Soft-sediment deformation
| Goddidit! |
| Key claims |
| Science |
| Random articles |
Soft-sediment deformation is an argument used by creationists to support their belief in the reality of a Global Flood. The argument posits that because some sedimentary rocks appear to be bent in shape (e.g., the Kaibab Upwarp in the Grand Canyon) all convoluted strata were deformed during the period immediately after the Biblical flood, when their constituent sediments were still soft and wet. This is in contrast to the accepted theory that rocks, which may be hard, can deform over millions of years when subject to heat and compressional tectonic forces.
In real geology, soft-sediment deformation structures[wp] mean sediment got into cracks in an older rock and deformed it.
Contents |
[edit] Accepted theory
In orthodox geology, rock strata that are under constant pressure for millions of years can undergo plastic deformation, and no longer act like brittle rock. Thus, given sufficient time and stress, rock will begin to change shape. This concept seems alien at first glance as the, sometimes extreme, bending of apparently solid rock defies common sense. It is common to find fossils embedded in such strata that have also become deformed as they were squeezed along the direction of stress.[1][2]
Creationists assume that the world is less than 6000 years old and that it is unlikely that rock could be distorted in that little time unless it was soft. Obviously, rocks aren't soft and the world is far older than 6000 years old. Indeed, the deformation of rock strata — because rock is emphatically NOT soft and malleable — is one of the key pieces of evidence that shows the age of the Earth is much older than the 6000 to 10,000 years claimed by those in the YEC movement. It is not, however, circular reasoning to say that the Earth is millions of years old and therefore orthodox geology is correct as there is a lot of other evidence for the age of the Earth; the slow deformation of rock strata is one theory that is independently observed and happens to fit perfectly with the facts of other observations and explanations or predictions of other theories.
[edit] Issues with the soft-sediment interpretation
There are numerous problems with "soft-sediment" being used to explain folding of rock strata, not least the fact that rocks aren't actually soft. If rocks could be soft enough to undergo these sorts of alterations, we'd certainly see some examples of it happening now and this really isn't the case. Soft-sediment approaches also don't explain the observations where rock has deformed but has since weathered away and had new layers added to it, creating discontinuities in the strata. Also, the observation of fossils within such structures (and the fact that fossilisation processes are inconsistent with flood geology) and how they are deformed are not consistent with soft-sediment.