sections came from Clarey (2020). The geology, paleontology, tectonics, and the megasequences are added as appropriate within the narrative. 1. Initiation of the Flood to Day 10? The Flood begins in Genesis 7:11 with the bursting of the fountains of the great deep and the windows of heaven were opened. Thus, the worldwide Flood began with two unprecedented and powerful actions (both of which are reported by perfect verbs, denoting event-like actions that were soon completed), with both of those actions providing floodwaters that would eventually cover the globe: (a) “all the fountains/wellsprings of great-deep” were “burst” by God; and (b) “windows of the heavens” were “opened” by God, so waters came geysering and gushing up from below—“great deep” places (perhaps from below the oceans and/or far below the Earth’s land surfaces)—as well as from the atmosphere, due to “windows” in the sky being “opened” (Johnson and Clarey 2021. p. 252). Exactly what the “fountains” entailed is unclear from a geological standpoint. Here, we concur with Austin et al. (1994), that the bursting of the “fountains of the great deep” initiated the tectonic plates. It seems likely that the “fountains of the great deep” produced a lot of water/steam as do modern volcanoes. There would have been a lot of gasses released as the magma rose upward in the Earth, but exactly how high this water/steam shot up into the atmosphere is unclear. Tremendous amounts of water vapor escaping from the volcanic activity of the rifts likely contributed to the heavy rainfall for the first 40 days. The initiation of vast rifts both on land and under oceans may be the primary geological event that occurred during the first 10 or so days of the Flood (Clarey 2020). There is a lot of geological evidence for Figure 21. Pre-Sauk (Precambrian sediment and volcanic rocks) isopach (thickness) map for North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Measurements in meters. the simultaneous development of multiple rift zones across the globe, including several along the edges of North America and possibly the Midcontinent Rift in the continental interior (Reed 2000; Clarey 2020, pp. 182-186). In addition to volcanism, there was localized deposition of preSauk sediments near many of these rifts, and along the pre-Flood continental margins. Fig. 21 shows the thickness and extent of the Pre-Sauk volcanic and sedimentary rocks across North America. 2. Days 10?-20? of the Flood Genesis 7:12 mentions the 40 days and 40 nights of intense rainfall. The first 40 days of the Flood also likely included the start of plate motion as the originally-created cold and dense oceanic lithosphere began to subduct. This subduction process may have begun as early as Days 10-20 of the Flood year (Clarey 2020, pp. 194-215). The first consequence of sudden plate movement would have been the generation of massive numbers of tsunami-like waves. Plate motion may have begun in a few selected locations, such as along the East Coast of North America and near Southeast Asia/Australia as cold oceanic lithosphere began to rapidly subduct into adjacent rifts. These movements generated the sediments of the Sauk megasequence, bringing the first tsunami waves across the continental crust. These waves spread sediment across the shallow seas that existed on the continents (Clarey and Werner 2018b). Many marine organisms were inundated at this time, creating the Cambrian Explosion as a blanket of sandstone was spread across vast regions of each of the continents. Although several previous researchers have suggested that the Flood rose, flooded the whole Earth, and/or reached a peak about Day 40 or shortly thereafter (Whitcomb and Morris 1961; Barrick and Sigler 2003; Snelling, 2009; Dickens and Snelling 2015), we disagree. And we especially disagree with the interpretation that all vertebrate fossils were somehow dissolved by acidic waters released by the CLAREY AND WERNER Progressive Flood model 2023 ICC 428
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