If our continents were old, they would no longer be here
by Dr. Tas Walker, mechanical engineer and geologist
It
was James Hutton, the Scottish physician-turned-geologist, who suggested
in 1785 that the earth was immensely old. His famous assertion that there
was "no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of and end" paved the way for
Darwin's theory of evolution. Today most geologists take Hutton's views
for granted. Evolutionists generally accept that the continents formed
at least 2.5 billion years ago. The published ages of parts of Australia
are greater than 3.0 billion years. Much of the rest of the continent is
said to be 3.0 to 0.6 billion yers old. A similar story is told for other
continents - the age of their basement rocks is in the billion-year range.
Their ideas are found to be
wholly unconvincing once we take a closer look. We find that there are
many geological processes that indicate the continents are not as old as
evolutionists say. One such problem for the old-age idea is erosion. The
continents cannot be billions of years old because they would have eroded
away long ago. There should be nothing left.
Measuring erosion
Water is the main culprit that
dissolves many minerals, and loosens soil and rock from the landscape,
transporting them to the ocean. Day after day, year after year, like an
endless procession of freight trains, the rivers of the world cart tons
of decomposed rock across the continents and dump it in the ocean. By comparison,
the amount removed by winds, glaciers and ocean waves pounding the coastline
is small.
Water can do its eroding work
once it falls as rain. It collects into regions called drainage basins
- areas easily identified on a topographic map. By sampling the mouth of
the river, we can measure the volume of water discharged from the basin
and the amount of sediment it carries. It is difficult to be exact because
some sediment is rolled or pushed along the bottom of the river. "Bed load,"
as it is called, is not easily observed. Sometimes an arbitrary allowance
is included to account for it.
Another problem is how to
handle rare catastrophic events. Although these can transport huge quantities
of sediment in a very short time, they are almost impossible to measure.
Bed load and catastrophe both transport more sediment than is measured
directly.
Nevertheless, sedimentologists
have researched many of the world's rivers and calculated how fast the
land is disappearing. The measurements show that some rivers are excavating
their basins by more than 39 inches (1,000 mm) of height in 1,000 years,
while others move only 0.04 inches (1mm) in 1,000 years. The average height
reduction for all the continents of the world is about 2.4 inches pers
1,000 years, which equates to some 24 million tons of sediment per year.
That is a lot of top dressing!
Disappearing continents
On the scale of one human life-span,
these rates of erosion are low. But for those who say the continents are
billions of years old, the rates are staggering. A height of 93 miles (150
kilometers) of continent would have eroded in 2.5 billion years! It defies
common sense. If erosion had been going on for billions of years, no continents
would remain on Earth.
This problem has been highlighted
by a number of geologists who calculated that North America should have
been levelled in 10 million years if erosion has continued at the average
rate. This is a ridiculously short time compared with the supposed 2.5-billion-year
age for the continents. To make matters worse, many rivers erode the height
of their basins much faster than average. Even at the slowest rate of 0.04
inches (1 mm) reduction in height per 1,000 years, the continents, with
an average height of 2,000 feet (623 meters), should have vanished long
ago.
These rates not only erode
the idea of billion-year-old continents but also crumble the concept of
ancient mountains. In general, mountainous regions with their steep slopes
and deep valleys are eroded fastest. Erosion rates of 39 inch (1,000 mm)
height reduction per 1,000 years are common in the alpine regions of Papua
New Guinea, Mexico, and the Himalayas. One of the fastest recorded regional
height reductions is 750 inches (19,000 mm) per 1,000 years froma volcano
in Papua new Guinea. The Yellow River in China could flatten a plateau
as high as Everest in 10 million years. The mountain ranges, such as the
Caledonides of western Europe and the Appalachians of eastern North America
are even harder to explain because they re not as high as Everest, yet
are supposed to be several hundred million years old. If erosion has been
going on for this long, these mountains should not exist.
Erosion is also a problem
for flat land surfaces that are considered very ancient. These surfaces
extend over large areas, yet show little or no sign of erosion. Furthermore,
the surfaces have no evidence of having had any other layers on them. An
example is Kangaroo Island (southern Australia) which is about 87 miles
(140 km) long and 37 miles (60 km) wide. Its surface is said to be at least
160 million yeears old, based on the fossil content and radioactive dating.
Yet it is extremely flat over most of its area The land is virtually the
same as when it was uplifted - erosion had hardly touched the exposed surface.
How could it stay so flat for so long without being eroded by 160 million
years of rain?
Looking for an out
Why
do the continents and mountains still exist if they are being eroded so
quickly? Why do so many landforms, claimed to be old, show no sign or erosion?
The simple answer is that they are not as old as claimed, but "young" like
the Bible says. However, this is not philosophically acceptable to evolutionary
geologists, so other explanations are sought - in vain.
For example, it is suggested
that the mountains still exist because uplift is constantly replacing them
from below. Consequently, the mountains would have been eroded and replaced
many times over in 2.5 billion years. However, although uplift is occurring
in mountainous areas, such a process of uplift and erosion could not go
on for long without removing all the layers of sediments. We would therefore
not expect to find any old sediment in mountainous areas if they had been
eroded and replaced many times. Yet, surprisingly, sediments of all ages
from young to old (by evolutionary dating methods) are preserved in mountainous
regions. The idea of continual renewal by uplift does not solve the problem.
Another ideas suggested to
solve the problem is that the present rates of erosion being measured are
abnormally high. According to this argument, erosion was much less in the
past before humans interfered. Human activity, such as land clearing and
farming, is said to be why we are measuring such high rates at present.
However, quantitative measurements on the effect of this human activity
have found that erosion rates are increased only 2 to 2.5 times. For this
explanation to solve the problem, the increase would need to be several
hundred times greater. Once again, the explanation does not work.
It has also been suggested
that the climate in the past was much drier (because less water would mean
less erosion) However this idea goes against the evidence. The climate
was actually wetter, as deduced from the abundance of lush vegetation in
the fossil record.
Continents are young
The "slow and gradual" story, suggested by the Scottish physician Hutton two hundred years ago, does not make sense. Old-earthers claim that the continents are over 2.5 billion years old, yet using their own assumptions, the continents should have eroded away in 10 million years. Note that this 10 million years is not the estimated age of the continents. Rather, it highlights the bankruptcy of uniformitarian ideas. Geologists who believe the Bible consider that the mountains and continents we have today were formed as a consequence of the Flood of Noah's day. When the continents were uplifted at the end of the Flood, the incredible energy of the retreating floodwaters carved the landscape. Not a lot, geologically speaking, has happened in the 4,500 years since then.
[Taken from the website of Answers
In Genesis]