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Welcome to a video lecture entitled Creation and Catastrophe.
This session holds the potential to transform your outlook on the world around you.
You will look at science with a new understanding and life may never be the same again.
The basis of this lecture is an attractive wall chart in full colour.
It offers a unique approach to the study of rocks and fossils,
global catastrophes, geological time scales and related events.
You can obtain your copy from the address given at the end of this program.
There are three main features of the chart.
Firstly, the horizontal strips give details of each geological era,
their dominant life forms and the catastrophes that ended them.
The second feature of the chart is the series of vertical panels
that showed the progression of the geological eras,
the change in predominant flora and fauna
and the successive catastrophes that overwhelmed our planet.
The third feature is a startling new development.
There is a harmonisation of three different time scales shown on the chart.
The first is atomic time in millions of years before present, BP.
Then there is our usual calendar of orbital years in AD or BC.
And finally, biblical years after creation, AC.
At first sight, a harmonisation of these three seems absolutely preposterous.
On what basis can three such diverse time scales be synchronised?
How can millions of atomic years BP
possibly correspond to a few thousand historical years BC?
To answer this puzzle, let us examine these three time scales
beginning with our usual orbital or calendar clock.
It is normal for us to measure time in this way.
One year on this clock is the time it takes for the Earth to go once around the Sun.
This clock runs at a constant rate.
This system of measuring time is the basis for our historical years AD or BC.
The Bible also uses this unchanging time scale.
Genesis 1.14 explicitly states that the Sun, Moon and Stars were given to measure time.
So actual orbital years of elapsed time begin at the creation event
and are counted as years AC after creation.
These years can be deciphered from the father to son listing of descendants from Adam in Genesis 5 and 11.
But there is a third way, often used by scientists, to measure time.
It's called the atomic clock.
This clock frequently dates the age of objects in millions of years BP before present.
We call it atomic time as the movement of particles within the atom determines how fast it ticks.
You will have heard of atomic clocks under other names such as carbon-14 or uranium-thorium-lead dating.
However, there are several forms of this clock.
For example, cesium clocks are used today as standard atomic timekeepers for the world.
It is by these atomic clocks that scientists measure the age of the rocks, the fossils, the planets and stars.
Now, here is the crucial point.
It used to be thought that the atomic and orbital clocks were running at the same constant rate.
For example, if a rock was atomically dated as, say, 1 million years BP,
it was thought that this equaled 1 million orbital years.
Recently, however, Dr Thomas Van Flandern of the US Naval Observatory in Washington
showed that one clock was running faster than the other.
In a research report from Stanford Research Institute published in August 1987,
Trevor Norman and I demonstrated the reason why.
The atomic clock is affected by the behavior of the speed of light,
and the speed of light has not been constant.
Scientists usually abbreviate light speed with the letter C, ABC.
Light speed C must therefore be reckoned with to discover how many ordinary years have elapsed.
For example, when C was 10 times its current speed,
the atomic clock ran 10 times faster and ticked off 10 years in one of our ordinary orbital years.
Obviously, if we knew how C had varied, we could correct the atomic clock to read actual calendar years.
The change in C is shown on this graph.
Following an initial steep linear drop, light speed overshot the final value it will attain,
then climbed to a new high and has been tapering down ever since.
The measured values of C over the last 300 years are shown here.
The obvious drop with time displayed on this graph was the subject of many articles in scientific journals
in the period from 1920 to 1945.
Every measured value of light speed was lower than the previous one during that interval.
Light speed can also be found by comparing known orbital dates for various artifacts,
corals and tree rings, with their date on the atomic clock.
We can then trace C behaviour back to about 4550 years, giving this graph on the bottom left of the chart.
In 2600 BC, the graph shows that light speed C was beginning to climb up from its minimum.
It reached a high point about 1200 AD and has been systematically dropping since then.
Further back in time, we can trace C behaviour from the appearance of light from distant galaxies.
The higher the value of C, the redder will be the emitted light.
The further we look out into space, the further down towards the red end of the rainbow spectrum
is light shifted from those galaxies.
The effect is shown on this montage by the shift of the position of the arrow.
We can therefore measure what the value of C was right out to the limits of the universe.
The result is graphed in the top right hand corner of the chart.
Shortly after the origin of the universe, light from those distant astronomical objects
indicates that C was about 11 million times faster than now.
At the time of creation of the universe then, this high value for C meant the atomic clock ticked off 11 million years
in one ordinary orbital year.
This is why everything seems so old when measured by the atomic clock.
Knowing how light speed has behaved, we can correct atomic time to actual orbital years as shown on our calendars.
Bible chronology then fits into astronomy and geology and all three timescales harmonize into one beautiful whole.
The first vertical panel on the chart displays this.
There, the births, deaths and lifespans of the biblical patriarchs are given on the three clocks.
Though the values of C have come from distant galaxies, its behaviour indicates that all three systems
must have a date around 5792 BC for the origin of the universe.
Surprisingly, this chronology coincides with the standard biblical text in use up to the close of the first century AD.
It was quoted by Josephus, Jesus, the apostles and the early church fathers.
That chronology is discussed on the bottom horizontal strip and also in this handbook which is available with the chart upon request.
Right to the address given at the close of the program for details.
This light speed evidence therefore indicates that the universe is young, less than 10,000 years old.
There is considerable evidence for this.
An excellent example comes from our nearest neighbour in space as the amount of dust on the moon indicates youthfulness.
Dr Walter T Brown, who was Chief of Science for the US Air Force,
has recently calculated that even at its present known rate of infall, dust swept up from space
should form a layer over 2,000 feet thick if the moon has been there for 4.5 billion years.
Indeed, almost up to the first manned landing, the view was held that the dust layer was very thick.
The first astronaut said, I can scuff through the dust with my boot to the solid rock beneath.
Measurements from the manned landing show that the average dust layer is about 2 inches thick, of which 1.6 comes from space.
A simple calculation then shows that the moon is less than 10,000 years old.
The conclusion is that the moon is only as old as mankind.
A second example involves the ring systems of the giant outer planets, including those of beautiful Saturn.
Their rings indicate youthfulness as they would have been pulverised to smithereens by meteorite bombardment in only 10,000 years.
As Dr J N Cousy wrote in Sky and Telescope in January 1985,
it becomes a real trick to maintain the ring since the formation of the solar system.
Of course, but only if the solar system has been there for longer than 10,000 years.
Right out in the depths of space, movement of galaxies tell the same story.
Professor Halton Arp in his book Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies on page 119 asks, and I quote,
Where are the motions of galaxies which should occur as the result of their falling around each other under the influence of their mutual gravity?
The answer is that they have not been there long enough for them to have built up speed.
A large number of astronomical puzzles disappear if the universe is young.
Given an origin date for all things less than 10,000 years ago, it is then beyond question that mankind was there from the beginning.
This differs violently with evolutionary theory. We need observational proof.
Is there any evidence that human activity occurred in each geological era?
Let's follow this topic up the chart.
Exquisite cave paintings such as this horse and a multitude of stone and bone implements indicate mankind's presence over the last 35,000 to 100,000 atomic years.
But let's go beyond that to part of the Cenozoic era called the Pliocene, which started over 12 million atomic years ago.
On a drilling operation in Nampa, Idaho, USA, the drill core had penetrated a 15-foot thick lava layer and had gone over 300 feet deep.
When the drill was in a layer dated at approximately 5 million atomic years, the core brought up this 4-centimeter baked clay image of a man.
Now dolls don't form by accident. Therefore, one must conclude that humans were around some 5 million atomic years ago.
This is not an isolated instance. In the early part of the Cenozoic era, human skeletons have been found in 14 locations in Europe, USA and Africa.
Foot and sandal prints were discovered in four locations and metal artifacts in two.
Further evidence is provided by part of the Mesozoic era called the Cretaceous.
In the Turkmenia region of the old USSR, many dinosaur prints were discovered.
Amazingly enough, the news agency TASS on November 21, 1983, reported that Professor Kerben Amaniazov pictured on location here and found human footprints along with the dinosaur prints.
The same situation exists in this area by the Paluxy River near Glen Rose in Texas, USA.
A variety of footprints of barefoot humans exist side by side with dinosaur prints, again in Cretaceous strata dated at 120 million atomic years.
Here a dinosaur track is in the foreground and a man track is behind it.
There are also footprints of barefoot children along with giant prints.
I had this cast made from one giant print. The man must have been about 10 foot tall.
But other evidence exists of human beings living in the Mesozoic era.
This open cut mine in Moab, Utah was in the Dakota Sandstone.
In several locations across the USA this formation contained human skeletons.
These two were uncovered by a bulldozer in the open cut mine at a depth of 21 feet.
In the same formation at another location, this skeleton and 200 fragments were uncovered in a quarry at a depth of 20 feet.
Yet this Mesozoic sandstone dates at about 150 million years atomically.
But we leave the Mesozoic era and its silent testimony to mankind's presence and go to Old Estrata.
Paleozoic rocks date from 230 to 600 million atomic years.
Part of the Paleozoic called the Ordovician is over 400 million atomic years old.
In London, Texas, this cemented material was uncovered in the wall of a quarry.
It had a piece of wood poking out.
All the more remarkable since wood was not meant to have evolved 450 million atomic years ago.
When the material was broken open, the wood turned out to be the handle of an iron hammer.
The wood had partly turned into coal and contained small amounts of fluid trapped in it.
The conclusion was that it had been impacted under heat and fluid pressure at the time that the rock strata had formed.
Three points reinforce this conclusion.
Arrow one points to a fossil that agrees with the atomic age of the strata.
Arrow two indicates where an iron sample was taken.
A high chlorine content revealed the iron was refined by a process unknown to us today.
Arrow three points to a contraction zone that proves that the hammer fell into the sediments while they were still soft.
But we leave the Ordovician strata and go to the very base of the fossil record, 600 million atomic years ago.
The type fossil here is the trilobite.
It was a shallow water creature and trilobites were the favourite fossil of William Meister, an amateur geologist.
While looking for trilobites in the house range east of Antelope Springs, Utah, he cracked off this two inch thick lump of rock that opened in his hand like a book.
He found his trilobite but it was embedded in the heel of a sandal print with toes poking over the edge.
He called in a consulting geologist, Dr Clifford Burdick, who found other sandal prints and the footprints of barefoot children.
This one with a trilobite in the instep.
William Meister commented, quote,
While I had previously been little concerned with the various interpretations of the fossil record,
my discovery of a shod and therefore obviously modern human footprint intimately associated with trilobites has converted me completely to the story of the Bible.
End quote.
Under these circumstances we note that the entire fossil record contains no less than 40 documented instances of human activity.
They are tabulated down the left panel.
If mankind was there when the first fossils were formed, it may be wise to reconsider the creation option, just as William Meister did.
As we do so, it becomes increasingly apparent that since creation, all life forms have followed certain basic principles outlined in the Bible.
Furthermore, the biblical sequence of catastrophes and their timing fits the evidence from the rocks exactly when the change in light speed is taken into account.
To begin this exploration of the creation option, let us look at Genesis 1.
We note that the command to reproduce after their kind was given 10 times in that chapter.
They were not to change from one kind to another, as the theory of evolution suggests.
Here the two propositions are summarised.
Evolution states that life began with a small gene pool, such as an amoeba,
and then expands by mutation and selection to give rise to the different kinds.
By contrast, creation starts with a large gene pool for each created kind,
which then divides by migration and selection to give changes within the kind.
The Bible statement allows for immense variations within the kind or species.
Natural selection will occur, but only if the information is already in the gene pool.
The Genesis proposition indicates that genetic information all came from a created ancestor.
In the case of dogs, this ancestor probably gave rise to wolves, foxes, coyotes, hyenas, jackals, dingoes and the original mongrel dog.
This ancestral mongrel, Tomactus, is arrowed.
From his gene pool all 110 other forms of dog have come.
When selective breeding gives rise to long-haired forms, such as a Samoyed or Husky,
there is a loss of genetic information needed to give rise to short-haired forms.
Long-legged dogs have lost the genetic information to give rise to dogs with short legs.
Notice they had not changed to another kind. They are still obviously dogs.
The creation proposition agrees totally with this experimental evidence.
We can take this principle one step further and apply it to the fossil record as three points.
Firstly, each kind should appear abruptly in the fossil record with no transitional forms or missing links.
Secondly, there should be little change over millions of atomic years.
Thirdly, some kinds will become extinct through various catastrophes.
So let's check the observational evidence.
At the base of the fossil record is the Paleozoic era.
All forms appear abruptly. Fossil experts call this the Cambrian Explosion.
Among the creatures without backbones were jellyfish, starfish, snails, sponges, segmented worms, sea lilies, sea urchins and nautiloids.
All are with us today. The trilobite has become extinct.
Among the plants there were giant club mosses and horsetails and a variety of ferns.
Smaller forms are still with us today. Silafita is extinct.
Mayflies, dragonflies, cockroaches and spiders are still familiar to us.
They all appear abruptly in the fossil record. There are no transitional forms.
This earliest fossil spider was in rock over 300 million atomic years old.
It was made of the same material as spiders today and was equipped with spinnerets,
organs to spin thread and tarsal claws for weaving, as arrowed in this microscope photo.
It is a complete functional unit and is just like the web weaving spiders today.
There has been no change in 300 million atomic years.
In the Mesozoic era that followed the hoop pine, the cycad, the magnolia and ginkgo are all with us today.
So was the cowrie pine as this comparison between a living and fossil specimen reveals.
There is little change after 175 million atomic years. The dinosaurs are extinct.
In the early part of the Cenozoic era most plants are familiar to us as are many animals.
Some giant animals have become extinct. But consider the bat.
One might have expected the evolution of a bat to follow a scheme something like this diagram.
However, as in the case of other flora and fauna, there are no signs of any supposed ancestors.
Here is the earliest bat in the fossil record in rock dated as 50 million atomic years old.
There are no signs of transitional forms or any wing developing.
This is already a complete functional unit. Very little different from the bats we have today.
These early flora and fauna all appear abruptly in the fossil record with no transitional forms.
Furthermore, like this fossil dragonfly, they show no significant change while the atomic clock ticked off hundreds of millions of years.
Now this is perfectly understandable in any scenario with changing light speed.
Those millions of atomic years are only thousands of actual years.
One final question therefore remains. Why do certain animal and plant types dominate each era?
Why do spore bearing algae, mosses and ferns predominate in the Paleozoic era?
Why were naked seed palms and pines abundant in the Mesozoic era while the hard shelled flowering species came to dominate the Cenozoic?
This is not an evolutionary sequence. Indeed, some interesting evidence shows that all created kinds were present from the beginning.
At the base of the Grand Canyon lies the Precambrian Hakatai Shale.
In that shale a variety of pollen spores were found fossilised.
Those shown here were revealed when the shale was treated with dilute acid.
Pollen grains of pinus and other naked seed and flowering types were uncovered along with some cells unique to those plant types.
One such cluster of cells found by Dr Howe and his colleagues is pictured before us.
Their work was reported in the CRSQ volume 24, number 4 for March 1988.
Fossil pollen of today's tree types in Archaeozoic strata supplies part of the answer to our final question.
Obviously today's kinds were present originally.
The different dominances in each era may then have resulted from ecological changes following global catastrophes.
This is not wishful thinking. Here, 56 original types are represented.
Of them, 29 underwent major extinction on a global scale at the close of the Paleozoic.
A further 20 types were severely reduced globally at the close of the Mesozoic, probably by an asteroid colliding with the Earth.
Other extinction events also occurred.
These extinctions are reducing the number of types present.
Those that are left come to new dominances under changed conditions.
They form the major fossil types in the new era.
The geological column thus displays a creation, catastrophe, extinction, new dominance sequence.
Let us look at these catastrophes.
After creation, the Earth's landmass formed one supercontinent surrounded by seas.
The southern region is usually called Gondwanaland.
The northern sector is named Laurasia.
This landmass was broken up by a series of catastrophes.
We begin with evidence from meteorites, the leftovers from creation.
Meteorites like this one show that the material making up the inner planets contained up to 19% water.
Rapid radioactive heating of the Earth's interior due to high sea values would drive this water to the surface as springs and geysers.
This is in accordance with Genesis 2.6 where one translation says fountains sprang up from the Earth.
The Bible calls their counterparts in the ocean the fountains of the deep.
Continued radioactive heating expanded the Earth's interior, increasing pressure on the crust and causing a massive buildup of water underneath it.
At 600 million atomic years before present, catastrophe one occurred.
On light speed harmonization, this corresponds to Noah's flood, 2, 2, 5, 6 years after creation.
It is marked by a change in fossil type worldwide.
Soft bodied creatures like Dickinsonia were replaced by fossils with hard parts.
This grand unconformity, as the archiezoic-paleozoic boundary is called, is also marked by a debris layer of gravels, pebbles, cobbles and boulders called a conglomerate.
Closely associated with it globally is another mixture of rocks called tillite as shown here.
In the northern Flinders Ranges of South Australia it is a tillite made of boulders.
The layer is 250 meters thick.
Around O'Leary the complete debris layer is 2,300 meters thick.
Its distribution worldwide is displayed before us in the bright blue areas.
Globally linked with the conglomerate are massive quartzite layers such as this example near Wilpena Pound.
The water from beneath the crust contained large quantities of dissolved silica which formed these quartzites when it came to the surface.
The record of the first paleozoic rocks is that huge earth and ocean movements occurred.
At that time the crust split forming the initial tectonic plate boundaries.
It then down warped in response to an explosive emission of water, steam and molten rock from the earth's interior.
Sediments were chewed out and pulverised on either side of the crustal cracks.
The emission energy along the enlarging crack system was equal to 10,000 volcanoes of the type of Krakatoa,
a pressure which jetted the mixture to 15 kilometres high.
It then cascaded down as rain at the rate of one foot per hour or one centimetre every two minutes.
Half our present ocean's volume was outpoured from the interior then.
That was Noah's flood.
On this map of Gondwanaland the stable unwarped blocks of the crust called cratons are shown in white.
All sedimentary covering was stripped off them and deposited along with other material in the down warped grey areas.
These grey regions gradually rose over the following 235 years to form the mid-paleozoic shield as shown here.
The shaded sections remained low and successive layers built up in those locations.
Here in the north of the supercontinent the active areas are shown on the outside of the Lauratian and Siberian cratons.
During this 235 year period when molten rock from the earth's interior penetrated overlying strata
it gave dates that systematically dropped from 600 million down to 230 million atomic years.
This was the Paleozoic era.
Water saturated both the ground and the atmosphere from the flood process.
Ocean waters would now be quite warm enhancing already humid conditions.
This climate favoured spore bearing plants, the algae, mosses and ferns, assisted by high sea values.
Other types would be suppressed.
Insects would be prominent, many surviving the flood on floating vegetation mats.
This environment and high sea values made the diffusion of air through the insects' air tubes more efficient.
Giant forms were therefore encouraged.
Vast quantities of warm water favoured these amphibians and other water dwellers who would have survived outside the ark in large numbers.
This phytosaur, a relative of the crocodile, was one of them.
By contrast, dry land creatures started off with only two of each and populations took time to build.
Continued radioactive heating of the earth's interior increased mantle mobility until temperatures rose to a critical level.
A rampant volcanic outburst then closed the Paleozoic era at 230 million atomic years.
Humans and animals outside the areas of immediate activity survived.
The others were decimated.
Intense volcanism outpoured the flood basalts of Siberia at this time.
Huge earth movements, or tectonism, accompanied these outbursts.
A massive block of the crust subsided across Laurasia as shown shaded here.
The churning waters of many tidal waves swept vast quantities of luxuriant vegetation into this and other troughs to form the world's main coal measures.
Race legends link coal formation with human migration and the confusion of languages.
Scripturally, that happened at the Tower of Babel crisis.
Lightspeed harmonisation affirms the link as 230 million atomic years before present is 3301 BC, or 2491 years after creation, when Babel occurred biblically.
The huge earth movements and volcanism of Catastrophe II produced changes in the atmospheric circulation pattern.
Strong jet stream winds swept the earth, giving rise to the great windblown sand deposits found at the base of the Mesozoic strata.
Mesozoic landforms steadily rose with minor advances and retreats of oceans.
This gave alternate marine and land sequences.
Most deposition was on the outer rim of the supercontinent as shown here in black.
A predominantly semi-desert environment and strong drying winds decimated the amphibians and the spore-bearing plants.
The naked seed plants, the palms and pines, were favoured as they rely on the wind for pollination.
These conditions encouraged the swimming reptiles and other dinosaurs who survived the flood.
As their numbers increased, they proliferated across the low landforms that were punctuated by broad luxuriant river valleys.
These Mesozoic monsters were agile creatures.
High sea values meant a more rapid transmission of nerve impulses.
This made them very efficient beasts.
When light speed dropped dramatically, they became too cumbersome to survive.
However, in the 296 years before Catastrophe III, this efficiency allowed humans, plants and animals to spread to all parts of the supercontinent.
Even an old stegosaurus could make it.
And then it happened.
A cloud of asteroid debris hit the earth in a series of massive impacts that decimated the dinosaurs.
The main fragment, about 15 kilometres in diameter, hit in the Yucatan, leaving a crater nearly 300 kilometres wide.
A second piece hit in Manson, Iowa, forming a 35 kilometre crater.
With an impact of this magnitude, massive earthquakes resulted.
Destructive tidal waves invaded the low landforms.
Deposits from these giant waves are found in Texas and Cuba, where 12 metre boulders occur in a debris layer 450 metres thick.
The short and long term effects are detailed on the chart.
A layer of iridium from a meteorite is often found capping Mesozoic strata.
The boundary also contains large amounts of soot from global wildfires, equivalent to burning half of the world's forests.
Massive volcanism was induced.
The multiple layered flows of basaltic lava, shown here, form the Deccan Traps in India.
They may hide another impact crater.
More minor impacts have also occurred, causing lesser extinction events.
They are listed on the chart opposite Catastrophe 5, which occurred in 2345 BC, changing the Earth's axis tilter shown here.
The Jordan Rift was reactivated.
Later movement on that rift brought about the demise of Sodom and Gomorrah in Abraham's Day, as illustrated on the chart.
The Catastrophe 3 impact on the mid-Atlantic rift finalised the separation of Africa and America, an enhanced continental drift,
as the mantle was now highly mobile from peak temperatures and lowered viscosity.
The Bible treats this catastrophe briefly.
It simply states in Genesis 1025 that, quote,
until Eber were born two sons, the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the Earth, the continents, were divided, and his brother's name was Jokhtan. End quote.
The handbook discusses the surprising meaning of those names in cognate languages.
Peleg was born 3005 BC, or 2787 years after creation.
This becomes 63 million atomic years before present.
Just the precise time of Catastrophe 3.
The asteroid impact and continental drift generated three further effects.
One was a greater axis tilt. Another was the upthrusting of high mountains.
The third was continued volcanism.
These three induced a continued lowering of temperature.
Fossil shells show that temperatures dropped steadily throughout the Cenozoic.
The greater axis tilt aided by high mountains gave pronounced extremes of weather.
Eventually the Ice Age began.
Mammals with their stable body temperatures were favored and became dominant.
This was the period of the cave dwellers, the so-called Stone Age.
Everything had been destroyed in the Peleg catastrophe, and now an Ice Age was upon them.
A cave was ideal shelter from these harsh weather conditions.
The stone and bone tools of these pioneers were not part of an evolutionary trend.
Intelligence and wisdom were there all along.
It is simply the recovery sequence from a series of huge natural disasters.
If we had been there, we would hardly have done any better.
Those disasters would produce scenes like these on land and ocean today.
The Apostle John in Revelation 8 and verse 10 warns of a catastrophe yet to come
during which one asteroid resembling, quote,
a great mountain burning with fire would fall from heaven into the sea
along with much other asteroid or debris.
Matthew 24, 29 to 30 repeats the warning and comments that
Messiah would then come in the cloud of heaven.
Are you ready for that day?
Remember, if Genesis is true, so is the rest of the Bible.
We will all have to face the Creator eventually.
My hope is that you will come before Him as a friend, not as a rebel.
The choice is yours, and the consequences are eternal.
Thank you very much.