Grand Canyon Filming 1

This is a picture from inside “Little Grand Canyon” at the base of Mt. St. Helens. The obvious is the film crew, Tom, Michael, Thomas, and Ian. Dr. Steven Austin, an incredibly smart geologist, is there as well (in blue). The other obvious things are the layered canyon walls and the stream. Here’s what is not obvious. Even though it might look really old, like a lot of the geological formations you might see around the world, all of these are younger than I am. Prior to the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens, none of this existed. The various debris, ash, mud and pyroclastic flows filled the lower areas and created instant layers, perfectly sorted. In some places, large sections of glacier ice from the mountain were trapped beneath the hot flows. The ice turned to steam and was venting for days. It created a surreal landscape. When the steam built up too much pressure, they exploded and created “explosion pits” that resembled craters on the moon. Those pits were later filled in by more mud flows and then, on March 19, 1982, almost two years after the initial eruption, a mud flow cut through a breach and back cut what is now called the Little Grand Canyon. The standard geological story would look at a canyon like this and, using “the present is the key to the past”, calculate how much material is currently being removed by the little creek and give us a very old age. Several rocks there have actually been dated from 350,000 years old to over 2 million years. If we hadn’t witnessed this event, we would accept the standard story that this canyon was formed a long, long time ago. It is actually younger than my first two children. Dr. Austin calls the Mt. St. Helens event “the Rosetta Stone" for deciphering global catastrophic processes that the Bible says formed the earth. I agree. Standing in the bottom of that canyon, looking at the steep canyon walls, the layers, the complex geological formations, I was struck by how this looked just like all the other exposed layers around the world…layers that I had been taught required millions of years to deposit and then erode. However, when you come face to face with the facts from the past, it can radically change your perspective of the present. [Previous] [Next]  

Next to the enormity of the Grand Canyon, the most prominent feature is its strata…the many sedimentary layers that make up the canyon walls. The layers are quite unique, distinct and massive, both in their vertical depth and lateral or horizontal extent, some extending up into Canada, for example. They are also quite undisturbed, meaning the layers form neat lines without signs of erosion. There are places where the layers are “folded”, looking like the old ribbon candy that was once popular at Christmas time. Additionally, they contain fossilized creatures that appear to have been buried rapidly in material that was not static, but flowing…sometimes tumultuously. This is not what the conventional story would expect. If the sedimentary layers were laid down over millions of years in a calm placid ocean or river delta, these geological features would not have been predicted. The layers would have been quite boring, much of the same layer after layer with possibly some change that would have shown up gradually; they would have shown extensive erosion; they would have been brittle after so many years and an uplift would have cracked and crumbled them rather than folding them; they would have been much smaller in vertical and horizontal extent, rather than being hundreds of feet thick and extending for thousands of miles; and evidence of rapid burial of fossils would have been lacking. But, if the layers were laid down by a global flood of biblical proportions, these are exactly the things we would expect to find. There are still questions to be answered, for sure. Many already have been. It was once thought that limestone could only be laid down as a very slow process and therefore the massive Redwall Limestone layer had to have required millions of years to form. But now we know that limestone can form quite rapidly. The tiny layers, called laminae were once thought to be indicators of yearly cycles, like tree rings. But now we know that laminae can be laid down almost instantly, like we saw the many llaminae layers formed in the Little Grand Canyon at Mt. St. Helens in a matter of hours. We can actually create multiple laminae layers in the lab in minutes. Scientists insisted that the cross bedding in the Coconino Sandstone layer was made from wind blowing over sand dunes. We now know that they were under water dunes, complete with tracks of creatures trying to escape and being swept laterally with the current. However, there are other questions that need to be answered and, hopefully, there will be more young people who will sense the call and gifting of the Lord to enter into the sciences and be a part of examining the evidence without being shackled by a worldview that cannot include the historical records from the Bible nor include the notion of God. It is a tough road for creationists. Academia will not be rooting for you and may even be pushing against you. Getting papers published in this environment is very difficult if you don’t write in support of the sacred cow. But, if you are called and gifted to be there, then there is no better place to be. It is your divine calling. And, it can be done. Great scientists like Dr. Steve Austin have done so. You can as well. Go for it. [Previous] [Next]