Geology indicates the terrestrial Flood/post-Flood boundary is mostly in the Late Cenozoic

Dr Marcus Ross’s recent article on the location of the Flood/post-Flood boundary is based on problematic paleontological data provided by secular paleontologists. His conclusion that the only significant paleontological discontinuity is at or near the K/T boundary is disputable, as are its three underlying assumptions. Geological arguments are preferred, being clearer and more objective. Fourteen criteria, mostly geological, indicate that the end-Flood boundary is in the Late Cenozoic, and examples include the Messinian salinity crisis ‘evaporites’, the Absaroka Volcanics which contain the Yellowstone fossil ‘forests’, Miocene coal, sedimentary rocks in the Hanna Basin of Wyoming and the incredible South Caspian Basin, the erosion of the valley fill sedimentary rocks in the Bighorn Basin, the African planation surface, and the sheet transport of gravel off the south-central Asian mountains to surrounding basins.

It seems that the biostratigraphic record is not quite as certain as we are led to believe. Creationists have long debated the location of the Flood/post-Flood boundary relative to the geologic timescale (figure 1). Four primary suggestions are: 1) in the Precambrian, 2) in the Late Paleozoic, 3) near the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T), and 4) in the Late Cenozoic. There are a number of reasons for this wide divergence of suggestions, especially: a) a lack of geological, geophysical, and paleontological information; b) premature conclusions that the Flood could not produce certain features, usually influenced by secular ideas of their origin; c) the related problem that practically all data sets are interpreted within the evolutionary, uniformitarian paradigm; and d) the sheer volume of potentially relevant data. Clearly more research is required, as is a better understanding of how and where questionable assumptions of uniformitarian geology have exercised undue influence.

From the website:

A reader’s comment

Jack L., United States, 9 May 2014

Personally I find it very puzzling why creation scientists would use evolutionary names like “Cenozoic” or “K/T boundary”. I have to convert these “ages” in my head from 65 million years ago to X thousand years ago, and I can’t.

Shaun Doyle responds

Most creationists continue to use those names at least for the sake of established convention. If we did not, it would be practically impossible to communicate with practically any geologist today about any particular rock formation. Of course, when one labels a particular formation ‘Jurassic’ or ‘Pleistocene’ it will often raise questions like: do creationists think Jurassic rocks occurred during Noah’s Flood or after? Creationists are not united in how to answer such questions. There are a spectrum of views, ranging from seeing little correspondence between geologic column designations and rock record realities to those who see the geologic column reflecting a genuine relative chronology in the rocks. Mike Oard is somewhere near the middle of that spectrum (see The geological column is a general Flood order with many exceptions). This question is the subject of the book The Geologic Column, which provides a helpful overview of the spectrum of views among Flood geologists.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.