FOUR DSA MEMBERS attended the week-long Fourth International Conference on Creation Science held in Pennsylvania in August 1998. Attendee Will Tebbs will share one of the most interesting and significant of the presentation subjects, an update on research on rapid plate tectonics by Dr. John Baumgardner of Los Alamos.

Dr. Baumgardner is the world's leading expert in writing computer programs for supercomputers for simulating movement of magma in the mantle of the earth. He continues to make significant breakthroughs in his computer modeling of the subduction of oceanic plates as a possible mechanism for the world-wide flood in the days of Noah. As the ocean floor sank into the mantle, the resistance to the sinking now appears to have reduced by a factor of ten million or more, resulting in "runaway subduction."

Two half-hour video tapes are shown that illustrate that important hypotheses are being critically tested. If the rapid or "catastrophic" plate tectonics hypothesis does continue to conform to the evidence (without gratuitous ad hoc amendments ), it will become an important centerpiece of an alternative scenario for earth history.

The Lake Missoula Flood was rejected by scientists for 40 years, despite obvious evidence. It seemed too Biblical in scale. The evidence for glacial Lake Missoula and the gigantic flood through eastern Washington and northern Oregon, including the city of Portland, will be discussed. When J. Harland Bretz first presented evidence for the Lake Missoula Flood in the 1920s, he believed in only one or two floods. Once the idea was accepted in the 1960s, researchers soon postulated many more floods, starting with Bretz himself who thought he saw evidence for 6 to 8. Then Richard Waitt in the 1980s claimed there were 40-plus, floods based mainly on evidence from the Burlingame Canyon in the Walla Walla Valley. He was followed soon by Brian Atwater, who claimed there were 86 or more floods from the Sanpoil River Valley, northeast of Grand Coulee Dam. Then Gary Smith in the 1990s scaled back the number and finally John Shaw and colleagues recently published evidence for only one Lake Missoula Flood.

According to Michael Oard*, our October speaker, the evidence is strong that there was only one. This evidence is presented (with color slides), while the data thought to demonstrate multiple floods is explained within a one-flood paradigm. The Lake Missoula Flood has implications for other creationists and uniformitarian hypotheses:

First, the Lake Missoula Flood demonstrates that there really was an ice age–a catastrophe unexplained by uniformitarian geologists since it was caused by the climatic upheaval of the Genesis Flood. Second, the Lake Missoula Flood can be used as an imperfect analog for the Genesis Flood. Third, the Lake Missoula flood has given impetus for scientists to discover other ice age floods in various areas. Fourth, and more controversial to creationists is that the Lake Missoula Flood can be used to show that the dam-breach hypothesis for the origin of the Grand Canyon is not likely. Fifth, aspects of the Lake Missoula Flood hint that the widespread Palouse loess in eastern Washington may be a product of the Genesis Flood reworked by ice age winds. Dr. Harold Coffin has been investigating this radical interpretation and it appears to have merit. Finally, as scientists missed the obvious evidence for the Lake Missoula Flood because of their strong anti–Biblical bias, similarly they cannot see copious evidence for the Genesis Flood on Earth.

*Meteorologist Michael Oard is recently retired from the National Weather Service. He is a prolific writer and researcher and is a speaker for Answers In Genesis. Author of An Ice Age in the Genesis Flood, The Weather Book and others, his papers and letters are often seen in the Technical Journal.

(taped 10/2001 2 hours)

Where does the Flood end and the post–Flood world begin in the geologic record? There is controversy about this among creationists. Michael Oard sorts through the data as he shows slides that reveal compelling evidence for the Flood in the scenery.

In the last few years remarkable headway has been made by ICR geologist, Dr. Steven A. Austin, in the study of nautiloid fossils and the beds which contain them. These nautiloids are of a single species of Rayonnoceras that have straight, cigar-shaped shells. In the Grand Canyon they are found in one thin layer in the lowest member of the Redwall limestone.

John Hergenrather and Dennis Bokovoy assisted Dr. Austin in this field study at the Grand Canyon last April. John hosts a multimedia presentation (utilizing both PowerPoint visuals and video footage) on this cutting-edge research.

A look at the eruption of Mount St. Helens and how it provides evidence for the catastrophic power of a worldwide flood. Also, the theory for rapid coal formation by floating log mats as proposed by Dr. Steven Austin is discussed. Those who have seen Dr. Austin's video on this subject can add to their knowledge by watching this video.

When Mount St Helens erupted 21 years ago May 18th, the Northwest's greatest recreational paradise became a wasteland in just nine hours. The Fuji of America became an ugly hollow. Deep clear Spirit Lake became a shallow, bubbling cauldron of decay.

Camping was out, gawking and scientific study were in. This devastation and its rapid recovery still attracts over 2 million visitors each year. However, if it were not for Creation Scientists, tourists might be led to believe the earth was simply recycling itself. They might not understand that God was at work disputing slow and gradual evolutionary processes, reminding us again what NoahÕs Flood did to change the earthÕs surface.

At DSA's April meeting, Director of the Seven Wonders Creation Museum Lloyd Anderson clearly shows how catastrophic processes at Mount St Helens rearranged several hundred square miles of the earthÕs surface beyond recognition, produced a river system in a day, deposited a hundred layers in hours, carved canyons through rock in months and put to rest a myth perpetuated at Yellowstone National Park for many years.

If you have not visited Mount St. Helens at all or recently, you will also want to hear Anderson's tips on how to make the most of a visit there.

A documentary showing the effects of the eruption on streams draining the mountain, and the elaborate flood detection systems that were placed in these streams. Post–eruption catastrophism at Mount St. Helens is discussed in relationship to catastrophic events following Noah’s flood.

John Hergenrather, Dr. Harold Coffin, Michael Oard and Dennis Bokovoy spent two summers studying quartzite gravel deposits in local areas. Numerous deposits, hundreds of miles from their source, contain many large rocks that have been carried by water along a slope with only a slight gradient. This seems to indicate that they were transported by a large quantity of rapidly moving water, perhaps the receding waters of Noah's Flood.

A slide show explaining theories of Colombia River basalt formation and subsequent erosion. Dr. Coffin suggests these events probably occurred over a relatively short period of time, possibly under the waters of Noah’s Flood.

Author, lecturer and researcher Michael J. Oard* returns to DSA in September to address the fascinating topic of plate tectonics. Oard describes his talk as follows:

The Genesis Flood was a global event. According to Genesis 6-9 the Flood had one cause, man's evil, and two mechanisms: 1) the fountains of the great deep and 2) the floodgates of the heavens. As scientists we are left with the question: what was the geophysical mechanism behind the Flood? Catastrophic plate tectonics (CPT) is currently the most popular model among creationists. I will critique this model and two other models for the geophysical mechanism: 1) Walter BrownÕs hydroplate hypothesis and 2) the impact/vertical tectonics hypothesis. The best approach to a new area of science where there are few known facts is to use the principle of multiple working hypotheses, allowing several competing models. All three models need to explain the existence and origin of the mid-ocean ridge, sediments an average of one mile deep on the continents, the fossil order (whatever that is), the draining of the Flood waters, etc. I will start by critiquing Walter BrownÕs model, which I see especially problematic in the following areas: the initial conditions, a broad brush with little detailed evidence, the origin of trenches, the death of the mammoths in Siberia, the origin of comets and asteroids, the origin of the Grand Canyon, and the Ice Age.

It may surprise many of you, but CPT is also problematic as to the mechanism for the Flood. Major problems as I see them include: the initial conditions, a broad brush with little detailed evidence, the origin of trenches, assumes plate tectonics, assumes the geological column as an exact Flood sequence, assumes relative fossil dating, and a heat problem.

The mechanism I favor, at least at the moment, is meteorite impacts with vertical tectonics. This model has an energy source, like the other models. Evidence for meteorite bombardment during the Flood is displayed by the discovery of an increasing number of impact sites on Earth and by the past bombardment of the other bodies in the solar system. It is surmised that 10 to 20 thousand impacts of various sizes occurred early in the Flood, but that the Flood erased the evidence for most of them. This model can explain the generation and transport of the copious amount of sediment found on the continents and 40 days of heavy rainfall. However, the model also has problems, primarily the translation of so many local impacts into a systematic regional and global tectonic reaction. At this point, it has been little developed. The model cannot, as of yet, account for the mid-ocean ridges and their 900 offsets and fracture zones, the differential vertical tectonics at local to large scales that drained the Flood waters during the last 221 days of the Flood, and very large linear fractures on continents.

An analysis of oceanic trenches will be used to examine which model is favored, at least with respect to this variable. We must also be open to the possibility that at this point none of the existing models describe the main geophysical mechanism of the Flood. Since this talk will be quite controversial within creationist circles, a long question and answer session will close the talk.

*Meteorologist Michael Oard is recently retired from the National Weather Service. He is a prolific writer and researcher and is a speaker for Answers In Genesis. Author of An Ice Age Caused By the Genesis Flood, The Weather Book and Life in the Great Ice Age, his articles and letters are often seen in the Technical Journal.

As the waters of the Flood drained off the continents, they left many geologic features that have challenged the theories of evolutionary geologists. Mike takes us around the world via slides and provides intriguing explanations for how these features may have been formed.