Geology’s Hypothetical Structure

THE science of geology has contributed to man’s knowledge of his home, the earth. By means of the work of skilled geologists much has been learned about the makeup of our planet.

However, dedicated Christians, who have been convinced by ample evidence that the Holy Bible is truly the Word of God, have taken note of apparent discrepancies between geology and the creation account of Genesis. They have noted assertions made by geologists that organic life has been in existence here on earth for hundreds of millions of years. There is a vast difference, indeed, between these claims and the evidence in the Holy Scriptures that life has existed here, not for hundreds of millions but, at most, for tens of thousands of years. (Gen. 1:20-28; 2:1-3; Heb. 4:1-11) What, then, of these claims made by most geologists of our day? Has the Genesis account of creation been disproved? Let us see.

Geologists have classified the rocks that make up our globe into three basic categories: (1) igneous; (2) sedimentary and (3) metamorphic.

Igneous rocks have solidified from a molten state and form the foundation of the earth. They are, therefore, called “primary.” Granite is an example of this rock.

The sedimentary rocks are more recent in origin and have been formed either by accumulation of fragments of older rocks or by the wearing away of older rock due to chemical precipitation. They are found resting upon one another in layers, called strata. Although geologists have discovered vast thicknesses of such strata, they represent only a shallow layer on the igneous and metamorphic foundation of the crust.

Metamorphic rocks have undergone a change from previous igneous or sedimentary rocks by the action of heat, pressure and fluid. Marble is an example of such an occurrence, it being originally limestone.

The “Geologic Column”

The sedimentary rocks especially are packed with fossils. So, the question naturally arises, How and when did all these sedimentary rocks with their abundance of fossils get there?

In an effort to answer this question geologists have created a hypothetical structure known as the “geologic column.” This is a chart found in textbooks of geology. It divides the alleged history of life on earth into four principal eras: (1) Pre-cambrian; (2) Paleozoic (era of old life); (3) Mesozoic (era of middle life); (4) Cenozoic (era of recent life). These eras are subdivided into twelve periods and finally into epochs. A time scale has been attached to this chart giving ages ranging into thousands of millions of years.

Is it true that if a person were to dig down into the earth he would find the rock strata in that sequence? Are the ages assigned to the different life-forms reliable?

Uniformitarianism a Foundation

Upon closer examination it becomes apparent that the above “geologic column” has been built up upon two other theories as foundation pillars​—“uniformitarianism” and organic evolution.

What is meant by uniformitarianism? This teaches basically that “the present is the key to the past” or that geological processes have always been uniform. Thus, by measuring what is going on in the seas and on the earth at present, geologists feel that they can deduce what has taken place in the past.

The theory was suggested in the eighteenth century but did not receive general acceptance until the publication of Sir Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1830-1833). In explanation of this idea Lyell pioneered the opinion that all the sedimentary rocks were deposited by extremely slow processes, such as rain washing loose sand down a mountain slope to a river; the river carrying these sediments into the sea. We are told that the sea basin would fill up, the water being pushed over onto the former land area. Then the process starts over again. And thus the continents have seesawed back and forth for countless aeons of time.

In this way uniformitarianism purports to account for the thousands of feet of sedimentary rock that encircles the “primary” rock of our earth. Of course, thousands of millions of years would be required for such a process.

Evolution Theory Involved

It is interesting to note that shortly after Lyell published the above-mentioned book, Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species appeared. He seized upon the newborn theory of geology as the long-sought answer to explain his idea of organic evolution by natural selection and survival of the fittest.

What Darwin needed was what uniformitarianism offered​—unlimited time. Commenting on this, Don L. Eicher in his book Geologic Time stated: “Lyell’s wide influence prepared the ground for succeeding accomplishments of the nineteenth century, including those of Charles Darwin, whose ideas on the gradual development of living things could not have flourished without the intellectual framework of vast time.”

Geologists then became accustomed to explaining their discoveries in terms of evolution. Strata containing fossils of “simple” organisms were considered older than those with more complex ones. Thus, with uniformitarianism and evolution as the two main supporting pillars, the “geologic column” was constructed.

The Truth About the “Geologic Column”

When confronted with the chart, students of geology may assume the rock strata actually follow, one after the other, in that exact order. But is that the case?

Note what American geologist T. C. Chamberlain has to say about this: “It is not possible to proceed directly downward through the whole succession of bedded rocks. . . . The full series of strata is made out only by putting together this data gathered throughout all lands; and even when this is done, an absolutely complete series cannot yet be made out, or at least has not been.”

Further observing that there is no actual “record of the rocks” in their assumed order is the following admission from the work Introduction to Geology (1958; p. 11) by H. E. Brown, V. E. Monnett and J. W. Stovall:

“Whatever his method of approach, the geologist must take cognizance of the following facts. . . . There is no place on the earth where a complete record of the rocks is present. Some areas have been the sites of deposition of sediment for millions of years, whereas other regions have been subjected to the wearing action of natural agencies for equal periods of time. To reconstruct the history of the earth, scattered bits of information from thousands of locations all over the world must be pieced together. The results will be at best only a very incomplete record. If the complete story of the earth is compared to an encyclopedia of thirty volumes, then we can seldom hope to find even one complete volume in a given area. Sometimes only a few chapters, perhaps only a paragraph or two, will be the total geological contribution of a region; indeed, we are often reduced to studying scattered bits of information more nearly comparable to a few words or letters.”

In other words, the entire geologic column, with its high-sounding eras, periods and epochs, is merely a matter of guesswork, a hypothetical structure. There is no place on earth where such a succession of rock strata exists.

Recently Professor of Geology Richard M. Pearl commented on this matter as follows on page 14 of the book, 1001 Questions Answered About Earth Science (1969): “Obviously, then, the geologic record in any area is far from complete. This fact was first perceived by Charles Darwin in his classic book ‘Origin of Species’ (1859), where he expressed his belief that more of geologic time is represented by breaks than by strata.”

Upside-down Conditions of Strata

But not only that. Often geologists have found rock layers resting on one another in the reverse order; that is, a stratum having fossils of simple organisms on top of one having more complex ones.

Byron C. Nelson, in his book The Deluge Story in Stone, refers to an area comprising part of Montana, Alberta and British Columbia, fully 7,000 square miles, where Precambrian rock (said to be formed over a thousand million years ago) lies above “Cretaceous” strata (which are supposed to be less than two hundred and fifty thousand years old).

Is the Present a Key to the Past?

If we examine a pillar of geology’s hypothetical structure, namely, uniformitarianism with its teaching that “the present is the key to the past,” we notice here, too, serious problems.

One might assume that it would be a simple matter to measure the annual rate of the formation of sediment today and then to calculate how long it would take to deposit the various thicknesses of sedimentary rock found on the earth. But this method presents many difficulties.

Illustrating the problem are comments found on page 111 of the current textbook, Principles of Geology by Gilluly, Waters and Woodford. The authors there refer to a 500-foot thickness of chalk in the Paris Basin and go on to say: “The strata of chalk are composed of skeletons of minute animals and plants. Similar deposits are accumulating today at rates so slow as to defy precise measurement​—certainly no more than a few millimeters per century and probably much less.”

To complicate matters further, the rates of sedimentation in different places vary greatly, and few have been measured accurately. As to the thought of obtaining an annual average, the same publication points out that it “can only be guessed at.”

There is another problem, too. The type of sediment being deposited today is unlike any that is found in the rock strata. The noted geologist Archibald Geikie commented on this in his Textbook of Geology as follows: “We know what are the leading characters of the accumulations now forming on the deeper parts of the ocean-floor. So far as we know, they have no analogues among the formations of the earth’s crust.”

What of the impressive ages that geologists assign to their time scale based upon the decay of radioactive elements found in certain rocks? The publishers of this magazine have often pointed out that age determination by radioactive decay methods is fraught with uncertainties. One of the difficulties of assigning ages to rock strata by this means is referred to by Henry Faul, in his book, Ages of Rocks, Planets, and Stars: “Rocks that are suitable for age measurement and at the same time reliably correlated with the stratigraphic sequence are very rare.”

Geologists have certainly proved woefully lacking with their time measurements based upon uniformitarianism and evolution. Far from the present geological processes being a key to the past, they “have no analogues” in the stratified formations of the earth. In fact, they cannot even be accurately measured. Besides that, rock layers are frequently found “upside-down” and “more of geologic time is represented by breaks than by strata.”

How, then, did the huge masses of sedimentary rocks with their innumerable fossils get there?

Strata Deposited Rapidly

In pursuing the answer it is interesting to note that the rock strata literally teem with fossils that show clear evidence of having been deposited rapidly.

Scottish geologist Hugh Miller made painstaking investigations of a species of rock called the “old red sandstone” (part of the “Devonian” system in the geologic column). Miller took particular note of its abundance of fossil fish and the peculiar positions in which they are found’ entombed in the rock. What was his conclusion as to how they got there?

On pages 221, 222 of The Old Red Sandstone Mr. Miller answers: “At this period of our history, some terrible catastrophe involved in sudden destruction the fish of an area at least a hundred miles from boundary to boundary. . . . The innumerable existences were annihilated at once.”

Able geologists have drawn similar conclusions with regard to all the stratified rocks. British geologist Sir Henry Howorth in The Glacial Nightmare and the Flood pointed out that “Nature has at times worked with enormous energy and rapidity. . . . the rocky strata teem with evidence of violent and sudden dislocations on a great scale.”

Evidence of catastrophe has been noticed not only in the stratified rocks, but also in the deposits that are on the surface of our globe. Time and again observers have been impressed at finding huge boulders sitting on top of the earth far from their sources. Some of these blocks, called “erratics,” weigh thousands of tons and apparently have traversed hundreds of miles of distance to their present locations.

Modern geologists, proceeding according to the uniformitarian principle, usually say they were carried there on top of huge glaciers during lengthy ice ages of the so-called “Pleistocene” epoch. They allege that when the glaciers melted they left the boulders where we now find them.

But there are many considerations that prove this theory to be unacceptable. One problem is that glaciers move only by force of gravity and, therefore, from higher elevations downward. However, the “erratic” boulders are frequently found at levels thousands of feet higher than their places of origin. To cite just one case, we find on the summit of Mr. Washington boulders of gray gneiss (a form of metamorphic rock) which were evidently carried there from a source “three to four thousand feet lower than their present elevation.”

Harmony of Genesis and Geology

But Bible students have often found that the Holy Scriptures provide satisfying solutions to problems left unsolved by scientific theories. In Genesis chapters six to eight we read of an earth-wide flood that brought an end to an era of wickedness. But would such a flood be equal to the task of uprooting and transporting the immense “erratic” boulders that we find strewn over the surfaces of the earth? Could it also account for the widespread destruction and sudden entombment in rocky matrices of countless thousands of organisms, great and small, that have been found in the fossil-bearing rocks?

The above-quoted Sir Henry Howorth noted that over the entire length of Siberia some cause swept away, simultaneously, all forms of earthly life. What did he consider the cause to be?

In search of the answer he wrote in The Mammoth and the Flood: “We want a cause that should kill the animals, and yet not break to pieces their bodies, or even mutilate them, . . . which would bury the bodies as well as kill the animals, . . . which could sweep together animals of different sizes and species, and mix them with trees and other debris of vegetation. What cause competent to do this is known to us, except rushing water on a great scale? . . . Water . . . is the only cause known to me capable of doing the work on a scale commensurate with the effects we see in Siberia.”

How well this agrees with the inspired Word of Jehovah God! Indeed, how accurate the Bible is when it says: “And the waters became overwhelming and kept increasing greatly upon the earth . . . And the waters overwhelmed the earth so greatly that all the tall mountains that were under the whole heavens came to be covered.”​—Gen. 7:18, 19.

Geology based on fact rather than guesswork supports the Bible record. From it we see clear evidence of the pre-Flood earth teeming with luxuriant vegetation and animal life having been suddenly plunged into watery destruction.

But when geological textbooks confront us with a theoretical time apparatus based upon uniformitarianism and evolution we want to remember that the facts do not support this conjecture. No, but there are huge gaps in the “record of the rocks,” “upside-down” conditions of the strata, “evidence of violent and sudden dislocations on a great scale” and distribution of huge “erratic” boulders far from their native source. All these things unite in revealing the “geologic column” with its accompanying time scale to be just what it is​—a hypothetical structure that does not represent the truth.