This is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, 8th Edition (2008), by Dr. Walt Brown. It is designed to be read online.
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Liquefaction During the Compression Event
While liquefaction operated during the flood phase, it acted massively once during the compression event, at the end of the continental-drift phase. [See pages 108–140.]
Visualize a deck of cards sliding across a table. Friction from the table slows the bottom card. That card, in turn, applies a decelerating force on the second card from the bottom. If no card slips, the entire deck, including the top card, will decelerate as a unit. But if a lubricant somehow built up between any two adjacent cards, the cards above the lubricated layer would slide over the decelerating cards below.
Likewise, each decelerating granite hydroplate acted on the bottom sedimentary layer riding on the hydroplate. Sedimentary layers, from bottom to top, acted in turn to decelerate the topmost layers. As each water-saturated layer decelerated, it was severely compressed—similar to suddenly squeezing a wet sponge. The sediments, forced into a denser packing arrangement, released water. Sedimentary particles were crushed or broken, so their fragments filled the spaces between particles, releasing even more water. The freed water, then forced up through the sediments, caused massive liquefaction. As the sedimentary layers decelerated and compressed, they became more and more fluid. Eventually, some layers were so fluid that slippage occurred above them, as in our deck of cards. Below that level, extreme compression and liquefaction caused fossils to float up and collect at this watery level where sliding was taking place.The lowest slippage level was the Cambrian-Precambrian interface. Fossils are found almost exclusively above this interface. Therefore, evolutionists interpret the Precambrian as about 90% of all geologic time—a vast period, they believe, before life evolved. A few feet above this global interface are found representatives of all animal and plant phyla. [See “Missing Trunk” on page 12.] This presents a huge problem for evolutionists: How and why did so much life evolve so fast—a phenomenon evolutionists call “the Cambrian explosion”? Again, evolutionists are unaware of global and massive liquefaction and mistakenly measure time by sedimentary layers and their fossils.
Figure 93: Grand Canyon Cross Section. The tipped and beveled layers are part of the Precambrian. The beveled plane, at the Cambrian-Precambrian interface, is sometimes called The Great Unconformity. A similar, but much smaller, example of tipped and beveled layers is shown in the cross-bedded sandstone in Figure 95. Beveling implies relative motion. Near the top of the Grand Canyon is a 400-foot-thick layer of cross-bedded sandstone. The white arrow points to the quartzite block shown in Figure 94.
In the Grand Canyon, the Cambrian-Precambrian interface is an almost flat, horizontal surface exposed for 66 miles above the Colorado River. Layers above the Cambrian-Precambrian interface are generally horizontal, but layers below are tipped at large angles, and their tipped edges are beveled off horizontally. Evidently, as slippage began during the compression event, layers below the slippage plane continued to compress to the point where they buckled. The sliding sedimentary block above the slippage plane beveled off the still soft layers that were being increasingly tipped by horizontal compression below the slippage plane.
Figure 94: Transported Block. This large block, made of a very hard, dense material called quartzite, was lifted hundreds of feet, transported horizontally, and deposited on layers which, at the time, were soft mud. Other mud layers then blanketed the block. Notice how the layers were deformed below the lower right corner and above the upper left corner. The easiest way to lift and transport such a heavy block is in a liquefied (and therefore, very buoyant), sand/mud/water mixture. The location of the block relative to its source is shown in Figure 93.22
Apparently, this quartzite block was transported in a sliding sedimentary slurry above the Cambrian-Precambrian interface during the compression event. Peak decelerations occurred in the layers below the sliding slurry. This included the quartzite layer. The sudden deceleration and compression tipped those layers up, allowing them to be beveled off by the overriding layers. (Evolutionists explain the flat Cambrian-Precambrian interface as a result of hundreds of millions of years of erosion.)
Evolutionists have a different interpretation. They believe tipped, Precambrian layers are remnants of a former mountain range, because mountains today often have steeply tipped layers. [See Figure 49 on page 112.] The tipped layers are horizontally beveled, so evolutionists say that the top of the mountain must have eroded away. That, of course, would take a long time. Millions of years are also needed so seas could flood the area, because fossils of sea-bottom life are found just above the Cambrian-Precambrian interface. Within overlying layers, other fossils are found which required different environments, such as deserts and lagoons, so obviously, even more time is needed. (Unlimited time makes the nearly impossible seem possible—if you don’t think too much about mechanisms.)
Figure 95: Cross-Bedded Sandstone. Dry sand can have a maximum slope of only 32 degrees. Cross-bedded sandstone, such as shown here, often has much greater slopes. Therefore, this sand, confined between layers that have since eroded, was probably wet when the layers tipped.
Cross-bedded sandstone. Sand layers had the greatest water content, because sand grains are somewhat rounded, leaving relatively large gaps for water between the particles. Therefore, sand layers were the most fluid during the massive liquefaction that accompanied the compression event. Deceleration forced the sand forward, displacing the water backward. Horizontally compressed sand layers would have slid, tipped, buckled, and beveled individual layers and blocks of layers, forming what is known as cross-bedded sandstone. [See Figure 95.]
Figure 96: Formation of Liquefaction Plumes and Mounds. (a) During the flood phase, global liquefaction sorted water-saturated sediments into nearly horizontal layers. (b) During the compression event, massive liquefaction caused less dense sand/water mixtures to float up as plumes, through denser overlying layers. (Figure 57 on page 121 shows a similar phenomenon.) Later, if the surface layers were not cemented as well as the sandstone plume, the surface layers could erode away, leaving the plume exposed. (c) If a plume spilled out on the ground, a mound would form.
Liquefaction Plumes and Mounds. The large water content of liquefied sand layers (40%) would have made them quite buoyant. Whenever a low-density, fluid layer (such as a water-sand mixture) underlies a denser, liquefied layer, the lighter fluid, if shaken, will float up in plumes through the denser fluid. Sand plumes that penetrated overlying layers are seen in many places on earth. [See Figures 96–98.]
Figure 97: Liquefaction Plume 1. A hundred of these plumes are found in Kodachrome Basin State Reserve in south-central Utah, 10 miles east of Bryce Canyon National Park. I am standing at the bottom left of this tall plume.
Figure 98: Liquefaction Plume 2. This plume can be traced down several hundred feet through the large rock in the bottom half of the picture. The plume grew up from a known horizontal sandstone layer that has identical chemical characteristics.23 After the plume pushed upward, cementing took place, with the sandstone plume becoming harder than the material it penetrated. The softer layers surrounding the plume later eroded away, leaving the plume exposed. [See Figure 96b.] Notice the person waving at the bottom left of this plume.
Some plumes, especially those rising from thick, laterally extensive sand layers, spilled onto the earth’s surface. This spilling-out resembled volcanic action, except water-saturated sand erupted, not lava. Small liquefaction mounds, as they will be called, appear when liquefaction occurs during earthquakes.24 [See Levin’s description on page 172.] Hundreds of liquefaction mounds are found in basins in the southwestern United States.
Why basins? During the compression event, liquefied water-sand mixtures in many places erupted like small volcanoes. Being surrounded and permeated by water, they would have quickly slumped into the shape of an upside-down bowl—a liquefaction mound. As the flood waters drained at the end of the flood, most liquefaction mounds were swept away, because they did not have time to be cemented. However, mounds inside postflood lakes (basins) were cemented as each lake cooled and its dissolved silica and calcium carbonate were forced out of solution. If a lake later breached and dumped its water, the larger cemented mounds could resist the torrent of rushing water and retain their shapes. The basins that held Grand and Hopi Lakes contain hundreds of such mounds. [See Figure 103 on page 186.] The sudden breaching of those lakes several centuries after the flood carved the Grand Canyon. [See pages 187–219.]
Figure 99: Liquefaction Mound.25 This and hundreds of similar sandstone mounds occupy the basin of the former Grand Lake. The breaching of Grand Lake carved the Grand Canyon. [See pages 187–218.]
The compression event produced massive liquefaction in water-saturated sand layers. During the few minutes the liquefaction lasted, some sand-water mixtures erupted, much like a volcano. Here, the eruption was onto the floor of Grand Lake. The large, mushy pile of sand quickly settled into the shape of an upside-down bowl. As the flood waters drained off the continents, this large, wet sand pile was protected, because it was deep in a lake. As the warm lake cooled, silica dissolved in the water was forced out of solution, thereby cementing the mound’s sand grains. Later, when Grand Lake spilled out, rushing water around the mound eroded the softer sediments on which the mound rested, producing the deep “moat” that separates the man at the lower right from the mound.
Figure 100: Ayers Rock. This popular tourist attraction in central Australia is 225 miles southwest of Alice Springs. Ayers Rock rises 1,140 feet from the desert floor and has a perimeter of 5.6 miles. Geologists who try to explain the origin of Ayers Rock say its sand came from the Musgrave mountain range 60 miles to the north and was dumped by water at its present spot. To account for its vertical layers, they say the rock “tipped,” but the forces, energy, and mechanisms to do this are never explained. However, most geologists admit they do not know the origin of Ayers Rock.
Ayers Rock has characteristics of both a broad liquefaction plume and a liquefaction mound. Its surface layers (bedding) are nearly vertical, and they connect to a horizontal sandstone layer underground. It formed in the Amadeus Basin, which protected it while the flood waters drained from the earth. Probably most soft sediments through which the plume rose, were swept away when the basin’s lake finally discharged. The many large holes in the sides of Ayers Rock show where water drained out. (Almost 20 miles away, this same, deep horizontal sandstone layer also connects to a series of liquefaction eruptions called the Olgas.)
The sand grains comprising Ayers Rock are jagged but, if exposed to rapid currents, would have become rounded. Had the grains been weathered for thousands of years, they would have become clay. Instead, these grain characteristics are consistent with the gentle currents produced by liquefaction and the rapid cementing in the years after the flood.
Figure 101: Small Water Vents. These water vents are smaller than a pebble; others, such as those in Ayers Rock, are larger than a car. Water vents are quite different from the shallow and smooth bowl-like depressions which wind and rain produce.
Figure 102: Medium-Size Water Vents. Geology professor Dr. Douglas A. Block points to one of many holes in the side of a huge liquefaction mound in southern Utah. If these holes were places where rock was weakly cemented, similar holes should be on the tops of mounds. Instead, the tops are smooth. Cementing in mounds and cross-bedded sandstone is remarkably uniform and hard, showing that the cement was uniformly dissolved throughout water that saturated the sand.
Liquefaction mounds have holes in their sides showing where internal water escaped. The channels have collapsed except near the mound’s surface where there was much less collapsing stress. Those holes now look like pock marks. Some have claimed they are erosion features from wind and rain. Obviously, wind and rain would smooth out pock marks, not make them. Besides, these “pock marks,” which will be called water vents, are found only in the sides of mounds, not the tops, where they should be if outside erosion formed them.
Long after the flood, water would drain out of mountains and cliffs. Caves would be carved by outward flowing water. New inhabitants to an area would naturally seek out and settle around these plentiful sources of drinking water. (Thus, many ancient cultures believed that water originated in mountains and flowed out of caves.)26 Years later, as water sources dwindled, communities would be forced to leave. Prosperous cultures, such as the Anasazi and many cliff-dwellers, would suddenly disappear from an area, causing anthropologists to wonder if disease, war, famine, or drought destroyed those ancient communities.