Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Re-Evaluating The Measurements Of Radioactive Decay, Charles A. Wolcott Jr.

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

Studies investigating the validity of radiometric dating methods have raised many questions with results of methods showing ages of samples well outside the mainstream story line and a prospect of accelerated decay rates during the Flood. However, the measurements of the rates themselves have not been analyzed. This study examines a mathematical analysis of how the half-life of isotopes U-238, K-40, Rb-87, and C-14 have been measured and calls for a closer inspection of the process. The primary tool for measuring the half-life is the Geiger Counter, which only has a 20% efficiency rate, [1] while observation times of individual …

The Regression Of The Flood In Virginia, James C. Rakestraw, Jim Melnick

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

The geology, tectonics, and hydraulics of the regression of the Flood formed much of the geomorphology of Virginia. Opportunities to view and study geology and geomorphology are available through visiting parks, traveling on public roads, and viewing geographic information system (GIS) resources.

Virginia is part of the North American Plate. A series of “blocks” of basement rocks within the plate underlie the geomorphological provinces of Virginia. These “blocks” form a series of steps between the Atlantic Ocean Basin and the Blue Ridge. The “Fall Line” found in Virginia is a fault between two blocks of basement rock. The basement rocks …

Geologic Analysis Of Ice Age Simulation Results, Elizabeth G. Sultan, Steven M. Gollmer

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

Ice ages are believed to have occurred at least 5 times in the past, with each glacial period lasting tens of thousands of years and interglacial periods lasting up to 400,000 years. It is hypothesized, however, that the Genesis Flood would have provided the conditions necessary to trigger an ice age within a few hundred years, that could account for the glacial deposits we find worldwide. This research project compared the output data from a 360-year ModelE2.1.2 run of an ice age simulation, to the geologic record of the last glacial maximum (LGM). The simulation was inputted with conditions based …

K-Feldspar Sand Grain Rounding In Eolian And Subaqueous Transportation, Elizabeth G. Sultan, Emma Henze

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

This project’s aim is to compare the rounding of K-feldspar grains in eolian and subaqueous conditions. It was hypothesized that K-feldspar grains in a subaqueous environment are cushioned enough by surrounding water to prevent the rounding observed in eolian environments. The experiment was conducted by use of eolian and subaqueous simulations originally developed by Calvin Anderson for comparing muscovite flakes in these respective environments. It was expected that an eolian environment will produce rounded grains within a few weeks, and an aqueous environment will take a minimum of months to produce fully rounded grains. The resulting data from this project …

Diverse Assemblage Of Arthropods In Amber From Upper Cretaceous Tarheel Formation Near Goldsboro, North Carolina, Dana J. Goodnight

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

A relatively unexplored Upper Cretaceous (early Campanian) amber-bearing lignite deposit in Goldsboro, North Carolina has yielded a diverse assemblage of arthropods. Preliminary cataloging of approximately 175 biological inclusions obtained from the site include microscopic and macroscopic representatives from two subphyla of arthropoda (Chelicerata and Hexapoda) and at least 9 orders of insects (Blattodea, Coleoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Psocoptera, Thysanoptera, and Archaeognatha). In addition to animal inclusions, the Goldsboro amber often contains abundant plant matter, fungal mycelia, enhydros, and air bubbles. The inclusions depicted by micrographs in this poster presentation have not been formally classified and systematically described. Only an …

The Layered Castile Probably Originated From Salt Magma, Stef J. Heerema, Gert-Jan Van Heugten, Timothy Clarey

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

The Castile Formation is situated in the Delaware Basin in New Mexico and Texas on top of thousands of meters of oil-containing sedimentary rock (the Delaware Mountain Group). The up to 550-meter-thick formation is composed of laminae of mostly anhydrite and calcite (Kirkland, 2003) and contains oil itself as well. The overlying Salado Salt Formation covers a wider area, including the Central Basin Platform and the Midland Basin in Texas, with a thickness up to 600 meters.

Evolutionists claim an origin of the 10,000 km³ Castile Formation by evaporation of salty ocean water in a continental basin over 209,000 …

Does The Fossil Record Of Non-Mammalian Synapsid Digits Show An Increasing "Mammal-Ness"?, Emily Anderson, Matthew A. Mclain

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

Non-mammalian synapsids (NMS) are a group of extinct amniotes present in the Carboniferous-Cretaceous geologic systems. NMS are recognized by evolutionary scientists as transitional forms between reptile-like animals and mammals, and are thought to increase in mammal-like characteristics as they progress through the fossil record, especially among the six therapsid subtaxa. Given that Scripture is clear that God created many independent kinds of land animals (Genesis 1:20-25), we sought to investigate the currently accepted evidence which is used to support the claim that NMS are transitional forms. In this study we focused on the NMS hands and feet, which have been …

Noah's Arks And Viking Funeral Ships: A Creationist Look At The Biogeographic Patterns Of Tetrapods In The Collisions Of South America/North America And India/Asia, Ryan Frields, Caleb Lepore, Matthew A. Mclain

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

The question of how animals recolonized the earth after the Flood has been of interest to creation scientists for hundreds of years, and this inquiry led to the birth of the field of biogeography. Biogeographers recognize dispersal mechanisms (e.g., rafting) as well as vicariant mechanisms (e.g., continental drift). In biogeography, a continent carrying animals from one place to another is called a “Noah’s Ark.” There are two continents that start the Cenozoic as islands but later collide with other land masses: India with Asia (in the Eocene) and South America with North America (in the Pliocene). The faunal transfer between …

Effects Of Hot Post-Flood Groundwater Flow From The Sea Floor, David M. Winsberg

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

This abstract deals with the effects of large amounts (~700 ˣ 10²⁴ Joules) of geothermal heat being slowly transferred across the seafloor for several hundred years. This is enough energy to heat the oceans by 125 °C if it was deposited instantaneously. The mechanism of how this geothermal heat is supplied to the seafloor is a separate topic that is not discussed here.

What makes this different than other “warm ocean” models is that they use a one-time ocean heating event during the Genesis flood. My model uses continuous heating for centuries, while the oceans also simultaneously cool by …

Hypogene Speleogenesis Of Ozark Caves, Jeff Miller

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

This abstract is an update on my continuing study of the origin of north American caves. Since it is difficult to fit carbonic acid dissolution speleogenesis into the timescale of the Creation model, and the Flood model can generate the acidic waters needed for hypogene speleogenesis (HGS), I suggest HGS is the primary mechanism of cave formation. To test this hypothesis, I have been visiting commercial caves to determine what percentage of them show HGS features and are thus likely to have been formed by HGS. This paper offers continuing preliminary results of that test, focusing on the caves of …

Groundwater Flow And The Resulting Heat Transfer From The Sea Floor, Immediately After The Genesis Flood, David M. Winsberg

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

This abstract provides a multi-faceted solution method to the “Heat Problem after the Genesis Flood” which is defined as follows:

Most models of CPT require that large amounts of hot crustal material would be spread across the ocean floor during the flood, especially the Atlantic ocean. This would release so much heat as to possibly boil the oceans. Because of this problem, the genesis flood didn’t happen, and thus the bible is wrong and evolution is right.

It is argued that long amounts of time are required to transfer any significant portion of this heat, and it is proposed that …

Do Fossil Data Suggest Greater Animal Longevity In The Pre-Flood World?, Leo Hebert Iii

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

One of the Bible's most ridiculed claims is its assertion that pre-Flood and immediate post-Flood humans experienced lifespans of hundreds of years. Hence, the ability to partially corroborate the Bible's claim in this regard should be of great interest to creation researchers. Paleontologists have within the last two decades become increasingly interested in using growth rings recorded in fossil forms to make inferences about past growth rates, sizes, and lifespans. Examination of these growth rings suggest that some creatures in the pre-Flood world matured quite slowly compared to similar extant forms. Also, multiple studies have shown that slower development and …

A Creationist Model Of Dinosaur Paleobiogeography, Marc Surtees

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

During the last 20 years much has been written about dinosaur paleobiogeography. This presents a challenge to creationists who wish to be consistent with the Bible and the evidence from paleontology, biogeography and geology.

Publications by evolutionists report that dinosaur fossils are first found in the Middle or early Late Triassic rocks of the Southern Hemisphere. The three major constituent clades, Ornithischia, Sauropodomorpha and Theropoda, are found in Late Triassic rocks and Early Jurassic rocks. There are also dinosaur footprints in Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks. Middle to Late Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks contain the greatest diversity of dinosaurs. This …

Long Tree-Ring Chronologies: The Role Of “Bridge” Tree-Ring Series, John Woodmorappe

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

At the last ICC, I presented a detailed paper explaining how a series of disturbances can cause trees to crossmatch in accordance with the disturbances, and not in accordance with an annual climatic signal us conventionally believed. Extending this reasoning, different regions with different disturbances create a series of “bundles” of trees crossmatching only within these regions. These “bundles” can subsequently be connected in a chain by “bridge” series (series that fortuitously perform this role), thus creating the illusion of a very long tree-ring chronology, even though most of these trees actually lived at the same time.

Up to now, …

After Awhile...Crocodile?: An Assessment Of Crocodylians As Living Fossils, Caleb N. Lepore

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

Crocodylians, which include extant crocodiles, alligators, caimans, the gharial, and the tomistoma, are often considered living fossils. Many evolutionists have argued that the term ‘living fossil’ is inappropriately applied to crocodylians, since past diversity within Crocodylia, as well as within the more inclusive group Crocodylomorpha, implies that they have evolved substantially since their first appearance in the fossil record. In contrast, many creationists argue that the morphological conservativeness of living fossils like crocodylians is unexpected from a gradualistic model of evolution. To clarify this issue, we argue that while the term ‘living fossil’ has varied meanings within the literature, morphological …

Catastrophic Plate Tectonics And The Tectonics Of Western North America, Sarah Petersen, John Baumgardner

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

Catastrophic Plate Tectonics (CPT) is a widely accepted theory among Young Earth Creation scientists to explain the catastrophic flooding and tectonic plate movement during the Biblical Flood. CPT has implications beyond the early stages of the Flood, as rapid subduction would result in a variety of tectonic settings that influenced modern topography. In western North America, the formation of several major tectonic features has been debated by secular scientists for decades. Using hypotheses that depend on slow tectonic rates and long timescales has led to a general inability to account for all geologic observations in this region. During the Cretaceous …

How Often Do Radioisotope Ages Agree? A Preliminary Study Of 29,000 Radioisotope Ages In The Usgs National Geochronological Database, Micah D. Beachy, Benjamin R. Kinard, Paul A. Garner

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

In young-earth analyses of radioisotope age discordance, there have not yet been statistical studies involving age information for large numbers of rock units at a time. Austin (2005), Snelling (2005) and others have published in-depth studies of discordance on individual rock units, including new radioisotope ages based on their own samples. This was a logical approach because it maximized the number of ages per rock unit and eliminated the potential “file drawer” problem where ages that differ wildly from the expected values may be less likely to be published. Nevertheless, we believe it is time for a larger-scale project that …

Can Sandstone Cross-Bed Dip Inclinations Determine Depositional Environment?, John H. Whitmore

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

The author and his colleagues have been working on the Coconino Sandstone (Arizona, USA) for more than twenty years concluding that the sandstone formed in an underwater setting instead of the conventionally accepted desert dune environment. During their work (Emery et al. 2011; Whitmore 2021; Whitmore and Garner 2018) they reported that average cross-bed dips in the Coconino were approximately 20°, consistent with what others have found in the Coconino (Maithel 2019; Reiche 1938). Most realize this average measurement is far less that the angle or repose for desert sand dunes, which is about 33-34°. The Coconino often lacks cross-bed …

Developing A Comprehensive Model Of Global Flood Paleontology: Integrating The Biostratigraphic Record With Global Megasequence Deposition, Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Timothy L. Clarey

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

The ICR Column Project team has mapped out the sedimentary rock record of the global Flood across five of the world’s continents using extensive data from petroleum industry wells, rock outcrops, seismic data, and published cross-sections. Thus, detailed sedimentary rock data along with megasequence boundaries across every nearly every continent have been documented, including the continental shelf. These data confirm the reality of a global geologic column created by the global Flood. This monumental and unprecedented project has shown that the global Flood and it’s corresponding megasequences are represented by the same stratigraphic profiles on every continent that’s been evaluated; …

A Progressive Global Flood Model Confirmed By Rock Data Across Five Continents, Timothy L. Clarey, Davis J. Werner

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

Over 3000 stratigraphic columns have been compiled across North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia using oil wells, measured sections and seismic data. Phanerozoic fossil-bearing rocks are divided into six packages of sedimentation based on the “mega-sequences” concept of Sloss. Maps of individual megasequences across the continents and the total volumes show the earliest megasequences have the least extent and lowest average volume of sediment. Subsequent megasequences show progressively more coverage and more sediment volume. Most continents show a maximum peak in both coverage and thickness in the in the 4^th or 5^th megasequence.

We interpret these …

What Biostratigraphic Continuity Suggests About Earth History, Kurt P. Wise, Donna Richardson

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

If the present world contains sediments generated in the global Flood described in the Bible, we would expect a distinctive paleontological uniformity at both the beginning and the end of the Flood. Populations of organisms both before and after the Flood would be expected to persist at any particular locality for a significant period of time. Many of the same species would be expected to persist across every depositional time boundary at most localities in the world throughout both the pre-Flood and post-Flood worlds. During the Flood, of the species deposited in more than one depositional level, it would not …

A Preliminary Analysis Of Archosauromorph Baraminology, Matthew A. Mclain, Caroline Clausen, Thai Perez, Katherine Beebe, Alia Ahten

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

Archosauromorpha is a large grouping of reptiles including the Archosauria and other related taxa, such as phytosaurs, rhynchosaurs, and tanystropheids. Phylogenetically, Archosauria contains both crocodilians and birds, as well as several extinct groups (e.g., dinosaurs, pterosaurs, etc.). Crocodilians and their extinct relatives belong to the group Pseudosuchia, whereas birds, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and a few other animals lie within Avemetatarsalia. Creationists can agree or disagree with these taxonomic groupings, but all creationists would concur that these animals do not share a single common ancestor. Rather, Scripture clearly teaches that God created separate kinds of animals, including different kinds of birds, which …

Genealogical Vs Phylogenetic Mutation Rates: Answering A Challenge, Robert Carter

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

There is a discrepancy between the mutation rate we can measure today and the rate at which evolution is supposed to have proceeded. The former is sometimes called the genealogical mutation rate, for it is obtained by comparing individuals whom we know to be related. The latter is sometimes called the phylogenetic mutation rate. It is calculated by counting the fixed differences between two species and dividing by the estimated time since their common ancestor. Genealogical mutation rates are generally several orders of magnitude faster than phylogenetic estimates. This causes problems for the evolutionary model. For example, using the genealogical …

The Role Of Large Tsunamis In The Formation Of The Flood Sediment Record, John Baumgardner, Evan Navarro

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

A major challenge for Flood geology is providing a credible explanation for how the staggering volume of fossil-bearing sediment was eroded, transported, and deposited in orderly patterns on the surface of the normally high-standing continents in only a few months’ time. This paper builds upon the numerical modeling work reported at the 2018 ICC utilizing a code named MABBUL which showed that repetitive giant tsunamis generated by catastrophic plate tectonics during the Genesis Flood can plausibly account for the Flood sediment record. That modeling demonstrated that, with reasonable parameter choices, tsunami-driven cavitation erosion during the Flood itself, mostly along the …

Shoreline Transgressive Terraces: Tufa-Encrusted Landforms Indicate Rapid Filling And Failure Of Hopi Lake, Western Bidahochi Basin, Northeastern Arizona, Steven A. Austin, Edmond W. Holroyd Iii, Thomas F. Folks, Nate Loper

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

Bidahochi Basin is an elongate, 300-kilometer-long structural depression in the Painted Desert region of northeastern Arizona. Today, that basin is occupied by the Little Colorado River directly east of Grand Canyon. For more than 150 years geologists have been pondering the notion that a lake once occupied a large part of Bidahochi Basin. In 1936 Howel Williams named it Hopi Lake. Are strandlines from a Pliocene lake imprinted on limestone slopes of Kaibab Formation in western Bidahochi Basin? Our inquiry led us to study Google imagery from Coconino County just east of Flagstaff, Arizona. There the Kaibab Formation is a …

Testing The Order Of The Fossil Record: Preliminary Observations On Stratigraphic-Clade Congruence And Its Implications For Models Of Evolution And Creation, Kathryn Mcguire, Sophie Southerden, Katherine Beebe, Neal Doran, Matthew Mclain, Todd Charles Wood, Paul A. Garner

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

As a key evidence for macroevolutionary change, the fossil record has been the focus of much study as creation scientists have attempted to interpret its patterns in light of the Flood. Despite this importance, only rarely has the order of the fossil record been scrutinized in any detail, by creationists or evolutionists. We therefore conducted the first large-scale study of the congruence of the fossil record with evolutionary predictions in thirty years.

Our method begins with published phylogenies for organisms found in the fossil record. The order of appearance for each taxon on the phylogeny is assigned a rank, then …

Receding Noahic Flood Waters Led To Seafloor Spreading: A Proposed Geological Model, Harry Dickens

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

Plate tectonics and seafloor spreading are among the most significant geological processes on Earth. However, their emergence and development currently remain unresolved, at least in the secular literature. Some possible mechanisms for the initiation of seafloor spreading are discussed.

The catastrophic plate tectonic (CPT) model for Noah’s Flood was a pioneering attempt to tie aspects of geology together in a conceptual or theoretical physical way. However, the CPT model has an incomplete coverage in clear time order of both Scripture and specific stratigraphy. Formations representing the Flood Year’s receding waters and drying phases seem to have not been considered in …

Radiohalos Through Earth History – What Clues Can They Provide Us?, Andrew A. Snelling

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

Radiohalos are a physical record of radioactive decay that occurred in granites and metamorphic rocks through earth history. They are the result of damage to the host crystals by α-particles produced in the ²³⁸U decay chain (Snelling 2000). Normally ²³⁸U radiohalos are produced. However, there are also radiohalos produced by the three isotopes of Po (²¹⁸Po, ²¹⁴Po and ²¹⁰Po) that are generated towards the end of the ²³⁸U decay chain. Because their half-lives are so fleeting (3.1 mins, 164 µsec, and 138 days, respectively), the existence of these Po radiohalos has been “a …

Characterizing Silicate Materials Via Raman Spectroscopy And Machine Learning: Implications For Novel Approaches To Studying Melt Dynamics, Blake O. Ladouceur

Doctoral Dissertations

Silicate melt characteristics impose dramatic influence over igneous processes that operate, or have operated on, differentiated bodies: such as the Earth and Mars. Current understanding of these melt properties, such as composition, primarily comes from investigations on their volcanic byproducts. Therefore, it is imperative to innovate on modalities capable of constraining melt information in environments where a reliance on laboratory methods is severed. Recent investigations have turned to Raman Spectroscopy and amorphous volcanics as a suitable pairing for exploring these ideas. Silicate glasses are a proxy for igneous melts; and Raman spectroscopy is a robust analytical technique capable of operating …

Southern Rio Grande Rift Kinematics And Geochronology, Big Bend Fold Geometry, And The Use Of Real Data In Geoscience Education: Contributions To The Understanding Of Big Bend Geology And To Public Geoscientific Literacy, Jessica Kelsch

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Big Bend region of Trans-Pecos Texas preserves a rich record of Rio Grande rifting and Laramide-age contraction that provide intrigue to national and state park visitors and field trips for undergraduate geology students. Despite its well-exposed geologic record, the Big Bend region remains an underutilized natural laboratory for studying these two tectonic events. This dissertation combines structural studies of Rio Grande rift and Laramide structures with public outreach and geoscience education studies focused on the Big Bend region. In Chapter 2, existing extensional-kinematic studies from parts of this region are compiled with new fault kinematic and U-Pb geochronologic data …