a Rodinia configuration (Snelling 2014a). In the latter view, the preFlood world started as Rodinia and morphed into Pangaea midway through the Flood, and eventually broke apart again to the present continental configuration. Conventional geologists have interpreted several pre-Pangaea supercontinents, including Gondwana (involving mostly the southern continents) and before that Rodinia. Gondwana is the socalled transitional continental configuration between Pangaea and Rodinia. Pangaea is claimed to have formed about 350 million years ago, Gondwana about 500 million years ago, and Rodinia about 900 million years ago, according to evolutionary dates (Campbell and Allen 2008). In our earlier research on the pre-Flood continental configuration, we chose a slightly modified Pangaea because it has the most geological evidence supporting it, including the best fit of the current continents (Clarey and Werner, 2018b). We placed a narrow sea (300-500 km) between North America and Africa/Europe, allowing for limited plate subduction, an early Flood closure of the pre-Atlantic, and the formation of the Appalachian/Caledonian Mountains (Fig. 17). The width of this pre-Atlantic is based on subducted plate remnants that diminish beneath the Appalachians below 300 km, supporting this narrow-sea interpretation (Schmandt and Lin 2014). But the question about which pre-Flood configuration remains open. Is it Rodinia or Pangaea? We have recently mapped out the extent of a massive amount of Precambrian salt-rich rocks in the Middle East, Pakistan and India (Clarey and Werner 2020) (Fig. 18). These various salt-rich units have been conventionally dated as Neoproterozoic, falling in the evolutionary age range of 540-950 million years old (Kadri 1995; Hughes et al. 2019). The Salt Range Formation has been described as a mass of unstratified halite with occasional thin dolomite beds, capped by both gypsum and anhydrite (Kadri 1995). Thicknesses of these various formations have been found to vary between 18003000 meters, including the non-halite units (Kadri 1995). Finding thick salt-rich layers in rocks prior to the Cambrian is rather unusual. They may be sourced from the bursting of the fountains of the great deep in Genesis 7:11, but more research is needed. Regardless, the Precambrian salt-rich rocks are claimed by evolutionary geologists to be approximately the same age as Rodinia. Therefore, we used their extent to test the validity of the Rodinia reconstruction. Figure 18 shows the modern extent and thicknesses of the salt-rich layers across the Middle East and southern Asia. These deposits are the source of the so-called ‘Himalayan sea salt’ mined today. Figure 19 shows the reconstructed salt-rich formations in a configuration similar to Pangaea. Figure 20 shows the approximate locations of these same salt deposits in a Rodinia reconstruction. It seems quite clear that the Pangaean reconstruction is the better fit (Fig. 19). This places the salt-rich rocks in the same approximate location spanning the northeastern Saudi Arabian Peninsula and the subcontinent of India. Unfortunately, Gondwana and Pangaea are very similar in the Southern Hemisphere, so it is difficult to differentiate the two. Nonetheless, they are both good matches for the Precambrian saltrich units in the Middle East, Pakistan and India. A Rodinia configuration shows a poor match of the salt deposits across this region (Fig. 20). We conclude that Pangaea (at least the southern part called Gondwana) was already in existence when these massive Neoproterozoic salt-rich rocks were deposited. This confirms and validates our earlier pre-Flood continental interpretation for the pre-Flood world that used a modified Pangaea (Clarey and Werner 2018b). Rodinia is merely a uniformitarian hypothesis that doesn’t match well with the actual rock data. According to CPT theory, the modern ocean floor was created when the original Creation Week seafloor was consumed by runaway Figure 17. Map of the pre-Flood continental configuration showing basic interpreted environments. CLAREY AND WERNER Progressive Flood model 2023 ICC 426
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