Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Petrified wood: powerful evidence for a global flood




















In the previous post, we discussed the theories put forward to explain the formation of the Grand Canyon, and the evidence that the Grand Canyon was actually formed by the violent breaching of two enormous post-flood lakes, lifted into their position during the events during and after the global flood. Another post discussing the existence of enormous continental lakes immediately after the flood can be found here.

In the Grand Canyon post, we also noted that the geological formations to the east of the Grand Canyon support the theory that two huge lakes once stood there, and that they rapidly drained during the event that carved the Grand Canyon. The presence of great fields of petrified wood along the edges of these former lakes provides strong supporting evidence for this theory, which is part of the hydroplate theory of West Point graduate and former professor Walt Brown.

There are many aspects of the petrified forests of Arizona and Utah which are difficult to explain using conventional theories. For instance, what led to the unique conditions necessary to form petrified wood? What explains the fact that the logs found in the petrified forests are snapped cleanly and jumbled? What forces could move such large and heavy petrified log segments around into the patterns in which we find them today?

The breaching of the lakes that created the Grand Canyon envisioned under the hydroplate theory provide a very coherent explanation. As Dr. Brown explains in the 7th edition of his book:
As the flood waters drained off the continents, continental basins became lakes. Trees floating in postflood lakes sometimes became saturated with silica-rich solutions [Dr. Brown explains elsewhere how the hydroplate theory provides an explanation for the high temperatures and high pressure required to suspend silica, which is derived from quartz, in solution]. Petrification occurred as the water cooled and silica precipitated on cellulose surfaces. [. . .] To petrify, a log must be saturated with silica-rich solutions, probably in a large lake. For a log to snap this cleanly, it must have been petrified before it broke. Being petrified and dense, it would have rested on the lake floor before it broke. For the log to break into many pieces that later reorient themselves, a sharp, powerful blow must have acted on the entire log. A heavy, petrified log lying on a lake floor seems unlikely to break into many pieces that are later reoriented. However, if the boundary of a large lake were breached, like the collapse of a dam, the lake's waters would rush out in a torrent, carrying even sunken petrified logs for some distance. As a rapidly-moving petrified (brittle) log "crashed" back onto the lake bottom, it would break up, much as an aircraft crashing in a field. 155-156.
Just as with the explanation of the frozen mammoth remains, the hydroplate theory's explanation of the formation of petrified wood appears more plausible than other explanations. Dr. Brown notes that two different petrified forests (one in Arizona and another in Utah) are located in areas that were covered by the two large postflood lakes that breached to create the Grand Canyon.

Furthermore, the conventional explanation that these forests became petrified hundreds of millions of years ago (this article by a University of New Mexico professor states that the Utah forest was petrified 225 million years ago) raises other problems. As Dr. Brown points out elsewhere in his book, petrified trees contain fossilized nests of bees and cocoons of wasps. "The petrified forests are supposedly 220 million years old, while bees (and flowering plants which bees require) supposedly evolved almost a hundred million years later," he notes (7th edition, page 11).

Petrified wood argues strongly for a global flood.