- Series:Fossils, Transcript English
Genesis 7:11
“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.”
Miles deep within the Earth, heat and pressure force water out of certain minerals, changing or metamorphosing the rock. All the textbooks say that it takes millions of years for such metamorphic rock to form. New research shows pretty convincingly that all the textbooks are wrong.
Normally, earthquakes originate in the top 12 kilometers of the Earth’s crust. Deeper quakes, especially where there are no known faults, have been mysteries. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake at 18 kilometers was one such mystery. But a newer discovery by three Yale University geologists may explain these deeper quakes and support the Bible’s historical chronology.
The standard model for metamorphic rock formation says that heat and pressure deep underground slowly force water from the crystals that form the rock. This process takes place so deeply in the Earth that the rock itself flows plastically. The Yale geologists who studied the process discovered that under these conditions tiny droplets of water are expelled from the crystals much more rapidly than previously thought. In fact, the water is expelled so rapidly that it builds enough pressure to actually fracture the rock.
The geologists who presented this research say that what was thought to have taken millions of years can happen in mere centuries or even decades. And this would easily allow for the origin of some of today’s metamorphic rock to be traced back to the Flood of Noah on the time scale provided by the Bible.
Prayer:
Father, I thank You for Your trustworthy Word in this sin filled world. Amen.
Notes:
S. Simpson, “High-pressure water triggers tremors”. Science News, 11/21/98, v. 154, p. 327. Photo: Destruction caused by the Loma Prieta earthquake. (PD)
