Starting with a clean sheet
(Have you read the first part of this article Quickly formed layers?)
So if we lay aside the theory of Evolution and start with a clean sheet, then some interesting things can be observed: The layers, which have to be millions of years old for Evolution to be true, could be very young, because they can be formed very quickly indeed.
Example 4: fossils.
Fossils are proof that the layers of sedimentary rocks are laid down very deeply and very quickly. An animal or plant has to be instantly buried so that it is preserved intact. Fish, for example, will decay and will be pulled to pieces by the water currents and scavengers in a few days or weeks, even in oxygen-poor conditions.
Fossilised fish in the Santana Formation of Brazil have perfectly preserved gills and muscles. Geologists believe that they were fossilized within five hours of death. Dr. David Martill called this ‘the Medusa effect’, because they were turned into stone so rapidly. [4]
Ichthyosaurs are huge, extinct marine reptiles which tend to be preserved in mud sediments. They have been fossilised so quickly that even their skin has been preserved as a black carbon film around their skeletons. To totally cover these very large reptiles quickly enough would take a lot of sediment.
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Earth′s catastrophic history
Here are some examples:
Example 1: turbidites.
On 18 November 1929 the Grand Banks earthquake caused a huge mass of sediment to slide down the continental slope in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New England and Canada. As it travelled down the slope it snapped 13 transatlantic cables and this gave an accurate picture of it′s speed and position.
Scientists worked out that this huge mass of sediment was moving at up to 80 km/h (50 miles per hour) and travelled over 800 km (500 miles) in a little over 13 hours. It covered more than 260,000 square kilometres (100,000 square miles) and was 0.6 – 0.9 metres (2-3 feet) thick.
Geologists call these new layers of sediment which are formed like this; ‘turbidites.’ It used to be thought that these thousands of layers had been laid down slowly in shallow water, but now they are recognized as turbidites which have been laid down very, very rapidly in deep water.
References:
Thanks to Paul Garner for his lecture delivered at the autumn meeting of The Genesis Agendum at Baden-Powell House, London on Saturday, 30 November 1996.
[1] A reinterpretation of the basal Littoral Lias of the Vale of Glamorgan, Proceedings of the Geologists Association 97, 29-35
[2] Austin, S A (ed) (1994), Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, Institute for Creation Research, Santee, California.
[3] Nevins, S E (1971), Stratigraphic evidence of the Flood, in Patten, D W (ed), A Symposium on Creation III, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 33-65
[4] Martill, D M (1989), The Medusa effect: instantaneous fossilization, Geology Today 5, 201-5
Example 2: conglomerates and breccias.
Layers of conglomerates and breccias are formed by very powerful water currents. These rocks are made up of pebbles and boulders that have been cemented together.
A conglomerate layer on the Welsh coast was estimated at taking 5 million years to be laid down, but it is now thought to be a storm deposit laid down in only a few hours. [1]
Geologists now think that many of these conglomerates and breccias have been laid down during hurricanes, typhoons, or storms, and have not taken millions of years to form.
Example 3: Cross-bedding.
Cross-bedding in sandstone is formed by powerful water currents moving sand dunes across the sea floor. Cross-bedding can be seen as inclined layers within the sandstone layer.
Cross-beds in the Coconino Sandstone of the Colorado Plateau are up to 9 m (30 feet) thick, which would have required a water depth of about 90 m (300 feet). The water current′s velocity to form this cross-bedding is estimated at 1 to 1.5 metres per second (3 to 5 feet per second). (The whole of the Coconino Sandstone of the Colorado Plateau averages about 96 m (315 feet) in thickness and covers an area of around 518,000 square kilometres, (200,000 square miles). [2]
Cross-beds still form today in the Mississippi River in less than one minute. [3]