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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Liquefaction: The Origin of Strata and Layered Fossils
SUMMARY: Liquefaction—associated with quicksand, earthquakes, and wave action—played a major role in rapidly sorting sediments, plants, and animals during the flood. Indeed, the worldwide presence of sorted fossils and sedimentary layers shows that a gigantic global flood occurred. Massive liquefaction also left other diagnostic features such as cross-bedded sandstone, plumes, mounds, and fossilized footprints.
Sedimentary rocks are distinguished by sharply-defined layers, called strata. Fossils almost always lie within such layers. Fossils and strata, seen globally, have many unusual characteristics. A little-known and poorly-understood phenomenon called liquefaction (lik-wuh-FAK-shun) explains these characteristics. It also explains why we do not see fossils and strata forming on a large scale today.
We will first consider several common situations that cause liquefaction on a small scale. After understanding why liquefaction occurs, we will see that a global flood would produce liquefaction—and these vast, sharply defined layers—worldwide. Finally, a review of other unusual features in the earth’s crust will confirm that global liquefaction did occur.