was completely covered by water. C. Marine transgression stage The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters (Genesis 7:17-18 ESV). There are no significant coal measures before the Late Paleozoic. This is consistent with floating vegetation during the marine transgression stage and later coming to ground and being buried with sediment in the receding waters stage. Paleozoic epicontinental seas are characterised by shallow water depth (only tens of meters), wide range (extending hundreds to thousands of kilometers) and very gentle seabed slope (less than 0.01o) (Hallam 1981; Zhang and Mi 2021). This is consistent with sedimentary deposition on land that was peneplaned early in the Flood Year. D. Receding waters stage The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen (Genesis 8:2-5 ESV). The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them (Psalm 104:8 ESV). 1. Commencement The receding and drying stages of the Flood Year took about 7 months (Genesis 8:1-11, Genesis 8:13-16). During these 7 months, land would have begun to appear and progressively increase in areal extent around the globe. There would be both marine and non-marine settings, rather than a globe-covering ocean. Non-marine depositional settings such as rivers and lakes would then have begun to appear on the supercontinent. The primary marine regression phase of the Flood Year commenced after the Flood fountains stopped and the rain was restrained. Regional tectonism, such as subsidence and uplift, would have caused higher order sea level changes. Cooling, and thus subsidence, is inferred to have taken place after hydrothermal flows from the Flood fountains had ceased, with rift valleys and grabens forming in marine zones between supercontinent fragments (Fig. 1). Regional mountain building was also underway including the Acadian Orogeny, which is associated with early marine regression and the deposition of the Devonian Old Red Sandstone in the eastern United States and northwestern Europe (Prothero and Dott 2010). The Mid-Carboniferous unconformity around the world is evidence that receding of Noahic Flood waters was proceeding on a global scale . Waters covering the Earth began to stream down into lower regions, especially rift and graben zones. For instance, the flow from Antarctica into the zone between Greater India and Western Australia (including what later became the Perth Basin half-graben). 2. Waxing and waning waters And turn back do the waters from off the earth, going on and returning; and the waters are lacking at the end of a hundred and fifty days… and the waters have been going and becoming lacking till the tenth month; in the tenth [month], on the first of the month, appeared the heads of the mountains (Genesis 8:3,5 YLT). The description of waters going and returning in the receding waters stage of the Flood account provides a consistent explanation for Permo-Pennsylvanian cyclothems. There is no need to invoke sea level changes due to the waxing and waning of so-called “ice sheets.” As previously mentioned, an absence of Gondwana cyclothems indicates that Gondwana “ice sheets” can be precluded as the sole cause of cyclothems (Isbell et al. 2003). Gondwanan basin-fill successions show consistent three-fold stages of lowermost coarse-grained strata (represented by diamictites and poorly sorted conglomerates), overlain by shales that in turn are succeeded by shallow marine and commonly coal-bearing deltaic and fluvial sandstones (Fig. 4b). I infer that the three stages represent mass flow deposition, shales formed during subsidence and then coal-bearing strata formed as plants came to ground and were buried. Within numerous basins of the southern hemisphere, there is a significant association in time and space of so-called “glacial retreat” (“deglaciation”) margins with rifting sites marked by Carboniferous-Permian unconformities (Yeh and Shellnutt 2016). The sedimentology of the Perth Basin highlights the key part so-called “glacial melt waters” have in transporting coarse- and fine-grained clastic sediment to marine basins (Eyles et al. 2006). I infer that these waters were receding waters of the Flood Year, rather than “glacial melt waters”. 3. Late Paleozoic mass flows Instead of a Late Paleozoic “Ice Age,” features such as diamictites, striated basement and so on are inferred to represent processes associated with energetically receding Flood waters. Strata of the so-called Late Paleozoic “Ice Age” (LPIA) represent one of the best-researched intervals of Earth’s history. However, unresolved issues remain. For instance, determining the climatic forcings that shaped ‘glacial-deglacial’ dynamics, accurately estimating associated “ice volume” and eustatic sea level changes, the nature and role of the oceans in the LPIA, and understanding feedbacks between the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere (Montanez and Poulsen 2013). A biblical alternative to a glacial origin for Permo-Carboniferous diamictites and conglomerates is that they formed as subaqueous mass flows while receding water of Noah’s Flood energetically streamed off the supercontinent, eroding and striating crystalline basement rocks. Water drained into areas of subsidence and downfaulting. Significant erosion produced numerous features reminiscent of glaciation yet were formed by submarine mass flows (Oard 1997). 4. Pre-Flood vegetation comes to ground Huge volumes of floating vegetation that had been stripped off the land early in the Flood Year would now have flowed down onto newly emerging land. With this primary regression of the Flood Year, these land plants flowed into lower-lying areas such as foreland basins or grabens of downwarped cratonic basins (Dai et al. 2020). Some vegetation that came to ground, dried and caught fire (Jasper et DICKENS Flood Waters Lead to Seafloor Spreading 2023 ICC 464
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