The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

arsenic invariably hold the potential to also remove it from the water. In light of this, we can consider how the Flood model is consistent with the current geology of arsenic. THE FATE OFARSENIC IN THE FLOOD Most modern areas of arsenic-contaminated groundwater are geologically close to sedimentary basins adjacent to orogenic belts (Mukherjee et al. 2014). Orogenesis occurs at convergent plate boundaries, generating mountain ranges. Foreland sedimentary basins are depressions adjacent to these ranges, which contain the sedimentary layers believed to have formed from the erosion of these mountains . The mountains themselves contain sulfur-rich reduced arsenic minerals. These can be oxidized upon exposure to air and surface water both before and during erosion, resulting in a mixture of arsenic associated with pyrite, arsenic sulfide minerals, and both iron oxyhydroxides and clays with a large amount of sorbed arsenic all ending up in the sedimentary basins. Generally reductive dissolution and substitution of other ions on the sorption sites of these minerals results in arsenic leaching into groundwater flowing through the basins (Biswas et al. 2014; Xie et al. 2014). It is probable this is the source of much of the world’s arsenic contamination issues: the source of the arsenic contamination in Southeast Asia is primarily water running through basins adjacent to the Himalayas, the source of South American contamination is the sedimentary basin adjacent to the Andes, and in the Western United States it is the Rocky Mountain foreland basin (Mukherjee et al. 2014). This argument, while originally made in the uniformitarian literature, fits well with the Flood model. We have argued that significant amounts of arsenic were deposited as sulfide minerals due to hydrothermal activity and subsurface deposition from volcanic gasses during the volcanism associated with the Flood. If these minerals were never exposed to oxidizing conditions, they posed little threat of mobilizing the arsenic. However, many times this volcanism was associated with regions that would become mountain ranges. During the rapid uplift of the modern mountain ranges immediately post-Flood (Snelling 2009), some of these minerals were exposed to oxygenated water and underwent weathering. Concurrent formation of clays and iron oxyhydroxides as the sulfides were oxidized would lead to sorption of the arsenic. The end results would be arsenic-rich iron oxyhydroxides and clays, along with some unchanged arsenic sulfides, being deposited in foreland basins adjacent to mountains by erosion. The close proximity of these basins to volcanic ash would also contribute some arsenic. This would also be primarily Hutchison and Bortel ◀ Fate of Arsenic in the Flood ▶ 2018 ICC 234 Figure 1. Summary of arsenic geochemistry during the Flood.