Reef Belief is Challenged

The Indian Ocean tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people almost five years ago also destroyed many of the coral reefs of Indonesia. These reefs are bouncing back with surprising speed, showing how quickly life can recover from a catastrophe.^*

In the past, secular scientists argued that coral reefs grew so slowly that some took hundreds of thousands of years to develop. Creation scientist Ariel Roth, former director of the Geoscience Research Institute, has studied corals and found that they can grow very fast. His book Origins: Linking Science and Scripture shows that growth rates vary by as much as 500 times, depending on how they are calculated. The higher rates would produce the world’s reefs within the biblical timeframe of a few thousand years.

As further data are gathered on the reef resurgence in Indonesia, it will be interesting to see what more scientists learn about the amazing ability of God’s creatures to refill the earth after a catastrophe.

^*http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081227225250.htm