aqueous catastrophism. The one question, therefore, is whether the rocks were formed by a great multiplicity of local catastrophes scattered through many ages, or by a great complex of local catastrophes all conjoined contemporaneously in one single age, terminated by the cataclysm.
The latter is the most likely. Each distinctive stratum was laid down quickly, since it obviously represents a uniform set of water flow conditions, and such uniformity never persists very long. Each set of strata in a given formation must also have been deposited in rapid succession, or there would be evidence of unconformity—that is, periods of uplift and erosion—at the various interfaces.
Where unconformity does exist, say at the top of a formation, there may well have been an interval of uplift or tilting, at that location. followed by either sub-aerial or sub-marine erosion for a time. However, since such formations invariably grade laterally into other formations (no unconformity, is worldwide), sooner or later one will come to a location where there is a conformable relationship between this formation and the one above it. Thus, each formation is succeeded somewhere by another one which was deposited rapidly after the first one ... and so on throughout the entire geologic column.
Thus, there is no room anywhere for long ages. Each formation must have been produced rapidly, as evidenced by both its fossils and its depositional characteristics, and each formation must have been followed rapidly by another one, which was also formed rapidly!  The whole sequence, therefore, must have been formed rapidly, exactly as the Flood model postulates.
But, then. what about the geologic ages? Remember that the only means of identifying these ages is by fossils and fossils speak of rapid formation. Even assuming a very slow formation of these beds, however, how can fossils tell the age of a rock?
Obviously, fossils could be distinctive time markers only if the various kinds each had lived in different ages. But how can we know which fossils lived in which ages? No scientists were there to observe them, and true science requires observation. Furthermore, by analogy with the present (and uniformitarianism is supposed to be able to decipher the past in terms of the present), many different kinds of plants and animals are living in the present world, including even the "primitive" one-celled organisms with which evolution is supposed to have begun. Why, therefore, isn’t it better to assume that all major kinds also lived together in past ages as well? Some kinds, such as the dinosaurs, have become extinct, but practically all present-day kinds of organisms are also found in the fossil world.
The only reason for thinking that different fossils should represent different ages is the assumption of evolution. If evolution is really true, then of course fossils should provide an excellent means for identifying the various ages, an "unambiguous time-scale," as Schindewolf put it. Hedberg says:
"Fossils have furnished, through their record of the evolution of life on this planet, an amazingly effective key to the relative positioning of strata in widely-separated regions."7 
The use of fossils as time-markers thus depends completely on "their record of evolution." But, then, how do we know that evolution is true? Why, because of the fossil record!
"Fossils provide the only historical, documentary evidence that life has evolved from simpler to more and more complex forms."8 
So the only proof of evolution is based on the assumption of evolution! The system of evolution arranges the fossils, the fossils date the rocks, and the resulting system of fossil-dated rocks proves evolution. Around and around we go.
How much more simple and direct it would be to explain the fossil-bearing rocks as the record in stone of the destruction of the antediluvian world by the great Flood. The various fossil assemblages represent, not evolutionary stages developing over many ages, but rather ecological habitats in various parts of the world in one age. Fossils of simple marine invertebrate animals are normally found at the lowest elevations in the geologic strata for the simple reason that they live at the lowest elevations. Fossils or birds and mammals are found only at the higher elevations because they live at higher elevations and also because they are more mobile and could escape burial longer. Human fossils are extremely rare because men would only very rarely be trapped and buried in flood sediments at all, because of their high mobility. The sediments of the "ice-age" at the highest levels are explained in terms of the drastically changed climates caused by the Flood.
The flood theory of geology,9 which was so obvious and persuasive to the founders of geology, is thus once again beginning to be recognized as the only theory which is fully consistent with the actual facts of geology, as well as with the testimony of Scripture.
REFERENCES

    

    
Stephen Jay Gould: "Is Uniformitarianism Necessary?" American Journal of Science, Vol. 263, (March 1965), p. 227.
    
    

    
Edgar B. Heylmun: "Should We Teach Uniformitarianism!", Journal of Geological Education, Vol. 19, January 1971, p. 35.
    
    

    
David Jorafsky: Soviet Marxism and Natural Science (New York, Columbia University Press, 1961), p. 12.
    
    

    
Henry M. Morris: The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth (San Diego, Institute for Creation Research, 1972), 114 pp. [Editor's note: Referenced book is out of print. "Genesis Record" book lists 100 reasons why the Flood must be understood as worldwide.

    Henry M. Morris: The Genesis Record (San Diego, Institute for Creation Research, 1976) 716 pp.
    
    

    
F. H. T. Rhodes, H. S. Zim and P. R. Shaffer: Fossils (New York, Golden Press, 1962). p. 10.
    
    

    
O. H. Schindewolf, "Comments on Some Stratigraphic Terms", American Journal of Science, Vol. 255, June 1957, p. 394.
    
    

    
H. D. Hedberg: "The Stratigraphic Panorama", Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, Vol. 72, April 1961, pp. 499-518.
    
    

    
C. O. Dunbar: Historical Geology (New York, Wiley, 1960), p. 47.
    
    

    
See The Genesis Flood by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris (Nutley, N. J., Presbyterian and Reformed, 1961), for a much more extensive treatment of the various topics discussed in this brief paper. Available also through the Institute for Creation Research. 

    

    
    

Additional Resources:
The Genesis Flood by Henry M. Morris and John C. Whitcomb (1961, 518 pp.)
The Genesis Record by Henry M. Morris (1976, 716 pp.)
The Beginning of the World by Henry M. Morris (2nd ed. 1991, 184 pp.)
* Henry M. Morris is Director of the Institute for Creation Research, as well as the Academic Vice-President of Christian Heritage College. He received his Ph.D. in hydraulics, with minors in geology and mathematics. He has spent thirty years in education and research, including thirteen years as Professor of Hydraulic Engineering and Chairman of the Department of Civil Engineering at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He is also President of the Creation Research Society.
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In the early days of geology, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, the dominant explanation for the sedimentary rocks and their fossilized contents was that they had been laid down in the great Flood of the days of Noah. This was the view of Steno, the "father of stratigraphy", whose principles of stratigraphic interpretation are still followed today, and of John Woodward, Sir Isaac Newton’s hand-picked successor at Cambridge, whose studies on sedimentary processes laid the foundation for modern sedimentology and geomorphology. These men and the other flood geologists of their day were careful scientists, thoroughly acquainted with the sedimentary rocks and the geophysical processes which formed them. In common with most other scientists of their day, they believed in God and the divine authority of the Bible. Evolution and related naturalistic speculations had been confined largely to the writings of social philosophers and rationalistic theologians.
Toward the end of the 18th century, and especially in the first half of the 19th century, the ancient pagan evolutionary philosophies began to be revived and promoted by the various socialistic revolutionary movements of the times. These could make little headway, however, as long as the scientists were predominantly creationists. Evolution obviously required aeons of geologic time and the scientific community, including the great Isaac Newton himself, was committed to the Usher chronology, with its recent special creation and worldwide Flood.
Therefore, it was necessary, first of all, that the Flood be displaced as the framework of geologic interpretation, so that earth history could once again, as in the days of the ancient Greek and Oriental philosophers, be expanded into great reaches and cycles of time over endless ages. Geologic catastrophism must be, at all costs replaced by uniformitarianism, which would emphasize the slow, uniform processes or the present as a sufficient explanation for all earth structures and past history. This was accomplished in two stages: first. the single cataclysm of the Flood was replaced by the multiple catastrophes and new creations of Cuvier and Buckland, each separated from the next by a long period of uniform processes; second, these periodic catastrophes were gradually de-emphasized and the uniformitarian intervals enlarged until the latter finally incorporated the entire history.
It is significant that this uniformitarian revolution was led, not by professional scientific geologists, but by amateurs, men such as Buckland (a theologian), Cuvier (an anatomist), Buffon (a lawyer), Hutton (an agriculturalist), Smith (a surveyor), Chambers (a journalist), Lyell (a lawyer), and others of similar variegated backgrounds. The acceptance of Lyell’s uniformitarianism laid the foundation for the sudden success of Darwinism in the decade following the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859. Darwin frequently acknowledged his debt to Lyell, who he said gave him the necessary time required for natural selection to produce meaningful evolutionary results.
Nevertheless, the actual facts or geology still favored catastrophism, and flood geology never died completely. Although the uniformitarian philosophers could point to certain difficulties in the Biblical geology of their predecessors, there were still greater difficulties in uniformitarianism. Once uniformitarianism had served its purpose—namely, that of selling the scientific community and the general public on the great age of the earth—then geologists could again use local catastrophic processes whenever required for specific geologic interpretations. Stephen Gould has expressed it this way:
"Methodological uniformitarianism was useful only when science was debating the status of the supernatural in its realm." 1 
Heylmun goes even further:
"The fact is, the doctrine of uniformitarianism is no more ‘proved’ than some of the early ideas of world-wide cataclysms have been disproved."2 
With adequate time apparently available, assisted by man’s natural inclination to escape from God if possible, Darwin’s theory of evolution by chance variation and natural selection was eagerly accepted by the learned world. Pockets of scientific resistance in the religious community were quickly neutralized by key clerical endorsements of the "day-age theory", which seemingly permitted Christians to hang on to Genesis while at the same time riding the popular wave of long ages and evolutionary progress. For those fundamentalists who insisted that the creation week required a literal interpretation, the "gap theory" ostensibly permitted them to do so merely by inserting the geologic ages in an imaginary gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, thus ignoring their evolutionary implications.
The Biblical Deluge was similarly shorn of scientific significance by reinterpreting it in terms of a "local flood" or, for those few people who insisted that the Genesis narrative required a universal inundation, a "tranquil flood". Lyell himself proposed a worldwide tranquil flood that left no geological traces. In any case, the field of earth history, was taken over almost completely by evolutionists.
In turn, this capitulation of the scientists to evolution was an enormous boon to the social revolutionaries, who could now proclaim widely that their theories of social change were grounded in natural science. For example, Karl Marx and the Communists quickly aligned themselves with evolutionary geology and biology, Marx even asking to dedicate his Das Kapital to Charles Darwin.
"However harshly a philosopher may judge this characterization of Marx’s theory (i.e., that Marxism unites science and revolution intrinsically and inseparably) an historian can hardly fail to agree that Marx’s claim to give scientific guidance to those who would transform society has been one of the chief reasons for his doctrine’s enormous influence."3 
The "science" referred to in the above is, in context, nothing but naturalistic evolution based on uniformitarian geology. Similarly, Nietzschean racism, Freudian amoralism, and military imperialism all had their roots in the same soil and grew in the same climate.
Yet all the while the foundation was nothing but sand. Uniformitarian geology was contrary to both the Bible and to observable science. Now, a hundred years later, the humanistic and naturalistic culture erected upon that foundation is beginning to crumble, and men are beginning again to look critically at the foundation.
The two Biblical compromise positions are now widely recognized as unacceptable, either theologically or scientifically. A brief discussion of the fallacies of the "day-age" and "gap" theories, as well as "theistic evolution" and "progressive creation" appeared in Impact Article No. 5, of the ICR ACTS & FACTS, "Evolution and the Bible."
The local-flood theory is even less defensible. The entire Biblical account of the Flood is absurd if read in a local-flood context. For example, there was obviously no need for any kind of an ark if the flood were only a local flood. Yet the Bible describes it as a huge vessel with a volumetric capacity which can be shown to be equal to that of over 500 standard railroad stock cars! According to the account, the ark floated freely over all the high mountains and finally came to rest, five months later, on the mountains of Ararat. The highest of these mountains today is 17,000 feet in elevation, and a flood which could cover such a mountain six months or more was no local flood!
Furthermore, God’s promise never to send such a flood again, sealed with the continuing testimony of the rainbow, has been broken again and again if the Flood was only a local flood.
A list of 96 reasons why the Flood must be understood as worldwide is given in one of the writer’s books.4

The tranquil-flood theory is even more ridiculous. It is difficult to believe anyone could take it seriously and yet a number of modern evangelical geologists do believe in this idea. Even local floods are violent phenomena and uniformitarian geologists today believe they are responsible for most of the geologic deposits of the earth’s crust. A universal Flood that could come and go softly, leaving no geologic evidence of its passage, would require an extensive complex of miracles for its accomplishment. Anyone with the slightest understanding of the hydraulics of moving water and the hydrodynamic forces associated with it would know that a world-wide "tranquil" flood is about as reasonable a concept as a tranquil explosion!
As far as science is concerned, it should be remembered that events of the past are not reproducible, and are, therefore, inaccessible to the scientific method. Neither uniformitarianism nor catastrophism can actually be proved scientifically. Nevertheless, the Flood model fits all the geologic facts more directly and simply, with a smaller number of qualifications and secondary assumptions, than does the uniformitarian model.
An obvious indication of global water activity is the very existence of sedimentary rocks all over the world which, by definition, were formed by the erosion, transportation, and deposition of sediments by moving water with the sediments gradually converted into stone after they had been deposited.
Similarly, an obvious indicator of catastrophism is the existence of fossils in the sedimentary rocks. The depositional processes must have been rapid, or fossils could not have been preserved in them.
"To become fossilized, a plant or animal must usually have hard parts, such as bone, shell, or wood. It must be buried quickly to prevent decay and must be undisturbed throughout the long process."5 
The importance of this fact is obvious when one realizes that the identification of the geologic "age" of any given sedimentary rock depends solely upon the assemblage of fossils which it contains. The age does not depend on radiometric dating, as is obvious from the fact that the geologic age system had been completely worked out and most major formations dated before radioactivity was even discovered. Neither does the age depend upon the mineralogic or petrologic character of a rock, as is obvious from the fact that rocks of all types of composition, structure, and degree of hardness can be found in any "age". It does not depend upon vertical position in the local geologic strata, since rocks of any "age" may and do rest horizontally and conformably on rocks of any other age. No, a rock is dated solely by its fossils.
"The only chronometric scale applicable in geologic history for the stratigraphic classification of rocks and for dating geologic events exactly is furnished by the fossils. Owing to the irreversibility of evolution, they offer an unambiguous time-scale for relative age determinations and for world-wide correlation of rocks."6 
Thus, the existence and identification of distinctive geologic ages is based on fossils in the sedimentary rocks. On the other hand, the very existence of fossils in sedimentary rocks is prima facie evidence that each such fossiliferous rock was formed by aqueous catastrophism. The one question, therefore, is whether the rocks were formed by a great multiplicity of local catastrophes scattered through many ages, or by a great complex of local catastrophes all conjoined contemporaneously in one single age, terminated by the cataclysm.
The latter is the most likely. Each distinctive stratum was laid down quickly, since it obviously represents a uniform set of water flow conditions, and such uniformity never persists very long. Each set of strata in a given formation must also have been deposited in rapid succession, or there would be evidence of unconformity—that is, periods of uplift and erosion—at the various interfaces.
Where unconformity does exist, say at the top of a formation, there may well have been an interval of uplift or tilting, at that location. followed by either sub-aerial or sub-marine erosion for a time. However, since such formations invariably grade laterally into other formations (no unconformity, is worldwide), sooner or later one will come to a location where there is a conformable relationship between this formation and the one above it. Thus, each formation is succeeded somewhere by another one which was deposited rapidly after the first one ... and so on throughout the entire geologic column.
Thus, there is no room anywhere for long ages. Each formation must have been produced rapidly, as evidenced by both its fossils and its depositional characteristics, and each formation must have been followed rapidly by another one, which was also formed rapidly!  The whole sequence, therefore, must have been formed rapidly, exactly as the Flood model postulates.
But, then. what about the geologic ages? Remember that the only means of identifying these ages is by fossils and fossils speak of rapid formation. Even assuming a very slow formation of these beds, however, how can fossils tell the age of a rock?
Obviously, fossils could be distinctive time markers only if the various kinds each had lived in different ages. But how can we know which fossils lived in which ages? No scientists were there to observe them, and true science requires observation. Furthermore, by analogy with the present (and uniformitarianism is supposed to be able to decipher the past in terms of the present), many different kinds of plants and animals are living in the present world, including even the "primitive" one-celled organisms with which evolution is supposed to have begun. Why, therefore, isn’t it better to assume that all major kinds also lived together in past ages as well? Some kinds, such as the dinosaurs, have become extinct, but practically all present-day kinds of organisms are also found in the fossil world.
The only reason for thinking that different fossils should represent different ages is the assumption of evolution. If evolution is really true, then of course fossils should provide an excellent means for identifying the various ages, an "unambiguous time-scale," as Schindewolf put it. Hedberg says:
"Fossils have furnished, through their record of the evolution of life on this planet, an amazingly effective key to the relative positioning of strata in widely-separated regions."7 
The use of fossils as time-markers thus depends completely on "their record of evolution." But, then, how do we know that evolution is true? Why, because of the fossil record!
"Fossils provide the only historical, documentary evidence that life has evolved from simpler to more and more complex forms."8 
So the only proof of evolution is based on the assumption of evolution! The system of evolution arranges the fossils, the fossils date the rocks, and the resulting system of fossil-dated rocks proves evolution. Around and around we go.
How much more simple and direct it would be to explain the fossil-bearing rocks as the record in stone of the destruction of the antediluvian world by the great Flood. The various fossil assemblages represent, not evolutionary stages developing over many ages, but rather ecological habitats in various parts of the world in one age. Fossils of simple marine invertebrate animals are normally found at the lowest elevations in the geologic strata for the simple reason that they live at the lowest elevations. Fossils or birds and mammals are found only at the higher elevations because they live at higher elevations and also because they are more mobile and could escape burial longer. Human fossils are extremely rare because men would only very rarely be trapped and buried in flood sediments at all, because of their high mobility. The sediments of the "ice-age" at the highest levels are explained in terms of the drastically changed climates caused by the Flood.
The flood theory of geology,9 which was so obvious and persuasive to the founders of geology, is thus once again beginning to be recognized as the only theory which is fully consistent with the actual facts of geology, as well as with the testimony of Scripture.
REFERENCES

    

    
Stephen Jay Gould: "Is Uniformitarianism Necessary?" American Journal of Science, Vol. 263, (March 1965), p. 227.
    
    

    
Edgar B. Heylmun: "Should We Teach Uniformitarianism!", Journal of Geological Education, Vol. 19, January 1971, p. 35.
    
    

    
David Jorafsky: Soviet Marxism and Natural Science (New York, Columbia University Press, 1961), p. 12.
    
    

    
Henry M. Morris: The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth (San Diego, Institute for Creation Research, 1972), 114 pp. [Editor's note: Referenced book is out of print. "Genesis Record" book lists 100 reasons why the Flood must be understood as worldwide.

    Henry M. Morris: The Genesis Record (San Diego, Institute for Creation Research, 1976) 716 pp.
    
    

    
F. H. T. Rhodes, H. S. Zim and P. R. Shaffer: Fossils (New York, Golden Press, 1962). p. 10.
    
    

    
O. H. Schindewolf, "Comments on Some Stratigraphic Terms", American Journal of Science, Vol. 255, June 1957, p. 394.
    
    

    
H. D. Hedberg: "The Stratigraphic Panorama", Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, Vol. 72, April 1961, pp. 499-518.
    
    

    
C. O. Dunbar: Historical Geology (New York, Wiley, 1960), p. 47.
    
    

    
See The Genesis Flood by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris (Nutley, N. J., Presbyterian and Reformed, 1961), for a much more extensive treatment of the various topics discussed in this brief paper. Available also through the Institute for Creation Research. 

    

    
    

Additional Resources:
The Genesis Flood by Henry M. Morris and John C. Whitcomb (1961, 518 pp.)
The Genesis Record by Henry M. Morris (1976, 716 pp.)
The Beginning of the World by Henry M. Morris (2nd ed. 1991, 184 pp.)
* Henry M. Morris is Director of the Institute for Creation Research, as well as the Academic Vice-President of Christian Heritage College. He received his Ph.D. in hydraulics, with minors in geology and mathematics. He has spent thirty years in education and research, including thirteen years as Professor of Hydraulic Engineering and Chairman of the Department of Civil Engineering at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He is also President of the Creation Research Society.
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