The Fossil Record 77complex and variable from region to region, with complex intertonguing contacts between
units and facies that change dramatically over relatively short distances within the same
part of the sequence. It is full of thousands of individual mudcracked layers and many dif-
ferent layers of salt and gypsum that simply cannot be explained by a single flood. There
are thousands of different layers with delicate fossils in life positions, undisturbed by a
single flood event.
All of this adds up to a simple conclusion: 200 years of mainstream geology (largely
done by scientists who were very religious) has shown that the geologic record is far too
complex for simplistic Bible myths. If the creationists were intellectually honest, they
would face this fact, instead of imagining fantastic explanations for the Grand Canyon
alone, and ignoring the remaining 99 percent of geology that cannot be twisted to fit their
peculiar ideas. (For a blow-by-blow discussion, see http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs
-ark.html#georecord.) Real scientists are not allowed to twist and torture data to fit their
preconceived conclusions or to ignore 99 percent of the data that cannot be made consis-
tent with the flood geology model.
The most significant implication of flood geology and its fantasy view of the earth is a
practical problem. Without real geologists doing their work, none of us would have the oil,
coal, gas, groundwater, uranium, and most other natural resources that we extract from the
earth. There are lots of devout Christians in oil and coal companies (I know many of them
personally), but they all laugh at the idea of flood geology and would never attempt to use it
FIGURE 3.9. Creationists try to align relatively simple flat-lying sequences like the Grand Canyon with Noah’s
flood and ignore the vast majority of geologic settings around the world that in no way resemble a “layer
cake” that could be deposited by a flood. For example, in the Basin and Range province of Utah and Nevada,
just north of the Grand Canyon, the geologic relationships are extremely complex. (A) Paleozoic and Mesozoic
beds are faulted and folded many times, with Paleozoic beds full of marine shells overthrust above Mesozoic
dinosaur-bearing beds (contrary to the idea that dinosaurs could outrun the marine invertebrates in the rising
flood). These older beds are then eroded off and unconformably overlain with early Cenozoic beds containing
fossil mammals. (B) The early Cenozoic beds were then cut by Miocene normal faults, and the basins were
filled with late Cenozoic sediments containing extinct horses, camels, mastodonts, and other Miocene land
mammals. None of this complex geometry could be explained by simplistic “Noah’s flood” models. (Modified
from Prothero and Dott 2010)