New Study Lines Up with Genesis Account of Earth and Water

Where did all of earth’s water come from? Scientists led by University College London computational chemist Nora de Leeuw aimed to answer that question. Specifically, the team’s work targets a major “puzzle” for those who believe our planet formed through “evolutionary” processes: how could earth have held on to liquid water during the super-hot formation of the solar system?

How could earth have held on to liquid water during the super-hot formation of the solar system?

Previously, scientists have suggested that comets or asteroids brought water to an otherwise dry earth millions of years after it formed. One problem with this idea, however, is that earth’s chemical makeup doesn’t match most comets’—which would be expected if enough comets (or asteroids) crash-landed as to fill earth’s oceans.

But in a simulation, De Leeuw’s team showed that dust particles on the early earth could have held on to water molecules even at temperatures as high as 630˚C (1,166˚F), meaning that earth wouldn’t have simply been “boiled dry” in the beginning. One of the researchers, University of Arizona’s Michael Drake, notes that “[Q]uite possibly most of” earth’s water could have been here from the start.

Of course, the simulation, which was based on old-age presuppositions about planetary formation and earth history, doesn’t confirm the biblical account of creation. Genesis teaches that the earth was originally covered in water, with dry land only appearing on Day 3 of Creation Week. Moreover, the earth existed before the sun or other planets, an idea totally incompatible with evolutionary ideas. Nevertheless, it’s interesting that old-earthers are finally concluding that the early earth was (at least partially) “wet,” which is quite different from the long-held evolutionary notion of the early earth as nothing more than a mass of molten rock.