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

megasequence. There is presently active debate among creation geologists as to where the Flood ends in the rock record. This issue will not be directly addressed in this paper. We merely included the Tejas megasequence as the 6 th and final megasequence for the purposes of this study. However, we will discuss some rapid changes in the rock record at the Zuni/Tejas boundary that may identify the shift from rising water to receding water. Finally, this paper presents the preliminary pre-Flood geographical results of a multi-continent study of 1543 stratigraphic columns across North America, Africa, the Middle East and South America. We conclude with a new model that attempts to explain the rock and fossil record of the Flood. METHODS Stratigraphic columns were compiled from published outcrop data, oil well boreholes, cores, cross-sections and/or seismic data tied to boreholes. Lithologic and stratigraphic interval data were entered into a database, allowing thickness maps to be generated for the six, Sloss-defined, megasequence intervals. These data were used to create a three-dimensional stratigraphic model across each of the three continents in this study. These models, when examined megasequence-by-megasequence, allow the interpretation of pre- Flood geographic relief. We also assumed the historical accuracy of the global Flood account as recorded in Genesis. 1. Collection of stratigraphic and lithologic data Our database consisted of selected COSUNA (Correlation of Stratigraphic Units of NorthAmerica) (Childs 1985; Salvador 1985) stratigraphic columns across the United States, stratigraphic data from the Geological Atlas of Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (Mossop and Shetsen 1994), and numerous well logs and hundreds of other available online sources. Using these data, we constructed 710 stratigraphic columns across North America, 429 across Africa, and 405 across South and Central America from the pre- Pleistocene, meter-by-meter, down to local basement. We recorded detailed lithologic data, megasequence boundaries and latitude and longitude coordinates into RockWorks 17, a commercial software program for geologic data, available from RockWare, Inc. Golden, CO, USA. Figure 2 is an example stratigraphic column from the Michigan Basin, showing the 16 types of lithology that were used for classification and the sequences. Depths shown in all diagrams are in meters. We included volcanic deposits in our lithologic data as there are often significant amounts of ash and lava at many locations. Instead of leaving these layers out, we decided to include them in our compilations. Although they are not attributed to changes in sea level per se, they are important to the local geology and the timing of volcanic activity. RockWorks 17 also allows easy exclusion of the volcanic deposits and lava flows when doing purely sedimentological analysis. 2. Analysis of Animal and Plant Fossils The global distribution of fossil animals and plants were examined using the global fossil occurrences found in the Paleobiology database (https://paleobiodb.org) . This analysis looked at the stratigraphic distribution of 12 aquatic animal phyla: bivalvia, brachiopoda, bryozoa, cephalopoda, cnidaria, crustacea, Clarey and Werner ◀ Pre-Flood geography ▶ 2018 ICC 352 Cambrian 24 Ordovician 202 Silurian 13 Devonian 636 Carboniferous 1473 Permian 4457 Triassic 3588 Jurassic 4677 Cretaceous 7329 Cenozoic 16776 Late Miocene- Quaternary 4690 Figure 1. Chart showing the secular timescale, presumed sea level curve, and the six megasequences (Modified from Snelling 2014a). The horizontal dashed lines are merely references to minor sea level fluctuations in between the megasequence boundaries. Table 1. Plant occurrences in the Paleobiology database by stratigraphic interval. Values compiled by Dr. Nathanial Jeanson.