Mt. St. Helens
Gives Creation Evidence
Written by: Bruce Malone
Creation Science Evangelism | Now Reading “Mt. St. Helens Explosion Gives Creation Evidence”
To determine what happened in the past, geologists study current processes and use those observations to understand how rock layers came to cover our planet. Before the 1800s, geology was dominated by the belief that a worldwide flood caused these rock layers.
Mt. St. Helens Evidence for Creation: A Headache for Uniformitarianism
This changed when the founders of modern geology, James Hutton and Charles Lyell, replaced this interpretation with uniformitarianism.
Uniformitarianism is the belief that slow, gradual processes, like those we see today, account for the geologic features of our planet. It also assumes that no massive, rapid accumulation of sediment has ever been caused by a worldwide catastrophe. Charles Darwin was heavily influenced by this type of thinking when he extended the concept of slow, gradual geological change to include slow, gradual biological change. In the last 30 years, many geologists have come to accept as fact that the past has seen rapid geological changes far surpassing anything we see happening today. However, the geological community still clings to the belief that millions of years have passed between these catastrophes.
Foundational Assumptions of The Creation Model: A Worldwide Catastrophe (Catastrophism)
The creation model’s foundational assumption is that a worldwide flood occurred in the recent past. If this assumption is correct, evidence should exist for this event. A worldwide flood would have caused massive destruction of plant and animal life, followed by the redeposition of this biomatter and sediment. This would result in enormous fossil beds at locations throughout the planet. This is exactly what the fossil record reveals.
One criticism of the creation model is the lack of a natural model which duplicates the processes happening during this alleged flood. However, in 1980, the explosion of Mt. St. Helens in Washington provided just such a model. When Mt. St. Helens exploded, an estimated 18 billion cubic feet of rock, ash, dirt, steam, and melted snow flowed down the side of the mountain at an estimated speed of 90 mph. This and subsequent ash flows laid down as much as 600 feet of sediment on the north face of the mountain slope. In essence, scientists modeled a massive flood event.
The sediments laid down during the violent mud and ash flows were not a homogenized mixture but rather a series of finely layered horizontal strata. They look quite similar to the horizontal layers of rock which can be observed in road cuts as you travel our interstate highways. These horizontal bands of rock strata are often assumed to indicate millions of years of Earth history, but Mt. St. Helens has given geologists a scale model of how the same type of horizontal strata can be laid down rapidly by flowing water.
After the Mt. St. Helens explosion, a new river canyon formed in one day (March 19, 1982) as backed-up water broke through the newly deposited sediment. This canyon is 100 feet deep and looks like a 1/40th-scale model of the Grand Canyon. Had no one been present to see this area form, we might assume that the small stream presently located at the bottom of the canyon had cut the canyon over millions of years. This is the story that most of us have been taught about the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. Many geologists now acknowledge that, just as the Toutle River canyon at Mt. St. Helens formed rapidly, the Grand Canyon also formed over a short period of time by a massive flow of water.
The majority of the geologic community believes that low-energy processes and long time periods account for the geologic record. Creationists believe high-energy processes and short time periods account for the geologic record. Only one viewpoint is correct. Only one viewpoint agrees with the Biblical record. Guess which one?
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