The Origin of Oceanic Trenches
• Deep folds, thousands of miles long and
several miles deep, lie on the floor of the
western Pacific Ocean, directly opposite
the center of the Atlantic Ocean.
The plate tectonic theory claims that
plates drifting on the earth’s surface dive
into the earth and drag down the folds.
Many reasons will be given why this
cannot happen.
• As the flood increasingly altered earth’s balanced, spherical
shape, gravity increasingly tried to squeeze the earth back
toward a more spherical shape.
Once a “tipping point” was reached, that portion of the
subterranean chamber floor with the most overlying rock
removed rose almost 10 miles to become the Atlantic floor.
This caused the Pacific floor to subside and buckle inward,
producing folds, called oceanic trenches.
Measurements and discoveries near trenches confirm this
subsidence and the absence of diving plates.
Shifts of material throughout the inner earth produced
voluminous amounts of magma, much of which rose onto
the Pacific floor.
Slight mass imbalances remain, so earthquakes now occur
and continents steadily shift—not drift—toward the trench
region of the western Pacific.
• Imagine standing at the edge of something that reminds you of the
Grand Canyon, but this “canyon” is several times deeper.
Its walls are almost as steep as the Grand Canyon’s, but the view
across the 60-mile-wide depression is never obstructed by
intermediate land forms.
This “canyon” is thousands of miles longer than the Grand Canyon
and does not have sharp bends.
Such depressions, called oceanic trenches, are often shaped like
long arcs that connect at cusps.
Oceanic trenches would be the leading natural wonders of the
world, if water did not hide them. (Average ocean depth is 2.5
miles; the deepest trench is 6.86 miles below sea level.)
Sixteen trenches are concentrated on the western Pacific floor.
What concentrated so many trenches, and why in the Western
Drifting vs. Shifting
• The distinction between drifting and shifting is subtle but important.
• A box drifts on the sea, but a box shifts in the back of a truck.
• Drifting is a continuing movement on or in a fluid, often for a great
distance, while shifting is a slight, limited, but significant lateral
movement on or in a solid.
Drifting is caused by a steady, unyielding, outside force, while
shifting is usually caused by gravity and a sudden change in
Drifting requires a continuing energy source, but shifting requires a
disturbing event.
The plate tectonic theory says continents steadily drift.
The hydroplate theory says crustal plates drifted rapidly, but briefly,
on a layer of escaping, high-pressure water near the end of the
This drifting produced imbalances.
Since then, these and other imbalances caused by the flood
sporadically shift continents and everything below.
• Surprisingly, trenches contain shallow-water
• Materials [including fossils] which are usually
supposed to be deposited only in shallow water
have actually been found on the floor of some of
the deep trenches.
• Why are such unlikely fossils in a remote part of
the ocean—a thousand times deeper than one
would expect?
• Most of the earth’s crust is vertically balanced,
like blocks of ice floating in a pan of water.
Large, dense blocks sink in, while lighter blocks
“float” higher up.
This is called isostatic equilibrium.
However, oceanic trenches are earth’s most
glaring departure from this equilibrium.
That may be an important clue about how
trenches formed.
• As various authorities have written:
• “... trenches are characterized by large negative gravity
anomalies. That is, there appears to be a mass
deficiency beneath the trenches, and thus something
must be holding the trenches down or else they would
rise in order to restore isostatic equilibrium.
The most striking phenomenon associated with the
trenches is a deficiency in gravity ... Measurements of
gravity near trenches show pronounced departures from
the expected values. These gravity anomalies are among
the largest found on earth. It is clear that isostatic
equilibrium does not exist near the trenches. The trenchproducing forces must be acting ... to pull the crust
under the trenches downward!”
• In other words, something has pulled, not pushed,
trenches down.
The downward pull of gravity in and above trenches is
less than expected, even after adjusting for the trench’s
shape, so less mass exists under trenches than one
would expect.
It is as if something deep inside the earth “sucked”
downward the material directly below trenches.
This would reduce the mass below trenches. (If you
want to show a slight weight loss, weigh yourself while
on a ship sailing over a trench.)
• A useful illustration is to think of a slight vacuum, or
reduced mass, under trenches.
While the term density deficiency is more descriptive and
accurate, most people understand the consequence of a
partial vacuum which “nature abhors.”
That is, nature always tries to move material to fill a
If one waited long enough, material inside the earth
must flow in under trenches to fill this “partial vacuum.”
Today, crustal plates move an inch or so each year
toward trenches, so this “partial vacuum” is being filled
in modern times.
Later, we will see where the missing mass under
trenches went and what created the “partial vacuum.”
Clearly, this filling in has not been going on for long.
• A spinning body, such as a figure skater or the earth,
spins faster if it suddenly becomes more compact about
its spin axis.
This skater starts a spin with outstretched arms.
Then, as she pulls her arms in near her spin axis, she
spins so fast she becomes a blur.
Gravity tries to make the earth as compact and round
as possible.
Earthquakes cause the earth to become more compact
and spin slightly faster.
Therefore, the farther back in time we look, the less
compact we should find the earth—at least until we
arrive at the time the out-of-balance condition arose.
Because earthquakes can occur deep within the earth,
the out-of-balance condition affected the entire earth
and, as you will see, formed trenches.
• A technique called seismic tomography has detected slight
density increases under continents.
The technique uses earthquake waves to see inside the earth, just
as a CAT scan uses x-rays from many angles to see inside your
Each earthquake radiates waves through the earth.
Seismometers located throughout the world receive these waves.
Knowing the precise time of arrival and the time of an earthquake,
each wave’s velocity along a specific path can be calculated.
After many earthquakes and knowing the velocities along tens of
thousands of different paths, a computer can estimate the wave
speed at every point inside the earth.
Higher than normal speed implies either colder or denser rock at
that point.
Earthquake waves travel faster under continents.
Some increases in speed are too great to be caused entirely by
colder temperatures.
• Almost 90% of all earthquake energy is
released under trenches.
• Earthquakes often occur near sloping
planes, called Benioff zones, that
intersect a trench.
• These earthquake zones enter the mantle
at 35°–60° angles below the horizontal
and extend to depths of about 420 miles.
• A fault is a long, deep fracture in the ground along which the
opposite sides have slipped relative to each other.
During an earthquake, opposite sides of a fault “unlock” and rapid
sliding begins.
If the side of a fault nearest a distant seismometer moves toward
the seismometer, a compression wave will be detected first.
If that side moves away from the seismometer, a tension wave will
be detected first.
By examining the first wave to reach many seismometers, one can
deduce the orientation of the fault plane and whether the
earthquake was triggered by compression or tension.
• Earthquakes near trenches are almost always due to horizontal
tension failures at right angles to the trench axis.
• Measurements also show that microearthquakes on the ocean floor
tend to occur at low tide.
• A prominent feature on all ocean
floors is the Mid-Oceanic Ridge.
One characteristic of the ridge
figures prominently in the two
competing theories for how
trenches formed.
As explained in the preceding
chapter, the ridge is cracked in a
strange pattern.
Some cracks are nearly
perpendicular to the ridge axis,
while other cracks are parallel to
Their shapes and orientation are
best explained by the stretching of
the ridge.
What would stretch the ridge in
two perpendicular directions?
(These cracks are easily seen
along the Mid-Oceanic Ridge in
this picture.
• More than 20,000 submarine volcanoes, called
seamounts, litter the Pacific floor.
Some rise almost as high from the surrounding
seafloor as Mount Everest rises above sea level.
Strangely, the Atlantic has few seamounts.
If one plate dives (subducts) beneath another,
why aren’t seamounts and soft sediments
scraped off the top of the descending plate?
• About 2,000 flat-topped seamounts, called
tablemounts, are 3,000–6,000 feet below sea
Evidently, as these volcanoes tried to grow
above sea level, wave action planed off their
Either sea level was once much lower, or ocean
floors were higher, or both.
Each possibility raises new and difficult
• Enormous amounts of melted basalt, called
flood basalts, have spilled out on the earth’s
surface, especially in the Pacific.
They will help us test theories of trench
A typical “spill” could cover the eastern United
States to the height of the Appalachian
Mountains—from Atlanta to New York City and
from the Appalachian Mountains to the Atlantic
More than a dozen of these convulsions have
occurred at different places on earth, dwarfing in
volume the total magma used to form all
volcanic cones.
Theories Attempting to Explain
the Origin of Oceanic Trenches
• Two broad theories include an explanation
for how oceanic trenches formed.
• Each explanation will be described as its
advocates would.
• Then we will test these conflicting
explanations against physical observations
and requirements.
Hydroplate Explanation for Trenches
(A) Before the flood, the weight of rock and water, pushing down on the subterranean chamber’s floor, balanced the
floor’s upward pressure. The rupture destroyed that equilibrium. Directly below the rupture, the imbalance grew as
escaping, high-velocity water and crumbling, unsupportable walls widened the globe-encircling rupture hundreds of
miles. Eventually, the imbalance overwhelmed the strength of the floor. First, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge buckled, or sprang,
upward. As Europe and Africa slid eastward and the Americas slid westward (based on today’s directions), weight was
removed from the rising floor, lifting it faster and accelerating the hydroplates even more. Pressure under the floor,
represented by the large black arrows, naturally decreased as the floor rose.
(B) Friction melted much of the inner earth as mass shifted toward the rising Atlantic. The melt lubricated the shifts,
allowed gravitational settling, formed the earth’s inner and outer core, and increased earth’s spin rate. The solid floors of
the Pacific and Indian Oceans subsided considerably as material shifted inside the earth toward the Atlantic, and as
magma (flood basalts) spilled out. Where land subsided the most, directly opposite the rising Atlantic, the crust buckled
downward forming trenches. Gravity is still smoothing out these imbalances—shifting (not drifting) material, including
continents, toward trenches.
The Hydroplate Theory
• At the end of the flood phase, crumbling walls and
erosion from escaping high-velocity water had widened
the globe-encircling rupture to an average of about 800
Exposed at the bottom of this wide, water-filled gap was
the subterranean chamber floor, about 10 miles below
the earth’s surface.
Before the rupture, the gigantic pressure immediately
under the floor corresponded to the weight of almost 10
miles of rock and 3/4 mile of water that pressed down
on the floor.
Afterward, with 10 miles of rock suddenly gone, only the
strength of the chamber floor and 10 miles of water on
top of it resisted this upward pressure.
Consequently, as the rupture widened, the Mid-Oceanic
Ridge suddenly buckled up.
• The continental-drift phase began with
hydroplates sliding “downhill” on a layer of
water, away from the rising Mid-Atlantic
• This removed more weight from the rising
portion of the subterranean chamber floor,
causing it to rise even faster and
accelerate the hydroplates even more.
• As that part of the chamber floor rose to
become the Atlantic floor, it stretched
horizontally in all directions, as a balloon
stretches when its radius increases.
This stretching produced cracks parallel and
perpendicular to the Mid-Oceanic Ridge.
Because this began in what is now the Atlantic,
the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and its cracks are the
most prominent of the oceanic ridge system.
• Obviously, the great confining pressure in the mantle
and core did not allow deep voids to open up under the
rising Atlantic floor.
So even deeper material was “sucked” upward.
Throughout the inner earth, material shifted toward the
rising Atlantic floor, forming a broader, but shallower,
depression on the opposite side of the earth—what is
now the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Just as the Atlantic floor stretched horizontally as it rose,
the western Pacific floor compressed horizontally as it
Subsidence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans began a
startling 20–25 minutes after the Atlantic floor began its
rise, the time it takes stresses and strains from a seismic
wave to pass through the earth.
Both movements contributed to the “downhill” slide of
• Centered on the Pacific and Indian Oceans
is the trench region of the western Pacific.
• As material beneath the western Pacific
was “sucked” down, it buckled downward
in places forming trenches.
• The Atlantic Ocean (centered at 21.5°W
longitude and 10°S latitude) is almost
exactly opposite this trench region
(centered at 159°E longitude and 10°N
• A simple, classic experiment illustrates some
aspects of this event.
• A cup of water is poured into an empty 1-gallon
can. The can is heated from below until steam
flows out the opening in the top. The heat is
turned off, and the cap is quickly screwed on the
top of the can, trapping hot steam in the metal
can. As the steam cools, a partial vacuum forms
inside the can. The can’s walls buckle in, forming
wrinkles in the metal—“miniature trenches.”
• The upper 5 miles of the earth’s crust is hard and brittle.
• Below the top 5 miles, the large confining pressure will
deform rock if pressure differences are great enough.
Consequently, as the western Pacific floor subsided
(sank), it buckled into “downward creases,” forming
The hard crust and deformable mantle frequently
produced deformations with an “arc and cusp” shape.
The brittle crust cracked and slid in many places,
especially along paths called Benioff zones.
Trench Cross Section Based on Hydroplate Theory
• Notice that the trench axis will
generally not be a straight line.
Sediments (green) hide the top of
a fault plane that should rise
above the floor a few hundred
feet at most.
Other sediments (not shown) and
flood basalts (dark gray) cover
most of the western Pacific floor.
The three large black arrows
show the direction of the rising
Atlantic and the forces that
downwarped the mantle and
Earthquakes occur on the many
faults produced, especially in
Benioff zones and at low tides.
Most volcanoes are not above
Benioff zones, but are in the
center of the western Pacific
where downwarping was
• Deformations throughout the earth slid countless
pieces of highly compressed rock over, along,
and through each other, generating extreme
friction—and, therefore, heat.
• To appreciate the heat generated, slide a brick
one foot along a sidewalk. The brick and
sidewalk will warm slightly. Sliding a brick an
inch but with a mile of rock squarely on top
would melt part of the brick and sidewalk.
Earth’s radius is almost 4,000 miles. Place a few
thousand of those miles of rock on top of the
brick and slide it only one thousandth of an
inch. The heat generated would melt the entire
brick and much of the sidewalk below.
• Small movements deep inside the solid earth
would melt huge volumes of minerals, especially
those with lower melting temperatures.
• Much of this magma (liquid rock) flowed up onto
the deepening granite hydroplate in the western
Pacific floor. (Researchers have begun to detect
this granite under the floors of the Pacific and
Indian Oceans.)
The more magma that flowed up into this basin,
the more the Pacific hydroplate sank.
Hydroplates sliding downhill, away from the
rising Atlantic floor, slid toward this vast and
very deep pool of magma.
Other magma gushed out on the continents as
flood basalts.
Some magma, unable to escape fast enough, is
trapped in magma chambers.
The rest constitutes the earth’s liquid outer core.
• Let’s suppose the inner earth initially had a more
uniform mixture of minerals throughout.
Melting, as described above, would cause denser
minerals to settle and lighter minerals to rise, a
process called gravitational settling.
This would generate more heat and produce
more melting and gravitational settling—followed
by more heating, melting, and settling.
After many such cycles, the earth’s core would
form with the densest minerals settling to form
the solid inner core and the melt rising to form
the liquid outer core.
• This frictional heating, internal melting,
and gravitational settling of the denser
components would have increased earth’s
rotational speed.
• Today, the earth spins 365.256 times each
year, but there are historical reasons for
believing a year once had 360 days.
• We see here in this picture that skaters
spin faster as they become more
Likewise, as denser minerals settled
through the magma toward the center
of the earth, the inner core spun faster
than the outer earth and the melt
moved upward.
The inner core is still spinning faster
(0.4° per year), because the liquid outer
core allows slippage between the faster
inner core and the slower outer earth.
Other evidence supports these dramatic
• Gravity is the basic driving mechanism that formed
trenches and slowly shifts the crust.
• Gravity always tries to make the earth more spherical.
• If you suddenly removed a bucket of water from a
swimming pool (or even a 10-mile-thick layer of rock
lying above what is now the Atlantic floor), gravity would
act to smooth out the irregularity.
• Because massive volumes of rock inside the earth do not
flow as fast as water in a swimming pool, pressure
deficiencies, which we might think of as slight partial
vacuums, still exist under trenches.
• Today—especially at low tide—mantle material flows very
slightly in under trenches to reduce these “partial
• This stretches the crust above, produces extensional
earthquakes near trenches, shifts plates toward
trenches, and makes the earth measurably rounder.
• Both the hydroplate theory and the
plate tectonic theory are explained as
their advocates would explain the
theories. One should critically
question every detail of both
theories, and not accept either until
the evidence has been weighed.
The Plate Tectonic Theory
• The earth’s crust is broken into rigid
plates, 30–60 miles thick, each with an
area roughly the size of a continent. Some
plates carry portions of oceans and
continents. Plates move relative to each
other over the earth’s surface, an inch or
so per year.
Plate Tectonic Explanation for Trenches
• Internal heat circulates the mantle causing continental-size plates to
drift over the earth’s surface.
Consequently, material rises at oceanic ridges (forcing the seafloor to
spread), so plates must subduct at oceanic trenches, allowing layered
sediments (shown in yellow) to collect.
According to plate tectonics, earthquakes occur where subducting plates
slide (Benioff zones) and at other plate boundaries.
This theory says subducting plates also melt rock, and the magma rises
to form volcanoes.
[Actually, most volcanoes are not above Benioff zones. If this theory is
correct, the yellow sediments hide a cliff face that is at least 30 miles
high and the trench axis should be a straight line. W.B.]
• Heat is the basic driving mechanism that formed
trenches and moves plates.
• Just as hot water circulates in a pan on a stove, hot rock
circulates slowly inside the earth’s mantle.
Radioactive decay warms some parts of the mantle more
than others.
The warmer rock expands, becomes less dense (more
buoyant), and slowly rises, as a cork rises when
submerged in water.
Sometimes, plumes of hot rock rising from the outer
core break through the earth’s crust as flood basalts.
Conversely, relatively cold rock descends.
Rising and descending rock inside the mantle forms
circulation cells (convection cells) which drag plates
Currents within the mantle rise at oceanic ridges, create
new crust, and produce seafloor spreading.
• Because new crust forms at oceanic ridges, old crust
must be consumed somewhere.
This happens when two plates converge.
The older plate, having had more time to cool, is denser.
Therefore, it sinks below the younger plate and subducts
into the mantle, forming a trench.
A cold, sinking edge will pull the rest of the plate and
enhance circulation in the mantle.
Earthquakes occur under trenches when subducting
plates slip along Benioff zones.
At great depths, subducting plates melt, releasing
magma which migrates up to the earth’s surface to form
Of course, such slow processes would require hundreds
of millions of years to produce what we see today.
Final Thoughts
• Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, former president of the
University of Wisconsin and the first head of the Geology
Department at the University of Chicago, published a
famous paper in which he warned researchers not to let
one hypothesis dominate their thinking.
Instead, they should always have or seek multiple
working hypotheses, especially in fields, such as geology,
where much remains to be learned.
Chamberlin stated that testing competing hypotheses or
theories sharpens one’s analytical skills, develops
thoroughness, reduces biases, and helps students and
teachers learn to discriminate and think independently
rather than simply memorize and conform.
• Chamberlin said the dangers of teaching only one
explanation are especially great in the earth sciences.
The explanation for oceanic trenches is an example.
The plate tectonic theory dominates the earth sciences.
A recent survey of scientists selected it as the most
significant theory of the 20th century.
Undoubtedly, Darwin’s theory of organic evolution would
be voted as the most significant theory of the 19th
Both dominate, despite their growing scientific problems,
because schools and the media ignore competing
Chamberlin warned about the comfort of conformity.
• The subject of “trenches” offers students and teachers a
great opportunity.
More information can be added as student interest, time,
and ability permit.
Relevant topics could include: fossils, volcanoes,
earthquakes, gravity anomalies, flood basalts, seismic
tomography, arcs, cusps, tides, the core-mantle
boundary, and many others.
Students can examine and compare the evidence and
tentatively decide which is the stronger theory.
Teachers and parents have a simple, satisfying task:
provide information, ask questions, challenge answers,
and allow students the excitement of discovery.
• A 10-mile-thick
granite layer (a
hydroplate) will be
found a few miles
under the western
Pacific floor.
• Fossils of land
animals, not just
shallow-water plant
fossils, will be found
in and near trenches.
• Precise measurements
of the center of the
western Pacific floor
will show it is rising
relative to the center of
the earth, because
plates are still shifting.
• When greater
precision is achieved
in measuring the
inner core’s rotational
speed, it will be found
to be slowing relative
to the rest of the
• A well-designed blind
test will not support
McDougall’s age
sequences for seven
Hawaiian volcanoes.
• During a 1964 earthquake in
Niigata, Japan, the ground
turned to a dense liquidlike
substance, causing this empty
concrete tank to float up from
just below ground level.
• This was the first time
geologists identified the
phenomenon of liquefaction,
which had undoubtedly
occurred in other large
• Liquefaction has even lifted
empty tanks up through asphalt
pavement and raised pipelines
and logs out of the ground.
• In other words, buried objects
that are less dense than
surrounding soil rise buoyantly
when that soil liquefies.
Floating Tank
• What causes liquefaction?
• What would happen to
buried animals and plants in
temporarily liquefied
• During the above
Sinking Buildings
earthquake, building
number 3 sank in and
tipped 22 degrees as
the ground partially
Another building,
seen at the red
arrow, tipped almost
70 degrees, so much
that its roof is nearly
The Origin of Strata
Layered Fossils
• Liquefaction—associated with quicksand,
earthquakes, and wave action—played a
major role in rapidly sorting sediments,
plants, and animals during the flood.
Indeed, the worldwide presence of sorted
fossils and sedimentary layers shows that
a gigantic global flood occurred.
Massive liquefaction also left other
diagnostic features such as cross-bedded
sandstone, plumes, and mounds.
• Sedimentary rocks are distinguished by sharply•
defined layers, called strata.
Fossils almost always lie within such layers.
Fossils and strata, seen globally, have many
unusual characteristics.
A little-known and poorly-understood
phenomenon called liquefaction (lik-wuh-FAKshun) explains these characteristics.
It also explains why we do not see fossils and
strata forming on a large scale today.
• We will first consider several common
situations that cause liquefaction on a
small scale.
• After understanding why liquefaction
occurs, we will see that a global flood
would produce liquefaction—and these
vast, sharply defined layers—worldwide.
• Finally, a review of other poorlyunderstood features in the earth’s crust
will confirm that global liquefaction did
Examples of Liquefaction
• Quicksand is a simple example of liquefaction.
• Spring-fed water flowing up through sand creates quicksand.
• The upward flowing water lifts the sand grains very slightly, surrounding each
grain with a thin film of water.
This cushioning gives quicksand, and other liquefied sediments, a spongy,
fluidlike texture.
Contrary to popular belief and Hollywood films, a person or animal stepping
into deep quicksand will not sink out of sight forever.
They will quickly sink in—but only so far.
Then they will be lifted, or buoyed up, by a force equal to the weight of the
sand and water displaced.
The more they sink in, the greater the lifting force.
Buoyancy forces also lift a person floating in a swimming pool.
However, quicksand’s buoyancy is almost twice that of water, because the
weight of the displaced sand and water is almost twice that of water alone.
As we will see, fluid-like sediments produced a buoyancy that largely explains
why fossils show a degree of vertical sorting and why sedimentary rocks all
over the world are typically so sharply layered.
• Liquefaction is frequently seen during, and even
minutes after, earthquakes.
During the Alaskan Good Friday earthquake of
1964, liquefaction caused most of the
destruction within Anchorage, Alaska.
Much of the damage during the San Francisco
earthquake of 1989 resulted from liquefaction.
Although geologists can describe the
consequences of liquefaction, few seem to
understand why it happens.
Levin describes it as follows:
• “Often during earthquakes, fine-grained
water-saturated sediments may lose their
former strength and form into a thick
mobile mudlike material. The process is
called liquefaction. The liquefied sediment
not only moves about beneath the surface
but may also rise through fissures and
“erupt” as mud boils and mud
Strahler says that in a severe earthquake:
• “... the ground shaking reduces the strength of earth
material on which heavy structures rest. Parts of many
major cities, particularly port cities, have been built on
naturally occurring bodies of soft, unconsolidated clayrich sediment (such as the delta deposits of a river) or
on filled areas in which large amounts of loose earth
materials have been dumped to build up the land level.
These water-saturated deposits often experience a
change in property known as liquefaction when shaken
by an earthquake. The material loses strength to the
degree that it becomes a highly fluid mud, incapable of
supporting buildings, which show severe tilting or
• These are accurate descriptions of
liquefaction, but they do not explain why it
• When we understand the mechanics of
liquefaction, we will see that liquefaction
once occurred continuously and globally
for weeks or months during the flood.
• Visualize a box filled with small, angular rocks.
• If the box were so full that you could not quite close its
lid, you would shake the box, so the rocks settled into a
denser packing arrangement.
Now repeat this thought experiment, only this time all
space between the rocks is filled with water.
As you shake the box and the rocks settle into a denser
arrangement, water will be forced up to the top by the
“falling” rocks.
If the box is tall, many rocks will settle, so the force of
the rising water will increase.
The taller column of rocks will also provide greater
resistance to the upward flow, increasing the water’s
pressure even more.
The topmost rocks will then be lifted by water pressure
for as long as the flow continues.
• This is similar to an earthquake in a region
having loose, water-saturated sediments.
Once upward-flowing water lifts the topmost
sediments, weight is removed from the
sediments below.
The upward flowing water can then lift the
second level of sediments.
This, in turn, unburdens the particles beneath
them, etc.
The particles are no longer in solid-to-solid
contact, but are suspended in and lubricated by
water, so they can easily slip by each other.
Wave-Loading—A Small Example
• You are walking barefooted along the beach. As each
wave comes in, water rises from the bottom of your feet
to your knees. When the wave returns to the sea, the
sand beneath your feet becomes loose and mushy. As
your feet sink in, walking becomes difficult. This
temporarily mushy sand, familiar to most of us, is a
small example of liquefaction.
Why does this happen?
At the height of each wave, water is forced down into
the sand. As the wave returns to the ocean, water forced
into the sand gushes back out. In doing so, it lifts the
topmost sand particles, forming the mushy mixture.
• If you submerged yourself face down under
breaking waves but just above the seafloor, you
would see sand particles rise slightly above the
floor as each wave trough approached.
Water just above the sand floor also moves back
and forth horizontally with each wave cycle.
Fortunately, the current moves toward the beach
as liquefaction lifts sand particles above the
So sand particles are continually nudged
upslope, toward the beach.
If this did not happen, beaches would not be
Wave-Loading—A Medium-Sized Example
• During a storm, as a large wave passes over a
pipe buried offshore, water pressure increases
above it.
This forces more water into the porous
sediments surrounding the pipe.
As the wave peak passes and the wave trough
approaches, pressure over the pipe drops, and
the stored, high-pressure water in the sediments
flows upward.
This lifts the sediments and causes liquefaction.
The buried pipe, “floating” upward, sometimes
Wave-Loading—A Large Example
• On 18 November 1929, an earthquake struck the continental slope
off the coast of Newfoundland.
Minutes later, transatlantic phone cables began breaking
sequentially, farther and farther downslope, away from the
Twelve cables were snapped in a total of 28 places.
Exact times and locations were recorded for each break.
Investigators suggested that a 60-mile-per-hour current of muddy
water swept 400 miles down the continental slope from the
earthquake’s epicenter, snapping the cables.
This event intrigued geologists.
If thick muddy flows could travel that fast and far, they could erode
long submarine canyons and do other geological work.
Such hypothetical flows, called “turbidity currents,” now constitute a
large field of study within geology.
• Problems with the 60-mile-per-hour, turbidity•
current explanation are:
A). water resistance prevents even nuclearpowered submarines from traveling nearly that
B). the ocean floor in that area off the coast of
Newfoundland slopes less than 2 degrees,
C). some broken cables were upslope from the
earthquake’s epicenter, and
D). nothing approaching a 400-mile landslide
has ever been observed—let alone on a 2
degree slope or underwater.
• Instead, a large wave, a tsunami, would
have rapidly radiated out from the
earthquake’s epicenter.
• Below the expanding wave, sediments on
the seafloor would have partially liquefied,
allowing them to flow downhill.
• This sediment flow loaded and eventually
snapped only those cable segments that
were perpendicular to the downhill flow.
• Other details support this explanation.
• We can now see that liquefaction
occurs whenever water is forced up
through loose sediments with
enough pressure to lift the topmost
sedimentary particles.
• A gigantic example of liquefaction, caused
by many weeks of global wave-loading,
will soon follow.
Liquefaction During the Flood
• The flooded earth had enormous, unimpeded
waves—not just normal waves, but waves
generated by undulating hydroplates. (The
reasons for vibrating or fluttering hydroplates
will be explained in the chapter on comets.)
Also, a flooded earth would have no coastlines,
so friction would not destroy waves at the
Instead, waves would travel around the earth,
often reinforcing other waves.
• During the flood, water was forced into the seafloor in
two ways.
First, water is slightly compressible, so water in the
saturated sediments below a wave peak was compressed
like a stiff spring.
Second, and more importantly, under wave peaks, water
was forced, not only down into the sediments below, but
laterally through the sediments, in the direction of
decreasing pressure.
As the wave height diminished, local pressure was
reduced and both effects reversed, producing upward
flowing water.
Water almost completely surrounded each sediment
particle deposited on the ocean floor during the flood,
giving each particle maximum buoyancy.
Therefore, sediments were loosely packed and held
much water.
• Half the time throughout the flood phase,
water was pushed down into the
sediments, stored for the other
(discharge) half-cycle in which water
flowed upward.
• During discharge, liquefaction occurred if
the water’s upward velocity exceeded a
specific minimum.
• When it did, interesting things happened.
Liquefaction and Water Lenses
The wave cycle begins at the left with water being forced
down into the seafloor.
As the wave trough approaches, that compressed water is
Water then flows up through the seafloor, lifting the
sediments, starting at the top of the sedimentary column.
During liquefaction, denser particles sink and lighter
particles (and dead organisms, soon to become fossils)
float up—until a liquefaction lens is encountered.
Lenses of water form along nearly horizontal paths if the
sediments below those horizontal paths are more
permeable than those above, so more water flows up into
each lens than out through its roof.
Sedimentary particles and dead organisms buried in the
sediments were sorted and resorted into vast, thin layers.
In an unpublished experiment at Loma Linda University, a
dead bird, mammal, reptile, and amphibian were placed in
an open water tank.
Their buoyancy in the days following death depended on
their density while living, the build-up and leakage of
gases from their decaying bodies, the absorption or loss of
water by their bodies, and other factors.
That experiment showed that the natural order of settling
following death was amphibian, reptile, mammal, and
finally bird.
This order of relative buoyancy correlates closely
with “the evolutionary order,” but, of course,
evolution did not cause it.
Other factors, also influencing burial order at each
geographical location, were: liquefaction lenses, which
animals were living in the same region, and each animal’s
mobility before the flood overtook it.
• A thick, horizontal layer of sediments provides
high resistance to upward flowing water,
because the water must flow through tiny,
twisting channels between particles.
Great pressure is needed to force water up
through such layers.
During liquefaction, falling sediments and high
waves provide the required high pressure.
• If water flows up through a bed of sediments with enough velocity,
water pressure will lift and support each sedimentary particle.
Rather than thinking of water flowing up through the sediments,
think of the sediments falling down through a very long column of
Slight differences in density, size, or shape of adjacent particles will
cause them to fall at slightly different speeds.
Their relative positions will change until the water’s velocity drops
below a certain value or until nearly identical particles are adjacent
to each other, so they fall at the same speed.
This sorting produces the sharply-defined layering typical in
sedimentary rocks.
In other words, vast, sharply-defined layers are unmistakable
characteristics of liquefaction and a global flood.
• Such sorting also explains why sudden
local floods sometimes produce horizontal
strata on a small scale.
• Liquefaction can occur as mud settles
through the water or as water is forced up
through mud.
Liquefaction Demonstration
When the wooden blocks at the top of the horizontal
beam are removed, the beam can rock like a teetertotter.
As the far end of the beam is tipped up, water flows
from the far tank down through the pipe and up into a
container at the left which holds a mixture of sediments.
Once liquefaction begins, sedimentary particles fall or
rise relative to each other, sorting themselves into
layers, each having particles with similar size, shape,
and density.
Buried bodies with the density of plants and dead
animals float up through the sediments—until they
reach a liquefaction lens.
The same would happen to plants and animals buried
during the flood.
Their sorting and later fossilization might give the
mistaken impression that organisms buried and
fossilized in higher layers evolved millions of years after
lower organisms.
A “school of thought,” with appealing philosophical
implications for some, would arise that claimed changes
in living things were simply a matter of time.
With so many complex differences among protons,
peanuts, parrots, and people, eons of time must have
With so much time available, many other strange
observations might be explained.
Some would try to explain even the origin of the
universe, including space, time, and matter, using this
faulty, unscientific “school of thought.”
Of course, these ideas could not be demonstrated (as
liquefaction can be), because too much time would be
• The 10-foot-long metal beam pivoted like a
teeter-totter from the top of the 4-legged stand.
Suspended from each end of the beam was a 5gallon container, one containing water and one
containing a mixture of different sediments.
A 10-foot-long pipe connected the mouths of the
two containers.
• As you would lift the water tank by gently inclining the
metal beam.
Water will flow down through the pipe and up through
the bed of mixed sediments in the other tank.
If the flow velocity exceeded a very low threshold, the
sediments swelled slightly as liquefaction began.
Buried bodies with the density of a dead animal or plant
floated to the top of the tank.
Once water started to overflow the sediment tank, the
metal beam had to be tipped, so the water flowed back
into the water tank.
After repeating this cycle for 10 or 15 minutes, the
mixture of sediments became visibly layered.
The more cycles, the sharper the boundaries between
sedimentary layers became.
• An important phenomenon, which will be called lensing, was observed in the
sediment tank.
Some layers were more porous and permeable than others.
If water flowed more easily up through one sedimentary layer than the layer
immediately above, a lens of water accumulated between them.
Multiple lenses could form simultaneously, one a short distance above the
Water in these nearly horizontal lenses always flowed uphill.
Throughout the flood, many water lenses formed and sometimes collapsed
with each wave cycle.
During liquefaction, organisms floated up into the lens immediately above.
Water’s buoyant force is only about half that of liquefied sediments, so a
water lens was less able to lift dead organisms into the denser sedimentary
layer immediately above the lens.
In each geographical region, organisms with similar size, shape, and density
(usually members of the same species) often ended up in the same lens.
There they were swept by currents for many miles along those nearly
horizontal channels.
• Vegetation lifted by liquefaction into a water lens spread out and
formed a buoyant mat pressed up against the lens’ roof.
Vegetation mats, composed of thin, flat, relatively impermeable
sheets, such as intertwined leaves, ferns, grass, and wood fragments
could not push through that roof.
These mats also prevented sedimentary grains in the roof from falling
to the floor of the lens.
Each vegetation mat acted as a check valve; that is, during the
portion of the wave cycle when water flowed upward, the mat
reduced the flow upward through the narrow channels in the lens’
During the other half of the wave cycle, when water flowed
downward, the mat was pushed away from the roof allowing new
water to enter the lens.
Therefore, throughout the flood, water lenses with vegetation mats
thickened and expanded.
• Vegetation mats became today’s coal seams, some of which can be
traced over 100,000 square miles.
• Sometimes, 50 or more coal seams are stacked one
above the other with an important sequence of
sedimentary layers separating the coal layers.
A typical sequence between coal seams (from bottom to
top) is: sandstone, shale, limestone, and finally denser
clay graded up to finer clay.
These cyclic patterns, called cyclothems, are in the order
one would expect from liquefaction: denser, rounder,
larger sedimentary particles at the bottom and less
dense, flatter, finer sedimentary particles at the top.
Cyclothem layers worldwide generally have the same
relative order, although specific layers may be absent.
Drifting Footprints
Hundreds of footprints, involving 44 different
trackways, were discovered in cross-bedded
sandstone layers of northern Arizona.
Surprisingly, movement was in one direction, but
the toes pointed in another direction—sometimes at
almost right angles.
These and other details made it clear that the
animals, probably amphibians, were walking on the
sand bottom of some type of lateral-flowing stream.
This contradicts the standard story that the crossbedded sandstone layers were once ancient sand
Almost all trackways moved uphill.
Obviously, thick sediments must have gently and
quickly blanketed the footprints to prevent their
erosion—a vexing problem for evolutionists who try
to explain fossilized footprints.
How could this happen?
Today, salamanders buried in muddy lake bottoms
can “breathe” through their skins and hibernate for
During liquefaction, salamanderlike animals floated
up into a liquefaction lens, where water always
flows uphill.
Footprints could be made on the lens’ floor for
minutes, as long as the lens stayed open and no
more liquefaction occurred to obscure the
When the water lens slowly drained and its roof
settled onto the floor, footprints and other marks
were firmly protected.
• When a liquefaction lens slowly collapsed for the last time, plants
and small animals were trapped, flattened, and preserved between
the lens’ roof and floor.
Even footprints, ripple marks, and worm burrows were preserved at
the interface, if no further liquefaction occurred there.
A particular lens might stay open through many wave cycles, long
after the lens’ floor last liquefied. At other places, the last (and most
massive) liquefaction event was caused by the powerful
compression event.
Fossils, sandwiched between thin layers, were often spread over a
wide surface which geologists call a horizon.
Thousands of years later, these horizons gave some investigators
the false impression those animals and plants died long after layers
below were deposited and long before layers above were deposited.
A layer with many fossils covering a vast area was misinterpreted as
an extinction event or a boundary between geologic periods.
• Early geologists noticed that similar fossils were often in
two closely spaced horizons.
It seemed obvious that the subtle differences between
each horizon’s fossils must have developed during the
assumed long time interval between each horizon.
Different species names were given to these organisms,
although nothing was known about their inability to
interbreed—the true criterion for identifying species.
Later, in 1859, Charles Darwin proposed a mechanism,
natural selection, which he claimed accounted for the
evolution of those subtle differences.
However, if sorting by liquefaction produced those
differences, Darwin’s explanation is irrelevant.
• Early geologists learned that fossils found above or
below another type of fossil in one location were almost
always in that same relative position, even many miles
This led to the belief that the lower organisms lived,
died, and were buried before the upper organisms.
Much time supposedly elapsed between the two burials,
because sediments are deposited very slowly today.
Each horizon became associated with a specific time,
perhaps millions of years earlier (or later) than the
horizon above (or below) it.
Finding so many examples of “the proper sequence”
convinced early geologists they had found a new
principle of interpretation, which they soon called the
principle of superposition.
• Evolutionary geology is built upon this and one other
“principle,” the principle of uniformitarianism which
states that all geological features can be explained by
today’s processes acting at present rates.
For example, today rivers deposit sediments at river
Over millions of years, thick layers of sediments would
This might explain the sedimentary rocks we now see.
After considering liquefaction, both “principles” appear
seriously flawed.
Sediments throughout a tall liquefaction column could
have been re-sorted and deposited almost
simultaneously by a large-scale process not going on
Testing the Theories
• How can we compare and test the two
conflicting explanations: liquefaction
versus uniformitarianism and the principle
of superposition over billions of years?
• Many sedimentary layers span hundreds of
thousands of square miles. (River deltas, where
sediment buildups are greatest today, are only a
tiny fraction of that area.)
Liquefaction during a global flood would account
for the vast expanse of these thick layers.
Current processes and eons of time do not.
• One thick, extensive sedimentary layer has
remarkable purity.
The St. Peter sandstone, spanning about
500,000 square miles in the central United
States, is composed of almost pure quartz,
similar to sand on a white beach.
It is hard to imagine how any geologic process,
other than global liquefaction, could achieve this
degree of purity over such a wide area.
Almost all other processes involve mixing, which
destroys purity.
• Streams and rivers deposit sediments
along a narrow line, but individual strata
are spread over large geographical areas,
not along narrow, streamlike paths.
• Liquefaction during the flood acted on all
sediments and sorted them over wide
areas in weeks or months.
• Sedimentary layers are usually sharply defined,
parallel, and horizontal.
They are often stacked vertically for thousands
of feet.
If layers had been laid down thousands of years
apart, surface erosion would have destroyed this
Liquefaction, especially liquefaction lenses,
explain this common observation.
• Sometimes adjacent, parallel layers
contain such different fossils that
evolutionists conclude those layers were
deposited millions of years apart, but the
lack of erosion shows the layers were
deposited rapidly.
• Liquefaction resolves this paradox.
• Many communities around the world get their water from deep,
permeable, water-filled, sedimentary layers called water tables.
When water drains from a water table, the layer collapses, unable to
support the overlying rock layers.
A collapsed water table cannot be replenished, so how were water
tables filled with water in the first place?
Almost all sorted sediments were deposited within water, so water
tables contained water when they first formed.
Today, with water tables steadily collapsing globally, one must
question claims that they formed millions of year ago.
As described earlier, liquefaction sorted sediments relatively recently.
• Varves are extremely thin layers (typically 0.004 inch or 0.1 mm) which
evolutionists claim are laid down annually in lakes.
By counting varves, evolutionists believe time can be measured.
The Green River formation of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, a classic
varve region, contains billions of flattened, paper-thin, fossilized fish,
hundreds fossilized in the act of swallowing other fish.
Obviously, burial was sudden.
Fish, lying on the bottom of a lake for years, would decay or
disintegrate long before enough varves could bury them. (Besides,
dead fish typically float, deteriorate, and then sink.)
Most fish fossilized in varves show exquisite detail and are pressed to
the thinness of a piece of paper, as if they had been compressed in a
collapsing liquefaction lens.
Also, varves are too uniform, show almost no erosion, and are
deposited over wider areas than where streams enter lakes—where
most deposits occur in lakes.
Liquefaction best explains these varves.
• Corings taken anywhere in
the bottom of any large
lake will not show
laminations as thin, parallel,
and extensive as the varves
of the 42,000-square-mile
Green River formation,
perhaps the best known
varve region.
• In almost all cases, dead animals and plants quickly
decay, are eaten, or are destroyed by the elements.
Preservation as fossils requires rapid burial in sediments
thick enough to preserve bodily forms.
This rarely happens today.
When it does, as in an avalanche or a volcanic eruption,
the blanketing layers are not uniform in thickness, do not
span tens of thousands of square miles, and rarely are
water-deposited. (Water is needed if cementing is to
Liquefaction provides a mechanism for rapid, but gentle,
burial and preservation of trillions of fossils in watersaturated sedimentary layers—including fossilized
footprints, worm burrows, ripple marks, and jellyfish.
• Thousands of fossilized jellyfish have been found
in central Wisconsin, sorted to some degree by
size into at least seven layers (spanning 10
vertical feet) of coarse-grained sediments.
Evolutionists admit that a fossilized jellyfish is
exceptionally rare, so finding thousands of them
in what was coarse, abrasive sand is almost
Claiming that it occurred during storms at the
same location on seven different occasions, but
over a million years, is ridiculous.
What happened?
Multiple liquefaction lenses, vertically aligned
during the last liquefaction cycle, trapped
delicate animals such as jellyfish and gently
preserved them as the roof of each water lens
settled onto its floor.
• Many fossilized fish are flattened between
extremely thin sedimentary layers.
• This requires squeezing the fish to the
thinness of a sheet of paper without
damaging the thin sedimentary layers
immediately above and below.
• How could this happen?
• Because dead fish usually float, something must
have pressed the fish onto the seafloor.
Even if tons of sediments were dumped through
the water and on top of the fish, thin layers
would not lie above and below the fish.
Besides, it would take many thin layers, not one,
to complete the burial.
Today’s processes seem inadequate.
However, liquefaction would sort sediments into
thousands of thin layers.
During each wave cycle, liquefaction lenses
would simultaneously form at various depths in
the sedimentary column.
If a fish floated up into a water lens, it would
soon be flattened when the lens finally drained.
• Sediments, such as sand and clay, are produced
by eroding crystalline rock, such as granite or
Sedimentary rocks are cemented sediments.
On the continents, they average more than a
mile in thickness.
Today, two-thirds of continental surface rocks
are sedimentary; one-third is crystalline.
• Was crystalline rock, eroded at the earth’s surface, the
source of the original sediments?
If it was, the first eroded sediments would blanket
crystalline rock and prevent that rock from producing
additional sediments.
The more sediments produced, the fewer the sediments
that could be produced.
Eventually, there would not be enough exposed
crystalline rock at the earth’s surface to produce all the
earth’s sediments and sedimentary rock.
Transporting those new sediments, often great
distances, is another difficulty.
Clearly, most sediments did not come from the earth’s
They must have come from powerful subsurface erosion,
as explained by the hydroplate theory, when highvelocity waters escaped from the subterranean chamber.
• Some limestone layers are hundreds of feet
The standard geological explanation is that
those regions were covered by incredibly limy
(alkaline) water for millions of years—a toxic
condition not found anywhere on earth today.
Liquefaction, on the other hand, would have
quickly sorted limestone particles into vast
• Conventional geology claims that coal layers,
sometimes more than a 100 feet thick, first
accumulated as 1,000-foot-thick layers of
undecayed vegetation.
Nowhere do we see that happening today.
However, liquefaction would have quickly
gathered vegetation buried during the early
stages of the flood into thick layers, which would
become coal after the confined, oxygen-free
heating of the compression event.
• Coal layers lie above and below a specific sequence of sedimentary
layers, called cyclothems.
Some cyclothems extend over 100,000 square miles.
If coal accumulated in peat bogs over millions of years (the
standard explanation), why don’t we see such vast swamps today?
Why would a peat bog form a coal layer that was later buried by
layers of sandstone, shale, limestone, and clay (generally in that
ascending order)?
Why would this sequence be found worldwide and sometimes be
repeated vertically 50 or more times?
To deposit a different sedimentary layer would require a change in
environment and/or elevation—and, of course, millions of years.
Liquefaction provides a simple, complete explanation.
• Fossils are sorted vertically to some degree.
• Evolutionists attribute this to macroevolution.
• No known mechanism will cause macroevolution,
and many evidences refute macroevolution.
Liquefaction, an understood mechanism, would
tend to sort animals and plants.
If liquefaction occurred, one would expect some
exceptions to this sorting order, but if
macroevolution happened, no exceptions to the
evolutionary order should be found. Many
exceptions exist.
• Animals are directly or indirectly dependent on
plants for food.
However, geological formations frequently
contain fossilized animals without fossilized
How could the animals have survived?
Evidently, liquefaction sorted and separated
these animals and plants before fossilization
• Meteorites are rarely found in deep
sedimentary rock.
• This is consistent only with rapidly
deposited sediments.
Liquefaction During the Compression Event
• While liquefaction operated during the flood phase, it
acted massively once during the compression event, at
the end of the continental-drift phase.
Visualize a deck of cards sliding across the table.
Friction from the table slows the bottom card.
That card, in turn, applies a decelerating force on the
second card from the bottom.
If no card slips, friction will finally decelerate the top
But if a lubricant somehow built up between any two
adjacent cards, the cards above the lubricated layer
would slide over the decelerating cards below.
• Similarly, decelerating granite hydroplates acted on the bottom
sedimentary layer riding on the hydroplate.
Each sedimentary layer, from bottom to top, acted in turn to
decelerate the topmost layer.
As each water-saturated layer decelerated, it was severely
This was similar to suddenly squeezing a wet sponge.
The sediments, forced into a denser packing arrangement, released
Sedimentary particles were crushed or broken, so their fragments
filled the spaces between particles, releasing even more water.
The freed water, then forced up through the sediments, caused
massive liquefaction.
As the sedimentary layers decelerated and compressed, they
became more and more fluid.
Eventually, some layers were so fluid that slippage occurred above
them, as in our deck of cards.
Below that level, extreme compression and liquefaction caused
fossils to float up and collect at this watery level where sliding was
taking place.
• The lowest slippage level was the
Cambrian-Precambrian interface.
• Fossils are found almost exclusively above
this interface.
• Therefore, evolutionists interpret the
Precambrian as about 90% of all geologic
time—a vast period, they believe, before
life evolved.
• Again, time is mistakenly measured by
sedimentary layers and their fossils.
Grand Canyon Cross
• The tipped and beveled layers
are part of the Precambrian.
The beveled plane, at the
Cambrian-Precambrian interface,
is sometimes called “The Great
A similar, but much smaller,
example of tipped and beveled
layers is shown in the crossbedded sandstone that I will be
showing in just a few minutes.
Beveling implies relative motion.
Near the top of the Grand
Canyon is a 400-foot-thick layer
of cross-bedded sandstone.
The white arrow points to the
quartzite block that we will see
in just a few minutes.
• In the Grand Canyon, the Cambrian-Precambrian
interface is an almost flat, horizontal surface
exposed for 26 miles along the Colorado River.
Layers above the Cambrian-Precambrian
interface are generally horizontal, but layers
below are tipped at large angles, and their
tipped edges are beveled off horizontally.
Evidently, as slippage began during the
compression event, layers below the slippage
plane continued to compress to the point where
they buckled.
The sliding sedimentary block above the
slippage plane beveled off the still soft layers
that were being increasingly tipped by horizontal
compression below the slippage plane.
Transported Block
This large block, made of a very hard, dense
material called quartzite, was lifted
hundreds of feet, transported horizontally,
and deposited on layers which, at the time,
were soft mud.
Other mud layers then blanketed the block.
Notice how the layers were deformed below
the lower right corner and above the upper
left corner.
The easiest way to lift and transport such a
heavy block is in a liquefied (and therefore,
very buoyant), sand/mud/water mixture.
The location of the block relative to its
source was shown earlier.
Apparently, this quartzite block was
transported in a sliding sedimentary slurry
above the Cambrian-Precambrian interface
during the compression event.
Peak decelerations occurred in the layers
below the sliding slurry.
This included the quartzite layer.
The sudden deceleration and compression
tipped those layers up, allowing them to be
beveled off by the overriding layers.
(Evolutionists explain the absolutely flat
Cambrian-Precambrian interface as a result
of hundreds of millions of years of erosion.)
• Evolutionists have a different interpretation.
• In their view, tipped, Precambrian layers are remnants of
a former mountain range, because mountains today
often have steeply tipped layers.
The tipped layers are horizontally beveled, so
evolutionists say the top of the mountain must have
eroded away.
That, of course, would take a long time.
Millions of years are also needed so seas could flood the
area, because fossils of sea-bottom life are found just
above the Cambrian-Precambrian interface.
Within overlying layers, other fossils are found which
required different environments, such as deserts and
lagoons, so obviously, even more time is needed.
(Unlimited time makes the nearly impossible seem
possible—if you don’t think too much about
Cross-Bedded Sandstone
• Dry sand can have a
maximum slope of only
32 degrees.
• Cross-bedded
sandstone, such as
shown here, often has
much greater slopes.
• Therefore, this sand,
confined between
layers that have since
eroded, was probably
wet when the layers
Cross-bedded sandstone
• Sand layers had the greatest water content,
because sand grains are somewhat rounded,
leaving relatively large gaps for water between
the particles.
Therefore, sand layers were the most fluid
during the massive liquefaction that
accompanied the compression event.
Deceleration forced the sand forward, displacing
the water backward.
Horizontally compressed sand layers would have
tipped, buckled, and beveled individual layers
and blocks of layers, forming what is known as
cross-bedded sandstone.
Formation of Liquefaction Plumes and Mounds
• (a) During the flood phase, global liquefaction sorted water-
saturated sediments into nearly horizontal layers.
(b) During the compression event, massive liquefaction caused
less dense sand/water mixtures to float up, as plumes,
through denser overlying layers.
Later, if the surface layers were not cemented as well as the
sandstone plume, the surface layers could erode away leaving
the plume exposed.
(c) If a plume spilled out on the ground, a mound would form.
Liquefaction Plumes and
• The large water content of liquefied sand layers
(38–46%) would have made them quite
Whenever a low-density, fluid layer (such as a
water-sand mixture) underlies a denser, liquefied
layer, the lighter fluid, if shaken, will float up in
plumes through the denser fluid.
Sand plumes that penetrated overlying layers
are seen in many places on earth
Liquefaction Plume
• 1. A hundred of these
plumes are found in
Kodachrome Basin State
Reserve in south-central
Utah, 10 miles east of
Bryce Canyon National
Park. I am standing at the
bottom left of this tall
• 2. This plume can be traced
down several hundred feet
through the large rock in the
bottom half of the picture.
The plume grew up from a
known horizontal sandstone layer
that has identical chemical
After the plume pushed upward,
cementing took place, with the
sandstone plume becoming
harder than the material it
The plume penetrated softer
layers that later eroded away,
leaving the plume exposed.
Notice the person waving at the
bottom left of this plume.
• Some plumes, especially those rising from thick,
laterally extensive sand layers, spilled onto the
earth’s surface.
This spilling-out resembled volcanic action,
except water-saturated sand erupted, not lava.
Small liquefaction mounds, as they will be
called, appear when liquefaction occurs during
Hundreds of liquefaction mounds are found in
basins throughout the southwestern United
• Why basins?
• During the compression event, liquefied water-sand
mixtures in many places erupted like small volcanoes.
Being surrounded and permeated by water, they would
have quickly slumped into the shape of an upside-down
bowl—a liquefaction mound.
As the flood waters drained at the end of the flood, most
liquefaction mounds were swept away, because they did
not have time to be cemented.
However, mounds inside postflood lakes (basins) were
cemented as each lake cooled and its dissolved silica and
calcium carbonate was forced out of solution.
If a lake later breached and dumped its water, the larger
cemented mounds could resist the torrent of rushing
water and retain their shapes.
The basins that held Grand and Hopi Lakes contain
hundreds of such mounds.
The sudden breaching of those lakes several centuries
after the flood carved the Grand Canyon.
Ayers Rock
This popular tourist attraction in central Australia
is 225 miles southwest of Alice Springs.
Ayers Rock rises 1,140 feet from the desert floor
and has a perimeter of 5.6 miles.
Geologists who try to explain the origin of Ayers
Rock say its sand came from the Musgrave
mountain range 60 miles to the north and was
dumped by water at its present spot.
To account for its vertical layers, they say the rock
“tipped,” but the forces, energy, and mechanisms
to do this are never explained.
However, most geologists admit they do not know
the origin of Ayers Rock.
Ayers Rock has characteristics of both a broad
liquefaction plume and a liquefaction mound.
Its surface layers (bedding) are nearly vertical,
and they connect to a horizontal sandstone layer
It formed in the Amadeus Basin, which protected
it while the flood waters drained from the earth.
Probably most soft sediments through which the
plume rose, were swept away when the basin’s
lake finally discharged.
The many large holes in the sides of Ayers Rock
show where water drained out. (Almost 20 miles
away, this same horizontal sandstone layer also
connects to a series of liquefaction eruptions
called the Olgas.)
The sand grains comprising Ayers Rock are jagged
but, if exposed to rapid currents, would have
become rounded.
Had the grains been weathered for thousands of
years, they would have become clay.
Instead, these grain characteristics are consistent
with the gentle currents produced by liquefaction
and the rapid cementing in the years following the
Small Water Vents
• These water vents are
smaller than a pebble;
others, such as those in
Ayers Rock, are larger than a
• Water vents are quite
different from the shallow
and smooth bowl-like
depressions frequently found
on the tops of liquefaction
• Wind and rain erosion
produced those depressions.
Medium-Size Water Vents
• If these holes were
places where rock was
weakly cemented, similar
holes should be on the
tops of mounds.
Instead, the tops are
Cementing in mounds
and cross-bedded
sandstone is remarkably
uniform and hard,
showing that the cement
was uniformly dissolved
throughout water that
saturated the sand.
• Liquefaction mounds have holes in their sides
showing where internal water escaped.
The channels have collapsed except near the
mound’s surface where there was much less
collapsing stress.
Those holes now look like pock marks.
Some have claimed they are erosion features
from wind and rain.
Obviously, wind and rain would smooth out pock
marks, not make them.
Besides, these “pock marks,” which will be called
water vents, are found only in the sides of
mounds, not the tops, where they should be if
outside erosion formed them.
• Long after the flood, water would drain out of mountains
and cliffs.
Caves would be carved by outward flowing water.
New inhabitants to an area would naturally seek out and
settle around these plentiful sources of drinking water.
(Thus, many ancient cultures believed that water
originated in mountains and issued out of caves.)
Years later, as water sources dwindled, communities
would be forced to leave.
Prosperous cultures, such as the Anasazi and many cliffdwellers, would suddenly disappear from an area,
causing anthropologists to wonder if disease, war,
famine, or drought destroyed those ancient
Special Thanks to:
• ICR – Institute For Creation Research
• Center For Scientific Creation
• Dr. Ray Bohlin, Probe Ministries
• Dr. Tim Standish, University Professor
• AIG – Answers In Genesis
• Origins Resource Association
• Northwest Creation Network
• CRSEF – Creation Research, Science
Education Foundation

The Origin of Oceanic Trenches

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