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

their earlier locations in Pannotia. Notably, the portion of continent that is to become eastern Asia has broken away from what earlier had been northeastern Pannotia and is now moving northward. At this point in the calculation the south rotational pole has moved to approximately 48° south latitude (marked by S on the equal area plots) along the zero-longitude meridian. A large gyre whose center is near the north rotational pole is prominent in plots (a) and (b) above deep ocean on the opposite side of the earth. Plots (i) and (j) show that sediment continues to accumulate in the zones adjacent to the coasts and that the zones are tending to expand inland. At 50 days the average depth of bedrock erosion over the entire continent surface is 442 m. The average depth of sediment accumulation is 435 m, and the average amount of sediment in suspension is 7 m. Figure 4 displays the water/land surface height, the water depth over the land surface, the cumulative depth of bedrock erosion, and the net cumulative depth of deposited sediment at a time of 80 days. At this stage in the calculation, the east Asia block is near to docking with the Siberian block. That docking, which occurs at 90 days, will complete the assembly of Pangea. At 80 days there are regions where sediment thickness has reached 1,500 m. On average there is 560 m of sediment over the land surface and 39 m of sediment in suspension. Figure 5 displays, at a time of 110 days, water/land surface height, cumulative depth of bedrock erosion, and net cumulative depth of deposited sediment. At this point in the calculation, the Pangean supercontinent is beginning to break apart. The present North Atlantic Ocean is opening as northern portion of Pangea consisting of Laurentia and Eurasia rotates clockwise relative to Gondwana. The Gondwana block itself is beginning to rift apart along the eastern margin of what today is Africa. At this stage in the calculation the rotation axis matches today’s orientation. The total volume of eroded sediment at this point is equal to an average of 901 m over the entirety of the continental surface. Figure 6 displays the same fields at a time of 140 days. At this point Gondwana has disassembled into blocks corresponding to South America, Africa, Madagascar, India, Antarctica, and Australia, and Laurentia is beginning to split away from Eurasia in the north. The average amount of sediment deposited on the continent surface is now 1,162 m, and the average amount of sediment in suspension is 26 m. DISCUSSION 1. Some challenges Flood models are called to explain Serious intellectual defense of the Genesis Flood calls for substantive explanations for several major features of the earth’s continental surface. First is the staggering volume of the fossil- bearing sedimentary rock present, corresponding to an average thickness of about 2,000 meters or about 1.2 miles. What was the source of such a massive quantity of sediment during such a brief span of time? Second is the location of this massive volume of sediment. It occurs on top of the continents, whose surface generally lies above sea level. What sort of water process might conceivably emplace so much sediment above sea level on top of that land surface?A third issue pertains to the vast horizontal extent of individual sediment layers with little to no erosional channeling between successive layers. This pattern is readily observed for the sediments exposed in the walls of the Grand Canyon. What sort of transport and depositional process could conceivably generate such uniform layers over such vast horizontal distances? A fourth noteworthy issue is related to the third one. It is the presence of beds, separated by bedding planes , on the scale of centimeters to meters which is such a prominent characteristic of sedimentary rocks. It is so common that it is almost taken for granted with little consideration of the processes responsible. It is as if the sediment is being deposited in pulses in a repeating manner, with each pulse producing a thin layer, commonly with vast horizontal extent as illustrated in Figure 7. Especially in the context of the Flood, what is the mechanism responsible for such repetitive and detailed structure? A fifth prominent feature has to do with the manner in which these fossil-bearing sediment layers are organized into six massive packages known as megasequences that are separated from one another by what appear to be global-scale erosional unconformities. Again, in the context of the Flood, what mechanism might account for this pattern? Baumgardner ◀ Large tsunamis and the Flood sediment record ▶ 2018 ICC 298 Figure 2 (begins of preceding page). Plots in equal-area projection and geographic North Pole orthographic projection at 20 days of water or land surface height, whichever is greater, (a) , (b) ; water depth over the land surface, (c) , (d) ; cumulative depth of bedrock erosion, (e) , (f) ; suspended sediment (all particle sizes combined), (g) , (h) ; and cumulative depth of deposited sediment, (i) , (j) . In (a) and (b) arrows denote water column velocities, clipped at 200 m/s. In (c)-(h) arrows denote water velocities just above the land surface, clipped at 30 m/s.