the Earth, especially in the vicinity of Flood fountain zones where the supercontinent fragmented. The buildup of water returning to within the Earth would subsequently have lowered the melting temperature and viscosity of mantle silicates. Thus, mantle convection was enhanced, enabling seafloor spreading to get underway. I infer that seafloor spreading is a consequence of the Flood Year’s receding waters. Fluid flow into fault zones alters their permeability and may aid episodic earthquake activity by promoting the generation of high pore fluid pressures and facilitating the formation of weak secondary minerals (Menzies et al. 2016). Thus, receding waters of Noah’s Flood flowing into deep opened fractures in fountain zones (graben zones between continental fragments) could enable reactivation of rifting, culminating in seafloor spreading. Minerals, such as ringwoodite, in the mantle boundary layer (at 410–660 km) could store about five times greater water than the total volume of seawater on the present-day Earth’s surface (Maruyama and Liou 2005) (Fig. 20). It has been proposed that supercontinents break up and migrate away from sites of mantle upwelling (geoid highs) (Gurnis 1988). Thus, rifted continental fragments of Gondwana would have been carried away from the Antarctic palaeo-upland (Fig. 3) as seafloor spread apart, enabled by a hydrated mantle boundary layer. When the modern geoid is plotted over the position of the continents and plate boundaries during the Mesozoic, the geoidal low corresponds in position to the circum-Pacific subduction zones (Chase and Sprowl 1983). 2. Post-Paleozoic continental tectonism and coal formation Mesozoic and Tertiary coals are found in much more diverse tectonic and sedimentary environments than Paleozoic coals (Bois et al. 1982; Dai et al. 2020; Fig. 14). Most Paleozoic hydrocarbon reservoir rocks were deposited in platform basins of gentle gradient and with relatively lower sedimentation rates. Paleozoic epicontinental seas were shallow and their gently sloping seabed was consistent with erosive peneplanation of pre-Flood topography (Dickens 2022). In contrast, Tertiary hydrocarbon reservoirs are found in tectonically active margins and rapidly subsiding basins (Bois et al. 1982). Significant Mesozoic and Tertiary coal measures and thick sedimentary sequences formed during a time of continental mountain building and regional burial episodes on active continental margins when the opening of today’s oceans by way of seafloor spreading was underway. Plants better suited to a drier land environment grew and became dominant compared with plants that have specialised tissues for conducting water (Fig. 7). Plants were transported by runoff from tectonically active mountain areas and buried in near coastal environments (such as adjacent to North America’s Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway) and in lakes (for example, in China). This plant matter subsequently formed coal measures. 3. Seaways on continents The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth (Psalm 104:8-9 ESV). The Jurassic Sundance Seaway of the North American Cordillera is an example of a site of subsidence associated in time with adjacent non-marine mountain building. Jurassic and Cretaceous seaways may have been extensive, but the surface of the earth was not completely covered with water by this time. Such seaways were commonly bounded by mountains on active continental margins. 4. Generally quiescent tectonism on passive margins Passive margins increased as Pangea progressively broke up. A passive margin is one formed by rifting followed by seafloor spreading. Present-day passive margins are found around the world and have an aggregate length of 105,000 km, even longer than the spreading ridges (65,000 km) (Bradley 2008). An example is shown in Fig. 12 where post-breakup passive margin sediments show little deformation and are inferred to have been relatively quiescent tectonically (Olierook et al. 2016). The average speed of opening of the Atlantic Ocean may be used as an example to illustrate that the ocean opening rate may have been consistent with quiescent tectonism. Using the Atlantic Ocean width of 1600 km and 40 days as a minimum duration, then the average speed of opening is less than 2 km/hour) (Appendix A). Such an average rate would not be expected to be a hindrance to migration of people and animals after the exit from Noah’s Ark. 5. A Bible verse consistent with extensional geotectonics To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother’s name was Joktan (Genesis 10:25 and 1 Chronicles 1:19 ESV). Henry M. Morris in his 1984 book The Biblical Basis for Modern Science indicated that since the word for “divided”, used in connection with the division of languages (Hebrew parad), was different from that used in the days of Peleg (Hebrew palag) when the earth was divided (Genesis 10:25), there existed the possibility that two different dividings were in view, one being that of the nations, the other a physical division of the continents. Peleg was born about a century after Noah’s Flood and lived to the age of 239. A Hebrew scholar concluded from detailed linguistic data that Genesis 10:25 referred to a division of the landmass by water in a post-Flood biblical catastrophe (Northrup 1979, 2004). Such linguistic evidence is consistent with the proposal that continental rifting and related movements occurred shortly after the actual year of Noah’s Flood (but as a consequence of the receding waters of the Flood Year). This would fit well the model in this paper of a Triassic drying and end-Flood scenario, since continental rifting to initiation of drift really got underway then (Kocsis and Scotese 2021) (Fig. 11). The verses describing Earth division taking place during the days of Peleg, are consistent with Pangea’s breakup and seafloor spreading having taken place over a period of time and possibly even during the approximately two centuries of Peleg’s life. G. Pleistocene Ice Age From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the frost of heaven? (Job 38:29 ESV). Seafloor spreading was associated with basaltic volcanism and heated oceanic water. Strong oceanic evaporation and volcanic aerosols were then factors in reducing temperatures and bringing on the Pleistocene Ice Age (Oard 1987). The ice dropped the sea level and submarine canyons were formed. DICKENS Flood Waters Lead to Seafloor Spreading 2023 ICC 467
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=