Flood geology: Encyclopedia II - Flood geology - Proposed mechanisms of the flood

Flood geology - Proposed mechanisms of the flood

For the cause of the flood, Genesis states only that God deliberately caused the flood, indicating that the cause of the flood was supernatural in origin. Beyond that, the account states that the "fountains of the great deep" broke open and the "windows of heaven" were opened, which brought the flood. It rained for 40 days, but the waters continued to rise for 110 more days, indicating that there was another water-source, probably the subterranean "fountains of the great deep." The waters then slowly began to recede amidst a "great wind," until the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat (not necessarily Mount Ararat, but the mountains in that region). Beyond that account of the events, creationists have very little basis for determining exactly what caused the flood.

Creationists have proposed at least three separate explanations for the mechanism that caused the flood.

• Some creationists propose that the water may have come from an ice comet that melted when it hit the Earth's atmosphere.

• Hydroplates, proposed by mechanical engineer Walt Brown, Director of the Center for Scientific Creation, are the concept that the Earth was originally created with a great deal of subterranean water, and that the flood was brought on when the crust of the Earth was cracked, allowing this water to escape violently to the surface, and broke the surface into "hydroplates" which rapidly divided during and after the flood.

• The Runaway Subduction model or Catastrophic Plate Tectonics, proposed by geophysicist John Baumgardner[6], and supported by the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis. This holds that rapid plunge of the original continental plates into the mantle could have heated silicates to a temperature at which tectonic motion would have happened extremely quickly. Proponents point to subducted slabs in the mantle which are still relatively cool, which they regard as evidence that they have not been there for millions of years of temperature equilibration.

• In addition, a vapor canopy was proposed by Henry Morris in his book The Genesis Flood in the 1960s. It holds that a canopy of water vapor existed over the atmosphere prior to the flood, and that the floodwaters were brought on when this vapor canopy collapsed. This model has been rejected by many creationists, including the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis[7], founded by Henry Morris himself, but is still accepted by some.

Others propose that the continental motion occurred about 100 years after the Flood, when the Bible records that during the lifetime of Peleg, "the Earth was divided". But Answers in Genesis argues that this was the linguistic division at the Tower of Babel. [8]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Proposed mechanisms of the flood", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki