Although the thought of a worldwide flood that wiped out almost all plant and animal life on earth and then buried it in the rocks may seem incredible, that is exactly what Genesis and Psalms say happened,1 what Jesus and the apostles believed 2 and what the geological evidence supports. The Bible also talks about the “deeps” being broken up, and the earth divided or “spread out.” 3 This likely refers to the oceanic ridges being broken up and where the continents appear to have been split apart: perhaps in a short period of time.

Such a flood is also described in literature or legend in over 200 different civilizations from around the world; however, in this short paper we will focus only on the geological evidence that points to such an event and what it means for us today.

Worldwide Flood or Miracle?

The fact that many of the same types of fossils are found all over the world, in the same order, suggests that the whole world was once under water. We say this because water is required to deposit sedimentary rocks, and because rapid burial is required to preserve fossils, and because some of the layers are the size of Nevada, and because there is virtually no evidence of time (or erosion) between the layers, but rather they appear to have been laid down like pancakes: one on top of the other. And since many layers also contain marine fossils, they must have been the result of an intercontinental or worldwide flood.

Consider a quote by Curt Teichert published in a Bulletin of the Geological Society of America.

“Such a hypothesis would require… a highly unlikely pattern of… migrations, where swarms of species of Manticoceras are followed, everywhere at the same distance and the same time interval, by swarms of species of Cheiloceras, the two waves preserving their separate identities on a staggered mass migration around the world… without evolutionary changes and without ever becoming mixed…” “It would be easy to repeat this investigation for almost every critical zone fossil… throughout the geological column for hundreds, perhaps thousands of… cases… In the words of Jeletsky… we would have to ‘invoke a miracle’… to assume anything but worldwide contemporaneous deposition for each of the 55 ammonite zones of the Jurassic. Not all … occur everywhere, but wherever two or more are found in superposition they occur in the same order.

Two Vastly Different Views:

Let’s not kid ourselves. What this is all about is whether or not the Old Testament book of Genesis (along with the rest of the Old Testament, and the New Testament) is an accurate account of what happened around 4600 years ago with regard to a worldwide flood and about 6000 years ago with regard to Creation itself. Is the Bible accurate and true or is it just a book of allegorical stories?

Was the great majority of the world’s sedimentary strata laid down by a single Worldwide Deluge in a short amount of time, or is the evolutionary scenario of slow change, acting over eons of TIME and the associated Geological Time Chart (with its millions and millions of years) a more accurate account of Earth history and how we came to be?

This is also about God’s future judgment of mankind and the return of Jesus to rule over the Earth — that God and He created — and to which He compared to the Days of Noah and the Flood. See Luke 17:20-27, 19:11-27; John 5:22-23, 12:32, and Rev. 22:12.

Let’s Look at the Evidence:

The following are 18 Evidences of either massive flooding and erosion, extremely rapid layering of strata, or direct evidence of a Worldwide Flood. Such evidences are found in numerous places on virtually every Continent.

Polystrate Fossils:

Upright Fossil Tree crossing multiple layers of rock strata One of the strongest pieces of evidence for a worldwide flood is the existence of what Rupke termed “polystrate fossils.” Such fossils are found all over the world: especially in and around coal seams. They are often in the form of fossil trees that were buried upright and which often cross multiple layers of strata such as sandstone, shale, limestone and even coal beds. 1,2,3,4 They range in size from small rootlets to trees over 80 feet long. Sometimes they are oblique (or at an angle to) the surrounding strata, but more often they are perpendicular with (or standing ‘upright’ in) it. For example, at Joggins, Nova Scotia, polystrate tree (and root) fossils are found at various intervals throughout roughly 2,500 feet of strata. Many of the trees are from 10-20 feet long, 5,6 and at least one was 40 feet long. 5,6,7

Very few of these upright fossil trees have attached roots, and only about 1 in 50 8 have both roots and rootlets attached. Such trees, and their missing roots are discussed in detail in an article on ‘Fossil Forests‘.9 Likewise many, if not most, of the large, fragmented, and broken-off Stigmaria roots (of these trees) are also missing their rootlets. In fact, that’s how the word “stigmaria” (roots) got its name: i.e. because of the scar marks left behind from the broken off (and now missing) rootlets. 9

Many of these roots and rootlets are also buried individually. 9 Thus virtually proving that neither the trees themselves, nor their rootlets were buried in the place where they grew, or “in situ,” but were uprooted and re-buried where they are now found.

Similar circumstances occur elsewhere in Nova Scotia and other Canadian provinces, as well as the United States, South America, Europe, China, Russia, and Australia. Buried tree stumps are also found on Axel Heiberg 10,11 Island in Northern Canada and wherever coal seams are found.

And although there is much data on buried trees in the geological literature, much of it is from books that are over 100 years old. One of the first articles on this subject was by Rupke, and in it he comments that:

“Personally, I am of the opinion that … polystrate fossils constitute a crucial phenomenon both to the actuality and the mechanism of cataclysmic deposition. Curiously a paper on polystrate fossils appears to be a ‘black swan’ in geological literature. Antecedent to this synopsis a systematic discussion of the relevant phenomena was never published. However, geologists must have been informed about these fossils. In view of this it seems unintelligible that uniformitarianism has kept its dominant position.” 12

With regard to Rupke’s observation, I suspect the reason why such is still the case has more to do with a pervasive bias against any and all evidence for a Creator to whom we may one day have to give account than to the ever-mounting evidence against the theory of evolution and the millions and millions of years that such a belief needs to make it seem true.

See also Organic levels of the Yellowstone Petrified Forest 13 and The Yellowstone Petrified Forests 14.

The Fossils Themselves:

Fossils don’t form on lake bottoms today, nor are they found forming on the bottom of the sea. 15 Instead, they normally only form when a plant or animal is buried soon after it dies. 16 Therefore, the fossils themselves are evidence of a catastrophe such as a flood or volcanic eruption that took place in the past. Rapid Petrification of Wood

Clastic Dikes:

Clastic Dike: Pre-hardened rock forced up through overlying strata According to Austin, a clastic dike is:

“a cross cutting body of sedimentary material which has been intruded into a foreign rock mass.” 17

“These dikes…(may) penetrate horizontal sedimentary strata (or) they may occur… in igneous and metamorphic rocks. The process of formation of a clastic dike is analogous to wet sand oozing up between ones toes, but on a much larger scale.” 17

Clastic dikes present a problem to the “mythions of years” mindset of evolution in that massive “older” sediments are found intruding up into overlying younger strata. This must have occurred while the “older” sediments were still in a plastic state. This is clearly brought out in a book on this subject by Dr. John Morris on this same subject: i.e. on the Age of the Earth.

What took these “older” sediments so long to become hard?

One would think that a million years would be more than enough time to turn massive sand laden sediments into sandstone, yet we have an example of sediments which are said to be 80 million years older than those above them, and yet they still had not become hard, but were in a wet and plastic state when an earth movement caused them to be forced up into the (supposedly much) younger sediments. Such things not only present serious problems for the evolutionary method of “dating”, but also tell us that something is wrong with the millions of years mindset of evolutionary theory itself, and thus cause strong suspicion that we are not being told the truth by the mass media, nor the “Scientific” community of believers in evolution. 17,18,19

Mt. St. Helens:

Three separate eruptions at Mount St. Helens produced sedimentary-type layers hundreds of feet thick. One of these was a hurricane velocity deposit that produced thousands of thin laminations up to 25 feet thick. The third eruption was a lava flow, which turned into a hot mud-flow as it crossed the Toutle River. This hot mud flow not only diverted the river, but carved a 17 mile long series of canyons (up to 140 feet deep) in a matter of hours. They call it the Little Grand Canyon of the Toutle River.” 20,21,22 And to this very day, neither the mass media, nor any popular “science” publications have told the public what happened. 23 See also Mt. St. Helens: Evidence in Support of Catastrophe.

Palouse Canyon:

In Eastern Washington State there is a canyon that was eroded through solid basalt by Lake Missoula floods in 1-2 days. This canyon is 300 to 500 feet deep. 24,25,26,27,28

An Australian Beach:

At Greenmount Beach on the Gold Coast of Queensland, an interesting thing occurred:

“clear laminations, or layering, in the sand–formed by the separation of normal silica-sand grains and smaller, denser mineral sand-grains such as rutile which are dark in color.. The layering was present along the whole sand mass exposed.” 29

“This was produced as a result of a beach restoration project (which involved) the dredging of sand from (a) sand bar (on) the Tweed River and carrying it by ship several kilometres north to the southern Gold Coast beaches, where it was pumped ashore as a water/sand slurry through a large pipe to the beach.” 29

See also Talking About Geology / Varves. 30

Spontaneous Sorting of Layers:

Laboratory experiments have shown that spontaneous sorting and layering occurs with a sand, mud and clay slurry. When the mixture slows down, the sand, mud and clay will spontaneously precipitate (or settle out) and form individual layers. Dr. Guy Berthault has performed a number of experiments which demonstrate this. 31,32,33 See following links for more info and visual documentation: Evolution: Fact or Belief?, Experiments in Stratification, and Sedimentation Experiments.

Turbidity Currents:

A turbidity current is an underwater mud flow, the discovery of which caused somewhat of a revolution in geology. As a result, many sedimentary strata layers throughout the world have been reevaluated and found to be turbidites. 34,35,36,37,38,39,40

For example, regarding turbidites and the impact they are having on modern Geology, Kurt Howard 41 said the following in his paper on this topic:

My physical geology professor said, “Regarding uniformitarianism, you can take it with a grain of salt.” After reviewing geology texts on the subject of turbidites, I am following the … professor’s advice. To paraphrase his words, I am taking uniformitarianism with a grain of sand, for the philosophy of uniformitarianism states that sedimentary layers form over many millions of years, while … recent research has shown that turbidites form within a few hours. {1}

In 1972 Burgert identified several lower basal Tapeats units as turbidites in Grand Canyon’s Cheops Bay. Dr. Ariel Roth a geologist at Loma Linda University’s Geoscience Institute, suggested that 30% of all sedimentary rocks in Grand Canyon are turbidites. Some geologists suggest that 50% of the world’s sedimentary rocks might be turbidites.

Modern geologists discarded the terms flysch sediments and geosyncline because rapidly formed megathick flysch is incompatible with uniformitarianism and long ages. However, in the last few years, the number of geologists abandoning the classical uniformitarian discipline and adopting the new catastrophism is almost a shock to … creationists. Geologists are finally beginning to grudgingly agree with … creationists about the nature of the stratigraphic record, which is a record of major catastrophic events and not the slow year-by-year buildup suggested by uniformitarianism. Flysch deposits might be the sedimentary results of a global flood. The idea of geosynclines is unpopular because most geologists believe in plate tectonics. Emphasis Added

Extensive Strata and Pancake Layering:

As we observe sedimentary strata throughout the world we see almost everywhere flat-lying (or “pancake”) layered strata. Many of these layers are so extensive that they cover several states. For example, the Tapeats Sandstone covers over half of the United States, and drawings from Dana’s Manual of Geology depict over 90 percent of the United States and Mexico, and half of Canada under water. We also know that the Grand Canyon was once under the ocean because of the marine fossils that have been found there.

Drawing depicting over 90 percent of US under waterEvolutionists believe that such layers were deposited slowly over millions and millions of years. Some claim that much of the strata is simply “river” deposits or river deltas. 42,43 Creationists and a growing number of geologists see problems with such interpretations. 44,45 First because there is virtually no evidence of erosion between the layers, and second, because the sheer size and extent of the layers tells us that they could not have been formed by rivers, nor river deltas. That’s because many of the “layers” are quite thick and cover literally thousands of square miles.

This, coupled with the presence of marine fossils that are buried in many of the layers, tells us that they were deposited by ocean currents by a flood or floods like nothing we have seen in moderns times.

We can say for certain that it was the ocean (as opposed to a lake) because of the marine fossils that are buried in much of this strata. For example, in the Grand Canyon area itself, old Earth geologists have said that the Ocean swept over the whole area on six different occasions. Young Earth geologists say it was probably only once.

A Whale of a Fossil:

Or should we say “a fossil of a whale? It’s true, but what is most interesting about it is how it was buried. In 1976, workers from the Dicalite division of Grefco inc. found the remains of a baleen whale entombed vertically in a diatomaceous earth quarry.

“They’ve found fossils there before; in fact the machinery operators have learned a good deal about them and carefully annotate any they find with the name of the collector, the date, and the exact place found. Each discovery is turned over to Lawrence G. Barnes at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The Whale, however, is one of the largest fossils ever collected anywhere… (It) is standing on end.. and is being exposed gradually as the diatomite is mined. Only the head and a small part of the body are visible as yet.

“The modern baleen whale is 80 to 90 feet long and has a head of similar size, indicating that the fossil may be close to 80 feet long. 46,47

More Fossil Whales:

“In bogs covering glacial deposits in Michigan, skeletons of two whales were discovered … How did they come to Michigan in the post-glacial epoch? Glaciers do not carry whales, and the ice sheet would not have brought them to the middle of a continent… Was there a sea in Michigan after the glacial epoch, only a few thousand years ago?” 48

“Bones of Whale have been found 440 feet above sea level, north of Lake Ontario; a skeleton of another whale was discovered in Vermont, more than 500 feet above sea level; and still another in the Montreal-Quebec area, about 600 feet above sea level…” 48

Marine Fossils In The Mountains:

In Mountains all over the world one can find sea shells and other marine fossils. These include the Sierras, the Swiss Alps, the Himalayas and many more. 49,50,51,52,53 See also Seashell on the Mountaintop by Alan Cutler.

Frozen Mammoths:

Mammoth from cover of “Frozen in Time’ by Michael Oard Frozen mammoths and Mammoth bones are found in large numbers in Siberia, Alaska, and Northern Europe. Some of these were in such good preservation that Eskimos would feed their dogs meat from them when they became exposed due to melting ice and snow: that is, if wolves didn’t get their first. For more details see the Book.

Fissures In The Rocks:

In caves and fissures in England and Whales and all over western Europe are found bones and bone fragments of many types of extinct and extant animal species — including the mammoth, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, horse, polar bear, bison, reindeer, wolf and cave lion. In virtually every case, the bones are disarticulated, without teeth marks, un-weathered, and in most cases broken and splintered. 55

“In the rock on the summit of Mont de Sautenay – a flat-topped hill near Chalonsur-Saone between Dijon and Lyons – there is a fissure filled with animal bones. ‘Why should so many wolves, bears, horses, and oxen have ascended a hill isolated on all sides?’ asked Albert Gaudry, professor at the Jardin des Plantes. According to him, the bones in this cleft are mostly broken and splintered into innumerable … fragments and are ‘evidently not those of animals devoured by beasts of prey; nor have they been broken by man. Nevertheless, the remains of wolf were … abundant, together with those of cave lion, bear, rhinoceros, horse, ox, and deer… Prestwich thought that the … bones… were found in common heaps because, ‘… [they] … fled [there] to escape the rising waters.'” 55,56

Erratic Boulders:

All over Europe and North America are found large “erratic” “boulders” which were transported many miles by some mysterious force — the most likely of which is a massive flood that swept over the Continents. Concerning these Velikovsky writes:

Super Large Boulder with 100 people in lower foregound”Some erratics are enormous. The block near Conway, New Hampshire, is 90 by 40 by 38 feet and weighs about 10,000 tons, the load of a large cargo ship. Equally large is Mohegan Rock, which towers over the town of Montville, in Connecticut. The great flat erratic in Warren County, Ohio, weighs approximately 13,500 tons and covers three quarters of an acre; the Ototoks erratic, thirty miles south of Calgary, Alberta, consists of two pieces of quartzite ‘derived from at least 50 miles to the west,’ [and weighs] over 18,000 tons.” 57

Was the Flood Local or Worldwide?

In the late 60’s and early 70’s:

“Two American oceanographic vessels pulled from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico several long, slender cores of sediment. Included in them were the shells of tiny one-celled planktonic organisms called foraminifera. While living on the surface, these organisms lock into their shells a chemical record of the temperature and salinity of the water. When they reproduce, the shells are discarded and drop to the bottom. A cross-section of that bottom … carries a record of climates that may go back more than 100 million years. Every inch of core may represent as much as 1000 years of the earth’s past.” 58

“The cores were analyzed in two separate investigations, by Cesare Emiliani of the University of Miami, and James Kennett of the University of Rhode Island and Nicholas Shackleton of Cambridge University. Both analyses indicated a dramatic change in salinity, providing compelling evidence of a vast flood of fresh water into the Gulf of Mexico. Using radiocarbon, geochemist Jerry Stripp of the University of Miami dated the flood at about 11,600 years ago.” 1 To Emiliani, all the questions and arguments are minor beside the single fact that a vast amount of fresh melt water poured into the Gulf of Mexico. ‘We know this,’ he says, ‘because the oxygen isotope ratios of the foraminifera shells show a marked temporary decrease in the salinity of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It clearly shows that there was a major period of flooding from 12,000 to 10,000 years ago … There was no question that there was a flood and there is no question that it was a universal flood. 58

“Emiliani’s findings are corroborated by geologists Kennett and Shackleton, who concluded that there was a ‘massive inpouring of glacial melt water into the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River system. At the time of maximum inpouring of this water, surface salinities were… reduced by about ten percent.” 58

Read more in our full overview and discussion if the Genesis flood was worldwide or local here.

The Black Sea Evidence

“Science… has found evidence for a massive deluge that may … have inspired Noah’s tale. About 7,500 years ago, a flood poured ten cubic miles of water a day — 130 times more than flows over Niagara Falls – from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea, abruptly turning the formerly freshwater lake into a brackish inland sea.” 59

“In 1993, William Ryan and Walter Pitman of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory dug up cores of sediment from the bottom of the Black sea. The cores showed that the sea’s outer margins had once been dry land, indicating it had been two-thirds its present size. Furthermore, over the entire sea bottom was a thin, uniform layer of sediment that could only have been deposited during a flood. The researchers also found that within that layer saltwater mollusks appear, all from the Mediterranean and all dating from around 7600 years ago.” 59

Worldwide Chaos and Out of Order Fossils:

The following excerpts provide further evidence that something is amiss with the Geological Time Chart and the associated Theory of Evolution itself.

“I regard the failure to find a clear ‘vector of progress’ in life’s history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record.” 62

And that:

“Heretofore, we have thrown up our hands in frustration at the lack of expected pattern in life’s history — or we have sought to impose a pattern that we hoped to find on a world that does not really display it If we can develop a … theory of mass extinction, we may finally understand why life has thwarted our expectations, and … extract an unexpected … pattern from apparent chaos. 62

“One of the ironies of the evolution-creation debate is that the creationists have accepted the mistaken notion that the fossil record shows a detailed and orderly progression…” 63

“… only 15-20% of the earth’s land surface has even 3 geologic periods appearing in ‘correct’ consecutive order.” 64

“Any sequence in which an older fossil occurs above a younger one is stratigraphically disordered … disorder may be from millimeters to many meters … (and) is produced by the physical or biogenic mixing of … sediments … Since these processes occur to an extent in virtually all sedimentary systems, stratigraphic disorder at some scale is probably a common feature of the fossil record.” 65

“The extent of disorder is … not well documented; however, the widespread occurrence of anomalies … suggest that disorder should be taken seriously …” ref. 61 p. 234. W. J. Arkell.

“Examination of Britain’s record of the Ice Age levels discloses a ‘complex interbedding of drift sheets derived from different sources.’ ‘When we add the additional complications imposed by thin drifts, scanty interglacial deposits, and the frequent presence in fossil – bearing beds of secondary fossils derived from the reworking of older horizons, we get a truly difficult overall problem … All in all, British glacial stratigraphic research has encountered exceptional difficulties,’ writes R. F. Flint, professor of geology at Yale University. 66, 67

Problematica:

“Problematica” is the “code word” paleontologists use to describe out of order fossils, or those that are not easily placed, or that are misplaced, interbedded, or “mixed” in with other strata of a different “date.” According to an online Italian to English dictionary the term means “problems.” Several years ago, a Google search on this term yielded over a million hits. To some, if not many that seems like a lot of problems for uniformitarian geology to explain. A few such problems are discussed in an article called Sea sloths and out of order Fossils.

Scientific Evidence for a Worldwide Flood