Genesis Flood a catastrophism differing from Grand Canyon and Mount Saint Helens

 

 

“What MSH [Mount Saint Helens] demonstrates is not that the

fossil forests at places like Yellowstone were deposited by a giant water flood,

but that they were deposited in a volcanic environment like MSH”.

 Kevin Nelstead

  

This 2020 article needed to be written:

What does Mt St Helens teach us about Noah’s flood? Almost nothing. – GeoChristian

 

What does Mt St Helens teach us about Noah’s flood? Almost nothing.

 

All I got from Mt St Helens (MSH) in the days following its May 18, 1980 eruption was a few pretty sunsets. I was an undergraduate student in my first year at the University of Utah, and most of the ash cloud passed far north of Salt Lake City. MSH became more significant for me a few years later as a geology graduate student at Washington State University, where my research project involved analysis and correlation of Cascade Range tephra (volcanic ash) layers buried at various levels in the Quaternary Palouse Loess of eastern Washington. Some of these tephra layers correlated to ancient eruptions of MSH, dated around 13,000 and 36,000 years ago.

 

Fortieth Anniversary

 

Due in part to easy accessibility, the 1980 eruptions of MSH have been studied more closely than just about any other explosive volcanic eruption in history. Geologists have learned a great deal about certain types of volcanic deposits from this natural laboratory.

 

Young-Earth creationists (YECs) claim that Mt St Helens has provided many proofs that Noah’s flood could have been responsible for Earth’s sedimentary rock layers, fossil record, landforms, and more. May 18, 2020 marks the fortieth anniversary of the 1980 eruption of MSH, and I would like to look at what some of these YEC claims are, and whether the claims are valid. Three YEC arguments I will look at are:

• Rapid formation of volcanic sediments at MSH show that Earth’s sedimentary rock record could have been deposited during Noah’s flood.
• Rapid canyon formation at MSH establishes that other canyons, such as the Grand Canyon, could have formed during Noah’s flood.
• Logs associated with Spirit Lake demonstrate that fossil forests and coal in the geologic record could have been formed by Noah’s flood.

 

It turns out that each of these arguments is of limited validity. The MSH eruptions had an impact on geological thinking at a time when geologists were becoming more aware of catastrophic events in Earth history, but this does not confirm the claims that YECs make about MSH.

 

MSH and Rapid Sedimentation

 

The May 18, 1980 eruption of MSH did not involve extrusion of fountains or rivers of lava flowing over the landscape. Instead, this was an explosive eruption, ejecting volcanic ash particles high into the atmosphere, as well as ground-hugging pyroclastic flows that blasted northwards from the volcano.

 

Pyroclastic flows consist of fast moving, hot volcanic gases mixed with blobs of molten material, volcanic glass, minerals, and rock fragments. This material may be hotter than 400°C (750°F), flowing across the landscape at hundreds of miles per hour. As the hot cloud of material slows down, grains settle out of the current, forming layers with sedimentary structures such as graded bedding and cross-bedding. This is sort of a hybrid between a volcanic and sedimentary process, producing what are known as volcaniclastic deposits. Another type of deposit from this eruption was volcanic mudflows known as lahars. Lahars form when precipitation or snowmelt mixes with loose volcanic ash to make a thick slurry of material that may flow tens of miles away from the volcano.

 

YECs have used these deposits as evidence that rapid, catastrophic processes can lay down sediments with features that are common in Earth’s sedimentary rock record. If MSH could create layers of rock complete with cross bedding and graded bedding in a short amount of time, why couldn’t the entire sedimentary rock record, many thousands of feet thick in places, have been deposited by a much larger catastrophic event, namely Noah’s flood?

 

The deposits of MSH do indeed show that volcanoes can do a lot of geologic work in a short amount of time. It did not take the 1980 eruptions of MSH to demonstrate this, and no geologists were taken by surprise. Any good volcanologist or sedimentologist will be able to recognize similar volcano-associated rocks in the rock record. Volcaniclastic rocks are common, and are thousands of feet thick in places. Rocks in some of the northern areas of Yellowstone National Park, as well as surrounding areas to the north, east, and southeast, are composed largely of volcanic rocks of the Absaroka Volcanic Supergroup.

 

These rocks are older than and unrelated to the volcanic rocks of the more recent Yellowstone Caldera. The Absaroka rocks include lahars (mudflows), andesite lava flows, pyroclastic flows, and more coarsely crystallized rocks associated with magma chambers. By studying the flows, magma chambers, and associated dikes, geologists have concluded that some of the volcanoes must have been stratovolcanoes the size of the major Cascade Range volcanoes, such as Mt Shasta or Mt Rainier.

 

Studying the products of the 1980 eruption of MSH has helped geologists understand these ancient volcanic rocks better.

 

How much contribution has the study of MSH had to the understanding other types of sedimentary rocks? Just about none. This is because most sedimentary rocks in the geologic record are quite unlike the volcaniclastic rocks produced by catastrophic processes at MSH. Most sandstones and conglomerates are nothing like the deposits of MSH. Yes, many sandstones have sedimentary structures such as cross bedding and graded bedding, but these are known to form in many non-catastrophic settings. Other sedimentary rocks have even less resemblance to anything associated with MSH. Most limestone is formed by biological processes, such as the secretion of calcium carbonate shells and other hard parts by invertebrate organisms. Most shale must have been deposited in quiet environments, as clay does not rapidly settle out from agitated water. Evaporite rocks (rock salt, gypsum, etc.) also have no analogs at MSH.

 

The conclusion is that most rocks in the sedimentary rock record were formed by processes that must have been quite different than what happened at MSH in 1980, and many layers were deposited in settings that have little to do with catastrophism. MSH tells us little about how most sedimentary rocks of the geologic rock record originated.

 

MSH and the Rapid Formation of Canyons

 

In addition to depositing pyroclastic and mudflow deposits, there are erosional features associated with eruptions of MSH. In 1982, rapid snowmelt led to severe flooding at MSH, which carved a 100-foot deep canyon north of the gaping crater in just a few days.

 

This canyon is known informally as Step Canyon, and YECs claim it is a 1/40^th scale version of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. YECs then argue that if snowmelt at MSH could lead to the rapid erosion of Step Canyon, then certainly the much larger Noah’s flood could have carved the Grand Canyon in a short period of time as well.

 

There are multiple problems with this reasoning. It sounds impressive to say that there is a 1/40^th-scale version of the Grand Canyon, but this ratio is misleading. At its deepest point, Step Canyon is a little over 100 feet deep, which is roughly 1/40^th the depth of the Grand Canyon, so perhaps that is where YECs get that ratio. For much of its length, the Grand Canyon ranges from 5 to 10, and up to about 18 miles wide. The canyon at MSH is less than 0.1 miles wide, which is about 1/50^th the width of the narrower sections of the main part of the Grand Canyon. Finally, the Grand Canyon is about 275 miles long, whereas Step Canyon at MSH is about 4 miles long from the crater to its intersection with Engineer’s Canyon. The National Park Service says that the volume of the Grand Canyon is 4.17 trillion cubic meters. I made a rough estimate that Step Canyon at MSH has a volume of about 40 million cubic meters. This means that the volume of the rapidly formed MSH canyon is about 1/100,000^th the volume of the Grand Canyon, which is not quite as impressive to readers as saying it is 1/40^th the size.

 

A second difficulty for the YEC claim is that the Grand Canyon was carved through thousands of feet of solid rock, including crystalline metamorphic and igneous rocks at the bottom of the canyon. Most of the erosion at Step Canyon at MSH, on the other hand, was through unconsolidated sand and gravel. It should be obvious that comparing erosion through sand and gravel to erosion through schist and gneiss is comparing apples and oranges.

 

A final challenge is that Step Canyon at MSH developed on a steep slope, which facilitated rapid erosion. The average gradient of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon is only 8 feet per mile. Step Creek, on the other hand, drops 2300 feet in 4 miles, which is about 575 feet per mile. Erosion on a steep, unconsolidated slope is certainly going to be far more rapid than erosion along a low-gradient streambed in erosion-resistant rocks.

 

While the rapid erosion of canyons at MSH is impressive, it falls far short of providing an effective model for carving the giant canyons of the world in only a few months’ time.

 

MSH and Fossil Forests

 

 

 

The pyroclastic flows associated with the May 18^th eruption downed or burned trees up to 19 miles (31 km) from the volcano. A large number of trees ended up floating in Spirit Lake, where many continue to float on the lake surface forty years later. Some of the trees are floating in a vertical position rather than horizontally. The trees of MSH have provided a good analog for understanding fossilized trees in some ancient volcanic deposits. The Absaroka Volcanic Supergroup mentioned earlier contains abundant petrified trees in some areas, such as at Specimen Ridge in Yellowstone National Park. Many of these petrified trees are upright, which used to be interpreted as meaning that the trees were buried where they grew. Now, largely due to studies at MSH, we understand that trees can be ripped out of the ground, transported, and deposited in an upright position at a distance from where they grew.

 

[Creationists] have claimed that this is powerful evidence that a giant catastrophe like Noah’s flood could have deposited the forests at Yellowstone. This is a great overstatement. What MSH demonstrates is not that the fossil forests at places like Yellowstone were deposited by a giant water flood, but that they were deposited in a volcanic environment like MSH. The Absaroka rocks are clearly volcanic in origin, with features I described earlier. These petrified trees were transported and buried by the local catastrophes of eruptions at stratovolcanoes, just as the trees at MSH were transported and buried by the eruption of a volcano.

 

YECs also claim that dead tree material is accumulating at the bottom of Spirit Lake at MSH, and that this will turn into peat, which is a precursor to coal. Perhaps this will form peat, or a peat-like deposit, but there are plenty of other non-catastrophic environments where peat is accumulating faster than at Spirit Lake. The world’s coal deposits as a whole, however, have little in common with the floor of Spirit Lake, which is not a very large lake. Most coal is found in sequences of sandstone, siltstone, and shale that give every appearance of being swampy environments such as river floodplains or deltas. The closest thing to a catastrophe in these environments would be a normal flood or channel migration. No MSH-sized catastrophe is needed.

 

MSH and the Bible

 

As an old-Earth Christian, I accept the Bible as the trustworthy and authoritative Word of God.

 

I not only believe that God created the universe from nothing, I believe that Noah’s flood was a real, historic event. I do not accept the idea that the story of Noah is some sort of inspired myth, but that it really happened.

 

YECs claim that MSH helps “prove” that a global Noah’s flood really occurred, and that the Bible is true. I think this effort is misguided for three general reasons. The first of these is that, like many inerrancy-affirming Old Testament scholars, pastors, and scientists, I am not convinced that Genesis 6-9 even requires a global flood like the YECs envision. Entire books have been written on this subject, but the case for some sort of local (though still large) flood can be summarized as 1. The story is told from the perspective of Noah on Earth’s surface, not in orbit around spheroidal planet (which the Hebrews may have had no concept of), 2. The vocabulary in the flood account is more ambiguous in Hebrew than it is in our English-language translations, and 3. Universal language in the Old Testament is frequently hyperbolic. In other words, “all the earth” seldom literally means “all the earth” in the Old Testament.

 

A second reason why I do not think all these YEC attempts to explain Earth history are valid is that the flood account in Genesis tells us nothing about the geological work of Noah’s flood. The Bible makes no claims about the origin of sedimentary, igneous, or metamorphic rocks. It makes no claims about the origin of the fossil record. It makes no claims about the eruptions of stratovolcanoes, the carving of canyons large or small, or the deposition of fossil forests. The entire YEC flood geology story, exemplified by their claims about MSH or the Grand Canyon, is built on extrapolations from the text of Genesis, rather than on actual exegesis of the text.

 

Finally, YEC flood geology does not provide a credible model for explaining the origin of features of Earth’s crust. I have shown that the eruption of MSH tells us little or nothing about the origin of sedimentary rock layers, canyons, or fossil forests. Most sedimentary rocks are nothing like deposits formed by volcanic eruptions, the canyons at MSH do not demonstrate that Earth’s large canyons could have formed quickly, and MSH provides a model for petrified forests in volcaniclastic rocks, but not much else.

 

What claims does the Bible make about the work of Noah’s flood? None, really. The truthfulness of the Bible does not depend on whether or not MSH provides a model for Noah’s flood. In reality, MSH provides a model for understanding certain ancient volcanic eruptions, but not much else. YEC claims about MSH and the Noah’s flood are based on unwarranted extrapolations from the text of Genesis rather than exegesis of the text of Genesis.

 

Grace and Peace

 

©2020 Kevin Nelstead, GeoChristian.com

 

 

 

 

Turkey the land of human history’s new beginnings?

 

by

 Damien F. Mackey

  

So, about a millennium and a half after humanity

had first emerged upon the earth, from the dust,

humanity again emerged thereupon,

this time from the Ark.

  

“Is Turkey’s Göbekli Tepe the Beginning of Human History?”, asks Jacqueline Swartz (2025):

Is Turkey’s Göbekli Tepe the Beginning of Human History? - Travel & Cultural Analysis From Around the World | East-West News Service

 

Well, yes and no, would be my answer.

 

Let me explain.

 

About a millennium and a half after humankind had appeared on the face of the earth, beginning in Eden, which was not in what we now call Turkey, but in what we now call Old Jerusalem:  

 

Where Paradise was located

 

(2) Where Paradise was located

 

there occurred a massive Flood – the Genesis (Noachic) Flood.

 

The Flood’s only survivors were the “eight persons” (I Peter 3:20), or ancestral progenitors (Noah and his wife, and Noah’s three sons and their wives), and however many others had been enclosed with them within the Ark.

 

Humankind’s second chance

 

So, about a millennium and a half after humanity had first emerged upon the earth, from the dust, humanity again emerged thereupon, this time from the Ark.

 

The location of the Ark’s landing has best been identified (so I think) as Karaca Dağ in SE Turkey:

 

Noah’s Ark Mountain

 

(7) Noah's Ark Mountain | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu

 

It is not very far to the NE of the now famous site of Göbekli Tepe.

 

Thus it is not surprising that Jacqueline Swartz might ask: “Is Turkey’s Göbekli Tepe the Beginning of Human History?”

 

Göbekli Tepe must be, assuredly, one of the very earliest sites after the Flood and humanity’s departure from the mountain (Karaca Dağ).

 

But, unlike in the article by Jacqueline Swartz, according to which Göbekli Tepe is 12,000 years old, I think that we could immediately lop off half or more of this number.

 

By Jacqueline Swartz

 

From a hilltop vantage point with a sweeping view, visitors gaze down at a 12,000-year-old Turkish archeological site located in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains. In the past few decades, as new discoveries have been unearthed, archaeologists have been changing their views about the significance of the site. Among non-archaeologists, it’s another story: speculation about what the location represents has triggered both Netflix shows and New Age fantasies.

 

How were humans, five thousand years [sic] before Stonehenge, able to build such a massive communal site, with engraved pillars and semi-realistic carvings of the wild animals of the time – lions, snakes, gazelles and foxes?

 

Why are these finds, discovered only a few decades ago, considered to be so crucial to the history of humanity?  For one thing, they show the origins of human history in the Neolithic age, thousands of years before [sic] the invention of pottery and writing. And they continue to raise questions about long-held assumptions.  For instance, it was once thought that only settled agricultural societies could create culture, that only such communities could come together to build temples.

 

“Before we thought the people who built Göbekli Tepe were hunter-gatherers who began farming,” explained Turkish archaeologist Ahmet Yavuzkir, speaking to a group at the site. “We thought everything began with farming. This concept – that farming created modern civilization – was the basis for our historical assumptions. Now everything is reversed,” he said. “Hunter-gatherers built this site.”

 

With no farms or animal husbandry, what did these people eat? Wild animals like antelopes, wild boar, foxes, and aurochs—a now-extinct ancestor of the cow—were staples.  So were wild grains – barley and wild oats, chickpeas and lentils. There could even have been beer, given the wild barley.  But there is no evidence of planting.

 

Hunter-Gatherers or Settled Communities?

 

The either/or idea of settled communities versus hunter-foragers always on the move is now disputed. The site’s coordinating archaeologist, Lee Clare, believes that Göbekli Tepe was a place where hunter-gatherers spent time, benefitting from the seasonal abundance of a place on a migratory route for gazelles and surrounded by acres of wild grain.

 

The project, now a cooperative venture between the Sanliurfa Archeological Museum and the German Archeological Society, began in 1994 when German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt started unearthing megaliths and stone pillars. The project is relatively recent, compared to major discoveries like the Pyramids of Giza (c. 1830) or Ephesus (c. 1869).

 

Since Klaus Schmidt’s findings, there has been much speculation and some far-out theories. One claims the area was the biblical Garden of Eden.  No serious archaeologist agrees, but the internet is full of videos on this and other fantasies about Göbekli Tepe. Still, a Garden of Eden is easy to imagine. 

 

For in a kind of climate boomerang from the mini-ice age, this area, part of the Fertile Crescent, produced lush woodlands and grasslands, rivers, and fruit and nut trees.

 

World’s First Temple?

 

A more common notion is that it was the site of the world’s first temple. Klaus Schmidt believed this until he died in 2014. However, according to the project’s current coordinator, archeologist Lee Clare, the more recent discoveries of domestic tools and settings suggest that these hunter-gatherers did live there, most likely part-time. This was a domestic, not a sacred space. Still, the “first temple” theory gained traction, gaining publicity when Göbekli Tepe was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018. The following year, the government of Türkiye declared “The Year of Göbekli Tepe.”  This attracted tourists, and a visitor center was opened.

 

On-Site Visitor Center

 

Göbekli Tepe, now considered one of the world’s most significant Neolithic discoveries, demonstrates how tourism can coexist with archaeology. The visitor center, opened in 2019, includes a gift shop and café. But what is most striking – and valuable – is the round-shaped animation center. It explains some of the complex and controversial notions about the work of our prehistoric ancestors.

 

There are interactive screens and stools for sitting.

 

Exiting the visitor center, you walk up a long ramp and gaze down at the site, which is protected by the dramatic flying saucer-shaped canopy. In the distance, there are the beige distant hills; far below, limestone enclosures surround the famous T-shaped megaliths, some as high as 18 feet.  These are likely among the first such sites built by humans. It’s incredible, and inscrutable. Adding to this is the fact that different levels of Göbekli Tepe were buried and rebuilt, and the entire site was buried around 8,000 BC [sic]. Why?  Archaeologists assumed that this was a practice of the time. Today, they point to the possibility of natural landslides, given the artificial hill on which the site stands and the heavy pillars it supports.

 

There are now about a dozen similar sites in the region, all smaller than Göbekli Tepe, none of which have a visitor center. The major one, Karahan Tepe, located about an hour east, has drawn attention to its room, which features what are now identified as phallic pillars, with a scowling stone face emerging from a surrounding wall.

 

Sanliurfa Archaeological Museum

 

For anyone visiting Göbekli Tepe, the Sanliurfa Archaeology Museum is a must-see. Located about eight miles from the site, the museum is the largest in Türkiye. Spanning multiple periods up to the Ottoman era, it features an entire area dedicated to Goblekli Tepe. You can marvel at discoveries such as the megaliths, or pillars, and the carved wild animals that decorate them.

 

There’s a full-scale reproduction of what is called Special Building D, carbon-dated to around 9525 BC.  Special Building D, unlike the other structures, has no items related to daily life – no grinding stones, for instance. Could this be a religious site?

 

Archaeologist Lee Clare, who worked on the discovery of Building D, refuses to call it a temple. In a witty and informative video interview, he explains that the word is too close to contemporary notions of a religious site.

 

According to the German Archaeological Institute, the pillars, which are engraved with animals and what appear to be arms and handbags, could have been an abstract representation of men congregating.  Women don’t seem to be represented anywhere – even the animals are male.

 

The site was likely used for communal activities, even rituals. 

 

According to Ahmet Yavuzkir, the archaeologist and deputy director of the museum, human deities weren’t worshipped, but perhaps animals or nature were. “This is where animistic and totemistic tendencies began [sic],” he says.

….

 

 

Sadly, however, we find that the:

 

World Economic Forum puts lid on Gobekli Tepe

 

(13) World Economic Forum puts lid on Gobekli Tepe

 

Read also:

 

Klaus Schmidt’s archaeologist wife decries poor work at Göbelki Tepe

 

(13) Klaus Schmidt's archaeologist wife decries poor work at Göbelki Tepe