Were Rock Layers and Fossils Formed Quickly?

Age of the Earth: Historical Context

Consider first where the idea of millions of years came from. Modern geology really started to develop in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Prior to that, there were a few men who devoted some time to the study of the rocks of the earth. Some of them believed that creation and Noah’s flood explained the evidence. Others rejected the history in Genesis 1–11 and imagined a different history of the earth that included many catastrophic floods over untold ages—a much longer history than the Bible gave.

Two of the most influential men in the infancy of geological science were James Hutton (1726–1797) in Scotland and Charles Lyell (1797–1875) in England. They advocated for what became known as uniformitarianism, the view that the rocks and fossils of the earth were the result of slow, gradual processes of erosion and sedimentation operating at the same rates, frequency, and power as we observe today. They clearly believed the earth was some millions of years old. This view expanded earth history even more than the views of old-earth catastrophists.

But both the uniformitarians and the catastrophists were interpreting the geological evidence based on naturalistic (i.e., atheist or deistic) assumptions. In contrast, the biblical view was defended in the early 1800s by a group of authors who became known as “scriptural geologists.” They interpreted the rocks and fossils in light of the history recorded in Genesis 1–11.

By about 1840, the uniformitarian view became dominant in geology and most of the church had accepted the idea of millions of years and tried to accommodate that “deep time” through various reinterpretations of Genesis (the gap theory, the day-age theory, the local flood theory, etc.). The young-earth creation view that dominated the church for 1,800 years essentially disappeared.1

But two unexpected things happened in the late twentieth century. First, in 1961, Henry Morris and John Whitcomb published their monumental book, The Genesis Flood, which launched the modern young-earth creation movement.2 Second, in the 1970s, some evolutionary geologists began to return to the ideas of the catastrophists of 200 years earlier. One neo-catastrophist 3 and leading British geologist put it this way in 1993:

Just as politicians rewrite human history, so geologists rewrite earth history. For a century and a half, the geological world has been dominated, one might even say brainwashed, by the gradualistic uniformitarianism of Charles Lyell. Any suggestion of “catastrophic” events has been rejected as old-fashioned, unscientific, and even laughable.4

This echoes what the famous American evolutionary paleontologist, Stephen J. Gould, said in 1975:

Charles Lyell was a lawyer by profession, and his book [Principles of Geology, 1830–1833] is one of the most brilliant briefs ever published by an advocate. . . . Lyell relied upon true bits of cunning to establish his uniformitarian views as the only true geology. First, he set up a straw man to demolish. . . . In fact, the catastrophists were much more empirically minded than Lyell. The geologic record does seem to require catastrophes: rocks are fractured and contorted; whole faunas are wiped out. To circumvent this literal appearance, Lyell imposed his imagination upon the evidence.5

These evolutionary neo-catastrophists still believed in millions of years. But the young-earth geologists saw then and see now no evidence for millions of years in the rocks but plenty of evidence for Noah’s flood and a young earth. So what is the evidence that they see?

Fossil Evidence

The fossils in the sedimentary rock layers of the earth demonstrate rapid burial and hardening into stone.

How do fossils form? The creature must be buried quickly in sediments and thereby protected from decay processes. A dead deer on the side of the road will not become fossilized if the highway department doesn’t pick it up. Turkey vultures, smaller creatures, microbes and weather will consume it. It takes very unusual conditions to fossilize a plant or animal slowly. The fossils in the sedimentary rock layers of the earth demonstrate rapid burial and hardening into stone. The water with dissolved minerals was trapped in the sediments when they were deposited. As the sediments dried, the minerals became cements that bound the sediment grains together to turn them into rock. Consider these examples.

1. You can’t bury a large dinosaur like this by slow deposition of sediment over millions of years. In this case and others, many of the bones are in the right relationship with each other as when the animal was alive. This means it was essentially buried whole. Due to its size, that required rapid burial by a lot of sediment to completely entomb it.

   

   © US Department of Interior, National Park Service

2. An ichthyosaur caught in the act of giving birth and a fish that didn’t finish swallowing lunch.6

   

   Chaohusaurus specimen by Motani et al. is licensed under CC BY 4.0. The authors note, “Color coding indicates: black, maternal vertebral column, including neural and haemal spines; blue, maternal pelvis and hind flipper; green, maternal ribs and gastralia. Embryos 1 and 2 are in orange and yellow, respectively, whereas neonate 1 is in red.”7

   

   Fossil of a fish eating another fish at the Creation Museum

3. Whether a school of 259 fish (pictured here) was buried alive or buried together shortly after death (and before decay could destroy them), it had to have happened quickly.

4. A wasp in the Santana Formation in Brazil—even blood cells were preserved.8

   

   Courtesy Dr. Gabriela Haynes.

   

   Courtesy Dr. Gabriela Haynes.

5. A mosquito with blood still in the abdomen found in shale prompted this comment by Dale Greenwalt at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC: “The abdomen of a blood-engorged mosquito is like a balloon ready to burst. It is very fragile. The chances that it would not have disintegrated prior to fossilization were infinitesimally small.”9

   

   Dale E. Greenwalt, Yulia S. Goreva, Sandra M. Siljeström, Tim Rose, and Ralph E. Harbach, “Hemoglobin-Derived Porphyrins Preserved in a Middle Eocene Blood-Engorged Mosquito,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, no. 46 (October 2013): 18496–18500, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1310885110.

6. Charles Darwin said in his famous and influential book in 1859, “No organism wholly soft can be preserved” (in the fossil record).10 But he was wrong, as this jellyfish and dinosaur manure demonstrates.11

   

   © Paulyn Cartwright et al. 2007 (PLOS ONE). Image has been cropped.

   

   Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

7. Since 1993, when Mary Schweitzer discovered red blood cells in a T. rex bone,12 she and others have found more fossil evidence of soft tissue and other cells that should not be there if the bones are 65+ million years old. In 2005, evolutionists reported, “Dissolved T. rex bone yielded flexible, branching vessels (left), some of which contain cell-like structures (right)” (see picture below).13

   

   © Mary H. Schweitzer et al.

   In fact, the soft parts of animals have been found all through the geological record representing (according to evolutionists) about 550 million years, as Dr. Brian Thomas at the Institute for Creation Research has documented from the secular scientific literature.14

8. Other fossil evidence that the rock layers were deposited in rapid succession comes from polystrate fossils. These are usually trees that go through more than one layer in a vertical or nearly vertical fashion. They are often associated with coal deposits and sometimes go through more than one kind of sediment (e.g., coal, limestone, sandstone). The evolutionists believe that these trees grew in a swamp that was slowly buried or are evidence of multiple forests over a long period of time. But these trees are unusual in that they have no roots or branches.

   

   A quarry near Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1826.15 Public domain.

   

   A cliff in France, early 1800s.16 Fondo Antiguo de la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Sevilla from Sevilla, España, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

   How could these trees stay in this position as they waited to be slowly covered by sediments over hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years? These dead trees would have fallen down and rotted in a very short time.

   In the Joggins Formation along the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada, are found at least 76 coal seams with vertical trees in 63 levels. Evolutionists say the coal seams and trees represent multiple swamps and forests over the course of 5–10 million years.17 But again, there are almost no roots on these fossil trees. Specimen Ridge in Yellowstone National Park in the USA is another example. Evolutionists imagine it represents 27 successive forests over 50 million years. But there are no tree roots, no animal fossils, and no true soils in these layers. And the tree ring patterns of trees at different levels are very similar, indicating that they were all living at the same time and therefore the whole deposit formed in very short order.18

   

   © John Morris, adapted from The Young Earth

   The evolutionary neo-catastrophist I quoted earlier said this about such polystate fossils:

   Obviously, sedimentation had to be very rapid to bury a tree in a standing position before it rotted and fell down. . . . we cannot escape the conclusion that sedimentation was at times very rapid indeed and that at other times there were long breaks in sedimentation, though it looks both uniform and continuous.19

   He imagines long breaks in time, but he says the observational evidence contradicts that imagination. And on the opposite page from the quote, Dr. Ager has this picture with the caption “in position of growth.”

   

   National Library of Wales, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

   But again, what kind of tree grows without roots? These polystrate trees are strong evidence that they were ripped up from where they grew, transported in sediment-filled water, and buried rapidly in a new location. An excellent modern example of this was produced by the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980, which destroyed a forest in minutes and pulled over a million trees into Spirit Lake. Many of those trees have been deposited subsequently in the bottom sediments of the lake and often in an upright position.20

9. One final testimony from the fossils involves nautiloids. These are the cone shaped cousins of the modern coiled nautilus. They have been found in the well-known Redwall Limestone seen in Grand Canyon.21

   

   Nautiloid. © Institute for Creation Research, used with permission.

   

   Redwall Limestone (middle layer)

   Evolutionists think this layer was formed in a calm, placid sea. But Dr. Steve Austin, a creation geologist, did extensive research on them in this massive layer in Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and New Mexico. From the observed evidence, he estimates that there are four billion of these creatures buried (many of them in an upright position with the pointed end down) in a seven-foot (two-meter) thick section of the Redwall. He found strong evidence that these creatures represent a mass-kill event, which points to the rapid, catastrophic formation of the Redwall Limestone.

The fossils are screaming rapid sedimentation and hardening.

The conclusion? The fossils are screaming rapid sedimentation and hardening. The creatures were not slowly formed over thousands or millions of years. But if the creatures were buried and fossilized rapidly, then the sediment layers that contain the fossils must have been rapidly deposited and hardened into rock soon after deposition. So now let us consider more of the geological evidence that confirms Noah’s flood and a young earth and refutes the myth of millions of years.

Geological Evidence

Under the dogma of uniformitarianism, evolutionary geologists long thought that the sedimentary rock layers were formed slowly by particle-at-time deposition and erosion over millions of years. Evolutionary neo-catastrophists see much evidence that individual layers were generally formed rapidly, catastrophically. Dr. Ager put it this way, “In other words, the history of any one part of the earth, like the life of a soldier, consists of long periods of boredom and short periods of terror.”22 We can illustrate the neo-catastrophist view this way.

So the neo-catastrophists see very little time in the layers but vast quantities of time between the layers. Besides the evidence of polystrate fossils, which pass through multiple layers, and the supposed time between them, here are more reasons that young-earth creationists agree with these evolutionary neo-catastrophists about the formation of the layers but disagree about the time between the layers.

1. The lack of erosion between the layers.23

   If the neo-catastrophists are right, we would expect that a catastrophic event might lay down some layers on the yellow basement rocks of the earth, like this:

   

   Figure © Ariel Roth

   Then if the top of the gray layer was the surface of the land for millions of years, we would expect these layers to be rock-hard and to erode with irregularities like this:

   

   © Ariel Roth

   After more millions of years, we might imagine another catastrophic event to deposit more sediments like this:

   

   © Ariel Roth

   And if more millions of years really happened, we would expect a very complicated geological record like this:

   

   © Ariel Roth

   But this is generally what we find (flat, pancake-like layers with little or no erosion between them):

   

   © Ariel Roth

   For example, the Coconino Sandstone sits on top of the Hermit Shale in the Grand Canyon. Both cover vast areas in the canyon and beyond, and yet they have a knife-edge contact. Evolutionists say that there was 5–10 million years between the two layers because about 70 miles away is the Schnebly Hill Formation (about 800 feet thick). But there is no evidence of erosion that could remove that amount of material between the Coconino and Hermit in the Grand Canyon area.

   

   © Dr. Terry Mortenson

2. Animal footprints, ripple marks, and even raindrop marks on the surface of layers speak of rapid deposition of sediments on top to preserve those features. If you make footprints in the sand along the ocean, they don’t last very long. Dinosaur footprints (occasionally with even skin details preserved, as below24) attract our attention on many continents. But there are also tracks of smaller creatures like trilobites and small amphibians.

   

   © John Morris, adapted from The Young Earth

   

   Photo courtesy of Joe McDaniel. Derivative Copyright 2007 Answers in Genesis USA.

   

   Kyung Soo Kim, Martin G. Lockley, Jong Deock Lim, and Lida Xing. “Exquisitely-Preserved, High-Definition Skin Traces in Diminutive Theropod Tracks from the Cretaceous of Korea.” Scientific Reports 9, no. 2039: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-38633-4.

   What is also interesting about these tracks is that often the animals that made them are found not in the same layers as the tracks but in layers that evolutionists say formed many millions of years after the tracks were made.25

3. Folded or bent sedimentary rock layers are another evidence against millions of years. This evidence is seen all over the world.

   

   Ukraine

   

   Old Red Sandstone, UK

   

   Israel. Photo courtesy Tom Vail.

   If you try to bend concrete, what happens? It breaks. Now, it is possible to bend solid rock. To do so, you must have high temperature and pressure. But that process will metamorphose the rock, i.e., change the crystalline structure of the rock.

   There are some very significant folds (or bends) in the rock layers of Grand Canyon.

   

   Whitmore Helipad, Bright Angel Shale. Photo courtesy Dr. Andrew Snelling.

   

   Carbon Canyon, Tapeats Sandstone. Photo courtesy Dr. Andrew Snelling.

   In fact, the whole pile of sedimentary layers in the eastern end of the Grand Canyon are bent, like a stack of pancakes draped over the edge of a plate . These layers (about 4400 feet thick in total) were supposedly deposited between about 250 to 510 million years ago. After they had hardened for over 180 million years, evolutionists say, the earth movements that bent all the layers occurred about 70 million years ago. But this time-scale is evolutionist imagination, not scientific fact.

   

   © John Morris, adapted from The Young Earth

   Geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling did research on these folds by collecting many rock samples far from the folds and in the folds. He then examined them under the microscope to see if there was any evidence of metamorphism of the layers in the folds. His research confirmed his expectation that there was none. His highly technical published research stands as strong evidence that these rock layers were soft and wet when they were deformed, consistent with them being deposited during the flood and deformed shortly thereafter.26

   To do this research, Dr. Snelling had to sue the Grand Canyon National Park and the US Department of the Interior because due to influence of evolutionary geologists, the park did not want to grant him a research permit to collect the samples. But consider this: If it is a scientific fact that the earth is millions of years old, why would evolutionists try to prevent a highly qualified creation geologist from collecting samples for research? What are the evolutionists afraid of? This attempted viewpoint discrimination is another reason that you should not trust what the evolutionists are telling the world about the history and age of the earth. The story about Dr. Snelling’s application for a research permit and his research is very revealing.27

4. Extensive layers of basalt and sediments also point to a young-earth and global flood. For example, the Coconino Sandstone and its equivalents cover much of the western United States and Dr. John Whitmore’s research has shown that it was deposited under water, not in a desert as evolutionists have claimed for almost a century.28 The Deccan Traps (a basalt deposit on top of sedimentary, fossiliferous rock layers) in India is up to 6,500 feet thick and covers an area 80% of the size of Texas.29 Nowhere do we see these massive deposits forming today. The present is not the key to the past, as evolutionary geologists believe. Noah’s flood is the key to understanding earth history.

   

   Coconino Sandstone & equivalents. J.H. Whitmore and P.A. Garner, “The Coconino Sandstone (Permian, Arizona, USA): Implications for the origin of ancient cross-bedded Sandstones,” in J.H. Whitmore, ed., Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism, (Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship, 2018), p. 583.

   

   Deccan Traps, India. Photo by Karthik Easvur, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Map © Answers in Genesis.

5. Most valleys are much bigger than present or past rivers in them, and there are many dry valleys with no rivers. These valleys indicate that vastly more water and very little time was involved in forming them.

   

   Courtesy Dr. Terry Mortenson.

   

   Courtesy Dr. Terry Mortenson.

   Grand Canyon is not a monument to an ancient earth, as agnostic and theistic evolutionists have led many Christians to believe. Its layers and the huge canyon are a testimony to the flood!

   For example, evolutionists say that the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon over 6–70 million years, but they have no idea how it happened. The river in the Grand Canyon is only a few hundred feet wide at most, but the canyon is 4–18 miles wide. For the river to carve the Grand Canyon, you would have to radically redefine what you mean by the Colorado River! On the origin of the Grand Canyon, agnostic evolutionary expert Wayne Ranney says, “The canyon’s birth is shrouded in hazy mystery, cloaked in intrigue, and filled with enigmatic puzzles. And although the Grand Canyon is one of the world’s most recognizable landscapes, it is remarkable how little is known about the details of its origin.”30 Grand Canyon is not a monument to an ancient earth, as agnostic and theistic evolutionists have led many Christians to believe.31 Its layers and the huge canyon are a testimony to the flood!

6. Radiometric dating did not lead geologists to believe in millions of years. By 1896, when radioactive decay was discovered by the French physicist Henri Becquerel, the geological consensus (because of the dominance of Lyellian uniformitarianism) already was that the earth was about 300 million years old. It wasn’t until about 1910 that the first radiometric dating methods were developed, based on naturalistic, uniformitarian assumptions. But those methods do not prove the rocks are millions of years old. Rocks of known age (i.e., humans saw the volcanoes erupt and the lava harden into stone) have given grossly erroneous radiometric dates. And different methods used on the same rock sample of unknown age (i.e., no human eyewitnesses) give vastly discordant (different) dates. There are many good reasons not to bow the knee to the evolutionary dates of rock layers and fossils, which can be investigated elsewhere.32

Much more could be said about the geological evidence for a young earth and global flood and against the myth of millions of years of earth history. Interested readers should search the AiG website for articles and videos by geologists Dr. Andrew Snelling and Dr. John Whitmore.

Three Reasons Why Taking Genesis 1–11 Literally Matters

1. The dogma of millions of years destroys the Bible’s teaching about the original “very good” creation, the cosmic impact of God’s judgment on the whole creation because of Adam’s fall in sin, and the final redemptive work of Christ when the curse on creation will be removed. And the evolutionist story of millions of years is also an assault on the character of God.33
2. The flood speaks of the holy wrath of God against sinners and is a warning of the judgment to come (Matthew 24:37–39, 2 Peter 3:3–8). Both Jesus and Peter clearly affirmed that Noah’s flood was a global, catastrophic judgment of God. And that flood is critical to a proper interpretation of the geological record.
3. The ark is a typological representation of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. He is the only hope of salvation from the coming wrath (Acts 4:12).

It matters what we believe about the flood. I urge the reader to investigate the biblical and geological evidence carefully and to believe God’s Word from the very first verse.