CountyCoroner



No imagination necessary to see these feathers. Teeth and skeletal features of diapsid dinosaur , wings of a bird. Found in Germany 130 years ago. Drives proponents of CSBS out of their minds. Archie is the MAN(or bird, or dinosaur, a little of both)

I'll get you some info on the precursors of man so you will not have that ignorance problem anymore, I helped soloved with his case so I know how embarrassing that can be. Be patient.

Grumpy

Grumpy,

you do know that They will never accept any transitional species.

The only transitional specie they will accept is:

grumpy please give the scientific name of the fossil shown

ps what is csbs

adoucette- if you mean the age of the earth i can debate that too

CSBS is a little slang term around here, it refers to Creation Science, Intelligent Design's predecessor.

As far as I know the age of the earth is pretty much established by numerous means. I'd not try it on with this guys, they know their stuff! (unsurprisingly). There's been a few discussions about it in threads on this board, the information presented there will make you think.

Hope everyone's doing well.

Kaeroll

Age of the earth questions, those are the best. Because the only concept i like better than a bearded superhero who lives on a cloud is a GIANT superhero sculpting a planet like clay.

One question... How many Megatons of force would it take to carve out the grand canyon in 6000 years? Or did God just make a little furrow with his finger?

acually that happened during the noahs flood

Can you prove it?

Kaeroll

(at a second glance, that seems much harsher than it's intended. I mean no disrespect.)

Canyon creation
Faster than most people would think possible, beauty was born from devastation
by Rebecca Gibson

Many people believe canyons take a long time to form. In North America, though, there is a canyon that simply wasn’t there 150 years ago.1

Providence Canyon is near the town of Lumpkin in southwest Georgia. Where there were once rolling hills covered with untouched pine forest, there is now a deep chasm with nine finger-like canyons. They range in size up to 50 metres (160 feet ) deep, 180 metres (600 feet) wide and 400 metres (1,300 feet) long.2,3

The exposed canyon bluffs are extremely beautiful with many bands of different coloured rocks—bright red clay, white kaolin, as well as sands coloured ochre, pink, orange, beige, purple, lavender, grey, yellow, tan and black.4,5

In the base of the canyon, where it is often humid, trees such as sweet gums, weeping willows, tupelo, maples and blackjack oaks grow.2

The area is a haven for over 150 varieties of wildflowers, including dwarf irises, rhododendrons, foxgloves, magnolias, evening primroses and the rare red and orange plumleaf azaleas.6–8

Wildlife such as white-tailed deer, red and grey foxes, raccoons, armadillos and birds such as woodpeckers, warblers, turkeys, thrushes and owls may be seen.8

What happened here?
What caused this dramatic change from rolling hills to such a ruggedly beautiful landscape? It’s all tied up with the settlement of the area for farming in the early 1800s.

Native Americans of the Creek (Muscogee)9 tribe inhabited the area now known as Georgia long before European settlement. Between 1790 and 1830, as the European population increased six-fold, Creek land was successively resumed by the state government for settlement by farmers.10

Local folklore says that trickles of water running down old Native American trails started the erosion.11 Other stories say that water running off a barn built by the Patterson family in 18553 or perhaps off the local schoolhouse roof,4,11 caused the problem. These accounts aren’t too far from the truth.

Bad farming practices
From the 1820s onward, clear-felling of trees (the roots of which deeply stabilize soil), to grow crops such as cotton and corn, set the scene for the start of rampant erosion,3,5 as the land was exposed to the ravages of water run-off during the area’s frequent heavy thunderstorms.12 The uppermost strata comprised the resistant iron-rich clay of the Clayton formation, and overlay the less resistant unconsolidated sands of the Providence and Ripley formations.13 Erosion accelerated once the water got beneath the red clay to the sands underneath.12

Back then, farmers did not preserve topsoil, or use fertilizers.3,14 Their habit was to exhaust the land with crops and then abandon it.15 By ploughing up and down hills, instead of across, they encouraged erosion gullies to form.16

Old people living in Lumpkin in the 1940s say they remember stepping over ditches only 1 to 1.5 metres (3 to 5 feet) deep on their way to school in the long-gone township of Humber in this area.17

Growing canyon forced church to move
Historical records show that the local Providence United Methodist church opened in 1832.1 The church had to be moved in 1859 because of the danger of being undermined by the growing canyon.12

Heavy rainfall during storms removed vast amounts of sand and silt from the canyon walls to the floor. These were then washed down the braided Turner’s Creek into the Chattahoochee River.11,12 On the way, the sediment blocked off the end of neighbouring valleys, forming two lakes known as North and South Glory Holes.12

In the 1940s, farmers had to watch every little ditch in case it turned into another gully. They said the soil melted like sugar and ran like water.11

Each year, most farmers lost some animals and farm equipment over the canyon rim. Once anything went over it was abandoned because recovery was extremely difficult.11

Locals spoke of lying in bed on cold winter nights during heavy rain and hearing bangs that sounded like cannon fire, as big chunks of earth fell from the steep-sided walls into the canyons.11

Scientists have studied cores to find out how quickly sediments were deposited in the lakes from debris washed down the creek. After they had correlated the core sediment layers with the heavy rainfall records taken at Lumpkin, they tentatively estimated that canyon development started in 1846.12 It was only 13 years later that the church had to be shifted to the other side of the road because the canyon had come too close!

Formation of a state park
By 1971, 448 hectares (1,108 acres)18 in the immediate area were set aside to become the Providence Canyon State Park to preserve and protect this unique area.2 The park is now known as one of the seven natural wonders of Georgia and is often called Georgia’s Little Grand Canyon.18

Visitors are able to walk through nine of the canyons that are part of the day access area, or around the trail that skirts the rim where views into the canyon are spectacular.8

Canyon keeps on growing
Measurements taken between 1984 and 1994 confirm that the canyon is still growing mainly in width.19 Even now fences have to be relocated and roads rerouted because of these changes.20

So, it does not take millions of years for huge canyons to form—it just takes the right conditions. If it had not been seen to happen, hardly anyone would have believed it. Erosion after the global Flood would have been especially rapid through the still soft, freshly laid sediments. In fact, it has been documented in this magazine that erosion overall is happening so fast that the continents cannot be millions of years old or they would have all eroded away.21

Providence Canyon beautifully illustrates how the geology of the earth is consistent with the short timescale of the Bible, provided we understand the conditions properly.

Recommended Resources

Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe (Softcover)
Explains from a biblical standpoint how Grand Canyon was formed.

References
Williams, E.L., Providence Canyon, Stewart County, Georgia—Evidence of recent rapid erosion, Creation Research Society Quarterly32(1):29“43, 1995. Return to text.
Tanner, C.M., Providence Canyon, Outdoor Photographer magazine, Georgia, USA, March, 1998. <http://www.outdoorphotographer.com/content/pastissues/1998/mar/favplaces.html> March 17, 2000. Return to text.
Ref. 1, pp. 30, 32. Return to text.
Hunt, B., Providence Canyon State Park, Backpacker magazine, Georgia, USA. <http://www.bpbasecamp.com/wilderness/ga_providence/home2.html> March 17, 2000. Return to text.
Lack, F., A travel diary of our golden years, <http://tppm.web2010.com/retired/diary/4197.html> March 17, 2000. Return to text.
Department of Natural Resources, Parks & Historic Sites, Providence Canyon & Conservation Park, <http://www.georgiastateparks.org> March 17, 2000. Return to text.
Ref. 2, p. 2. Return to text.
Providence Canyon, <http://www.n2backpacking.com/trails/georgia/prov.htm> March 17, 2000. Return to text.
Muscogee (Creek) history, <http://www.ocevnet.org/ creek/history.html> March 17, 2000. Return to text.
Native Americans in North Georgia, the trail of tears, <http://ngeorgia.com/history/nghisttt.html> March 17, 2000. Return to text.
Severson, H., Canyons while you wait, Ford Times,41(1), p. 19, January 1949. Return to text.
Hyatt, J.A. and Gilbert, R., Lacustrine sedimentary record of human-induced gully erosion and land-use change at Providence Canyon, Southwest Georgia, USA, Journal of Paleolimnology, 23(4):421“438, 2000. Return to text.
Ref. 1, p. 32. Return to text.
Range, W., A Century of Georgia Agriculture, 1850“1950, University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia, USA, p. 3, 1954. Return to text.
Ref. 14, p. 18. Return to text.
Ref. 14, p. 19. Return to text.
Ref. 11, p. 17. Return to text.
Outdoors Online <http://www.llbean.com/parksearch/parks/html/682lls.htm> March 17, 2000. Return to text.
Ref. 1, p. 36. Return to text.
Ref. 1, p. 37. Return to text.
Walker, T., Eroding ages, Creation22(2):18“21, 2000. Return to text.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Georgia’s ‘Little Grand Canyon’

(1)View looking into a part of the canyon shows it disappearing deeply below the cover of trees. An old photograph (2) shows the canyon before foliage had taken root. The small stream running through the base represents only a tiny portion of the water which during storms has ravaged the sediment, stripping it away to leave this colossal hole in the ground. What began as tiny furrows in the ground due to poor farming and land practices has resulted in a landscape that is mute testimony to the power of water over a short time period.

Downstream (3), the river reveals large amounts of sediment which has run off as drainage from the canyon area. Had the history of this site not been known it seems very likely that a much older age would have been assigned to

There is a significant difference between topsoil and solid granite. You can't prove the tensile strength of steel by comparing it to play-dough.

I mean seriously. Show me evidence that is not a refutation of the Old Earth facts.

And don't quote the bible, or I'll quote Black Sabbath.

Creation Archive > Volume 18 Issue 2 > Grand Canyon


First published:
Creation 18(2):28
March 1996
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Grand Canyon
Monument to the world-wide Flood
For more than a century, evolutionary geologists have tried to explain how the Grand Canyon in the United States might have formed slowly over millions of years. Ideas that the Colorado River eroded the canyon, or that enlargement of streams and gullies caused it, have been shown to be improbable. Both these theories have a difficult time explaining where the products of tens of millions of years of river erosion went.

Earle E. Spamer said of the problem: 'The greatest of Grand Canyon's enigmas is the problem of how it was made. ... Grand Canyon has held tight to her secrets of origin and age.'1

Yet the canyon's rock strata can be interpreted well from a creationist and catastrophist view.

Creationist geologist Dr Steven Austin says:

'The crystalline-basement rocks exposed deep within the Canyon (schist, granite, and gneiss) represent some of earth's oldest rocks, probably from early in Creation Week. Tilted, deeply buried strata (the "Grand Canyon Supergroup") show evidence of catastrophic-marine sedimentation and tectonics associated with the formation of an ocean basin midway through Creation Week, and may include ocean deposits from the post-Creation, but pre-Flood world. The Canyon's characteristic horizontally stratified layers (the "Paleozoic Strata") are up to 4,000 feet thick [1,200 metres] and are understood to be broad sedimentary deposits in northern Arizona dating from the early part of Noah's Flood. Remnants of strata overlying the rim of Grand Canyon (the "Mesozoic Strata") are associated with a widespread erosion surface.'2

Dr Austin says that these features suggest tectonics, sedimentation, and erosion during the last half of the Flood year as the Colorado Plateau was lifted more than a mile above sea level.

'The catastrophic erosion of Grand Canyon (probably a result of drainage of lakes) was associated with river-terrace gravels, lake sediments, landslide deposits, and lava flows of the post-Flood period,' he says.3

Rather than being easily explained by evolutionists, the formation of the Grand Canyon is a problem for evolutionists, but fits well into the framework of the Bible.

Recommended Resources

Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe (Softcover)
Explains from a biblical standpoint how Grand Canyon was formed.
The Grand Canyon Catastrophe: New Evidence of the Genesis Flood (VHS)

REFERENCES
Earle E. Spamer, 'The Development of Geological Studies in the Grand Canyon', Tryonia 17, 1989, p. 39. Cited in: Steven A. Austin (ed.), Grand Canyon — Monument to Catastrophe, Institute for Creation Research, Santee (California), 1994, p. 107.

Austin, Grand Canyon, pp. 80-81.

ibid.

Startling evidence for Noah’s Flood
Footprints and sand ‘dunes’ in a Grand Canyon sandstone!
by Andrew A. Snelling and Steven A. Austin

‘There is no sight on earth which matches Grand Canyon. There are other canyons, other mountains and other rivers, but this Canyon excels all in scenic grandeur. Can any visitor, upon viewing Grand Canyon, grasp and appreciate the spectacle spread before him? The ornate sculpture work and the wealth of color are like no other landscape. They suggest an alien world. The scale is too outrageous. The sheer size and majesty engulf the intruder, surpassing his ability to take it in.’1






Anyone who has stood on the rim and looked down into Grand Canyon would readily echo these words as one’s breath is taken away with the sheer magnitude of the spectacle. The Canyon stretches for 277 miles (446 kilometres) through northern Arizona, attains a depth of more than 1 mile (1.6 kilometres), and ranges from 4 miles (6.4 kilometres) to 18 miles (29 kilometres) in width. In the walls of the Canyon can be seen flat-lying rock layers that were once sand, mud or lime. Now hardened, they look like pages of a giant book as they stretch uniformly right through the Canyon and underneath the plateau country to the north and south and deeper to the east.

The Coconino Sandstone
To begin to comprehend the awesome scale of these rock layers, we can choose any one for detailed examination. Perhaps the easiest of these rock layers to spot, since it readily catches the eye, is a thick, pale buff coloured to almost white sandstone near the top of the Canyon walls. Geologists have given the different rock layers names, and this one is called the Coconino Sandstone (see Figures 1 and 2). It is estimated to have an average thickness of 315 feet (96 metres) and, with equivalent sandstones to the east, covers an area of about 200,000 square miles (518,000 square kilometres).2 That is an area more than twice the size of the Australian State of Victoria, or almost twice the area of the US State of Colorado! Thus the volume of this sandstone is conservatively estimated at 10,000 cubic miles (41,700 cubic kilometres). That’s a lot of sand!


What do these rock layers in Grand Canyon mean? What do they tell us about the earth’s past? For example, how did all the sand in this Coconino Sandstone layer and its equivalents get to where it is today?

To answer these questions geologists study the features within rock layers like the Coconino Sandstone, and even the sand grains themselves. An easily noticed feature of the Coconino Sandstone is the distinct cross layers of sand within it called cross beds (see Figure 3, right). For many years evolutionary geologists have interpreted these cross beds by comparing them with currently forming sand deposits — the sand dunes in deserts which are dominated by sand grains made up of the mineral quartz, and which have inclined internal sand beds. Thus it has been proposed that the Coconino Sandstone accumulated over thousands and thousands of years in an immense windy desert by migrating sand dunes, the cross beds forming on the down-wind sides of the dunes as sand was deposited there.3


The Coconino Sandstone is also noted for the large number of fossilized footprints, usually in sequences called trackways. These appear to have been made by four-footed vertebrates moving across the original sand surfaces (see Figure 4, left). These fossil footprint trackways were compared to the tracks made by reptiles on desert sand dunes,4 so it was then assumed that these fossilized footprints in the Coconino Sandstone must have been made in dry desert sands which were then covered up by wind-blown sand, subsequent cementation forming the sandstone and fossilizing the prints.

Yet another feature that evolutionary geologists have used to argue that the Coconino Sandstone represents the remains of a long period of dry desert conditions is the sand grains themselves. Geologists have studied the sand grains from modern desert dunes and under the microscope they often show pitted or frosted surfaces. Similar grain surface textures have also been observed in sandstone layers containing very thick cross beds such as the Coconino Sandstone, so again this comparison has strengthened the belief that the Coconino Sandstone was deposited as dunes in a desert.

At first glance this interpretation would appear to be an embarrassment to Bible-believing geologists who are unanimous in their belief that it must have been Noah’s Flood that deposited the flat lying beds of what were once sand, mud and lime, but are now exposed as the rock layers in the walls of the Canyon.

Above the Coconino Sandstone is the Toroweap Formation and below is the Hermit Formation, both of which geologists agree are made up of sediments that were either deposited by and/or in water. 5,6 How could there have been a period of dry desert conditions in the middle of the Flood year when ‘all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered’ (Genesis 7:19) by water?

This seeming problem has certainly not been lost on those, even from within the Christian community, opposed to Flood geologists and creationists in general. For example, Dr Davis Young, Professor of Geology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in a recent book being marketed in Christian bookshops, has merely echoed the interpretations made by evolutionary geologists of the characteristics of the Coconino Sandstone, arguing against the Flood as being the agent for depositing the Coconino Sandstone. He is most definite in his consideration of the desert dune model:

‘The Coconino Sandstone contains spectacular cross bedding, vertebrate track fossils, and pitted and frosted sand grain surfaces. All these features are consistent with formation of the Coconino as desert sand dunes. The sandstone is composed almost entirely of quartz grains, and pure quartz sand does not form in floods … no flood of any size could have produced such deposits of sand …’7

Those footprints
The footprint trackways in the Coconino Sandstone have recently been re-examined in the light of experimental studies by Dr Leonard Brand of Loma Linda University in California.8 His research program involved careful surveying and detailed measurements of 82 fossilized vertebrate trackways discovered in the Coconino Sandstone along the Hermit Trail in Grand Canyon. He then observed and measured 236 experimental trackways made by living amphibians and reptiles in experimental chambers. These tracks were formed on sand beneath the water, on moist sand at the water’s edge, and on dry sand, the sand mostly sloping at an angle of 25 degrees, although some observations were made on slopes of 15deg; and 20° for comparison. Observations were also made of the underwater locomotion of five species of salamanders (amphibians) both in the laboratory and in their natural habitat, and measurements were again taken of their trackways.

A detailed statistical analysis of these data led to the conclusion, with a high degree of probability that the fossil tracks must have been made underwater. Whereas the experimental animals produce footprints under all test conditions, both up and down the 25° slopes of the laboratory ‘dunes’, all but one of the fossil trackways could only have been made by the animals in question climbing uphill. Toe imprints were generally distinct, whereas the prints of the soles were indistinct. These and other details were present in over 80% of the fossil, underwater and wet sand tracks, but less than 12% of the dry sand and damp sand tracks had any toe marks. Dry sand uphill tracks were usually just depressions, with no details. Wet sand tracks were quite different from the fossil tracks in certain features. Added to this, the observations of the locomotive behaviour of the living salamanders indicated that all spent the majority of their locomotion time walking on the bottom, underwater, rather than swimming.

Putting together all of his observations, Dr Brand thus came to the conclusion that the configurations and characteristics of the animals trackways made on the submerged sand surfaces most closely resembled the fossilized quadruped trackways of the Coconino Sandstone. Indeed, when the locomotion behaviour of the living amphibians is taken into account, the fossilized trackways can be interpreted as implying that the animals must have been entirely under water (not swimming at the surface) and moving upslope (against the current) in an attempt to get out of the water. This interpretation fits with the concept of a global Flood, which overwhelmed even four-footed reptiles and amphibians that normally spend most of their time in the water.

Not content with these initial studies, Dr Brand has continued (with the help of a colleague) to pursue this line of research. He recently published further results,9 which were so significant that a brief report of their work appeared in Science News10 and Geology Today. 11

His careful analysis of the fossilized trackways in the Coconino Sandstone, this time not only from the Hermit Trail in Grand Canyon but from other trails and locations, again revealed that all but one had to have been made by animals moving up cross bed slopes. Furthermore, these tracks often show that the animals were moving in one direction while their feet were pointing in a different direction. It would appear that the animals were walking in a current of water, not air. Other trackways start or stop abruptly, with no sign that the animals’ missing tracks were covered by some disturbance such as shifting sediments. It appears that these animals simply swam away from the sediment.

Because many of the tracks have characteristics that are ‘just about impossible’ to explain unless the animals were moving underwater, Dr Brand suggested that newt-like animals made the tracks while walking under water and being pushed by a current. To test his ideas, he and his colleague videotaped living newts walking through a laboratory tank with running water. All 238 trackways made by the newts had features similar to the fossilized trackways in the Coconino Sandstone, and their videotaped behaviour while making the trackways thus indicated how the animals that made the fossilized trackways might have been moving.

These additional studies confirmed the conclusions of his earlier researches. Thus, Dr Brand concluded that all his data suggest that the Coconino Sandstone fossil tracks should not be used as evidence for desert wind deposition of dry sand to form the Coconino Sandstone, but rather point to underwater deposition. These evidence from such careful experimental studies by a Flood geologist overturn the original interpretation by evolutionists of these Coconino Sandstone fossil footprints, and thus call into question their use by Young and others as an argument against the Flood.



Desert ‘dunes’?
The desert sand dune model for the origin of the Coconino Sandstone has also recently been challenged by Glen Visher12, Professor of Geology at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, and not a creationist geologist. Visher noted that large storms, or amplified tides, today produce submarine sand dunes called ‘sand waves’. These modern sand waves on the sea floor contain large cross beds composed of sand with very high quartz purity. Visher has thus interpreted the Coconino Sandstone as a submarine sand wave deposit accumulated by water, not wind. This of course is directly contrary to Young’s claims, which after all are just the repeated opinions of other evolutionary geologists.

Furthermore, there is other evidence that casts grave doubts on the view that the Coconino Sandstone cross beds formed in desert dunes. The average angle of slope of the Coconino cross beds is about 25° from the horizontal, less than the average angle of slope of sand beds within most modern desert sand dunes. Those sand beds slope at an angle of more than 25°, with some beds inclined as much as 30° to 34°, the angle of ‘rest’ of dry sand. On the other hand, modern oceanic sand waves do not have ‘avalanche’ faces of sand as common as desert dunes, and therefore, have lower average dips of cross beds.

Visher also points to other positive evidence for accumulation of the Coconino Sandstone in water. Within the Coconino Sandstone is a feature known technically as ‘parting lineation’, which is known to be commonly formed on sand surfaces during brief erosional bursts beneath fast-flowing water. It is not known from any desert sand dunes. Thus Visher also uses this feature as evidence of vigorous water currents accumulating the sand, which forms the Coconino Sandstone.

Similarly, Visher has noted that the different grain sizes of sand within any sandstone are a reflection of the process that deposited the sand. Consequently, he performed sand grain size analyses of the Coconino Sandstone and modern sand waves, and found that the Coconino Sandstone does not compare as favourably to dune sands from modern deserts.

He found that not only is the pitting not diagnostic of the last Process to have deposited the sand grains (pitting can, for example, form first by wind impacts, followed by redeposition by water), but pitting and frosting of sand grains can form outside a desert environment.13 For example, geologists have described how pitting on the surface of sand grains can form by chemical processes during the cementation of sand.

Sand wave deposition

Figure 5. Schematic diagram showing the formation of cross beds during sand deposition by migration of underwater sand waves due to sustained water flow.

A considerable body of evidence is now available which indicates that the Coconino Sandstone was deposited by the ocean, and not by desert accumulation of sand dunes as emphatically maintained by most evolutionary geologists, including Christians like Davis Young. The cross beds within the Coconino Sandstone (that is, the inclined beds of sand within the overall horizontal layer of sandstone) are excellent evidence that ocean currents moved the sand rapidly as dune-like mounds called sand waves.14

Figure 5 (right) shows the way sand waves have been observed to produce cross beds in layers of sand. The water current moves over the sand surface building up mounds of sand. The current erodes sand from the ‘up-current’ side of the sand wave and deposits it as inclined layers on the ‘down-current’ side of the sand wave. Thus the sand wave moves in the direction of current flow as the inclined strata continue to be deposited on the down-current side of the sand wave. Continued erosion of sand by the current removes both the up-current side and top of the sand wave, the only part usually preserved being just the lower half of the down-current side. Thus the height of the cross beds preserved is just a fraction of the original sand wave height. Continued transportation of further sand will result in repeated layers containing inclined cross beds. These will be stacked up on each other.





Sand waves have been observed on certain parts of the ocean floor and in rivers, and have been produced in laboratory studies. Consequently, it has been demonstrated that the sand wave height is related to the water depth.15 As the water depth increases so does the height of the sand waves which are produced. The heights of the sand waves are approximately one-fifth of the water depth. Similarly, the velocities of the water currents that produce sand waves have been determined.

Thus we have the means to calculate both the depth and velocity of the water responsible for transporting as sand waves the sand that now makes up the cross beds of the Coconino Sandstone. The thickest sets of cross beds in the Coconino Sandstone so far reported are 30 feet (9 metres) thick.16 Cross beds of that height imply sand waves at least 60 feet (18 metres) high and a water depth of around 300 feet (between 90 and 95 metres). For water that deep to make and move sand waves as high as 60 feet (18 metres) the minimum current velocity would need to be over 3 feet per second (95 centimetres per second) or 2 miles per hour. The maximum current velocity would have been almost 5.5 feet per second (165 cm or 1.65 metres per second) or 3.75 miles per hour. Beyond that velocity experimental and observational evidence has shown that flat sand beds only would be formed.

Now to have transported in such deep water the volume of sand that now makes up the Coconino Sandstone these current velocities would have to have been sustained in the one direction perhaps for days. Modern tides and normal ocean currents do not have these velocities in the open ocean, although deep-sea currents have been reported to attain velocities of between 50 cm and 250 cm (2.5 metres) per second through geographical restrictions. Thus catastrophic events provide the only mechanism, which can produce high velocity ocean currents over a wide area.

Hurricanes (or cyclones in the southern hemisphere) are thought to make modern sand waves of smaller size than those that have produced the cross beds in the Coconino Sandstone, but no measurements of hurricane driven currents approaching these velocities in deep water have been reported. The most severe modern ocean currents known have been generated during a tsunami or ‘tidal wave’. In shallow oceans tsunami-induced currents have been reported on occasion to exceed 500 cm (5 metres) per second, and currents moving in the one direction have been sustained for hours.19 Such an event would be able to move large quantities of sand and, in its waning stages, build huge sand waves in deep water. Consequently, a tsunami provides the best modern analogy for understanding how large-scale cross beds such as those in the Coconino Sandstone could form.

Noah's Flood?
We can thus imagine how the Flood would deposit the Coconino Sandstone (and its equivalents), which covers an area of 200,000 square miles (518,000 square kilometres) averages 315 feet (96 metres) thick, and contains a volume of sand conservatively estimated at 10,000 cubic miles (41,700 cubic kilometres). But where could such an enormous quantity of sand come from? Cross beds within the Coconino dip consistently toward the south, indicating that the sand came from the north. However, along its northern occurrence, the Coconino rests directly on the Hermit Formation, which consists of siltstone and shale and so would not have been an ample source of sand of the type now found in the Coconino Sandstone. Consequently, this enormous volume of sand would have to have been transported a considerable distance, perhaps at least 200 or 300 miles (320 or 480 kilometres). At the current velocities envisaged sand could be transported that distance in a matter of a few days!

Thus the evidence within the Coconino Sandstone does not support the evolutionary geologists interpretation of slow and gradual deposition of sand in a desert environment with dunes being climbed by wandering four-footed vertebrates. On the contrary, a careful examination of the evidence, backed up by experiments and observations of processes operating today indicates catastrophic deposition of the sand by deep fast-moving water in a matter of days, totally consistent with conditions envisaged during the Flood.

Recommended Resources

Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe (Softcover)
Explains from a biblical standpoint how Grand Canyon was formed.

References
1. Morris, J.D., Cumming, K.B. and Ham, K.A., in press. The grandest of canyons. In: Grand Canyon — Monument to Catastrophe, S.A. Austin (ed.), Institute for Creation Research, San Diego, chapter 1, p. 1.

2. Baars, D.L., 1962. Permian System of the Colorado Plateau. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, vol. 46, pp. 200–201.

3. Middleton, L.T., Elliott, D.K. andMorales, M., 1990. Coconino Sandstone. In: Grand Canyon Geology, S.S. Beus and M. Morales (eds), Oxford University Press, New York, and Museum of Northern Arizona Press, chapter 10, pp. 183–202.

4. McKee, E.D., 1947. Experiments on the development of tracks in fine cross-bedded sand. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, vol. 17, pp. 23–28.

5. Blakey, R.C., 1990. Supai Group and Hermit Formation. In: Grand Canyon Geology, S.S. Beus and M. Morales (eds), Oxford University Press, New York, and Museum of Northern Arizona Press, chapter 9, pp. 147–202.

6. Turner, C.E., 1990. Toroweap Formation. In: Grand Canyon Geology, S.S. Beus and M. Morales (eds), Oxford University Press, New York, and Museum of Northern Arizona Press, chapter 11, pp. 203–223.

7. Young, D.A., 1990. The discovery ofterrestrial history. In: Portraits of Creation, H.J. Van Till, R.E. Shaw, J.H. Stek and D.A. Young (eds), William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, chapter 3, pp. 80–81.

8. Brand, L.R., 1979. Field and laboratory studies on the Coconino Sandstone (Permian) vertebrate footprints and theirpaleoecological implications. Palaeogreography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, vol. 28, pp. 25–38.

9. Brand, L.R. and Tang, T., 1991. Fossil vertebrate footprints in the Coconino Sandstone (Permian) of northern Arizona: Evidence for underwater origin. Geology, vol. 19,pp. 1201–1204.

10. Monastersky, R., 1992. Wading newts may explain enigmatic tracks. Science News, vol. 141 (1), p. 5.

11. Geology Today, vol. 8(3), May–June 1992, pp, 78–79 (Wet tracks).

12. Visher, G.S., 1990. Exploration Stratigraphy, 2nd edition, Penn Well Publishing Co., Tulsa, Oklahoma, pp. 211–213.

13. Kuenen, P.H. and Perdok, W.G., 1962. Experimental abrasion — frosting and defrosting of quartz grains. Journal of Geology, vol. 70, pp. 648–658.

14. Amos, C.L. and King, E.L., 1984. Bedforms of the Canadian eastern seaboard: a comparison with global occurrences. Marine Geology, vol. 57, pp. 167–208.

15. Allen, J.R.L., 1970. Physical Processes Sedimentation, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London, p. 78.

16. Beus, S.S., 1979. Trail log third day: South Kaibab Trail, Grand Canyon, Arizona. In: Carboniferous Stratigraphy in the Grand Canyon Country, Northern Arizona and Southern Nevada, S.S. Beus and R.R. Rawson (eds), American Geological Institute, Falls Church, Virginia, p. 16.

17. Lonsdale, P. and Malfait, B., 1974. Abyssal dunes of foraminiferal sand on the Carnegie Ridge. Geological Society of America Bulletin, vol. 85, pp. 1697–1712.

18. Rubin, D.N. and McCulloch, D.S., 1980. Single and superimposed bedforms: a synthesis of San Francisco Bay and flume observations. Sedimentary Geology, vol. 26, pp. 207–23 1.

19. Coleman, P.J., 1978. Tsunami sedimentation. In: The Encyclopedia of Sedimentology, R.W. Fairbridge and J. Bourgeois (eds), Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, pp. 828–831.

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kaeroll- why does that matter??they thoughly research the topics and they have the sources so if you go over the sources and find something wrong then tell me

CountyCoroner,
I'm not a geologist, and I can't actually refute most of that - as I don't understand it! But others may be able to, and I'm not sure if quoting Answers in Genesis, an ID promotion site, would hold much water with those more educated than I.
Just a heads up.
Kaeroll

CountyCoroner

Well, if you can't dazzle them with wit, baffle them with BS. In this case CSBS.
Are you just another mouthpiece for the CSBS/ID crowd??? Posting reams of creationist misinformation, written by non peer reviewed pseudo-scientists trying to pass themselves off as the real thing. The Discovery Institute is full of lawyers and public relations hacks but funds little research and has no laboratories. Big on verbiage, little or no supporting evidence. Don't for a second think we don't know who and what you are. Your kind of like the Chinese army in Korea, low quality(as in evidence) and high volume(as in BS), wave after wave of BS. You destroy one wave, then they send the same BS again in the next wave.

I know I promised to help you with that ignorance problem of yours, but I'm afraid your case is untreatable. You already know all the answers before the research is started so why do it at all??? Just twist all the evidence until it fits, if you can't get it to fit, ignore it or slander the scientist that found it or, better yet, misquote his work or take it out of context so he seems to support your cause. What???CSBS thrown out of schools by the Supreme Court??? That's alright, take the word God out and change CS to ID, voila, your back in business(there's no God in here, wink wink nudge nudge,ya' know what I mean).

There is no reason canyons cannot be carved quickly by catastrophic events. There is an excellent example in Washington State caused by repeated ice dams forming huge lakes of water which, when released all at once when the ice dam broke, carved features similar to the Grand Canyon. It actually is happening today in Iceland. And millions of years ago there was a shallow sea stretching through the middle of the country(see The Sharks of Kansas on google) that laid down the strata forming the Grand Canyon. Some scientists speculate that the draining process of this inland sea fed a much larger(Nile sized) Colorado River which formed the GC. Today, Niagara Falls retreats further into Canada every day.

Nothing we see in the universe requires a supernatural explanation. You have no concrete evidence of your world view, I have kilo-tons of fossil evidence supporting mine. You have scientist wannabes, I have scientists, lots of them. You have belief, I have the scientific method. Your views are banned from public schools as a religion, mine is taught in public schools as a science.

Grumpy

ok - lets debate something then go ahead and choose a topic you know since you have all the scientists on your side but wait first i want to see yor evidence of the ic dams thingie

Funny:

First they say that the layer with the footprints has different layers above and below it.

Then they say that the footprints are of drowning animals. (must be, because alot of the prints do not match any currently known animals. Guess there wasn't enough room in the Ark)

Drowning because he claims that it were walking animals in mud, between 2 layers that can only be formed under water.


It is so totally stupid, I pity those fools that seriously belief this nonsense. Sometimes I really think about starting my own church and milking these fools for al the money they are worth, but that would not be moral, and besides, according to the Devine Comedy (Dante) God has reserved a special circle in Hell for those that misuse religion or make their own religion.

"Daddy.... How did all the kangaroos wind up in Australia after they got off the ark?"

"Son, I don't know if kangaroos can swim.... I suspect that God had them ride over on the backs of the platypus's.. er, or is it platypi?"

Sorry, I couldn't resist.... These discussions would actually be funny if peopole didn't actually believe such cr^p.

What is it about evolution that has religious fanatics up in arms?

Are they uncomfortable with the idea that humans are literally connected to all other life forms on the planet?

Or is it the idea that we may not be the pinnacle of creation? We obviously have room for improvement… I certainly hope that we are not the best that God can come up with.

Why would they not be comfortable with the idea that before the big bang God set all the laws in place for life to evolve and eventually look up and ask, “How did we get here?” Why do they have the need for him to keep dabbling in the process?

Isn’t it just possible that he got it right the first time?