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

the development of the current landscape. The fact is that lateritic deposits formed by supergene weathering acting on primary ore deposits and suitable source rocks are all Cenozoic (Freyssinet et al. 2005). Even though bauxite deposits have formed from and thus sit on top of source rocks as old as the Precambrian (pre-Flood), all mined bauxite deposits are of Cenozoic age and are located in the present global subtropical and tropical belt where the climate was conducive to their formation (Freyssinet et al. 2005, Figs. 1 and 2). Similarly, all lateritic Ni deposits are Cenozoic and yet have formed from source rocks spanning from the Precambrian through the Phanerozoic (Freyssinet et al. 2005, Fig.11). Other classes of primary ore deposits of all conventional ages also demonstrate that supergene weathering only affected them during the Cenozoic due to present landscape development. Volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits (Franklin et al. 2005), banded iron formations (Clout et al. 2005) and many sediment-hosted Pb-Zn deposits (Leach et al. 2005), of all conventional ages including Precambrian and early Phanerozoic, all formed at the sediments or volcanics surface/water interfaces. Yet even though many of these deposits have distinctive syngenetic or subsequent hydrothermal alteration features, none of these ore deposits have supergene alteration associated with them that is not Cenozoic and related to the current land surface and climate. Similarly, epithermal precious and base metal deposits (Simmons et al. 2005), iron oxide copper- gold deposits (Williams et al. 2005), gold deposits in metamorphic terranes (Goldfarb et al. 2005), and granite-related ore deposits (Černý et al. 2005), which are emplaced underground by hypogene processes, and whose ages span the Phanerozoic and some of the Precambrian; none of these ore deposits have any supergene alteration associated with them that is not Cenozoic and related to the current land surface and climate. These observations are highly relevant to the objective of this study. In the conventional model it would be expected that supergene ore deposits formed at various times during the long past eons, rather than supergene ore deposits almost only being formed post-Mesozoic and related to Cenozoic to present landscape development and climate processes. Thus, while these observations are not consistent with a long-age model of earth history, they are totally consistent with only a single global Flood model of short earth history. Furthermore, these observations are relevant to their use as a criterion for determining the placement of the Flood/post- Flood boundary in the geologic record. What is then next relevant to this study is the timing of the erosion that exposed the primary ore deposits to the weathering responsible for the formation of the supergene minerals which have been radioisotope dated. Clearly, when Noah stepped off the Ark marking the end of the Flood event, large-scale erosion would have ceased over large continental regions around the globe, so the corresponding Flood/post-Flood boundary in the geologic record should be marked by a major global-scale erosion surface, onto which residual local deposits would have accumulated during the early post-Flood era. That was the rationale behind the Austin et al. (1994) choice of the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary, because they assumed the Cenozoic then represented post-Flood deposits from residual catastrophism. Localized erosion surfaces coinciding with faunal extinctions would thus have occurred during the post-Flood era. In any case, what is relevant here is that the continuing Cenozoic erosion, which Oard (2004, 2013a, b) agrees with, could have progressively exposed more ore deposits to weathering and supergene mineral formation. This is relevant to many porphyry copper deposits which formed during the Cenozoic mountain-building of the Andes, Rockies, and Alpides (Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt) and were thus only exposed to weathering by subsequent erosion. However, since the Flood account states the waters had “dried off the face of the earth” and “the face of the ground” was dry by Day 314 (Genesis 8:13), this could imply erosion had ceased and thus weathering of the primary ore deposits and formation of supergene minerals could have commenced in the 57 days prior to Noah stepping off the Ark and before the Flood event “officially” ended. In that scenario the radioisotope ages obtained for the formation of the supergene minerals would thus not help us date the Flood/ post-Flood boundary. However, even if the “face” or surface of the ground was dry does not guarantee that the groundwater table was not still very high and close to the surface. That could be one reason why God left Noah and his cargo still onboard the Ark for those extra 57 days, to allow the water table to drop and soils to form, as well as for plants to grow. The weathering that produces supergene minerals only occurs in the oxidizing zone above the water table (Dill 2015; Reich and Vasconcelos 2015), though it would still be wet due to evaporation of groundwater and further locally-intense rainfall. So not only did the ground surface need to be dry before weathering and supergene mineral formation could commence, but the water table had to drop down below the tops of the primary ore deposits before their oxidization could commence. Thus, the radioisotope ages obtained for the formation of the supergene minerals could still represent the relative timing of the Flood/post-Flood boundary in the geologic record. However, could weathering and supergene mineral formation commence before the Flood ended, during the drying out phase after the Flood waters retreated? Certainly, weathering would have commenced, but it would have taken subsequent decades rather than just the last 57 days of the Flood to form the supergene minerals. This is because it takes extended time periods for the chemical weathering reactions and the lowering of the water table to penetrate deeply enough to have formed the supergene minerals at the large scale necessary to produce these supergene ore deposits. Thus, the supergene minerals are much more likely to date from the early decades after the Flood ended. Two other considerations must also be discussed. First, the Flood involved huge volumes of water being trapped in sediments as thick strata sequences were rapidly deposited subaqueously. This water would have been oxygenated from the intense global rainfall, and acidic and warm due to the volcanic water fountains of the “great deep” and depth of burial. Then as those sediments were subsequently compacted under their own weight and due to tectonic forces, it might be expected that these warm acidic waters would rise rapidly through the strata sequences and thus potentially generate look-alike weathering profiles and supergene minerals on their way to the earth’s surface. However, even though we do have Snelling ◀ Flood/post-Flood boundary ▶ 2018 ICC 558