Over the summer we announced ground-breaking research from staff geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling. Dr. Snelling—a world-class geologist with a PhD from the University of Sydney—has been doing research in the Tapeats Sandstone formation in the Grand Canyon that evolutionists have never done—and have even tried to stop Dr. Snelling from doing—because of their worldview of millions of years. But because Dr. Snelling starts with the Word of God, he has a totally different worldview of interpreting the Grand Canyon . . . and what he’s found, using observational science, has confirmed exactly what we’d expect by starting with God’s Word!
Here’s a summary of his first research paper on Canyon formations that was published earlier this summer:
Throughout Grand Canyon, thick rock layers appear which are smoothly bent. Dr. Snelling observes,
“Normally, solid rock cannot bend without breaking, so this leaves only two options for bending: either the rock layer was bent while still soft, shortly after being deposited by water, or after the layer had fully hardened, it was bent by pressures which made the rock plastic, like playdough. Geologists who believe the layers were laid down over millions of years accept the latter option.”
Now, this is testable. For hardened rock to bend without breaking, it must undergo metamorphic changes in its mineral content and structure, including at the microscopic level. So, Dr. Snelling compared samples from two prominent folds in Grand Canyon with other samples of the same layers (the Tapeats Sandstone) far from the fold. Here’s what his in-depth, four-year study concluded:
“By comparing the Tapeats Sandstone samples from the folds with other Tapeats Sandstone samples located far from the folds, no metamorphism has occurred. Therefore, our four-year research project confirms that these rock layers were bent while they were still soft, after rapid deposition.
This is tremendous evidence that the Canyon’s rock layers were laid down during a massive flood and subsequently bent before any of the layers had hardened.”
Would these rock folds give the same results (i.e., folded while soft) as those in the Tapeats Sandstone?
This is incredibly exciting research! And that’s not all! Another research paper by Dr. Snelling has just been released, this one summarizing research on the Bright Angel Formation, also in Grand Canyon. (You can read the full papers for free in our Answers Research Journal.) Would these rock folds give the same results (i.e., folded while soft) as those in the Tapeats Sandstone?
Well, one of our writers, Troy Lacey, summarized Dr. Snelling’s technical paper, and I think you’ll be excited by the results:
In Dr. Andrew Snelling’s latest ARJ paper, he discusses the petrology (origin, small-scale structure, and composition of rocks) of the Bright Angel Formation in the Grand Canyon. This formation is composed of sandstones, siltstones, and shales. On June 23, 2017, a permit was issued by Grand Canyon National Park’s Research Office, and on July 27, 2017, a permit was issued by the Hualapai Department of Natural Resources, both for the collection of rock samples within the Grand Canyon for research. On August 6–12, 2017, a research raft trip down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon was led by Dr. Snelling to collect the samples.
In the primary area of focus in the Grand Canyon, samples were collected from the Bright Angel Formation (the Whitmore helipad fold) where the rock layers are doubly folded, each at almost 90-degree angles, as well as two other locations where the rocks are not folded. The samples were cut into thin sections, and the mineral constituents were examined meticulously by microscope. Dr. Snelling found abundant muscovite mica flakes between the quartz and K-feldspar grains that together indicated rapid, short-distance transport and rapid deposition of the sandstones, siltstones and shales. He also determined that there were virtually no original pores remaining, the rock fabric being either silica or carbonate cemented, and he showed that there were no metamorphic changes to the mineral grains which would be the case had the rocks been folded under pressure and heat after hardening.
The initial results show that the Whitmore helipad fold was due to soft-sediment deformation that occurred rapidly, very soon after deposition of the sediments before the cementing of the grains hardened them to rock, rather than by ductile deformation under heat and pressure over millions of years, hundreds of millions of years after deposition and hardening. Investigations are continuing.
In other words, the result of this in-depth study flatly contradicts the evolutionary millions-of-years explanation for these folded rocks, rendering such an idea impossible! These rocks were rapidly deposited and then bent (what we’d expect in a biblical worldview) . . . not laid down slowly over millions of years.
In other words, the result of this in-depth study flatly contradicts the evolutionary millions-of-years explanation for these folded rocks, rendering such an idea impossible!
Again, this is brand-new, cutting-edge research that no one has done before! Evolutionists just assumed the rock layers must have been folded under pressure and heat because it must be so in their millions-of-years worldview—but they never actually did the observational science to confirm their idea! But now that the science has been done, the results don’t confirm millions of years of slow processes, but rapid processes instead. What will evolutionists do with these research results? I suspect they will ignore them and hope they go away, attack Dr. Snelling as a person and his abilities as a scientist, or claim the research is not valid because it was conducted by a creationist. Regardless, Dr. Snelling has covered all bases and now challenges evolutionists to respond.
Science confirms the Bible! Isn’t it exciting being a Christian?
Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken
This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.
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