“The Grand Canyon Monument to an Ancient Earth”

I have been waiting for my copy of “The Grand Canyon Monument to an Ancient Earth” since I heard about it nearly a year ago. It arrived May 5th, and it was worth the wait. The first thing readers will notice is that this is a beautifully illustrated book. The efforts of Tim Helble and graphic designers Bronze Black and Susan Coman are proven on nearly every page. The second thing you will notice is that this book is an excellent short introduction to geology. This is true even ignoring the special focus on countering widely believed falsehoods about the Grand Canyon.

The principle authors are professional geologists, and most are evangelical Christians. Over the years they became increasingly concerned at the distortions, and outright lies that are spread by young earth, “Flood Geology.” This book’s title is in fact a counter to a popular creationist tract, “Grand Canyon Monument to Catastrophe” which promotes the absurd idea that Noah’s Flood deposited all the sediments, and carved the Grand Canyon in a single year just 4000 years ago. I have already written on this here in Andrew Snelling, and Steve Austin: Creationist Frauds. The authors show that this is not merely physically impossible, but that such an idea is unsupported by the Bible. I was particularly pleased that these scientists reinforced my observations about Young Earth Creationism frauds regarding the Grand Canyon, and geology in general. Particularly pleasing was their dismissal of the Mt. Saint Helens and Noah, fraud and that they have reached the same conclusions as I did Dismissing "catastrophic plate tectonics"

There are an estimated 40 percent of Americans today who are being fooled by outfits like Answers in Genesis, or the Institute for Creation Research. These people are the intended audience for this book. As the last sentence in “The Grand Canyon Monument to an Ancient Earth” says, “Truth always matters.”

Andrew Snelling, and Steve Austin: Incompetent Geologists, or Creationist Frauds?

A new book written largely by Christians who are professional geologists, “The Grand Canyon Monument to an Ancient Earth,” has confirmed and reinforced this article. ->


There is a book very popular with young earth "flood" creationists, "Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe," edited by Dr. Steve Austin (1994, Institute for Creation Research, San Diego). This book claimed that all the strata of the Grand Canyon were deposited, and then carved out during the "Flood."

This theme is repeated up by creationist Dr. Andrew A. Snelling, "Rock Layers Folded, Not Fractured: Flood Evidence Number Six" Answers in Genesis, March 15, 2009
https://answersingenesis.org/geology/rock-layers/rock-layers-folded-not-fractured/

These and dozens of other creationist "evidences" use the following image from Coal Canyon, a side canyon to the Grand Canyon:

Some sample captions from different articles by Snelling, or Austin plus a random creationist website follow;

Figure 3 and 4. It is possible to see these folded sedimentary layers in several side canyons. All these layers had to be soft and pliable at the same time in order for these layers to be folded without fracturing. The folded Tapeats Sandstone can be seen in Carbon Canyon (top) and the folded Mauv and Redwall Limestone layers can be seen along Kwagunt Creek (bottom).

“In the walls of the Grand Canyon, we can see that the whole horizontal sedimentary strata sequence was folded without fracturing, supposedly 440 million years after the Tapeats Sandstone and Muav Limestone were deposited, and 200 million years after the Kaibab Limestone was deposited. The only way to explain how these sandstone and limestone beds could be folded, as though still pliable, is to conclude they were deposited during the Genesis Flood, just months before they were folded.”

"#2 Bent Rock Layers: 10 Best Evidences From Science That Confirm a Young Earth" by Dr. Andrew A. Snelling on October 1, 2012.

Photo 1: The whole sequence of sedimentary layers through which Grand Canyon cuts has been bent and folded without fracturing. This includes the Tapeats Sandstone, located at the bottom of the sequence. (A 90° fold in the eastern Grand Canyon is pictured here.)

Look at the photos of some of these layers at the edge of the plateau, just east of the Grand Canyon. The whole sequence of these hardened sedimentary rock layers has been bent and folded, but without fracturing (Figure 1.3) At the bottom of this sequence is the Tapeats Sandstone, which is 100–325 feet (30–100 meters) thick. It is bent and folded 90° (Photo 1).

It is obvious the 90-degree folding of the layers was done when they were still soft and pliable because there is no evidence whatsoever of breaking or shattering.

It is these false assertions, that "these hardened sedimentary rock layers has(sic) been bent and folded, but without fracturing" repeated over and over that are a major fraud of "Flood Geology."

I am particularly impressed by two features of this claim. The first is that it is a bald-faced lie. The second is actually two points related to the photograph. What is offered is a very poorly taken photo from a considerable distance with very bad lighting. Creationists use it to support their gross falsehoods. The second is that the "geology students" from the Institute for Creation Research posed in the photo are placed directly in front of the very fracturing that Snelling and Austin falsely claim is absent.

I have done a simple mark-up of just a sample of the obvious stress fractures from a much better USGS photo of the same geological feature. This original photo was taken with a good resolution, at a time of day that provided good lighting and contrast. I was particularly interested in showing the multiple strata cross-cutting stress fractures at the very locations that Snelling and Austin have lied about.

Why would Steve Austin use students to hide the obvious fractures he and Snelling claim are missing?

These frauds should not be allowed to pretend they are honest scientists who merely come "to different opinions" as some particularly weak-minded philosophers have asserted. When these liars and frauds are allowed to act like a real geologists, they use it as license to lie even more. They claim the sanction of organizations like the Geological Society of America to impress their victims. See; "Christian Geologists Influential at GSA Meeting" by Steven A. Austin, Ph.D. in "Evidence for Creation."



Edit, May 2, 2017
I mentioned above that the excellent book "Grand Canyon Monument to an Ancient Earth" covered this (and much more). Here is their accompanying illustration;

Some other links:

"Creationism in the Grand Canyon, Part 1," by Steven Newton
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-newton/creationism-in-the-grand-canyon_b_7898010.html

Mt. Saint Helens and Noah

A "Little Grand Canyon?"

For years, creationists have promoted the lie that erosion features following the Mt. Saint Helens volcanic eruption both "proved" that the Grand Canyon was deposited and carved out in the year of Noah's flood, and of course that Noah's Flood even occurred.

Chief in their "proof" is this photo attributed to Steven Austin of the Institute for Creation Research. For 27 years it has been copied to dozens of creationist websites, blogs, and on-line discussions:



I added the red lines demarking three major deposition features. Austin described it this way, "The little "Grand Canyon of the Toutle River" is a one-fortieth scale model of the real Grand Canyon."(Austin, S. A. 1986. Mt. St. Helens and Catastrophism. Acts & Facts. 15 (7)). The original caption reads,

Figure 4. Twenty-five foot thickness of stratified
pyroclastic flow deposit which accumulated in less than
one day on June 12, 1980. The stratified flow deposit
forms the floor of the pit in Figure 1 which was later
eroded by mudflows to make the cliff exposure here.

("Mount St. Helens and Catastrophism" Steven A. Austin, Presented at the First International Conference on Creationism, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 4–9, 1986. Published in: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism, R. S. Crowell, editor), pp. 3–9, 1986).

The errors are many, and vary between just plain not true, and subtly not true.

A sequence of events

The first gross error of the "just pain" variety is that this geology is analogous or related to the Grand Canyon. There are actually three reasons it is not, first is that the there is no competent geologist that would think the pictured Mt. Saint Helens deposit was formed by long process. Second, the evolution of this deposit is still very active and the pictured features are merely temporary. Third, to call this a 1/40th scale model of the Grand Canyon is just stupid.

We see in the photo below that the initial (bottom) component in the creationist's photo was produced by landslides. This will produce a well mixed combination of older volcanic deposits, and a smaller amount of fresh material introduced by the eruption. What this deposit will not be is well sorted by size, nor will the larger fraction be at all rounded.

The landslides removed millions of pounds of rock which had held back the eruption. Once that was gone, the next massive event was the explosive eruption of mostly new material that had been under tremendous heat and pressure. The next photo shows us the volume and energy of that eruptive material.

The material we have seen so far is what formed the lower "strata" that creationists claim models the Grand Canyon. It is from landslides augmented with a small portion of volcanic ash.

With the capping material totally removed, the next phase of the eruption began. This was the release of volcanic "ash."

This is not at all like a wood ash. It is composed of tiny particles of volcanic silica, plus remelted and cooled rock fragments. The ash fell over 12 hours, and covered an area of over one hundred square kilometers. The chemistry, geology, and distribution of the ash is available from the United States Geological Survey article,"Properties of volcanic ash."

From the photos above we see that this ash has a mix of lighter, and darker particles indicating slightly different composition. These randomly sort out as the ash falls and settles on the ground. This forms the middle section of the creationist's photo. The small particles drifted down under the main influences of particle size, particle density, and prevailing wind speed. So, layers formed as the ash fall continued for over 12 hours. These layers were quite different from the water carried sediments most people are familiar with, and creationists like to attribute to "the Noah's flood."

The top section of the creationists "little grand canyon" is a well mixed dark colored sediment that is a combination of all the erupted materials, weathered soils, and a strong plant material fraction. The source is what is called a "lahar flow." The next two photos are of the Mt. Saint Helens lahar flows. The first is an aerial shot showing the extent of a late lahar flow.

The following photo has several interesting features. First note that the flow was much higher than the residual deposit. Next, look at the amount of surface vegetation, tree bark and branches that were ground-up and added to the flow. Finally, looking at the exposed bank we see that a lot of weathered dark organic rich soil was added to the ash and volcanic rock mix. This is the source of the dark "cap" from the creationist's "strata" photo.

The creationist photos included this following image. It is striking in that it totally exposes their fraud. The image that Steven Austin described as "Twenty-five foot thickness of stratified pyroclastic flow deposit which accumulated in less than one day on June 12, 1980" is just a small, and untypical segment of the total mass of the 1980 Mt. Saint Helens eruption. Exposed in an actively eroding river bank, it obviously is a small segment that will not survive for very long either.

One last error of the "just plain not true" sort is that not a single one of these features from the Mt. Saint Helens volcano could possibly have formed underwater in the midst of a global flood.

It also forms a sad example of how creationists cannot bring themselves to tell the truth. Steve Austin and his followers hope to make others believe that real geologists would look at the apparent strata from the eruption so far as something that had taken a long time to have formed. They know that geologists don't think this.

PS: I wanted to add a link to a good Mt. St. Helens blog by Lance Wilson.