Welcome to Science, Scripture, and Salvation, a radio ministry of the Institute for Creation Research. In this program, we want to encourage you in your Christian faith by showing how scientific evidence supports the Bible, particularly the Genesis account. The book of Genesis lays the foundation for all matters addressed in the rest of the Bible. The nature of God, His sovereignty in creation, man's purpose, sin, marriage, family, and why we need a Savior are all introduced and explained in Genesis. When we see that the first and most foundational book of the Bible can be trusted in all matters, including science, it builds confidence in the rest of the inspired word all the way to Revelation.
Today's episode features Dr. Jake Hebert, physicist and research associate with the Institute for Creation Research. Here's Dr. Heber. In February 2015, a German research ship discovered a large batch.
Of these balls of manganese ore in the Atlantic Ocean, a few hundred miles east of Barbados. And many of these balls were the size of softballs and some were as large as bowling balls. And this was the largest such batch of these pellets, if you will, that were ever found in the Atlantic Ocean.
Now these balls or pellets are called manganese nodules. As the name implies, they are made of manganese, but they often contain iron, nickel, and other valuable metals. And they're found in every ocean, but are most numerous in the Pacific.
So in this episode of Science, Scripture, and Salvation, we discuss how these manganese nodules present problems for those who believe in millions of years, but are consistent with the recent creation and the global flood described in Genesis. But in order to understand why that's the case, we have to first briefly talk about seafloor sediments on the ocean floor and how fast they accumulate. You see, the oceans are filled with enormous numbers of these tiny marine organisms called foraminifera.
Now, when these creatures die, their remains become part of the debris littering the ocean floor. And you also have sediments being eroded from the continents and deposited in the oceans as well.
So, some of these seafloor sediments originate from the continents, and some originate from the remains of these microscopic creatures.
Now, today, these sediments accumulate very slowly on the ocean floor. At today's rates, it would typically take a thousand years for just a few centimeters of sediment to accumulate. And yet, these sediments are very thick. They're hundreds of meters thick, and even thousands of meters thick in some places.
So, because of these very slow rates and great thicknesses, secular scientists have concluded that the bulk of the seafloor sediments are many millions of years old. And they assume that because sediments are deposited slowly today, they have always Been deposited slowly, and this is because they hold to a philosophy called uniformitarianism. Which can be summarized with the motto, The present is the key to the past. In fact, the Apostle Peter told us in the third chapter of his second epistle that there would come in the last days those holding to this particular uniformitarian philosophy, and because they hold to this philosophy, they will scoff and deny creation, the flood, and the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So uniformitarians say that since seafloor sediments are deposited slowly today, they've always been deposited slowly. And they would say that since erosion generally occurs slowly today, it's always been slow. But there's more than one way to get large amounts of sediments on the ocean floor. You can have them deposited slowly for a very long time. Or you can have them deposited quickly in a short time.
And let me repeat that because that's extremely important. There's more than one way to get large amounts of sediments on the ocean floor. You can deposit them slowly for a long time, or you can deposit them quickly in a short time.
Now, creation scientists today would agree that these rates are slow and have been slow for thousands of years. But even a few thousand years of slow seafloor sediment deposition can only account for a tiny fraction of all the sediments on the ocean floor. And so for this reason, secular scientists would claim that this is an argument for an old earth in millions of years. But we would argue that this deposition of sediments was much faster during the Genesis flood for at least two reasons. First, enormous amounts of erosion would have occurred during the flood.
Toward the end of the flood in particular, there would be huge amounts of material that would have been planed off the continents by fast-moving sheets of water as these floodwaters drained off the continents. And these rates of erosion and deposition would have remained quite high, even for some time after the flood. Second, due to the enormous amount of volcanic activity and seafloor spreading that occurred during the flood, the post-flood oceans would have been quite warm, and all the erosion during the flood would have caused these oceans to be mineral-rich. And these warm, mineral-rich waters would have been very favorable to the growth of phytoplankton-like algae.
So, well, four raminifera feed on phytoplankton, and so we would expect these four raminifera to thrive. Especially in the warm post-flood waters and to have become especially numerous. And their abundant remains would have also contributed to the rapidly accumulating seafloor sediments after the flood.
So, here's the question: Are there clues within these seafloor sediments themselves that can help us discern whether the bulk of the sediments were deposited slowly or quickly?
Well, there certainly are. These metallic pellets called manganese nodules that we've talked about earlier are found on every ocean floor, and they're often the size of potatoes. And these form when you have chemicals in the ocean water or within the waters within the sediments themselves that accumulate onto a small nucleus of some kind, like a shark's tooth. And this causes the nodule to grow, and that nodule will continue to grow until it's been covered by a few centimeters of sediment. And after that, the nodules stop growing.
So, these nodules can only grow when they are at or near the surface of the seafloor. Sediments when they're close to that water-sediment interface.
Well, there are two curious facts about these nodules that need to be explained. Most of the nodules are found only in the uppermost seafloor sediments. How do we know this?
Well, we don't have X-ray vision, so we can't see into the sediments, but we can drill and extract cores from the sediments. And when we examine the cores, most of the nodules are found only in the uppermost core sections.
Now, some are found at greater depths, but even in these cases, the nodules may have slumped down from higher depths within the cores. But regardless, it's definitely true that most nodules are found only in the uppermost sediments.
Now, remember that these sediments are hundreds and even thousands of meters thick, but most of these nodules are found in just the uppermost 20 inches or so. Why? And likewise, another thing that needs to be explained is that the nodules get larger as you go in higher into the sediments. As you go deeper into the sediments, they either disappear or become rare.
So, how do we explain that?
Well, in the next Segment: We'll discuss how these clues match what we would expect from the Genesis flood.
Now it's time for a short break. We'll hear more from Dr. Hebert in a moment. From sharks to butterflies, bats to orangutans, we can't help but marvel at the stunning and amusing creatures God has made. If you and your kids enjoy learning about animals, then you'll love our book, Guide to Animals, with its beautiful full-color images and fascinating facts.
Published by the Institute for Creation Research, Guide to Animals provides answers to many popular questions about the animal kingdom. How do chameleons change colors? How do jellyfish live without a brain? And what happened to the dinosaurs and other extinct animals? Guide to Animals shows how everything that can slither, crawl, soar, or swim displays the handiwork of God.
Order your copy of Guide to Animals from the Institute for Creation Research by calling 800-628-7640 or visiting icr.org. That's 800-628-7640 or visiting icr.org. Welcome back to Science, Scripture, and Salvation. Here's Dr. Hebert.
Well here we are talking about these manganese nodules, these pellets we find on the ocean floor, and there's two observations about these pellets that have to be explained. First, most of them are found only in the uppermost sediments, say the uppermost 20 inches or so, and second, the nodules get larger as you go higher in the sediments.
So how do we explain this?
Well creation geologist Kenneth Patrick pointed out a very simple explanation for this that was published in the Journal of Creation. The reason we don't see manganese nodules in the deeper sediments is because they were deposited so fast that the nodules did not have time to grow to any appreciable size.
Now, remember, the nodules can only grow when they're at or near the surface of the sediments.
So, if you have a shark's tooth sitting on the ocean floor and all this sediment is rapidly dumped on it, well, there's no way that a manganese nodule can grow and form. And this is consistent with the Genesis flood. Creation scientist Larry Vardaman pointed out years ago that you would expect seafloor sediments to be deposited extremely rapidly during the flood and in the years afterward, but the rates would gradually slow down to the slow rates that we observe today. And that's why we only see most of these nodules in the uppermost sediments. The vast majority of the sediments were deposited at the end of the flood when the rates were just too fast.
The sediments were being dumped too quickly into the oceans for the nodules to form. But in the years after the flood, the rates slowed down. You could get small nodules. To form, and then the rates got a little slower still, allowing slightly larger nodules to form. And eventually, the rates slowed enough so that these potato-sized nodules we see at the surface could form.
So, the bottom line here is that the bulk of these sediments were deposited rapidly as a result of the Genesis flood.
Now, of course, uniformitarian scientists are aware of this oddity about the manganese nodules. They've tried to come up ways to explain this that don't require a global flood, but their explanations violate their uniformitarian assumptions. If the present is the key to the past and nodules are being formed today, then why weren't they formed in the past? Or if they were formed in the past, why weren't they preserved? If we see nodules on the uppermost, most recent seafloor sediments, well, why don't we consistently see them in the deeper sediments too?
Why don't we see nodules equally abundant in all depths within the seafloor sediments?
Well, the obvious answer is because, contrary to uniformitarianism, the present is not the key to the past. The key to the past, to correctly understanding the past, is the divinely inspired history of God's Word that helps us to make sense of the geological data. The Genesis flood really happened, and this helps us to make sense of these observations about these little metallic pellets called manganese nodules.
Now, there's a lot more we could say about this. For instance, manganese nodules provide still another clue that there's something seriously wrong with radioactive dating methods. Based on these radioactive dating methods, secular scientists claim that these nodules grow extremely slowly at the rate of just a few millimeters per million years. Yet, here's the problem: these nodules have been observed growing at rates 100,000 and even a million times faster than this in lakes and man-made reservoirs, and they've even been observed growing on underwater debris from World War II.
So it's kind of like that Grafio Marx line. Who are you going to believe, me or your two lying eyes?
Well, who are you going to believe here? The uniformitarians calculated ages based on their doubtful uniformitarian assumptions are the observations that we actually see.
So contrary to what the secular scientists say, the science is consistent with what the Bible tells us about the Genesis flood. Thank you for joining us on Science, Scripture, and Salvation, a radio ministry of the Institute for Creation Research. That's all the time we have for our program today, but we would love to connect with you through our website at icr.org. For over 45 years, ICR has equipped believers with evidence of the Bible's accuracy and authority by showing how science supports the Genesis creation account. Our scientists research the evidence for creation and communicate their findings through books, articles, DVD series, and conferences.
Please visit our website at icr.org for more information about the Latest scientific discoveries, to subscribe to our free magazine and devotional, and to locate our next creation conference at a venue near you. All of this and more at icr.org. If you've enjoyed this podcast, subscribe to Science, Scripture, and Salvation on iTunes. Also, do us a favor and rate and review the show so that more listeners can find us. Thanks for listening and God bless.
