Report by Paul Garner

In April I led a group of home school families and their friends on a geological field trip to the Lake District of northwest England (see the photos below). Fortunately, the weather was good to us and we avoided the April showers!

The Lake District consists of a small dome of sedimentary and volcanic rocks of Ordovician and Silurian age, protruding from beneath a cover of younger Carboniferous and Permo-Triassic rocks. Visitors to the region can see some remarkably varied geology within a fairly small area.

On our trip we had the opportunity to see rapidly deposited sediments of the Skiddaw Group, explosive volcanic rocks and mudflows belonging to the Borrowdale Volcanic Group, and quarry exposures of the cross-bedded Penrith Sandstone. We also examined the distinctive Shap Granite and its relationships with the surrounding rocks. In addition we thought about the effects of the ice age on the Lake District landscape. The evidence was placed in a creationist framework and shown to support the biblical record of a global Flood.

One parent said: “With the benefits of clear explanations and well chosen sites to visit, it has aided my understanding of geology in the British Isles and shown how the data best supports short-time catastrophic models. I would warmly recommend this trip to anyone with an interest in biblical creation or geology from about 10 years up.”

The field trip was such a success that we may well repeat it in the future. The good news is that you don’t have to be a home schooler to take part! If you, your family or your church would be interested in a trip of this kind, do let us know.

Briefing at Side Pike, Great Langdale

Examining the Shap Granite

The Wasdale Beck unconformity

Penrith Sandstone with large-scale cross-bedding

We are delighted to announce the imminent release of Set in Stone: Evidence for Earth’s Catastrophic Past, a major documentary production that BCM researcher Paul Garner has been working on for the last two years. The producer is Mark Haville of NPN Videos for Truth in Science. A 60-second teaser trailer can be viewed here and the description on the DVD cover runs as follows:

According to modern geology, our world is over four and a half billion years old, and its geological features have been sculpted over vast eons of time. Everyone knows that planet earth is unimaginably ancient. It’s common knowledge that geological forces have acted slowly over millions of years to form the rocks beneath our feet. But what if what everyone ‘knows’ is wrong?

This remarkable programme takes the viewer on a visual odyssey of discovery like no other. Shot on location across Britain, it takes in some of the most spectacular countryside, beautiful coastlines and awe inspiring landscapes these islands have to offer. From the stormy shores of South Wales to the dramatic Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, from the granite tors of Dartmoor to the windswept uplands of the Peak District, we visit an array of sites that have inspired generations of geologists and helped us to unravel the mysteries of the earth’s past.

Most significantly, we pay a visit to Siccar Point in Scotland, made famous by the pioneering naturalist James Hutton, whose observations here sparked an earthquake in the science of geology that still reverberates to this day. Along the way, we will pose some intriguing questions. Were the rocks around us formed slowly and gradually – or suddenly during catastrophic events? Did the history of the world unfold over vast eras of time or much shorter periods? And what do the rocks really tell us about the geological history of our world?

The DVD comes with a fully referenced transcript with over 150 citations from the scientific literature. Copies will shortly be available from the Truth in Science webshop for £12.95 each plus £1.75 for postage and packing. For advance orders, please contact Truth in Science.

Paul Garner was interviewed recently by Michael Passingham and Philip Matejtschuk (right), students at the University of Lincoln, for a media assignment looking at the relationship between science and religion. The resulting podcast has now been released as Episode 1 of “Something to Talk About” and you can listen to it here. Other contributors to this edition include Julian Barbour (Visiting Professor, University of Oxford), Sandra Hibbert (Science Teacher, Hertfordshire), Michael Reiss (Professor and Associate Director, Institute of Education) and Barry Turner (Senior Lecturer, University of Lincoln).

Report by Paul Garner

In August I had an enjoyable time leading a group of home schoolers on a fossil hunt in a disused clay pit near Peterborough. The sedimentary rocks from which we collected belong to the lower part of the Middle Jurassic Oxford Clay Formation. The trip gave us the opportunity to think about the formation of mudstones, sedimentary rocks dominated by silt- and clay-sized particles. Mudstones are usually thought to have been deposited by the very slow settling of fine dispersed grains in quiet water conditions. But new research is causing geologists to reconsider the conditions under which fine-grained sediments are deposited. In fact, flume experiments and field observations show that muds can be deposited at current velocities that are sufficient to transport and deposit sand.

Certainly the extraordinary abundance of the fossils in the Oxford Clay seems to be consistent with rapid rates of sedimentation. Everyone on the trip was able to take home a fine collection of ammonites, belemnites, Gryphaea oysters and the occasional brachiopod! It was very gratifying to see the enthusiasm of the families that took part and to receive some lovely ‘thank you’ cards from the youngsters afterwards. I’m always happy to consider similar opportunities, so do let me know if you think your group – homeschoolers or otherwise – would be interested in an educational trip of this kind.

Conference report by Paul Garner

Well, another Creation Biology Society/Creation Geology Society conference is over. This year’s meeting marked the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Whitcomb and Morris’ The Genesis Flood, and so it was designed to be a special event with a geology field trip and some public talks in addition to the technical sessions.

Our field excursion to the Black Hills of South Dakota was led by Marcus Ross. It included a visit to the Homestake gold mine, the Great Unconformity between the Precambrian Ellison Formation and the Cambrian Deadwood Formation, and the Niobrara Chalk. We also had an opportunity to see Mount Rushmore and its famous carvings of former US Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln. The photo to the left shows Steve Austin addressing the group at the Great Unconformity.

The next two days were devoted to the technical sessions. You can read the abstracts online (in the latest editions of JCTS Series B and JCTS Series C), but here are a few highlights:

• Georgia Purdom explained the work she is doing to identify biogenic stromatolites in the rock record and evaluate their occurrence in pre-Flood and Flood sediments.

• Roger Sanders offered a creationist interpretation of fossil pollen assemblages across the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary.

• Todd Wood presented a new analysis showing that the chimpanzee genome is not much bigger than the human genome and nearly identical to it.

• Tim Clarey discussed the phenomenon of overthrusts and proposed that they developed as catastrophic gravity slides late in the Flood or early in the post-Flood period.

• Marcus Ross examined the fossil record of mammals in North America and argued that it was incompatible with a Flood/post-Flood boundary in the Plio-Pleistocene.

• John Whitmore reported new observations of bedding styles in the Permian Coconino Sandstone of Arizona which pointed to subaqueous deposition.

There were also three presentations on dinosaur baraminology. One was a baraminic distance study which showed Archaeopteryx clustering with dromaeosaurs and separated from modern birds by morphological discontinuity. This is intriguing in light of last week’s Nature paper about Xiaotingia zhengi, a new Archaeopteryx-like fossil from China. Many creationists will probably reject the idea that Archaeopteryx is a feathered dinosaur, although I’m not quite sure why. I can’t think of a single biblical or theological reason why the idea of a feathered dinosaur should be considered problematic for creationists.

Finally, there were the public talks. Art Chadwick gave a tremendous presentation about his ground-breaking work at the Hanson dinosaur dig in Wyoming and John Morris offered us some personal recollections of events associated with the writing of The Genesis Flood. Other talks covered the frontiers of creation biology (Todd Wood), the eruption of Mount St Helens (Steve Austin), the wonders of human reproduction (Randy Guliuzza), a creationist approach to microbial life (Joe Francis) and scriptural and scientific insights into the pre-Flood world (Kurt Wise). The conference closed with a panel discussion on educational issues that raised controversial questions about how (or even whether) evolution should be taught in Christian colleges.

If you missed the conference, you missed a real treat. Don’t make the same mistake next year!

Report by Paul Garner

Last week I was engaged in field work with John Whitmore on the Permian sandstones of Scotland for our ongoing Coconino research. Things went well and we had an enjoyable time. Despite the unpromising forecasts, the weather was reasonably good. The only day it poured with rain we were in the car travelling and so it didn’t really matter much.

I collected John and his wife from Glasgow airport on Saturday 18 June and we immediately drove to Ardrossan to catch the ferry to the Isle of Arran. On Arran, we examined the cross-bedded “windblown” sandstones exposed along the shoreline near Corrie. We also had the opportunity to walk along the northern coastline to Hutton’s unconformity, where Dalradian metasediments are unconformably overlain by the Carboniferous Kinnesswood Formation. There were also good exposures of the Permian breccias which interdigitate with the Corrie Sandstone.

On Tuesday morning we caught the ferry from Brodick back to the mainland and made the long but very scenic drive to Drumnadrochit. Our journey took us past the tourist hotspot of Loch Lomond, through the brooding valley of Glen Coe and then along the Great Glen, a dramatic SW-NE-trending faultline that cuts right across the Scottish Highlands. We spent the next day sight-seeing around Loch Ness.

On Thursday we headed out to Hopeman on the southern shores of the Moray Firth. East of the harbour there are magnificent exposures of the Hopeman Sandstone, another “windblown” Permian unit. These outcrops were very reminiscent of the Coconino Sandstone of central and northern Arizona, but, if anything, displayed even larger-scale cross-bedding. We also drove a little further east along the coast to Covesea and dropped down onto the beach from the coastal path to view the sandstones in the cliffs.

On Friday morning we made further progress to Dumfries. There we were able to visit quarry exposures of the Locharbriggs Sandstone. We saw further outcrops in Castledykes Park, where the relationship between the Locharbriggs Sandstone and the Doweel Breccia was nicely displayed.

Finally, on Saturday I dropped John and his wife back at Glasgow airport for their flight home, before making the seven-hour journey south. I arrived home late that evening, weary but pleased that another round of field work had gone successfully. We made some field observations that we think are significant for understanding the depositional environment of these sandstones and also collected several samples for petrographic examination. We’re looking forward to seeing how they’ll compare with the Coconino.

Dr Steve Lloyd appeared on Channel 4 on Sunday 12 June in the programme 4thought. Each week 4thought has a different theme with speakers from a wide variety of viewpoints represented. Steve was the last contributor for the topic ‘Is it possible to believe in God and Darwin?’

The filming took place the week before Easter. About 30 minutes of filming were edited down to the 90 seconds that were broadcast. What is refreshing about the program is that contributors are given the space (albeit briefly) to express their viewpoint fairly.

All the 4thoughts can be viewed here and comments can be left on the site too.

The Creation Research Society has published another review of Paul Garner’s book, The New Creationism, in the Winter 2011 CRS Quarterly (Vol. 47, No. 3, p.203). The reviewer is Don DeYoung.

British author Paul Garner holds an environmental sciences degree with emphases in geology and biology. He speaks and writes for the Biblical Creation Society (biblicalcreation.org.uk). This book includes a forward [sic] by Andrew Snelling, full references, and an index. Paul has a very clear writing style as he outlines the details of creation science. This includes brief summaries of the anthropic principle, baraminology, catastrophic plate tectonics, Genesis Flood details, the Ice Age, the RATE research project, and time dilation theory. When explaining evolutionary assumptions, Paul is gracious but uncompromising.

Isochrons are used by geologists to determine initial radioisotope products in rocks, and this description is made very clear (p. 95). In contrast, quantized redshifts are described as evidence for the Milky Way’s location at the center of the universe without reservation (p.29), even though such data is strongly challenged by astronomers. One of many crisp figures is the classic ichthyosaur fossil, which is interpreted as being overcome by flood sediment at the moment of giving birth (p. 205). One could mention the alternate explanation that the ichthyosaur baby was expelled spontaneously after the mother perished. With either interpretation, this famous “fish lizard” fossil formation was catastrophic.

This paperback book includes many positive comments from readers. It presents a clear case for Creation and will prove helpful to many readers worldwide.

Report by Paul Garner

One of the major research areas in creation biology concerns “natural evil” or the origin of such things as predators, parasites and pathogens. This was the theme of Dr Gordon Wilson’s lecture to The Genesis Agendum held at Lower Ford Street Baptist Church in Coventry on Saturday 12 March. Dr Wilson is Senior Fellow of Natural History at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and an active member of the Creation Biology Society. His lecture was subtitled “A creationist’s perspective on biological bad guys” and offered an insightful introduction to this area of creationist research.

The lecture began by setting out some biblical boundaries to guide our thinking: the goodness of the original creation, the absence of human and animal death before the Fall of Genesis 3, and the completion of the creation after the sixth day. With this framework in mind, how can creationists explain the origin of natural evil?

Dr Wilson presented some striking examples of what needs to be explained. He began with predators. Cnidarians such as jellyfish have ingeniously constructed stinging cells (nematocysts) in order to inject prey organisms with toxins, the gastropod Conus has an extendible proboscis that thrusts venom-bearing, dart-like teeth into its prey, and the pit viper has a remarkable skull designed to deliver a potent cocktail of haemotoxins when it strikes. Then there are parasites, illustrated by the nematode worm Myrmecoma neotropicum, which transforms the abdomen of its host, the gliding ant Cephalotes atratus, into a bright red “berry”. This tricks birds into eating the infected ants, thus allowing the parasite to be spread in the bird faeces. Finally, the talk considered pathogens, represented by the bubonic plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, which has been responsible for three recorded pandemics and more than 200 million deaths. Every one of these examples involves extraordinary design features that are not easily explained by simple degeneration or co-option of otherwise benign structures.

Dr Wilson then set out a number of possible scenarios for the origin of natural evil, discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each one, and sought to rank them in terms of personal preference. His favourite explanation involves the “genetic frontloading” of organisms at the time of creation. According to this scenario, organisms were equipped with a set of genes for benign structures, functions and behaviours and a set of genes for malign structures, functions and behaviours. Originally, only the benign genes were expressed, and the malignant set was “switched on” at the time of the Fall or subsequent to it. Such a scenario is potentially verifiable and could be supported by the discovery of latent genes that, if repaired and expressed, would restore benign structures, functions and behaviours.

The evening concluded with a time of open discussion and questions from the floor. These ranged widely over a variety of related theological and scientific issues. Those attending expressed their appreciation for such a fascinating talk and we hope that it won’t be too long before Dr Wilson is able to lecture in the UK again.

This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the book that launched the modern creationist movement: The Genesis Flood by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris. To celebrate this important anniversary, Paul Garner has written an article on the history and impact of The Genesis Flood which is now available on the Biblical Creation Society (BCS) website. You can download a copy here.