Figure 26. Maps of southeast (left) and northern (right) Asia showing in gray the extent of offshore Tejas coal beds (Clarey 2021a). North America, recognizing about 3657 m (12,000 feet) of Pre-Sauk strata extending from Sonora, Mexico, through the Cordillera, to the North Slope of Alaska (Wingerden 2003, his Figure 1). They concluded these rocks were part of the earliest Flood activity. However, in many other locations that contain Pre-Sauk sediments and volcanic rocks, it is not so easy to identify an exact level where the Flood began without doing considerably more research. For simplicity, we chose to start with the Sauk megasequence as our initial Flood boundary, recognizing that it is not always the case. Further research into the pre-Flood boundary across the globe is needed, but it is beyond the scope of this paper. Part of the problem is that some Pre-Sauk sediments may have been either created on Day 3 of Creation Week as direct fiat creation, or were sediments that formed during the 1,700 years between Creation and the Flood. It is also possible these layers were deposited in the earliest days or weeks of the Flood, during rifting, as mentioned above. Austin et al. (1994) concluded that substantial quantities of clastic and carbonate sediment must have existed in the pre-Flood ocean and were redistributed in the Flood. Just how much pre-Flood sediment actually existed is unknown. This is a topic for future study. Also, many pre-Flood (Pre-Sauk) sedimentary rocks were subsequently heated, deformed, and metamorphosed in the Flood year, sometimes distorting the original layering and likely also altering their radioisotope ages (Clarey 2020). This makes picking the exact pre-Flood/Flood boundary even more problematic in some locations. In other instances, the sedimentary structures and grain size of the sediments may help discern the pre-Flood/Flood boundary, as in the Sixtymile Formation of eastern Grand Canyon. Austin and Wise (1994) formulated their interpretation that the Sixtymile Formation is the bottom unit of the Sauk Megasequence in Grand Canyon using observable sedimentological evidence within the strata, noting that the formation contains large angular clasts indicative of high-energy deposition at the start of the Flood. The formation is composed primarily of sandstones and breccias and occasional mudstones and has a maximum thickness of 60 m. In 2018, the conventional geologic community arrived at a similar conclusion, finding that the Sixtymile Formation was much younger than originally thought (Karlstrom et al. 2018). Prior to this study, the secular community insisted that the formation was 650 million years old. Karlstrom et al. (2018) concluded that the Sauk Megasequence includes the Sixtymile Formation based on their age-dating of detrital zircons. However, they believe this unit marks the beginning of the first of several flooding events, not the beginning of the great Flood. Nonetheless, the pre-Flood/Flood boundary is fairly well defined in most locations and is commonly found at the base of the Sauk megasequence. b. Upper Flood Boundary For decades, creation scientists have debated the level at which the Flood ended in the rock record. However, most agree that the Flood/post-Flood boundary is at one of two levels: 1) at the top of the Cretaceous system, known as the K-Pg (K-T) horizon (Austin et al. 1994; Whitmore and Garner 2008; Whitmore and Wise 2008) or 2) at or near the top of the Neogene (Upper Cenozoic) at about the Pliocene level (Clarey, 2017; Oard 2013) Clarey (2020, p. 339) has called this the N-Q boundary for Neogene-Quaternary. Our examination of the global rock data from five continents is helping to resolve this matter. Below, we present numerous geologic observations that demonstrate the Flood/post-Flood boundary is much higher than the K-Pg level and likely near the N-Q. Some of these features are so large and/or unusual in scale that local post-Flood catastrophes could not have conceivably produced them. Others demonstrate geologic conditions that could only have existed while CLAREY AND WERNER Progressive Flood model 2023 ICC 434
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