This is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood
(7th Edition) by Dr. Walt Brown. The online version of the book is designed to be read online.
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Evidence Requiring an Explanation
Summarized below are the hard-to-explain details which any satisfactory explanation for the origin of the Grand Canyon should answer.
Layering. Probably the most striking sight at the Grand Canyon is the vastness of the parallel, multicolored, sedimentary layers. (Their differing mineral and chemical content produces the variety of colors.) Any explanation for the Grand Canyon’s layers must be consistent with the stratification seen worldwide.
Limestone. The Hualapai Limestone, to the west of the Grand Canyon, was deposited before the Colorado River flowed out the western end of the Grand Canyon. Also, many layers in the canyon consist primarily of limestone hundreds of feet thick.19 What is the source of so much limestone, and what concentrated it?
Marble Canyon. How does the origin of the nearly straight Marble Canyon and its narrow, vertical walls relate to the origin of the adjoining, but broader, Grand Canyon? What accounts for the strange pattern of tipped layers in the walls of Marble Canyon and Echo and Vermilion Cliffs?
Distant Cavern Connection. How could an underground drainage system develop 5,400 feet above sea level and flow 63-miles between a cavern and the Grand Canyon?
Side Canyons. Why do Grand Canyon and Marble Canyon have so many side canyons that were cut as deeply as the main canyons but without a visible source of water?
Barbed Canyons. Why does Marble Canyon have large, barbed side canyons?
Slot Canyons. How did such narrow side canyons with jagged walls capture enough water to cut deep channels that drain into the Colorado River? Why are most of the world’s slot canyons on the Colorado Plateau?
Perpendicular Faults. Why are dozens of faults in the Grand Canyon generally perpendicular to the Colorado River, and why does the river hardly ever flow along the “easier” paths provided by these faults?20
Arching. Why are Grand and Marble Canyons cut into and along the top of a broad arch that extends, in general, for the 277-mile length of those canyons?
Inner Gorge. Why are the walls of the inner gorge so deep, steep, narrow, and rough? How could a river cut so deeply into such hard rock at the inner gorge but not as deeply either upstream or downstream?
Nankoweap Canyon. What provided a violent, multidirectional flow of water able to (1) carve Nankoweap Canyon and its side canyons, (2) create a large delta that still remains despite the cross-flowing Colorado River, and (3) stack boulders 100–200 feet high along Nankoweap Creek? Why would humans choose to live in this desolate canyon?
Unusual Erosion. Why are slumps, landslides, and rockfalls found on the top of Nankoweap Mesa? Why does the Colorado River sharply delineate this eroded region to the west from the smooth, lower region to the east?
Forces, Energy, and Mechanisms. Each explanation for the Grand Canyon requires lifting the Colorado Plateau more than a mile in the air and transporting massive amounts of water and rock. Are the forces, energy, and mechanisms for these movements known—or merely inferred or assumed? Without a knowledge of the underlying physics—which must conform to scientific laws—major errors can creep in. Even if the inferences or assumptions are found to be correct, ignorance of the actual forces, energy, and mechanisms will blind us to root causes, rates, and other consequences. Predictions will not present themselves; modeling and testing become limited. Such explanations can only be described as “half baked.”21
Why Here? Why is the Grand Canyon where it is, and why are there not many other “grand canyons” worldwide?22 The canyon receives little rain. If an explanation claims that a set of conditions, such as a fast-flowing river and millions of years, produced the Grand Canyon, then hundreds of other “Grand Canyons” should be found where those conditions exist elsewhere in the world.
Why So “Recently”? If the Grand Canyon was carved during the last one-thousandth of earth’s history, why were no other “Grand Canyons” carved earlier?
Missing River. Limestone deposits immediately to the west of the Grand Canyon show that the Colorado River did not flow beyond the Grand Canyon before the canyon was excavated. Where was the river? What brought it to its present location? How was the western Grand Canyon carved?
Missing Talus. In the canyon region, why do steep cliffs such as Echo Cliffs, Vermilion Cliffs, and others have little talus at their bases?
Kaibab Plateau. Why and how did the Colorado River make a right turn and cut through the Kaibab Plateau, which rises more than a mile on either side of the river?
Missing Mesozoic Rock. What swept off a soft Mesozoic layer, at least 1,000 feet thick, from atop 10,000 square miles of horizontal Kaibab Limestone?
Missing Dirt. About 800 cubic miles of material were removed in carving the Grand Canyon through and below the Kaibab Limestone. The Colorado River’s delta does not contain even 1% of this missing material. Where did it go?
Fossils. Why are fossils found only above the Great Unconformity?
Tipped Layers. Why are sedimentary layers, hundreds of feet thick, tipped at steep angles below portions of the Great Unconformity, while all the layers above (averaging 4,000 feet in total depth) are essentially horizontal?
Time or Intensity? A satisfactory proposal for carving the Grand Canyon must show, in a self-consistent way, that eons of time transpired, or a brief, intensely violent flow of water occurred.