Slow Deposition and the Rates Problem

Walker, Tas.  “Paleosols: digging deeper buries 'challenge' to Flood geology.”  Journal of Creation 17(3):28–34.  Dec 2003.  A reply, published in the creationist Journal of Creation, to the geologist Joe Meert, who called paleosols one of three strikes against young-earth creationism.  It examines Meert's photograph of one alleged paleosol on Missouri State Highway 67 and argues that the photo does not show the diagnostic features of a soil.  The article uses it for Walker's list of three field features and for his statement that paleosols could refute a global Flood.

1. 1a.

   “Clearly Meert considers that paleosols have the potential to refute the global Flood.  We agree!” ↩ ↩

2. 1b.

   “The three main field features used to interpret a paleosol are root traces, soil horizons, and soil structures.” ↩

3. 1c.

   “unless it has been historically attested, the concept of a paleosol is merely an interpretation.” ↩

Oard, Michael J.  “The Messinian salinity crisis questioned.”  Journal of Creation 19(1):11–13.  2005 (edition of 2014).  A Creation Ministries International article by Michael J. Oard, a creationist writer, first printed in the Journal of Creation in 2005 and posted on the ministry's website in 2014.  It argues against the mainstream account of the late Miocene drying of the Mediterranean, using the critique of the deep-sea drill cores by Hardie and Lowenstein.  The article uses it as the creationist source that most candidly admits the young-earth side has not yet worked out its own explanation.

1. 2a.

   “One would not expect true evaporites to form in the Flood, but the idea of precipitating the chemicals out is likely.  The details of the formation of such huge precipitites need work.  Creationists need a major research project, not only on the Messinian precipitites, but also on many of the other monstrous precipitites in the sedimentary rocks.” ↩ ↩ ↩

2. 2b.

   “Since the scale of the deposits is so large, it seems unthinkable that the precipitites could be post-Flood.  Thus, the Flood/post-Flood boundary in the Mediterranean and surrounding areas is likely to be in the late Cenozoic.” ↩ ↩

Hsü, Kenneth J. et al.  “The Origin of the Mediterranean Evaporites.”  Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project 13:1203–1231.  1973.  “43. The Origin of the Mediterranean Evaporites”.  A chapter, number 43, of the Deep Sea Drilling Project report on Mediterranean cores, and the long form of the same three authors' four-page Nature note from the same year, making the same argument.  It uses the drilled salt, the seismic profiles and the basin's water budget to argue that the Mediterranean dried out into a deep basin cut off from the Atlantic, and sets that model against two rival models.  The article uses it for the authors' salt table and water budget, and for their figure of thirty refills of the basin.

1. 3a.

   Page 1214, table 1:  “Volumes and Thicknesses of Salts Precipitated (after Schmalz, 1969).”  Per litre of seawater and per 1,500 m column: MgCl 1.48 cm³ gives 2.2 m; KCl 0.43 gives 0.65 m; MgSO₄ 0.94 gives 1.41 m; NaCl 12.87 cm³ gives 19.31 m; CaSO₄ 0.59 gives 0.89 m; carbonates 0.06 gives 0.18 m.  Total 24.64 m of evaporite from 1,500 m of seawater, which is 77.7 km of seawater per kilometre of halite and 60.9 km per kilometre of mixed evaporite. ↩

Heerema, Stef.  “A magmatic model for the origin of large salt formations.”  Journal of Creation 23(3):116–118.  2009.  An essay in the Journal of Creation, published by Creation Ministries International, that argues large salt formations were put in place as molten salt magma from deep in the crust, not formed by evaporating seawater.  The author's stated credential is a bachelor's degree in aircraft engineering, and the essay's main case is the thickness of salt deposits, the lack of sand and marine fossils in them, and the melting points of the salts in a table.  The article uses it as the clearest young-earth statement of the magma model, accepts its 60 km arithmetic, and tests the model against its own melting-point table.

1. 4a.

   Page 116:  “To form a deposit only 1 km thick would require seawater 60 km deep to be evaporated.”  His footnote 6 gives the inputs:  “Given the current salt content of sea water (3.5 % by weight) and a specific gravity of NaCl (2,162 kg/m³).”  His figure treats all dissolved salts as halite, which is why it matches Hsü's 61 km per kilometre of mixed evaporite rather than the 77.7 km for halite alone. ↩

2. 4b.

   Page 117:  “the deposits were emplaced as a molten magma at temperatures above 800°C… with the magmatic model the large salt formations are emplaced rapidly by igneous processes, a mechanism that is consistent with the biblical timescale and a young earth.” ↩

3. 4c.

   Page 117, table 1:  Melting points taken from Ullmann's Encyclopedia: NaCl 801 °C, KCl 776 °C, MgCl₂ 714 °C, carnallite 117 °C.  The carnallite entry is the one that refutes the model, and it is Heerema's own. ↩

Sheldon, Nathan D., and Neil J. Tabor.  “Quantitative paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic reconstruction using paleosols.”  Earth-Science Reviews 95(1–2):1–52.  2009.  A 52-page review of the methods that turn paleosols into numbers for ancient climate, weathering and the atmosphere.  The authors say the field has moved from qualitative comparison with modern soils toward quantitative tools, including chemistry, isotopes and empirical relationships drawn from modern soils.  The article cites it for the authors' own warnings about the two published equations that turn a paleosol into a number of years.

1. 5a.

   Page 14:  “While these chronofunctions hold some promise for paleosols with either Bt or Bk horizons, they are both based on relatively few data (n = 10 for Sheldon, 2003;  n = 9 for Retallack, 2005b) and many soil/paleosols types lack those particular horizons.  Semi-quantitative relationships discussed in Birkeland (1999) also offer some promise for at least making appropriate order-of-magnitude age estimates, but significantly more work is needed in this area.”  “Short duration, intense weathering may result in similar elemental gains and losses as long duration, low intensity weathering.  Tightly constraining formation times for paleosols, in particular for pre-Quaternary paleosols, is very difficult”. ↩

2. 5b.

   Page 14:  “For example, Sheldon (2003) used data from Markewich et al. (1990) to propose the following relationship relating formation time (Tf in years) to Bt horizon thickness (TBt): … where R² = 0.87, no error function was calculated because the relation falls apart for very long-formation times.  Retallack (2005b) did something similar for Bk horizons where he found a relationship between soil age (A in Ka) and nodule size (S in cm):  A = 3.92 S⁰·³⁴ … where R² = 0.57 and the standard error is 1.8 Ka.”  Only the nodule equation is used in this article.  The Bt-thickness formula, left out of the quotation with an ellipsis, is not applied to any number here, because the units of T_Bt are not stated on the page and the answer moves by three orders of magnitude depending on whether they are centimetres or metres. ↩

Tarhan, Lidya G. et al.  “Tracking bioturbation through time: The evolution of the marine sedimentary mixed and transition layers.”  Science Advances 11(31):eadu7719.  Jul 30, 2025.  A 2025 compilation of published measurements of how deep animals mix seafloor sediment (the mixed layer) and how far their burrows reach below it (the transition layer), across the Phanerozoic.  It grades burrowing with the ichnofabric index (ii), where ii 1 means undisrupted layering and higher numbers mean more burrowing; it finds that lower Cambrian strata rarely exceed ii 3 and that Cretaceous shelf sediments were completely homogenised.  The article leads with it because the mainstream literature reports, in parts of the Palaeozoic, the sparse burrowing that the Flood side predicts.

1. 6a.

   On a Lochkovian to Emsian succession in the Reggane Basin, Algeria:  “86% of strata in this 430-m succession are unbioturbated; 7% are characterized by BI 2, 7% by BI 4, and <1% by BI 5.” ↩ ↩

2. 6b.

   “throughout the Cretaceous, the majority of offshore and shelf sediments were completely homogenized by biogenic mixing … even in comparatively high-energy shallow marine settings, rates of bioturbation commonly outpaced rates of sediment accumulation.” ↩

3. 6c.

   From 48 deep-sea cores:  “rates of bioturbation appear to have, under most circumstances, outpaced sediment accumulation rates.” ↩ ↩

Lisiecki, Lorraine E., and Maureen E. Raymo.  “A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ¹⁸O records.”  Paleoceanography 20:PA1003.  2005.  A stack, which averages many records into one, of oxygen-isotope measurements (δ¹⁸O, a ratio of two forms of oxygen in the shells of foraminifera, microscopic sea-floor animals) from 57 sites spread across the globe, covering 5.3 million years.  The authors aligned the records to one another by shape, then tuned the stack's ages to a simple ice model driven by 21 June sunlight at 65°N.  The article uses it as the standard deep-sea isotope stack and as its evidence that the ages are tuned.

1. 7a.

   Paragraph [10]:  “Each alignment is evaluated by eye and adjusted, if necessary, by changing the sedimentation rate penalties or adding tie points until a good alignment is achieved which agrees reasonably well with previously published age estimates (e.g., those derived from paleomagnetic reversals or biostratigraphic data).” ↩

Huybers, Peter, and Carl Wunsch.  “Obliquity pacing of the late Pleistocene glacial terminations.”  Nature 434:491–494.  2005.  A research paper in Nature that dates ten marine oxygen-isotope records with an age scale that assumes nothing about Earth's orbit, then tests whether the glacial terminations, the rapid deglaciations that end each glacial cycle, follow obliquity, the tilt of Earth's axis.  It rejects independence from obliquity at the 5% significance level, but not for eccentricity or precession, and the authors say the precession test has negligible power.  The article uses it as the case of a chronology built with no tuning at all, and as evidence that the 100,000-year cycle is still a live problem.

1. 8a.

   From the abstract.  “The null hypothesis that glacial terminations are independent of obliquity is rejected at the 5% significance level.  In contrast, for eccentricity and precession, the corresponding null-hypotheses are not rejected.” ↩ ↩

Grotzinger, John P., and Andrew H. Knoll.  “Stromatolites in Precambrian carbonates: evolutionary mileposts or environmental dipsticks?”  Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 27:313–358.  1999.  A review article by two geologists, John Grotzinger of MIT and Andrew Knoll of Harvard, on stromatolites, the layered rock structures that build up over time.  It says their origin and significance are still disputed, and that the Archean and older Proterozoic ones formed largely by carbonate precipitating in place, while younger ones mostly grew by accretion of carbonate sediment, most likely through microbial trapping and binding.  The article uses it for the authors' definition of stromatolites, which does not mention life, for its statement that the biological origin of the oldest ones is contested, and for the size of Precambrian stromatolite platforms.

1. 9a.

   Page 344:  “Biogenicity cannot be easily demonstrated by relationships observed at the outcrop scale; it is essential to examine lamination textures petrographically and demonstrate the presence of textures uniquely attributable to the presence of microbial mats or biofilms.” ↩

Morris, John D.  “Does Salt Come from Evaporated Sea Water?”  Acts & Facts 31(11).  Institute for Creation Research.  2002.  A short popular article by John D. Morris, president of the Institute for Creation Research, in the institute's magazine Acts & Facts.  It has no reference list and no new measurements.  The article uses it for the institute's public account of the thick salt beds, which it says were extruded from deep in the earth during the Flood.

1. 10a.

   “Many now think the salt was extruded in superheated, supersaturated salt brines from deep in the earth along faults.  Once encountering the cold ocean waters, the hot brines could no longer sustain the high concentrations of salt, which rapidly precipitated out of solution, free of impurities and marine organisms.”  No citation is given for "Many now think."  In 2002 the published hydrothermal literature was Hardie 1990, for some bittern suites only, and Sozansky 1973; Hovland's paper was four years away. ↩

Heerema, Stef J., and Gert-Jan H.A. van Heugten.  “Salt magma and sediments interfingered.”  Journal of Creation 32(2):118–123.  2018 (edition of 2022).  A creationist journal article, first printed in 2018 and put on creation.com on 30 June 2022, by Stef Heerema, the author of the magmatic model, and Gert-Jan van Heugten.  It argues that solid salt cannot creep far enough to explain salt sheets moved 200 km, and that the salt must have risen as a liquid.  The article uses it for that liquid-salt claim and for the authors' rejection of hydrothermal models, and sets the liquid-salt claim against a later poster by Heerema and van Heugten on the Castile Formation.

1. 11a.

   From the abstract.  “Hydrothermal models concerning the genesis of salt layers do not address salt tectonics and, superficially, seem to be strengthened by this rise of liquid salt.  However, it is highly likely that a flow of hot water would mix with the muddy overburden, preventing the formation of pure salt pillars.  So, hydrothermal models are incapable of explaining salt tectonics.” ↩

Clarey, T. L.  “Salt Deposits Confirm the Pre-Flood Pangaea.”  Acts & Facts 49(7).  Institute for Creation Research.  2020.  A short article on the website of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), written by one of its research associates, who holds a PhD in geology.  It argues that Late Precambrian salt rocks in the Middle East, Pakistan and India were laid down in the early Flood, and it tests that by placing the salt formations on a reconstruction of Pangaea, a single land mass that held the continents together, and comparing the fit with the rival Rodinia reconstruction.  The article cites it for two things: the young-earth placement of these salts inside the Flood, and the Pangaea argument, which it calls a fair move, the same kind the mainstream uses.

1. 12a.

   “ICR researchers recently examined some unusual Late Precambrian salt-rich rocks in Asia and the Middle East.  We think these deposits originated from the earliest days of the Flood, forming about 4,400 years ago during the bursting of the fountains of the great deep (Genesis 7:11).  The deposits are found across the Middle East, Pakistan, and India, and are often thousands of feet thick.”  “We conclude that Pangaea was already in existence when these massive salt-rich rocks were deposited, likely early in the Flood.” ↩ ↩

Hay, William W. et al.  “Evaporites and the salinity of the ocean during the Phanerozoic: Implications for climate, ocean circulation and life.”  Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 240(1–2):3–46.  2006.  A research paper by William Hay and five co-authors, published in a journal on ancient climate and geography, that totals the known evaporite deposits (rock left when seawater evaporates, such as salt) and uses the totals to reconstruct how salty the ocean has been through the Phanerozoic, the span of time since abundant animal life appeared.  Its models take the smallest and largest estimates of the salt deposits, and the authors note that the largest deposits are the least well known.  The article uses its halite inventory, which it gives as a minimum and a maximum, and its warning that the buried salt was never all dissolved in the sea at one time.

1. 13a.

   Page 5:  “The present total inventory amounts to a minimum of 9.1 × 10⁶ km³ of halite, equal to about 19.6 × 10¹⁸ kg or more than 50% of the total of halite dissolved in the ocean today (36.8 × 10¹⁸ kg); the maximum estimate is about 16.3 × 10⁶ km³ of halite, equal to 35.2 × 10¹⁸ kg, or 95% of the present total in the ocean.  If all this salt were in the ocean at one time, the salinity would have been 57‰ to 73‰, but as Holland (1984) noted there is no evidence that the total inventory of halite was dissolved in the sea at any one time.” ↩

Debure, Mathieu et al.  “Thermodynamic evidence of giant salt deposit formation by serpentinization: an alternative mechanism to solar evaporation.”  Scientific Reports 9:11720.  2019.  A modelling study by researchers at the French Geological Survey (BRGM) and TOTAL, which proposes that salt forms on the sea floor through serpentinisation, the reaction in which seawater turns mantle rock into serpentine, rather than by evaporation.  It uses thermodynamic calculations, which predict which salts form, and how much, from a given chemistry at a given temperature and pressure, and it applies them to tachyhydrite, to a field example on the Central Western Iberian margin, and to the salt yield of seawater.  The article uses it for two things: the authors' own statement that evaporation cannot make the thick soluble salts, and their yield figures, which show that the route moves the salt already in seawater rather than making more.

1. 14a.

   Pages 5–6:  The sentence straddles the page break:  “A quantity of seawater that contains 1000 kg of pure water produces approximately 20–27 kg of halite (during serpentinization), 100 g to 4 kg of highly soluble salt and up to 4 kg of additional halite (on the seafloor) depending on the temperature and CO₂ level.” ↩

2. 14b.

   Page 1:  “evaporation alone cannot explain salt deposits several kilometres thick (salt giants) or deposits of highly soluble evaporites (bischofite, carnallite and tachyhydrite).  For example, the dryness required to precipitate the tens of metres of tachyhydrite observed in the South Atlantic is not compatible with the Aptian equatorial climate, which was wet and warm, because the calculated equilibrium relative humidity of this salt is as low as 24.4% at 25 °C.” ↩

Warren, John K.  Evaporites: Sediments, Resources and Hydrocarbons.  Berlin: Springer.  2006.  A 1,035-page reference book on evaporites, the salt rocks that settle out as water evaporates, with ISBN 3-540-26011-0.  It predates Hovland et al. (September 2006) and does not cite it.  The article calls it the standard reference and quotes it for the mainstream view that basinwide salt came from seawater, and for problems the book itself prints.

1. 15a.

   Page 815:  “Potash extracted from the Permian Zechstein evaporites provides 20% of the world's potash.  The Zechstein succession was deposited in a huge drawdown seaway and is today made up of four evaporite cycles: the Z1-Werra Series, Z2-Stassfurt Series; Z3-Leine Series and Z4-Aller Series (Figures 5.48, 5.49).  Each has a general sequence of clastics, carbonates, one or two phases of sodium and potassium salts, regressive halite or anhydrite, and carbonate.  Potash beds of Z1 and Z2 are primarily composed of sylvite (KCl), carnallite (KCl.MgCl₂.6H₂O) and kieserite (MgSO₄.H₂O) and rapid lateral changes are common.  The Zechstein 2 potash bed interval locally attains a true thickness of about 15 metres.” ↩

Anderson, Roger Y. et al.  “Permian Castile Varved Evaporite Sequence, West Texas and New Mexico.”  Geological Society of America Bulletin 83(1):59–86.  Jan 1972.  A research paper, issued in January 1972, on the Castile Formation, a layered sequence of anhydrite (a calcium sulfate mineral) and halite (rock salt) in the Delaware Basin of west Texas and New Mexico.  The authors counted and measured every pair of layers, called couplets, through one cored section 447.2 m thick: 260,000 couplets, each read as one year's deposit, which geologists call a varve.  They found that the thin layers can be matched from one place to another up to 113 km apart, and the article relies on the count and on that matching, while printing the limit the authors set on it.

1. 16a.

   Page 59, section abstract:  “The thickness of each couplet in the 260,000-varve sequence (a total thickness of 447.2 m, 1467 ft) has been measured individually and recorded.” ↩

Heerema, Stef J. et al.  “The layered Castile probably originated from salt magma.”  Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Creationism, 676–677.  Cedarville University.  Edited by J.H. Whitmore.  2023.  A two-page poster abstract in the proceedings of a creationist conference, by three authors, one of them a geologist at the Institute for Creation Research.  It reviews earlier work, concludes that no aspect of the Castile Formation has been adequately explained, and suggests that the Castile's minerals may come from a salt-rich igneous intrusion during the Flood year.  The article treats it as the only published answer to Morton's 1986 challenge about the Castile.

1. 17a.

   Page 676:  “The crystallization into 210,000 couplets is prescribed and controlled by forces at the molecular level similar to traditional layered igneous intrusions.”  No source is given for the figure 210,000, and it matches neither of Anderson's totals. ↩

Oard, Michael J.  Paleosol formation can be much faster than thought.  Creation Ministries International.  2017.  A web article by the young-earth geologist Michael Oard arguing that soils buried between Columbia River basalt flows formed far faster than conventional dating says, and that most claimed paleosols lack the organic top horizon of a real soil.  Oard himself calls the evidence that these layers are buried soils equivocal and says creation scientists need to study them further.  It is cited here for the young-earth answer to paleosols in its own words.

1. 18a.

   “All soils have soil horizons, but with few exceptions paleosols lack a top organic horizon, one of the best indications of a buried soil.  The claimed paleosol is most often only a clay layer, carbonate layer, a 'weathered layer', or a mudstone, which can easily be a depositional layer or a layer altered by diagenetic or hydrothermal reactions.” ↩

2. 18b.

   “During the Flood, we would expect rocks to have the appearance of weathering since rapid sedimentation and fluid flow would be common.  These fluids would easily modify or react with sediment giving it the appearance of a buried soil.”  The article also concedes:  “Paleosols bring up a question for creation scientists.  How would we explain them?  Without doubt creation scientists need to analyze paleosols in more depth, but are the paleosols really buried soils?” ↩

Klevberg, Peter et al.  “Are Paleosols Really Ancient Soils?”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 40(3):134–149.  Dec 2003.  A paper in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, a creationist journal, by three authors who favor the Flood-geology view of the rock record.  It asks whether paleosols can exist, how they can be identified, and how Flood geologists should approach them.  The article cites it for the young-earth claim that paleosols lack an A horizon, the organic-enriched top layer of a soil, and quotes its statement that a missing A horizon makes a paleosol claim suspect.

1. 19a.

   Page 138:  “The truncated upper horizon usually means that the organic enriched A horizon is missing (Birkeland, 1984, p. 33;  Boardman, 1985, p. 71), leaving behind a clay layer, a calcium carbonate layer, a red layer, etc. …  However, it is the A horizon that would most readily identify a layer as a paleosol. …  Since 'paleosols' are commonly missing the A horizon, they are often just a clay layer or a 'weathered layer' (Retallack, 1990, pp. 15, 126). …  complete absence of the A horizon makes a paleosol claim suspect.”  The page also says, on trace fossils:  “Trace fossils may represent escape routes of organisms in danger of burial rather than dwelling or feeding burrows, or may consist of casts of root fragments buried in diluvial sediments rather than preserved in growth position. …  Far from being diagnostic, the trace fossil criterion for paleosol identification is highly equivocal.” ↩

2. 19b.

   Page 141:  “Furthermore, the existence of roots or 'root traces' should not automatically define a paleosol.  This is crass uniformitarianism.  One would expect all kinds of roots and root traces in sediments or sedimentary rocks caused by the Deluge, since the Flood-borne sediments would have buried many.” ↩

Retallack, Gregory J.  Soils of the Past: An Introduction to Paleopedology.  Blackwell Science, Oxford.  2nd edition.  2001.  An introductory textbook on paleopedology, the science of ancient soils, which explains how paleosols are recognized and how fast soils form and change.  The article uses it for both.  The book's ISBN is 0-632-05376-3.

1. 20a.

   Page 185:  “Organic surface horizons form in only tens to hundreds of years, but it takes millions of years to form a horizon as deeply weathered as an oxic horizon (Fig. 13.2).” ↩

2. 20b.

   Page 90:  “Drab horizons and mottles also can form by burial gleization (see Fig. 3.7).  This is the chemical reduction of iron hydroxides and oxides by anaerobic bacteria consuming organic matter buried with the soil below or near the water table.  Reduction haloes around buried organic matter can form in only a few hundred years (Allen 1986b;  Mathewson et al. 1992).” ↩

3. 20c.

   Page 191:  “rates of peat accumulation of 0.5–1 mm yr⁻¹ are common for woody peats, which dominate the fossil record (Retallack et al. 1996).  At these rates, the maximum number of years for a very weakly developed peat would be 40–80 years, but 400–800 years for a weakly developed peat, 4000–8000 years for a moderately developed peat, 40–80 kyr for strongly developed peat and even more for very strongly developed peat.  These estimates are of the same order as those for formation of calcareous and clayey subsurface horizons.”  The figures are stated for peat; Retallack's last sentence extends them to calcareous and clayey subsurface horizons, which is how the article uses them. ↩ ↩ ↩

Retallack, Greg J.  “Paleozoic paleosols.”  Weathering, Soils and Paleosols (Developments in Earth Surface Processes 2), 543–564.  Elsevier, Amsterdam.  Edited by I. P. Martini and W. Chesworth.  1992.  Chapter 21 of a 1992 book on weathering and ancient soils (paleosols).  It traces when the main kinds of soil first appear in the Paleozoic era, 245 to 570 million years ago, and the fossil plants and animals found in each kind.  It describes the Potters Mills paleosol in central Pennsylvania, a Late Ordovician soil with a surface network of burrows over a layer of calcrete nodules.  The article uses it for the observation that the nodules cut across the burrows and are cut by them.

1. 21a.

   Pages 546–547:  On the Potters Mills clay paleosol in the Late Ordovician (Ashgillian) Juniata Formation of central Pennsylvania.  “These profiles are distinguished by a surficial network of conspicuous (1–15 mm diameter) burrows and a subsurface horizon of comparably-sized calcrete nodules (Feakes and Retallack, 1988).  The nodules truncate and are truncated by the burrow walls indicating that the burrows are part of the original soil.” ↩

Tanner, Lawrence H.  “Pedogenic features of the Chinle Group, Four Corners region: Evidence of Late Triassic aridification.”  Geology of the Zuni Plateau, New Mexico Geological Society 54th Annual Fall Field Conference Guidebook, 269–280.  2003.  A peer-reviewed paper in a field conference guidebook.  It describes the paleosols of the Chinle Group, Late Triassic strata across the Four Corners region, in several of its formations, and reads their root traces, cracks and calcrete layers as evidence of a drier climate.  The article cites it for its field descriptions and for its finding that the middle Norian Owl Rock Formation holds mature calcrete profiles.

1. 22a.

   Page 275, figure 4:  “Mature (Stage IV) calcrete profile in the lower Owl Rock Formation, southern Echo Cliffs.  A platy-laminar fabric caps the sequence and nodule density decreases downward.  The middle of the section displays a crude prismatic fabric.  B.  Section measured below the Rock Point – Wingate contact at Colorado National Monument.  The section comprises multiple paleosol horizons characterized by roots, desiccation cracking and calcrete nodule formation.” ↩

Machette, Michael N.  “Calcic soils of the southwestern United States.”  Soils and Quaternary Geology of the Southwestern United States, Geological Society of America Special Paper 203, 1–21.  Edited by David L. Weide.  1985.  A chapter in a 1985 Geological Society of America volume on the soils and Quaternary geology of the southwestern United States.  The article uses it for the calcrete stage scale that Tanner applies to the Chinle, and for the carbonate accumulation rates in its Table 3.

1. 23a.

   Page 16, table 3:  Titled "Calcic soils of four regions of the American Southwest".  Its columns are soil age (m.y.), stage, cS (g/cm²), range, and accumulation rate Rx.  Its rows are Beaver, Utah (Last Chance Bench) 0.5, III+, 71, 64–78, 0.14 ± 0.01;  Albuquerque, New Mexico (Llano de Albuquerque) 0.5, III, 110, 98–114, 0.22 ± 0.02;  Las Cruces, New Mexico (Lower La Mesa) 0.5, IV, 129, 120–137, 0.26 ± 0.02;  Roswell–Carlsbad, New Mexico (Mescalero) 0.5, V−, 257, 229–307, 0.51 ± 0.06.  The running text on this page says:  “The cS contents of 500,000-year-old calcic soils in these four areas are shown in Table 3.  The soils near Beaver are the least calcareous;  they have an average cS of 71 g/cm2 and an average accumulation rate (Rx) of 0.14 ± 0.01”.  Page 16 also states:  “Stage III calcic soil has formed in the gravels of Last Chance Bench during the past 500,000 years.” ↩

Klevberg, Peter et al.  “Investigation of Several Alleged Paleosols in the Northern Rocky Mountains — Part II: Additional Data and Analysis.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 44(2):94–106.  2007.  The second of two parts of a creationist field study (Part I is at CRSQ 44(1):4–25), which examined five sites on the Flaxville Plain in northern Montana and southern Alberta that other researchers had described as paleosols (ancient buried soils): Two Medicine Ridge, Milk River Ridge, Saint Mary Ridge, Mokowan Butte and Cloudy Ridge.  The authors did fieldwork at each site and sent 21 samples to a laboratory for thin sections and electron microscopy, and they concluded that the paleosol reading rests on questionable assumptions.  The article calls it the only creationist field work on paleosols in print and uses it for the finding that these sites show soil formation within active colluvium (loose slope debris).

1. 24a.

   Page 103:  EGP is the establishment view of earth history, which holds to gradualism and an ancient earth.  “Evidence of ongoing soil formation was observed at all of the sites described by EGP researchers, as was evidence of slope instability.  These sites do not reveal a cross section of superposed soil profiles, but they show soil formation within active colluvium.”  Page 94:  From the abstract.  “Fieldwork conducted at each of the alleged paleosol sites and laboratory analyses of selected samples of earth materials indicate that the paleosol interpretation is based on many questionable assumptions.  Data are more readily interpreted from a diluvial perspective.” ↩

Retallack, Greg J.  “A paleopedological approach to the interpretation of terrestrial sedimentary rocks: The mid-Tertiary fossil soils of Badlands National Park, South Dakota.”  Geological Society of America Bulletin 94:823–840.  Jul 1983.  A short summary, in the society's journal, of Retallack's monograph on the fossil soils (paleosols, ancient buried soils) of Badlands National Park, South Dakota.  It lists the features by which a fossil soil can be recognized in rock and gives the count of soils the article uses.  The article uses it as the source of the figure of at least 87 soils in 143 m of rock. ↩

1. 25a.

   Page 823:  From the abstract.  “Fossil soils can be recognized from irregular vertical tubular structures (fossil root traces and burrows), massive bioturbated layers with gradational contacts (soil horizons), complex cracking and veining (peds and cutans), and distinctive petrographic textures (sepic plasmic fabrics).  In Badlands National Park, South Dakota, numerous other features, such as patterns of fossil-bone accumulation, horizons of calcareous nodules and layers, and local variations in mineralogy, and trace and major-chemical elements were also evidence of fossil soils.  In the Pinnacles area of Badlands National Park, there are at least 87 successive fossil soils in 143 m of stratigraphic section.” ↩ ↩

Retallack's 40 to 80 years is the longest a very weakly developed profile would take at peat accumulation rates of 0.5 to 1 mm a year, which he says are of the same order as the rates for calcareous and clayey horizons ²⁰.  A soil of that class may form in less time, so setting 4.3 days against 40 years does not give a minimum shortfall.  At the same rates a weakly developed profile takes longer than a very weakly developed one, so the Badlands count could yield a minimum once the development class of each of the 87 profiles ²⁵ is reported.  The Buried Soils article does not report it.  The reading is this overview's own, from the quotation that article verified. ↩ ↩

Snelling, Andrew A.  Earth's Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation & the Flood.  Volume 2.  Institute for Creation Research, Dallas.  2009.  The second volume of the fullest young-earth geology textbook, which sets the rock record against Creation Week and the Flood.  Three of the articles under this heading lean on it:  for its treatment of bioturbation in chapters 92 and 114, for its chapter on chalk, diatomite and deep-sea sediments, and for its placement of stromatolites and iron formations in Creation Week.  It matters here because the same author both grants that burrows are a clock and caps post-Flood ocean productivity at five to ten times today's. ↩

1. 27a.

   Page 917:  “Because bioturbation requires the passage of time, the degree of bioturbation found preserved in sedimentary strata at numerous levels in the rock record would likewise presumably testify to the passage of perhaps significant amounts of time between the successive deposition of those strata.”  Page 740:  “Those rock layers that have some bioturbation in their rock portions, however, would represent the passing of at least a few hours for the animals to have walked around and left their footprints and trails, or to have burrowed in the sediment surfaces before the next layers were deposited.” ↩

2. 27b.

   Page 740:  “the fact that there is so little bioturbation of sedimentary strata in the geologic record, and that it is only some strata surfaces that have burrows, tracks, and marks on and in them, is evidence for rapid deposition of the strata within a timeframe consistent with the global Flood catastrophe.” ↩

3. 27c.

   Page 919:  “Indeed, depending primarily upon the density of fast-burrowing organisms such as callianassid shrimp, a 12-cm-thick layer of sediment can be 67 percent bioturbated in as little as 5.5 hours.”  The figure his own cited source gives is 15.5 hours.  Read as a transcription slip;  the substantive defect is the omitted upper bound of the range, which both he and Woodmorappe leave out. ↩

4. 27d.

   Page 637:  “The first undisputed fossilized bacteria and stromatolites are in strata of the Pilbara region of Western Australia, that are conventionally 'dated' at 3.5 billion years old, so if there is any systematic correlation between such 'dates' and the scriptural record … then this point in the rock record would have to be placed in the middle or latter part of the third day of the Creation Week era.” ↩

5. 27e.

   Page 643:  “the end of the third day and the beginning of the fourth day may arbitrarily be placed at the Archean/Proterozoic boundary in the geologic record, conventionally dated at around 2.5 billion years ago.”  Page 645:  Places the Creation Week / pre-Flood boundary where stromatolite abundance falls.  “conventionally 'dated' at about 1.2 billion years ago.” ↩

6. 27f.

   Page 928:  “oceanic productivity 5 to 10 times greater than at present could be supported by the available sunlight if the nutrients (especially nitrogen), were available”.  Tappan 1982, GSA Special Paper 190, p. 270, is cited for this. ↩

7. 27g.

   Page 927:  “while these calculations certainly show that the quantities of calcareous oozes on today's ocean floors are easily producible in the timespan since the Flood, they are insufficient to show how these chalk beds were produced during the Flood itself.” ↩ ↩

Woodmorappe, John.  “Are soft-sediment trace fossils (ichnofossils) a time problem for the Flood?”  Journal of Creation 20(2):113–122.  2006.  A young-earth paper by John Woodmorappe, who supports the Flood as the source of most sedimentary rock, asking whether burrows made in soft sediment (trace fossils, or ichnofossils) could form during it.  He proposes a hypothetical mechanism in which layers harden soon after they are laid down, protecting burrowing animals below from being immobilized by the weight of the sediment above, so that several layers can be churned at once.  The article uses it for the author's own admission that most of 1,151 metres of mostly Cambrian strata in the western USA are heavily burrowed, and for his time budget for the Flood.

1. 28a.

   Page 119:  “Very thick sedimentary lithologies that have been extensively bioturbated present more of a challenge to a Flood model, even if they occur at or near the top of the local lithostratigraphic column.  Thick sequences of sedimentary rock, characterized by high ichnofabric indices, and occurring in undoubted superposition, may have had insufficient time during the Flood for them to be explained by one-horizon-at-a-time bioturbation.” ↩ ↩

2. 28b.

   Page 122:  Woodmorappe's note 103.  “As an upper limit of episodicity, assume one year (8,766 hours) of overall deposition with active sedimentation occurring half of this time.  Theoretically speaking, there was time available for the construction of 4,383 superimposed 1-hour bioturbating events or 52,596 superimposed 5-minute bioturbating events.  Of course, the foregoing example is extreme; intentionally so for the purpose of illustration.”  The 283-surface and 34-metre figures in the body are this article's arithmetic on these inputs and his own cited 15.5 hours per surface.  Woodmorappe does not run the calculation. ↩

3. 28c.

   Page 120:  “The efficacy of the PPLC hypothesis requires experimental validation.” ↩

4. 28d.

   Page 116:  “Moreover, depending primarily upon the density of fast-burrowing organisms such as callianassid shrimp, a 12-cm thick layer of sediment can be 67% bioturbated (ichnofabric index of ~5, figure 1) in as little as 15.5 hours”. ↩

5. 28e.

   Page 119:  “Attention is directed to the ichnofabric indices comprising 48 Cambrian stratigraphic sections and 1,151 total metres of sedimentary strata in the western USA, which also includes some Ordovician strata.  Only a small fraction of the total thickness has an ichnofabric index of 1, while the majority of the total thickness has an ichnofabric index of 3 or greater.” ↩

Grimm, Kurt A., and Karl B. Föllmi.  “Doomed pioneers: Allochthonous crustacean tracemakers in anaerobic basinal strata, Oligo-Miocene San Gregorio Formation, Baja California Sur, Mexico.”  Palaios 9(4):313–334.  Aug 1994.  A 1994 field study of 41 burrowed layers in the San Gregorio Formation of Baja California Sur, Mexico, which is organic-rich mud laid down without oxygen.  Each burrowed layer is tied to a deposit left by an underwater sediment flow.  The authors found the burrows only in those flow deposits and not in the surrounding mud.  The article uses it because the creationist literature takes its burrowing-time calculation from this paper.

1. 29a.

   Page 328:  “Estimated durations range from 15.5 to 4020 hours (~1 day to 24 weeks).  Of course, these values provide only the loosest constraints upon the duration of the burrowing interval for this bed.  However, it is clear that extensively bioturbated horizons do not necessarily require protracted intervals of time for their development.”  The second and third sentences are the ones Woodmorappe 2006 and Snelling 2009 reproduce.  The first is not reproduced in either. ↩

Froede Jr., Carl R.  “Sediment bioturbation experiments and the actual rock record.”  Journal of Creation 23(3):3–5.  Dec 2009.  A short 2009 article in the young-earth Journal of Creation in which Carl Froede reviews a laboratory study by Gingras and colleagues.  That study put clams, shrimp and crabs, and sea urchins and brittle stars from an estuary in Georgia into aquaria of layered sand, and measured how fast they churned it.  The article uses it because Froede admits that neither the uniformitarian nor the diluvial (Flood-based) prediction matches the rock record.

1. 30a.

   “some diluvialists have predicted that we should expect little sediment bioturbation due to the high-energy conditions associated with the Genesis Flood.  Within this diluvial interpretation it could be postulated that the rapid deposition of sediments, one atop another, would leave little time for trace makers to move in and stir them.  However, neither perspective is consistent with the actual rock record.”  The other perspective he rejects:  “the vertical rock record should exhibit layers of intense bioturbation interrupted by nonbioturbated sedimentary events followed by intense bioturbation.  However, this is not typically found in the actual rock record.” ↩ ↩

Arment, Chad.  “Palaeocastor Burrows as Post-Flood Biostratigraphic Markers.”  Answers Research Journal 16:183–187.  2023.  A 2023 paper in the young-earth Answers Research Journal by Chad Arment, arguing that the helical burrows of Palaeocastor, a burrowing beaver of the early Miocene Harrison Formation in Nebraska and Wyoming, can mark rocks laid down after the Flood.  The burrows survive because grass roots grew into their walls and silicified them, and Arment argues that this took too long to happen during the Flood.  The article uses it as the most recent young-earth answer to Oard's claim that such burrows were made during the Flood, and for its claim that they must have been formed in place.

1. 31a.

   “Could Palaeocastor burrows have been formed during the Flood?  The amount of time necessary for burrow formation, then plant growth and burrow infiltration, then fossilization, at multiple vertical levels, clearly disconfirms this as a possibility.” ↩ ↩

Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe.  Santee, California: Institute for Creation Research.  Edited by Steven A. Austin.  1994.  A book about the Grand Canyon, edited by Steven Austin and published by the Institute for Creation Research.  The article uses it for Austin's dating of the Chuar Group to the pre-Flood era and for his description of a 12-foot stromatolite bed in the Awatubi Member.

1. 32a.

   Page 66:  “The evidence seems to favor the interpretation that most of the Chuar Group is pre-Flood (most representing, perhaps, the first 1,656 years after Creation), with only the uppermost strata representing redeposition by the initial upheaval beginning the Flood.  More study on these strata is needed.” ↩ ↩

2. 32b.

   Page 66:  “The bottom of the Awatubi Member contains a massive limestone stromatolite layer 12 feet thick, with domes up to 12 feet in height and width, and with branching columns possessing thin laminae.” ↩

3. 32c.

   Page 65:  “Called the Chuar Group, assigned to the uppermost Precambrian, and divided into three formations (Galeros, Kwagunt, and Sixtymile), the group has a measured maximum thickness of 6,610 feet.” ↩

Wise, Kurt P.  Faith, Form, and Time: What the Bible Teaches and Science Confirms about Creation and the Age of the Universe.  Nashville: Broadman & Holman.  2002.  Section Stromatolite Forests.  A book by Kurt Wise, arguing that the Bible and science agree on creation and the age of the universe.  It proposes that stromatolite reefs grew at hot springs before the Flood.  The article uses it for Wise's placement of the reefs in the pre-Flood era and for his hot-spring model.

1. 33a.

   Page 265:  “preserving the first Flood deposits—the bacteria and stromatolites of the antediluvian hydrothermal environments.” ↩

Dickens, Harry.  “Banded iron formations formed rapidly.”  Journal of Creation 31(2):14–16.  2017.  A three-page Perspectives article in the creationist Journal of Creation, by Harry Dickens, who writes from a young-earth view.  It argues that banded iron formations, layered rocks of iron oxide and chert, formed rapidly in deep water by catastrophic precipitation from volcanic fluids, and it ties the early and late Precambrian ones to Creation Week and Noah's Flood.  The article uses it as a young-earth source on when the iron formations formed and why they are not uniformitarian.

1. 34a.

   Page 16:  “Modern evidence indicates that BIFs formed rapidly in deep water by catastrophic precipitation from volcanic and associated silica-rich and iron-rich hydrothermal fluids.  This is consistent with my young earth model correlation of BIFs with the Bible's two occasions of globe-covering ocean—early Precambrian BIFs forming in the early Creation Week and late Precambrian BIFs forming in the initial phase of Noah's Flood.” ↩

Clarey, Timothy.  “Conventional Science Still Struggling to Exhume the Great Unconformity.”  Institute for Creation Research.  2026.  An article by Timothy Clarey for the Institute for Creation Research on the Great Unconformity.  It does not mention stromatolites, banded iron formations, the Great Oxidation Event or sulfur isotopes.  The article uses it for Clarey's hedged proposal, not an ICR position statement, that the Flood began at the Great Nonconformity, which would move the rocks Austin called pre-Flood into the Flood year.

1. 35a.

   Paragraph 19:  “Furthermore, this suggests that many Proterozoic (Precambrian) sediments may have also been part of the Genesis Flood.” ↩

Dickens, Harry, and Andrew A. Snelling.  “Precambrian geology and the Bible: a harmony.”  Journal of Creation 22(1):65–72.  2008.  A paper by two creationist authors that tries to harmonise the Precambrian rock record with the biblical record.  The authors reject millions of years and treat radiometric ages as relative, not absolute, and their table pairs each rock division with a Bible event.  The article cites it for the authors' own admissions about Precambrian stromatolites and banded iron formations, and for their oxygen claim.

1. 36a.

   Page 67:  “The case has been put for the 'rapid' (similar to or faster than the rate of deposition of modern pelagic sediments) rather than gradual (millions of years) origin of BIFs during a large tectono-magmatic event in the Hamersley Basin of Western Australia.”  Their reference 17 is Barley, Pickard and Sylvester 1997. ↩

Chivas, Allan R. et al.  “Growth rates and Holocene development of stromatolites from Shark Bay, Western Australia.”  Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 37(2):113–121.  1990.  A 1990 study of how fast the living stromatolites at Shark Bay in Western Australia grow.  The article uses its measured growth rates to turn the thickness of Austin's stromatolite bed into a span of years.

1. 37a.

   Page 119:  “Corrected radiocarbon ages for the oldest stromatolite (No. 4) from the 'upper terrace' near Booldah Well range from 1250 to 1010 years BP with an interpreted accretion rate, determined on three samples (Fig. 4a), of 0.34 mm/year.  A stromatolite (No. 5) from the 'middle terrace' near Booldah Well has ¹⁴C ages from 540 to 170 years BP and an accretion rate, for four samples, of 0.28 mm/year.”  “Stromatolite 1 contains modern radiocarbon near its upper surfaces and has an interpreted vertical accretion rate of 0.29 mm/year.  Stromatolite 2 gives only a fair indication of accretion of ~0.19 mm/year, whereas the radiocarbon data for stromatolite 3 have a poorly constrained growth curve, even though the approximate rate, 0.18 mm/year, is similar to those of the other four stromatolites.” ↩

2. 37b.

   Page 113:  “Long-term vertical growth rates of <0.4 mm/year were determined by radiocarbon dating and supported by uranium-series methods.  These rates are up to 250 times slower than those growth rates estimated from the laminae patterns of some Precambrian stromatolites.  Thus, daily bands are not recognized and individual subtidal stromatolite columns from Shark Bay take up to 1000 years to reach their present heights of ~ 350 mm.” ↩

Konhauser, Kurt O. et al.  “Iron formations: a global record of Neoarchaean to Palaeoproterozoic environmental history.”  Earth-Science Reviews 172:140–177.  2017.  A review of iron formations, iron-rich rocks that are a common rock type in the Archaean and Proterozoic, by thirteen authors.  It treats them as chemical archives of ancient seawater, and it updates earlier reviews by Bekker and colleagues from 2010 and 2014.  The article uses it for the thickness and dates of the Hamersley Group, for the argument that the rocks need an ocean and an atmosphere unlike today's, and for Isley and Abbott's estimate that as much as 60 percent of preserved iron formation was deposited in one 100-million-year window.

1. 38a.

   Section 4, Iron Formations, Primary Productivity, and Atmospheric Oxygenation:  “The shales lie near the middle of the 2.5-km-thick Hamersley Group (dated between 2.63 and 2.45 Ga), and directly underlie (in ascending order) the Brockman Iron Formation, Weeli Wolli Formation, Woongarra Volcanics, and Boolgeeda Iron Formation.” ↩

Lantink, Margriet L. et al.  “Milankovitch cycles in banded iron formations constrain the Earth–Moon system 2.46 billion years ago.”  PNAS 119(40):e2117146119.  Sep 27, 2022.  A research article that counted rhythmic bands in a 47-metre section of the Joffre Member of the Brockman Iron Formation in Western Australia, and dated the section with uranium–lead ages of zircon crystals.  It found a deposition rate of 5 to 15 metres per million years, and the article uses that rate as one of two checks on its thickness clock.

1. 39a.

   The four U–Pb ages, 2,469.1 ± 0.65 to 2,454.0 ± 0.62 Ma in stratigraphic order,  “allow the calculation of a mean depositional rate of ∼5 m/My to 15 m/My”. ↩

Lyons, Timothy W. et al.  “The rise of oxygen in Earth's early ocean and atmosphere.”  Nature 506:307–315.  Feb 20, 2014.  A review in Nature of when oxygen built up in Earth's air and ocean, and of the rock evidence for it.  The article uses it for the point that the sulfur isotope signal formed only while the air held almost no oxygen.

1. 40a.

   Page 307:  NMD means non-mass-dependent, a pattern in which sulfur isotopes are not sorted by their masses as usual.  “For the signals to be generated and then preserved in the rock record requires extremely low atmospheric oxygen levels, probably less than 0.001% of the present atmospheric level (PAL), although other properties of the early biosphere, such as atmospheric methane abundance and biological sulphur cycling, certainly modulated the NMD signal.” ↩

Barley, Mark E. et al.  “Emplacement of a large igneous province as a possible cause of banded iron formation 2.45 billion years ago.”  Nature 385:55–58.  Jan 2, 1997.  A 1997 paper proposing that a large igneous province, a huge outpouring of volcanic rock, may have caused the banded iron formations of 2.45 billion years ago.  It is reference 17 of Dickens and Snelling 2008, footnote 18 of Snelling 2009 volume 2, and reference 16 of Dickens 2017.  The article uses it as the one paper the creationist "rapid BIF" claim rests on. ↩

1. 41a.

   Page 58:  “more than 500 m of BIF and ~100 m of shale of the Brockman and Woongarra supersequences must have been deposited in the ~20-Myr period between 2,470 ± 4-Myr Brockman Supersequence tuff band and the 2,449 ± 3-Myr Woongarra Rhyolite (Fig. 1).” ↩ ↩

2. 41b.

   Page 58:  “As BIFs are compacted and lithified sedimentary rocks, depositional rates for uncompacted Hamersley Province BIFs must have been faster than 30 m Myr⁻¹.  This can be compared to the rate of 40 m Myr⁻¹ estimated for modern uncompacted pelagic sediments.  However, if sequence boundaries and organic shales represent periods of nondeposition and very slow deposition, respectively, then the Hamersley Province BIFs may have been deposited at even greater rates (between 100 and 1,000 m Myr⁻¹), as required by models which infer that paired chert–iron oxide laminae are seasonal deposits or varves.” ↩ ↩

Vardiman, Larry.  “The Sands of Time: A Biblical Model of Deep Sea-Floor Sedimentation.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 33(3):191–198.  1996.  A 1996 paper that condenses the Institute for Creation Research monograph Sea-Floor Sediment and the Age of the Earth, which is dated 1995 in Vardiman's own reference list and 1996 by ICR.  It reinterprets Deep Sea Drilling Project cores with an analytical model in which sediment deposition peaked after the Flood and then fell away exponentially, using boundary conditions that the paper asserts.  The article uses it as the young-earth model under test, which puts 322 m of sediment above the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary into 4,500 years and sets today's rate at 2 cm per thousand years; Vardiman's reference list also gives Roth 1985 as Origins volume 5, but it is volume 12. ↩

1. 42a.

   Section Abstract:  “The model of deposition presented in this paper differs from the conventional model primarily in the rate of deposition, which is asserted to have peaked at an enormous level during and after the biblical Flood and is presumed to have fallen at an exponential rate to the present low level.” ↩

2. 42b.

   Section Conclusions and Recommendations:  “The accumulation of hundreds of meters of sediment, on the average, and kilometers of sediment in some locations, such as the Arctic Ocean, require very high productivity following the Flood.  Although the potential for high productivity has been suggested by Roth (1985), can the oceans supply enough nutrients, in some 4500 years, to explain the observed sediments?” ↩

Hebert, Jake.  “Circular Reasoning in the Dating of Deep Seafloor Sediments and Ice Cores: The Orbital Tuning Method.”  Answers Research Journal 7:297–309.  2014.  A technical article in the creationist Answers Research Journal arguing that orbital tuning, a method that dates seafloor cores by using the astronomical theory of ice ages, is circular.  Its author is a physicist at the Institute for Creation Research.  The article uses it for ICR's position on sedimentation rates, on magnetic reversals, and on whether the independent checks on the dating are really independent.

1. 43a.

   Page 297:  “the extreme scarcity of manganese nodules within all but the uppermost seafloor sediments (Glasby 1978) is a strong argument that the bulk of these sediments were deposited much too rapidly for the growth of nodules of any appreciable size (Patrick 2010).  This is consistent with initially rapid but gradually decreasing sedimentation rates during and shortly after the Flood (Vardiman 1996).” ↩

2. 43b.

   Page 304:  “Thus we see that 'fossil events' and 'paleomagnetic reversals' are not genuine independent checks on the orbital tuning method.  Rather, both the evolutionary timescale and the astronomical theory are assumed to be true, and these assumptions are then used as criteria by which dating methods are judged to be 'correct' or 'incorrect.'” ↩

3. 43c.

   Page 302:  “Both creation and uniformitarian scientists generally agree that earth's magnetic field has 'flipped' multiple times.  Creation scientists believe these magnetic reversals occurred rapidly during the Genesis Flood (Humphreys 1990), while uniformitarian scientists generally believe that these reversals occurred slowly over thousands of years.”  “The most recent major magnetic reversal, the Matuyama-Brunhes reversal, is dated as having occurred 780,000 years ago (Pillans 2003).” ↩

Costa, Kassandra M. et al.  “²³⁰Th Normalization: New Insights on an Essential Tool for Quantifying Sedimentary Fluxes in the Modern and Quaternary Ocean.”  Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology 35:e2019PA003820.  2020.  A synthesis of over 1000 published ocean-sediment records, in which thorium-230 normalization was used to measure how much sediment settles on the sea floor over time.  The authors found the method robust in most deep (over 1,000 m) ocean settings, and gave a late Holocene (the last 5,000 years) global mass flux of 1.48 to 1.68 g per cm² per thousand years.  The authors also say the sites are biased toward regions with rapidly accumulating sediments.  The article uses it as its modern global figure for sediment settling on the ocean floor.

1. 44a.

   Section Abstract, page 1:  “We synthesized over 1000 sedimentary records of ²³⁰Th from across the global ocean at two time slices, the late Holocene (0–5,000 years ago, or 0–5 ka) and the Last Glacial Maximum (18.5–23.5 ka), and investigated the spatial structure of ²³⁰Th-normalized mass fluxes.  On a global scale, sedimentary mass fluxes were significantly higher during the Last Glacial Maximum (1.79–2.17 g/cm²kyr, 95% confidence) relative to the Holocene (1.48–1.68 g/cm²kyr, 95% confidence).”  The comparison in Part 3:  1.5 g cm⁻² kyr⁻¹ × 2.79 × 10¹⁸ cm² = 4.2 × 10¹⁸ g kyr⁻¹ = 4.2 × 10¹⁵ g yr⁻¹.  Vardiman at τ = 373:  3.47 m yr⁻¹ × 0.6 g cm⁻³ = 208 g cm⁻² yr⁻¹, i.e. 5.8 × 10²⁰ g yr⁻¹ over the same area.  Ratio 1.4 × 10⁵;  at τ = 427, 3.0 × 10⁴. ↩

Hays, J. D. et al.  “Variations in the Earth's Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages.”  Science 194(4270):1121–1132.  Dec 10, 1976.  A paper that tests the orbital theory of the ice ages, the idea that changes in Earth's orbit set the timing of glacial periods, by dating deep-sea cores.  It finds that for 500,000 years major climate changes followed the tilt of Earth's axis (a cycle of about 41,000 years) and precession (the wobble of the axis).  The article calls it the founding Milankovitch result and argues that its chronology was not tuned to fit the orbital ages.

1. 45a.

   Page 1124:  “In RC11-120, carbon-14 dating at the 36- to 39-cm level yields an age of 9400 ± 600 years (35).”  36 cm / 10,000 yr = 3.6 cm/kyr;  39 cm / 8,800 yr = 4.4 cm/kyr;  central 37.5 cm / 9,400 yr = 4.0 cm/kyr. ↩ ↩ ↩

Vaknin, Yoav et al.  “Reconstructing biblical military campaigns using geomagnetic field data.”  PNAS 119(44):e2209117119.  Oct 24, 2022.  A research article that measured the ancient magnetic field in mud bricks from 20 burnt destruction layers at 17 sites in Israel, dated to the 10th to 6th centuries BCE.  The data come from 1,186 specimens from 144 samples, and the authors use the field's changes to date the layers to particular campaigns.  The article uses it to show that no magnetic reversal happened in the Iron Age, where Vardiman's model needs one. ↩

1. 46a.

   Page 1:  From the abstract, on page 1 of 7 of the electronic copy:  “Here, we present a synchronization of the historically dated chronological anchors and other destruction layers and artifacts using the direction and/or intensity of the ancient geomagnetic field recorded in mud bricks from 20 burnt destruction layers and in two ceramic assemblages.  During the period in question, the geomagnetic field in this region was extremely anomalous with rapid changes and high-intensity values, including spikes of more than twice the intensity of today's field.” ↩

2. 46b.

   Page 3:  On page 3 of 7 of the electronic copy:  “The magnetic inclination of Beth-Shean is in agreement with this dating constraint, showing a difference of ∼4° from the reference inclination of Gath, Rehov IV, and Tevet V and no overlap in their α95 confidence cones.” ↩

Patrick, Kenneth.  “Manganese nodules and the age of the ocean floor.”  Journal of Creation 24(3):82–86.  2010.  A creationist paper arguing that manganese nodules, metal lumps on the sea floor, are young, and that their scarcity in deep sediment points to a period of rapid sedimentation linked to Noah's Flood.  The article uses it because it is a creationist source that accepts the deep-core nodule records, and that refuses to apply lake growth rates to the deep ocean, a move that Hebert's ICR article makes.

1. 47a.

   Page 85:  “These extremely conservative rates consign a blanket of sediment over the deep ocean floor of only tens of centimetres in a total of 5,000 years—the timeframe assumed since the end of the global Flood.  True, this is short of the few metres or so depth that characterize most buried MNs, but it's close.” ↩

Whitmore, John H., and Paul Garner.  “Using Suites of Criteria to Recognize Pre-Flood, Flood, and Post-Flood Strata in the Rock Record with Application to Wyoming (USA).”  Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Creationism, 425–448.  Edited by A. A. Snelling.  2008.  A conference paper by John Whitmore of Cedarville University and Paul Garner of Biblical Creation Ministries.  It proposes 27 ranked criteria for telling pre-Flood, Flood and post-Flood rock apart and applies them to a section in Wyoming, where it puts the end of the Flood at the Cretaceous/Paleogene line.  It is cited here as the statement of that camp's boundary, which decides whether the Badlands and Willwood soils and the Cenozoic deep-sea ooze fall inside the Flood year. ↩

1. 48a.

   Page 436:  “We conclude, therefore, that in our Wyoming section, the Flood/post-Flood boundary falls approximately during Lance to Fort Union Time (the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary occurs after the Lance).” ↩ ↩

2. 48b.

   Page 436:  “This conclusion represents a significant modification of the position previously expressed by Garner (1996a, 1996b).  However, it is consistent with the preliminary conclusion of Austin et al. (1994).” ↩

Westerhold, Thomas et al.  “Synchronizing early Eocene deep-sea and continental records — cyclostratigraphic age models for the Bighorn Basin Coring Project drill cores.”  Climate of the Past 14:303–319.  2018.  A research paper that dates drill cores from the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming using the cycles of Earth's orbit, then ties them to deep-sea cores.  The authors drilled about 900 m of overlapping cores from three sites in 2011, and they put the duration of the carbon isotope excursion of the PETM at about 200 thousand years.  The article cites it for the claim that the paleosol stacking follows orbital precession, which gives a clock that owes nothing to soil science. ↩

Garner, Paul.  “Continental Flood Basalts Indicate a pre-Mesozoic Flood/post-Flood Boundary.”  CEN Technical Journal 10(1):114–127.  1996.  A 1996 article in a creationist journal that argues from continental flood basalts, which are huge lava flows erupted onto dry land.  Their almost complete absence from the Palaeozoic, and their return at its end, lead Garner to place the Flood/post-Flood boundary near the end of the Palaeozoic.  The four authors of a 2000 letter later said they were no longer satisfied with the model the 1996 papers proposed, and the article uses this paper as the 1996 case for a Palaeozoic boundary. ↩

1. 50a.

   Page 124:  “Continental flood basalts require subaerial conditions to form.  They could not develop during the Flood because the continents were under water at that time.  This would explain the almost total absence of continental flood basalts from the Palaeozoic.  However, the reappearance of continental basalts at the end of the Palaeozoic indicates that large continental regions were above water and forming dry land throughout the Mesozoic and Cainozoic.  It is difficult to see how the data on stratigraphic distribution of continental flood basalts can be accommodated into models in which the Flood does not end until the Cretaceous or Cainozoic.  I am led by these data to place the Flood/post-Flood boundary much lower in the stratigraphic record than most creationists have done in the past — towards the end of the Palaeozoic.” ↩

Barley's floor of 30 m per million years is 0.75 times his figure of 40 for modern uncompacted pelagic sediment, and his top figure of 1,000 is 25 times it ⁴¹.  The radiocarbon rate in core RC11-120, 3.8 to 4.1 cm per thousand years, is 38 to 41 m per million years, close to Barley's pelagic figure ⁴⁵.  A rate of 1,000 m per million years is 1 mm a year.  The arithmetic is this overview's own. ↩