Geologic Processes and

Timescale
Knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days,
walking according to their own lusts,  and saying,
“Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers
fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the
beginning of creation.”
II Peter 3:3-46
 We all see the Same Evidence

As previously stated, scientifically determined

data can be interpreted in very different ways
depending on the premises and presuppositions
of the individual.
Those interpretations will be developed in a
manner consistent with the individual’s
premises, whether admitted or not.
 Secular Premise:
• Premise: life began purely as a result of random electrochemical
events.
• This highly improbable materialistic premise requires millions or
even billions of years to raise it into the realm of at least statistically
possible.
• Presupposition: the earth and universe must be billions of years
old.
• This shapes the thoughts about the geological and fossil evidence
that we all have available to consider.
There is no dispute between what evolutionists and creationists
regard as the actual data, but there is little agreement on what the
data means or indicates.
 Biblical Premise

The earth was intelligently designed and created

by God several thousand years ago, and then
overwhelmed by a cataclysmic, worldwide,
literally earth-shattering flood some 1700 years
later.
 Three categories of rock
• Igneous rocks are formed by the cooling of molten minerals, called
magma. These rocks vary depending on such factors as mineral content,
rate of cooling and their environment at the time of cooling. Granite,
quartzite, basalts, pumice, are examples
• Sedimentary rocks are formed from the consolidation and lithification of
depositions of smaller mineral particles, usually under water. The mineral
particles themselves are the product of the breakdown of previously-
existing rocks, soils or mineral-rich materials like invertebrate shells.
Erosion by wind and water are the primary causes of that breakdown, but
ash deposits from volcanoes, whether in water or on land, can also form
sedimentary rocks. Virtually all fossils are found in sedimentary rocks.
• Metamorphic rocks form when igneous or sedimentary rocks are subjected
to massive heating, compression, buckling and other cataclysmic force.
Catastrophism vs. Uniformitarianism

Catastrophism Uniformitarianism
The past is the The present is the
key to the present. key to the past.

The present should be The observed data and

explained by acknowledging processes of today may be
these three events of the extrapolated in time as far
past: Creation, the Fall, and back as one likes.
the Flood.
 Biblical Catastrophism
• Noah’s flood, Genesis 7:10 – 8:14
• Total of 371 days between beginning of rains
and the earth declared dry.
• 7:11 “the fountains of the great deep were
broken up”
• Intense seismic activity
• Rising of great mountain ranges during this
time.
 Catastrophism: evidence

• Sedimentary rocks, which are relatively un-eroded, atop high

mountains exist today (the Alps and Rockies for example).
• Discontinuities and displacements of sedimentary strata, as well
as metamorphic rocks, dykes and intrusions, indicate that there
were multiple periods of intense seismic activity between
relatively calm periods when sediments were able to settle and
lithify.
• The lack of evidence of soils or erosion between different rock
formations indicates that all the metamorphic and sedimentary
processes took place within one brief episode, without long
periods of relative calm in between.
 Uniformitarianism
• The geologic record is best interpreted according
to current rates of process.
• This interpretation yields the necessary billions of
years that evolution demands.

...there shall come in the last days

scoffers...saying...all things continue as they were
from the beginning of the creation.
II Peter 3:3-4
Problems with Uniformitarianism
• Only certain, select rates of process support this
model.
• Other geological process rates yield such conflicting
results that uniformitarianism must be abandoned.
• Very thick layers of sedimentary, fossiliferous rock
contain the same fossils throughout, with no
evidence of evolution
• Lack of bioturbation indicates little or no passage of
time between deposition of layers.
 Secularist “solutions”
• Punctuated Equilibrium
• Neo-catastrophism
According to these models, the billions of years have
been, on the whole, rather sedate, but interrupted by
short catastrophic periods during which rapid
evolutionary advances have taken place.
Conveniently, these catastrophic episodes have been
so violent as to destroy any fossil evidence of the
evolution that is alleged to have occurred.