It’s not just The Testimony and The Christadelphian that are busily trying to defend YEC from the growing wave of support for evolutionary creationism by publishing poorly-researched articles that simply draw attention to the paucity of evidence for the special creationist view. Websites and Facebook groups advancing an extreme special creationist view have emerged over the last few years.
While browsing one particularly dire site, I noticed a list detailing “Scientific Evidence for a Global Flood.” An extraordinary claim such as this demands high quality, credible evidence. None was provided other than a list of 22 alleged facts without any supporting references to the mainstream literature. A quick search shows that it is a word for word copy from a list which quite likely comes from this website [1] maintained by an obscure YEC crank who far from being a professional geologist is a man with an agricultural science degree who, in standard special creationist argument from irrelevant authority fashion touted his completely irrelevant undergraduate degree and teaching diplomas.
Given the degree of misinformation being peddled by special creationists in our community on this subject, a detailed refutation of these errors is indicated, if only to show the undecided why YEC / global flood arguments have zero credibility.
Scientific Evidence for a Global Flood (SEfaGF hereafter) alleges that:
Meteorites are basically absent from the geologic column. With the large number of meteorites hitting the earth each year, they should be very plentiful throughout the sedimentary rocks - unless much of the world's sedimentary rocks were laid down in one year.
 |
| New Quebec impact crater (Age 1.4 million years) |
1.07
|
|
1.4 ± 0.1
|
|
< 3
|
|
3.0 ± 0.3
|
|
3.5 ± 0.5
|
|
3.7 ± 0.3
|
|
< 5
|
|
5 ± 1
|
|
5 ± 3
|
|
>5, <36
|
|
15 ± 1
|
|
15.1 ± 0.1
|
|
35.3 ± 0.1
|
|
35.7 ± 0.2
|
|
> 35
|
|
> 35
|
|
36.4 ± 4
|
|
37.2 ± 1.2
|
|
39
|
|
40 ± 20
|
|
40 ± 20
|
|
42.3 ± 1.1
|
|
45 ± 10
|
|
46 ± 3
|
|
46 ± 7
|
|
49.0 ± 0.2
|
|
49.0 ± 0.2
|
|
< 50
|
|
50.50 ± 0.76
|
|
56 - 37
|
|
58 ± 2
|
|
< 60
|
|
64.98 ± 0.05
|
|
< 65
|
|
< 65
|
|
65.17 ± 0.64
|
|
< 70
|
|
< 70
|
|
< 70
|
|
70.3 ± 2.2
|
|
74.1± 0.1
|
|
< 75
|
|
76.20 ± 0.29
|
|
80 ± 20
|
|
81.0 ± 1.5
|
|
89.0 ± 2.7
|
|
91 ± 7
|
|
3-95
|
|
< 97
|
|
99 ± 4
|
|
< 100
|
|
< 110
|
|
115 ± 10
|
|
< 120
|
|
< 120
|
|
120 ± 10
|
|
121.0 ± 2.3
|
|
123 ±1.4
|
|
128 ± 5
|
|
>130, <450
|
|
142.0 ± 2.6
|
|
142.5 ± 0.8
|
|
145.0 ± 0.8
|
|
150 ± 20
|
|
150 ± 70
|
|
> 160 ± 10
|
|
165 ± 5
|
|
167 ± 3
|
|
169 ± 7
|
|
< 170
|
|
< 180
|
|
190 ± 20
|
|
190 ± 30
|
|
< 200
|
|
200 ± 25
|
|
200 ± 100
|
|
201 ± 2
|
|
214 ± 1
|
|
220 ± 32
|
|
~ 230
|
|
< 250
|
|
250 ± 80
|
|
254.7 ± 2.5
|
|
< 280
|
|
280 ± 10
|
|
290 ± 20
|
|
290 ± 35
|
|
< 300
|
|
< 300
|
|
< 300
|
|
< 300
|
|
300 ± 50
|
|
< 320
|
|
320 ± 80
|
|
342 ± 15
|
|
< 345
|
|
< 345
|
|
351 ± 20
|
|
< 360
|
|
360 ± 20
|
|
364 ± 8
|
|
376.8 ± 1.7
|
|
378 ± 5
|
|
380 ± 5
|
|
395 ± 25
|
|
< 400
|
|
400 ± 50
|
|
< 430
|
|
430 ± 25
|
|
445 ± 2
|
|
~ 450
|
|
450 ± 10
|
|
>453
|
|
~ 455
|
|
~ 455
|
|
~ 458
|
|
~ 458
|
|
460-470
|
|
470 ± 30
|
|
~ 470
|
|
< 500
|
|
< 500
|
|
< 500
|
|
500 ± 10
|
|
500 ± 20
|
|
< 505
|
|
< 508
|
|
> 515
|
|
520 ± 20
|
|
~ 535
|
|
> 545
|
|
550 ± 100
|
|
> 550
|
|
~ 560
|
|
> 570
|
|
< 573
|
|
~ 590
|
|
~ 600
|
|
~ 600
|
|
> 600
|
|
646 ± 42
|
|
700 ± 5
|
|
< 1000
|
|
~ 1000
|
|
> 1000
|
|
< 1200
|
|
< 1400
|
|
1402 ± 440
|
|
1630 ± 5
|
|
1640 - 600
|
|
> 1700 < 2100
|
|
< 1800
|
|
< 1800
|
|
1850 ± 3
|
|
~ 2000
|
|
2023 ± 4
|
|
~ 2400
|
This list documents impact craters, but as one would expect, the odds of meteorites surviving over several tens to hundreds of millions of years is remote. Having said that, the geological record has preserved many fossil meteorites, with over one hundred from the same source:
Back in 1952, the manager of a limestone quarry in Sweden that was once an ancient sea floor noticed an unusually dark object in a slab that one of his workers had cut and set aside. He approached a paleontologist about it, who set it on a shelf in his office and forgot about it. 27 years later, a mineralogist who was interested in meteorites walked into that very same office, and exclaimed, “That looks like a meteorite!”
The discovery of this meteorite nearly three decades after it was removed from the quarry led to a systematic search for more—in fact, workers were trained to recognize them. Over the next 20 years, 101 fossilized meteorites were uncovered in the quarry, which is 100 times more than we would expect. [3]
These meteorites, mostly L-chondrites also include a single non-L chondrite meteorite and are dated to the Ordovician (485 to 443 million years ago). [4]
The implications of this for YEC are profound, as all these
impact craters would have occurred at most 6000 years ago. The battered face of
the moon, Mercury, and other bodies in the solar system bear witness to the fact
that the early solar system was a violent place. For those who believe that a
global flood laid down the geological strata, all these impact craters would
have taken place during the flood. The energy from these impacts would have
boiled away the ocean and filled the atmosphere with rock vapour. Needless to
say, corporeal existence, let alone survival would be impossible under these
conditions.
Certainly, the claim that meteorites are ‘basically absent’
from the geological column is false, and one that the person posting the claim
could have avoided making if he had not simply copied material from a
disreputable source, but done some elementary fact checking.
3. “Fossil Meteorites Arrive at the Field Museum” The Field Museum
November 12 2014
4. Schmitz
B “A fossil winonaite-like meteorite in Ordovician limestone: A piece of the impactor that broke up the L-chondrite parent body?” Earth and Planetary Science Letters (2014) 400:145-152
