Geologia diluviana

Geologia diluviana interpreta a história geológica da Terra em termos do dilúvio universal descrito no Livro do Génesis. Visões semelhantes tiveram um papel na desenvolvimento inicial da geologia como ciência, mesmo depois da cronologia bíblica ter sido rejeitada por geólogos em favor de uma Terra antiga. Geólogos diluvianos modernos, quase sempre criacionistas da Terra Jovem, consideram a historicidade da Bíblia inimpugnável.

Geologia diluviana contradiz o consenso científico em geologia, física, química, genética molecular, biologia evolutiva, arquelogia e paleontologia, e a comunidade científica considera o tema como pseudociência.

História da geologia diluviana

O dilúvio universal na história da geologia

Muitos Cristãos (incluindo Tertúlio, Crisóstomo e Agostinho de Hipona) acreditavam que os fósseis provinham de organismos mortos e enterrados durante a breve duração do Dilúvio. A aceitação desta ideia foi aprofundada pela peculiaridade geológica no norte da Europa onde a maior parte da superfície está coberta por camadas de "loam" e gravilha assim como blocos erráticos depositados a centenas de quilómetros da sua fonte de origem. Os primeiros geólogos interpretaram essas características como o ressultado de cheias massivas (em meados do século XIX, os geólogos aceitaram que tinham sido formadas pelas glaciações da idade do gelo). O dilúvio universal era associado com perturbações geográficas enormes, com velhos continentes a submerger e novos a erguerem-se, transformando assim leitos marinhos antigos em picos de montanhas.

Durante o Iluminismo, obras significativas foram compiladas oferecendo causas naturais para os milagres contados na Bíblia. Explicações naturalistas para uma cheia global foram propostas em obras como An Essay Toward a Natural History of the Earth (1695) por John Woodward e New Theory of the Earth (1696) pelo aluno de Woodward William Whiston.

A ciência moderna da geologia foi fundada na Europa no século XVIII. Os seus praticantes procuravam perceber a história e formação da Terra através da evidência física encontrada nas rochas e minerais. Como muitos dos primeiros geólogos eram clérigos, naturalmente procuravam ligar a história geológica do mundo com o descrito na Bíblia. A teoria antiga de que os fósseis resultaram de "forças plásticas" dentro da crosta terrestre tinha sido abandonada por esta altura, com o reconhecimento que eles representavam os vestígios de criaturas outrora vivas. Isto, no entanto, suscitava uma grande questão: como é que fósseis de criaturas marinhas acabavam em terra ou no topo de montanhas?

Por volta do início do séc. XIX, já se pensava que a idade da Terra era bem maior do que o sugerido pela interpretação literal da Bíblia (Benoît de Maillet tinha estimado uma idade de 2,4 mil milhões de anos em 1732 em contraponto aos 6 000 anos propostos pelo Arcebispo James Ussher na sua cronologia). Em 1823, o Reverendo William Buckland, primeiro professor de geologia na Universidade de Oxford, interpretou fenómenos geológicos como Reliquiae Diluvianae; relíquias da cheia Atestando a acção de um Dilúvio Universal. O seu ponto de vista era apoiado por outros clérigos naturalistas ingleses da época incluindo o influente Adam Sedgwick, mas estas ideias eram disputadas por geólogos europeus continentais e por volta de 1830 Sedgwick ficou convencido pelas suas próprias descobertas que a evidência apenas mostrava cheias locais.

A promoção feita por Charles Lyell do uniformitarianismo de James Hutton advogava o princípio que mudanças geológicas que ocorreram no passado podem ser percebidas por estudar fenómenos da actualidade. Em comum com Newton, Hutton assumia que o sistema mundial era estável desde o dia da criação, mas ao contrário de Newton ele incluía nesta visão não só a noção do movimento de corpos celestiais e processos como mudanças químicas na terra, mas também processo de mudança geológica. Christopher Kaiser escreve:

Em outras palavras, em comparação com o de Newton, o de Hutton era um conceito de ordem superior do sistema da natureza que incluía não só a estrutura do mundo presente, mas o processo (ou história natural) através da qual a estrutura presente entrou na existência e foi mantida. Como Newton, e em contraste com materialistas como Buffon e neomecanistas como Laplace, as origens do sistema estavam fora do âmbito da ciência para Hutton: na natureza não encontrou 'nenhum vestígio de um princípio - nenhuma perspectiva de um fim'. Mas Hutton chegou o mais perto possível de ser um neomecanista sem ter que mudar o enquadramento Newtoniano de Deus e natureza. Apenas a estipulação Newtoniana de que Deus tinha pessoalmente desenvilvido o presente sistema da natureza se entrepunha entre a teologia natural e a retirada de Deus da ciência por completo... Tal como Derham e Cotes, Hutton acreditava que Deus tinha implantado princípios activos na natureza durante a criação em quantidade suficiente para dar conta de todas as funções naturais.

A ideias de que todas as camadas geológicas foram produzidas por uma única cheia foi rejeitada em 1837 por Buckland que escreveu:

Alguns tentaram ascrever a formação de todas as rochas estratificadas ao efeito do Dilúvio de Moisés; uma opinião que é irreconciliável com a enorme espessura e quase infinita subdivisão desses estratos, e com as sucessões numerosas e regulares que contêm os restos de animais e vegetais, diferindo cada vez mais de espécies existentes, à medida que os estratos são encontrados a cada vez maiores profundidades. O facto que uma grande proporção destes vestígios pertencerem a géneros extintos, e quase todos a espécies extintas, que viveram e multiplicaram e morreram em ou perto de sítios onde foram agora encontrados, mostra que estes estratos nos quais eles ocorrem foram depositados lentamente e gradualmente, durante longos períodos de tempo, e em intervalos largamente distantes.

Durante um período, Buckland continuou a insitir que algumas camadas geológicas estavam relacionadas com o Dilúvio, mas começou a aceitar a ideia de que representavam múltiplas inundações que ocorreram bem antes dos humanos existirem. Foi convencido pelo geólogo suiço Louis Agassiz que muita da evidência na qual ele se baseava era de facto produto de idades do gelo antigas, e tornou-se um dos maiores defensores da teoria das glaciações de Agassiz. A ciência mainstream abandonou a ideia de geologia diluviana que requeria desvios substanciais dos processos físicos actuais.

Reemergência da geologia diluviana

A geologia diluviana foi desenvolvida como uma iniciativa criacionista no século XX por George McCready Price, um a Adventista e geólogo amador que escreveu um livro em 1923 fornecendo uma perspectiva adventista sobre a geologia. A obra de Price foi subsequentemente adaptada e actualizada por Henry M. Morris e John C. Whitcomb, Jr. no seu livro The Genesis Flood em 1961. Whitcomb ficou motivado depois de ler o livro The Christian View of Science and Scripture (1954) pelo teólogo Bernard Ramm. Ramm apoiava a perspectiva de que cientistas que eram Cristãos poderiam chegar a interpretações alternativa à criação em seis dias estrita, tal como promovido por Price, que são tanto biblícas como concordantes com as evidências científicas actuais. Morris e Whitcomb argumentava que a Terra era geologicamente recente, que a Queda do homem despoletou a segunda lei da termodinâmica, e que o Dilúvio depositou a maioria dos estratos geológicos no espaço de um ano.

O livro de Ramm apoiava a dissidência religiosa e científica da geologia diluviana. J. Laurence Kulp, um geólogo associado aos Irmãos de Plymouth, juntou-se a outros geólogos, arqueólogos, antropólogos e biólogos cristãos cujo trabalho estava relacionado com datação por radiocarbono, para persuadir a organização Cristão, American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), a não apoiar ou endossar oficialmente a geologia diluviana mas permitir aos seus membros de seguir as evidências científicas invés de uma interpretação literalistas da Bíblia. Kulp também escreveu uma crítica detalhada à geologia diluviana, entitulada Deluge Geology, publicada no Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation em 1950. QUando a ASA se recusou a se alinhar com a geologia diluviana, uma nova geração de criacionistas da Terra Jovem foi fundada, muitos dos quais se organizaram à volta do Institute for Creation Research de Morris. Pesquisas subsequentes pela Creation Research Society observou e analizou formações geológicas, dentro da perspectiva da geologia diluviana, incluindo os poços de alcatrão de La Brea, a formação Tavrik (em russo: "Tavricheskaya formatsiya") na Península da Crimeiai e Stone Mountain, na Geórgia, Estados Unidos. Em cada caso, os criacionistas reclamavam que a geologia diluviana tinha um poder explanatório maior do que a explicação uniformitária. A Creation Research Society reclamava que o "uniformitarismo" é wishful thinking.

Base bíblica

Flood geology is based on a literal interpretation of the flood narrative in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 6–9). The narrative begins with God's decision to bring a deluge which will wipe out all life on earth except for those to be saved on Noah's Ark. In the 600th year of Noah's life God opens the "fountains of the deep" and the "windows of Heaven" and causes rain to fall on the earth for 40 days and nights. The flood increases for 150 days and covers "all the high mountains under heaven," at which point the Ark grounds on the mountains. The waters then retreat for 150 days, the earth dries, and Noah and his family and the animals and birds emerge to re-establish life on earth. (Seeley suggest that the authors of Genesis, like other peoples of the ancient Near East, conceived the earth as a flat, circular disk, floating like a bubble in a limitless expanse of water, with a solid sky (the firmament) separating the dry land inhabited by man from the surrounding waters; when God opens the "windows of heaven" and the "fountains of the Deep", it is these waters which enter and flood the world).

Genesis also contains a chronology which places the Flood in the year 1656 after Creation in the standard Hebrew text (the Masoretic text - other texts have slightly different chronologies). Correlating this with a date in the modern calendar has proven contentious - there have been over two hundred attempts, with outcomes varying from 2304 to 6934 years BC — but modern flood geology attempts to fit geological time within the framework of a "young" Earth.

Scholars propose that the flood story was written around 550–450 BC as a reworking of the ancient Mesopotamian myth of the flood-hero Utnapishtim. For the ancient author or authors, the purpose of the story was theological, elevating Hebrew monotheism over Babylonian polytheism. Within the overall narrative of the Genesis, the Flood mirrors, but in reverse, God's creation of "the heavens and the earth" in Genesis 1. That story tells how God creates an Earth which is good, but which becomes corrupted with violence, until in Genesis 6 he decides to destroy all life. He does this by opening the "windows of the firmament" and the "fountains of the Deep" and allowing the waters of the cosmos in. The chronology of the Flood replicates the chronology of the seven days of Creation: it begins in the second month, equivalent to the second day of Creation, the day on which the firmament was created; the waters then rise for 150 days (five months of 30 days each), until at the end of six months (equivalent to the six days of creative work in Genesis 1) the ark grounds on the highest mountain peak. (To underline the point, Noah's name means "rest" in Hebrew). After a month of rest (the equivalent of the seventh day of the Creation story), the waters recede for 150 days/five months as the world is "re-created": in the sixth month Noah waits, and in the seventh he and the animals exit the ark and give thanks to God.

Belief in a global Flood and a six thousand year history for the Earth had been largely abandoned by the mid-19th century. Their revival and rapid growth in the United States can be dated to the early 20th century; the reasons behind this phenomenon are complex, but the theological rationale has been stated by many literalists, including, in a contemporary form, by Answers in Genesis:

The debate about the age of the earth is ultimately a question of whose word we are going to trust: the all-knowing truthful Creator who has given us His inerrant book (the Bible) or finite, sinful creatures who give us their books that contain errors and therefore are frequently revised. If you firmly trust and carefully read the Bible and become informed on creationist interpretations of the geological record, you can easily see how the rocks of the earth powerfully confirm the Bible’s teaching, both about Noah’s Flood and a young earth.

Evidence cited to support a global flood

Fossils

The geologic column and the fossil record are used as major pieces of evidence in the modern scientific explanation of the development and evolution of life on Earth as well as a means to establish the age of the Earth. Young Earth Creationists such as Morris and Whitcomb in their 1961 book, The Genesis Flood, deny that the fossil record in the geologic column represents the evolution of life on earth over millions of years. The age of the fossils depend on the amount of time credited to the geologic column, which they ascribe to be about one year. Some flood geologists dispute geology's assembled global geologic column since index fossils are used to link geographically isolated strata to other strata across the map. Fossils are often dated by their proximity to strata containing index fossils whose age has been determined by its location on the geologic column. Oard and others claim that the identification of fossils as index fossils has been too error prone for index fossils to be used reliably to make those correlations, or to date local strata using the assembled geologic scale.

Other creationists accept the existence of the geological column and believe that it indicates a sequence of events that might have occurred during the global flood. This is the approach taken by Institute for Creation Research creationists such as Andrew Snelling, Steven A. Austin and Kurt Wise, as well as Creation Ministries International. They cite the Cambrian explosion — the appearance of abundant fossils in the upper Ediacaran (Vendian) Period and lower Cambrian Period — as the pre-Flood/Flood boundary, the presence in such sediments of fossils that do not occur later in the geological record as part of a pre–flood biota that perished and the absence of fossilized organisms that appear later, such as angiosperms and mammals, as due to erosion of sediments deposited by the flood as waters receded off the land. Creationists note that fossilization can only take place when the organism is buried quickly to protect the remains from destruction by scavengers or decomposition They claim that the fossil record is evidence of a single cataclysmic flood and not the record of a series of slow changes accumulating over millions of years.

Flood geologists have proposed numerous hypotheses to reconcile the sequence of fossils evident in the fossil column with the literal account of Noah's flood in the Bible. Whitcomb and Morris proposed three possible factors. One is hydrological, wherein the relative buoyancies of the remains based on the organisms' shapes and densities determined the sequence in which their remains settled to the bottom of the flood waters. The second factor they proposed was ecological, suggesting organisms living at the ocean bottom succumbed first in the flood and those living at the highest altitudes last. The third factor was anatomical and behavioral, the ordered sequence in the fossil column resulting from the very different responses to the rising waters between different kinds of organisms due to their diverse mobilities and original habitats. In a scenario put forth by Morris, the remains of marine life were the first to settle to the bottom, followed by the slower moving lowland reptiles, and culminating with mankind whose superior intelligence and ability to flee enabled them to reach higher elevations before they were overcome by the flood waters.

Some creationists believe that oil and coal deposits formed rapidly in sedimentary layers as volcanoes or flood waters flattened forests and buried the debris. They believe the vegetation decomposed rapidly into oil or coal due to the heat of the subterranean waters as they were unleashed from the Earth during the flood or by the high temperatures created as the remains were compressed by water and sediment.

Creationists continue to search for evidence in the natural world that they consider to be consistent with the above description, such as evidence of rapid formation. For example, there have been claims of raindrop marks and water ripples at layer boundaries, sometimes associated with the claimed fossilized footprints of men and dinosaurs walking together. Such footprint evidence has been debunked by scientists and some have been shown to be fakes.

Widespread flood stories

While it is not geological evidence, believers in Flood Geology also point out that flood stories can be found in many cultures, places, and religions; this, they suggest, is evidence of an actual event in the historic past because local floods would not explain the similarities in the flood stories.

Anthropologists generally reject this view and highlight the fact that much of the human population lives near water sources such as rivers and coasts, where unusually severe floods can be expected to occur occasionally and will be recorded in tribal mythology. Geologists William Ryan and Walter C. Pitman, III have suggested that the rapid filling of the Black Sea (c. 7000 BC) at the end of the last Ice Age may be responsible for the flood myths in the Near East. Newer evidence suggests that if there was a flood it was much smaller than Ryan and Pitman thought it had been.

Proposed mechanisms of flood geology

Runaway subduction

In the last two decades, most proposed flood mechanisms involve "runaway subduction", the rapid movement of tectonic plates, in one form or another.

One specific form of runaway subduction is called "catastrophic plate tectonics", proposed by geophysicist John Baumgardner and supported by the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis. This holds the rapid plunge of former oceanic plates into the mantle caused by an unknown trigger mechanism which increased local mantle pressures to the point that its viscosity dropped several magnitudes according to known properties of mantle silicates. Once initiated, sinking plates caused the spread of low viscosity throughout the mantle resulting in runaway mantle convection and catastrophic tectonic motion as continents were dragged across the surface of the earth. Once the former ocean plates, which are thought to be denser than the mantle, reached the bottom of the mantle an equilibrium was reached. Pressures dropped, viscosity increased, runaway mantle convection stopped, leaving the surface of the earth rearranged. Proponents point to subducted slabs in the mantle which are still relatively cool, which they regard as evidence that they have not been there for millions of years of temperature equilibration.

Catastrophic plate tectonics is also associated with the creationist theory that the Earth's magnetic field reversed direction many times in rapid succession during the year-long global flood.

The hypothesis of catastrophic plate tectonics is considered pseudoscience and is rejected by the vast majority of geologists in favor of the conventional geological theory of plate tectonics. It has been argued that the tremendous release of energy necessitated by such an event would boil off the Earth's oceans, making a global flood impossible. Not only does catastrophic plate tectonics lack any plausible geophysical mechanism by which its changes might occur, it also is contradicted by considerable geological evidence (which is in turn consistent with conventional plate tectonics), including:

• The fact that a number of volcanic oceanic island chains, such as the Hawaiian islands, yield evidence of the ocean floor having moved over volcanic hot spots. These islands have widely ranging ages (determined via both radiometric dating and relative erosion) that contradict the catastrophic tectonic hypothesis of rapid development and thus a similar age.
• Radiometric dating and sedimentation rates on the ocean floor likewise contradict the hypothesis that it all came into existence nearly contemporaneously.
• Catastrophic tectonics does not allow sufficient time for guyots to have their peak eroded away (leaving these seamounts' characteristic flat tops).
• Runaway subduction does not explain the kind of continental collision illustrated by that of the Indian and Eurasian Plates. (For further information see Orogeny.)

Conventional plate tectonics accounts for the geological evidence already, including innumerable details that catastrophic plate tectonics cannot, such as why there is gold in California, silver in Nevada, salt flats in Utah, and coal in Pennsylvania, without requiring any extraordinary mechanisms to do so.

Vapor/water canopy

Isaac Vail (1840–1912), a Quaker schoolteacher, in his 1912 work The Earth's Annular System, extrapolated from the nebular hypothesis what he called the annular system of earth history, with the earth being originally surrounded by rings resembling those of Saturn, or canopies of water vapor. These were hypothesised to have, one by one, collapsed on the earth, resulting in a "succession of stupendous cataclysms, separated by unknown periods of time" burying fossils. The Genesis flood was thought to have been caused by "the last remnant" of this vapor. Although this final flood was geologically significant, it was hypothesized to account for far less of the fossil record than George McCready Price attributed to it.

This hypothesis gained a following among Jehovah's Witnesses and from Seventh-day Adventist physicist Robert W. Woods, before being given prominent and repeated mention in The Genesis Flood in 1961.

Though the vapor canopy theory has fallen into disfavour among most creationists, recent defences of the theory have been attempted by Dillow and Vardiman.

Modern geology and flood geology

In the 18th century, finds such as Hutton's Unconformity showing layers tilted, eroded, and overlaid, demonstrated the "abyss of time" in the Geologic time scale.

Modern geology, and its sub-disciplines of earth science, geochemistry, geophysics, glaciology, paleoclimatology, paleontology and other scientific disciplines utilize the scientific method to analyze the geology of the earth. The key tenets of flood geology are refuted by scientific analysis and do not have any standing in the scientific community. Modern geology relies on a number of established principles, one of the most important of which is Charles Lyell's principle of uniformitarianism. In relation to geological forces it states that the shaping of the Earth has occurred by means of mostly slow-acting forces that can be seen in operation today. By applying these principles, geologists have determined that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. They study the lithosphere of the Earth to gain information on the history of the planet. Geologists divide Earth's history into eons, eras, periods, epochs, and faunal stages characterized by well-defined breaks in the fossil record (see Geologic time scale). In general, there is a lack of any evidence for any of the above effects proposed by flood geologists and their claims of fossil layering are not taken seriously by scientists.

Erosion

The angular unconformity found by James Hutton in 1788 at Siccar Point demonstrated the time taken for erosion of tilted rock and deposition of overlying layers.

The global flood cannot explain geological formations such as angular unconformities, where sedimentary rocks have been tilted and eroded then more sedimentary layers deposited on top, needing long periods of time for these processes. There is also the time needed for the erosion of valleys in sedimentary rock mountains. In another example, the flood, had it occurred, should also have produced large-scale effects spread throughout the entire world. Erosion should be evenly distributed, yet the levels of erosion in, for example, the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains differ significantly.

Geochronology

Geochronology is the science of determining the absolute age of rocks, fossils, and sediments by a variety of techniques. These methods indicate that the Earth as a whole is at least 4.5 billion years old, and that the strata that, according to flood geology, were laid down during the Flood some 6,000 years ago, were actually deposited gradually over many millions of years.

This Jurassic carbonate hardground with its generations of oysters and extensive bioerosion could not have formed during the conditions postulated for the Flood.

Paleontology

If the flood were responsible for fossilization, then all the animals now fossilized must have been living together on the Earth just before the flood. Based on estimates of the number of remains buried in the Karoo fossil formation in Africa, this would correspond to an abnormally high density of vertebrates worldwide, close to 2100 per acre.

The alternation of calcite and aragonite seas through geologic time.

In addition, carbonate hardgrounds and the fossils associated with them show that the so-called flood sediments include evidence of long hiatuses in deposition that are not consistent with flood dynamics or timing.

Geochemistry

Proponents of Flood Geology also have a difficult time explaining the alternation between calcite seas and aragonite seas through the Phanerozoic. The cyclical pattern of carbonate hardgrounds, calcitic and aragonitic ooids, and calcite-shelled fauna has apparently been controlled by seafloor spreading rates and the flushing of seawater through hydrothermal vents which changes its Mg/Ca ratio.

See also

• Baraminology
• Creation biology
• Creation science
• Frank Lewis Marsh
• International Conference on Creationism
• Pre-Adamite
• Pseudoscience
• Polystrate fossil
• Young Earth creationism
• Searches for Noah's Ark
• Scriptural geologists

References

Books

• Berry, Robert James (2003). God's book of works: the nature and theology of nature. London: T & T Clark. ISBN 0-567-08876-6 
• Brown, Walt (2008). «Chapter 21: Rapid Burial». In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood 8th ed. [S.l.]: Center for Scientific Creation. ISBN 9781878026095 
• Buckland, William (1980). Geology and Mineralogy Considered With Reference to Natural Theology (History of Paleontology). [S.l.]: Ayer Company Publishing. ISBN 978-0405127069 
• Dalrymple, G. Brent (2004). Ancient Earth, ancient skies: the age of Earth and its cosmic surroundings. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. 264 páginas. ISBN 0-8047-4933-7 
• Dana, James Dwight (1863). Manual of geology: treating of the principles of the science with special reference to American geological history, for the use of colleges, academies, and schools of science. Philadelphia: Theodore Bliss & Co. 798 páginas 
• Gould, Stephen Jay (1984). «Creationism: Genesis versus Geology». In: Montagu, Ashley. Science and Creationism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 416 páginas. ISBN 0-19-503252-7 
• Herbert, Sandra (1991). «Charles Darwin as a prospective geological author». British Journal for the History of Science (24). pp. 159–192. Consultado em 24 de janeiro de 2009 
• Imbrie, John; Imbrie, Katherine Palmer (1986). Ice ages: solving the mystery. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 224 páginas. ISBN 0-674-44075-7 
• Isaak, Mark (2007). «Creationist claim CD750». The Counter Creationism Handbook. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. 330 páginas. ISBN 139760520249264 
• Kaiser, Christopher B. (1997). Creational Theology and the History of Physical Science: The Creationist Tradition from Basil to Bohr. [S.l.]: Brill Academic Publishers. 449 páginas. ISBN 90-04-10669-3 
• McCann, T. (Tom) (2008). The Geology of Central Europe: Mesozoic and Cenozoic. 2. Bath: Geological Society of London. 736 páginas. ISBN 186239265X 
• Numbers, Ronald L. (2006). The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, Expanded Edition. [S.l.]: Harvard University Press. 624 páginas. ISBN 0674023390 
• Oard, Michael; Reed, John K (2006). The Geological Column: Perspectives within Diluvial Geology. Chino Valley, AZ, USA: Creation Research Society Books. 157 páginas 
• Porter, R; Lindberg, DC & Numbers, RL (2003). The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 4, Eighteenth-Century Science. [S.l.]: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-57243-6 
• Price, George McCready (1926). Evolutionary Geology & the New Catastrophism. [S.l.]: Pacific Press Publishing Association. 352 páginas. ISBN 978-0915554133 
• Shrock, Robert Rakes (1977). Geology at M. I. T., 1865-1965: a history of the first hundred years of geology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 30 páginas. ISBN 0-262-19211-X 
• Van Till, Howard J.; Snow, Robert J.; Stek, John H.; Young, Davis A. (1990). Portraits of creation: biblical and scientific perspectives on the world's formation. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. 296 páginas. ISBN 0-8028-0485-3 
• Wenham, Gordon (2008). Exploring the Old Testament: A Guide to the Pentateuch. Col: Exploring the Bible Series. 1. [S.l.]: IVP Academic. 223 páginas. ISBN 083082541X 
• Whitcomb, J.C. Jr.; Morris, H.M. (1961). The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications. Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co. ISBN 0875523382 
• Young, Davis A. (1995). The biblical Flood: a case study of the Church's response to extrabiblical evidence. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans. 340 páginas. ISBN 0-8028-0719-4. Consultado em 16 de setembro de 2008 

Journals

• Herbert, Sandra (1991). «Charles Darwin as a prospective geological author». British Journal for the History of Science. 24. Consultado em 06 Nov. 2010 
• Parkinson, William (2004). «Questioning 'Flood Geology': Decisive New Evidence to End an Old Debate». National Center for Science Education. NCSE Reports. 24 (1). Consultado em 2 November 2010 

Further reading

• Custance, Arthur C. Without Form and Void: A Study of the Meaning of Genesis 1.2 Brockville, Ontario, Canada: Doorway Publications, 1970, ISBN 0919857655
• H. Neuville, “On the Extinction of the Mammoth,” Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1919.
• Patten, Donald W. The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch (Seattle: Pacific Meridian Publishing Company, 1966).
• Patten, Donald W. Catastrophism and the Old Testament (Seattle: Pacific Meridian Publishing Company, 1988). ISBN 0880702915

External links

Flood geology sites

• Global Flood — John Baumgardner's work related to the Genesis flood
• Geology Questions and Answers Page, Answers in Genesis
• Center for Scientific Creation of Walt Brown, featuring his 'Hydroplate Theory'
• Biblical Evidence for the Universality of the Genesis Flood - Richard M. Davidson - John Nevin Andrews Professor of Old Testament Interpretation - Old Testament Department - Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan

Sites critical of flood geology

• Answers In Creation — Old earth creationist website explaining the problems of young earth flood geology
• Flood Geology at the TalkOrigins Archive
• History of the Collapse of "Flood Geology" and a Young Earth, adapted from the book The Biblical Flood by Davis A. Young, ISBN 0-8028-0719-4

^{[controverso]}

A teoria das hidroplacas é uma teoria criacionista proposta pelo engenheiro mecânico norte-americano Walter Brown, em 1980 , em seu livro In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood. Esta teoria defende uma explicação alternativa à tectônica de placas, defendendo que a atual formação geológica terrestre, seria consequência de um evento catastrófico em decorrência de uma inundação global, sendo considerada pela grande parte da classe cientifica como uma Teoria, baseada em pseudociência.

Objetivos

A teoria tenta explicar 25 feições geológicas da Terra, baseando-se nos conceitos do movimento criacionista Young Earth Creationism (YEC), partindo do princípio de que o planeta teria surgido há cerca de seis mil anos. Segundo a teoria, a Terra teria apresentado originalmente continentes contínuos, com muito menos água nos oceanos e baixas montanhas e a configuração atual da Terra teria se formado repentinamente através de um evento cataclísmico. Esta teoria, no entanto, encontra-se em choque com os dados atuais que afirmam que a idade exata da terra pode não ser conhecida, mas é conhecida com um grau de incerteza de 1% defendendo que tem entre 4,5 e 4,6 bilhões de anos.

Publicada por Walter Brown em seu livro In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, a teoria das hidroplacas é considerada, por geólogos e cientistas evolucionistas, como uma pseudociência, segundo os quais existem explicações científicas consistentes e válidas para a geomorfologia atual, bem como explicações para a origem cultural do dilúvio universal , sendo no entanto contestados por geólogos e cientistas criacionistas.

Descrição

Os eventos que descrevem a teoria das hidroplacas são divididos em quatro etapas: fase de ruptura, fase de inundação, fase da deriva continental e fase de acomodação.

Fase de ruptura

Segundo Brown, por volta de 4.500 anos atrás, a Terra teria apresentado características diferentes das atuais, com pressão atmosférica elevada (aproximadamente 6 atm), relevo de baixas altitudes e oceanos menos profundos e de baixa salinidade. Também teria possuído um único supercontinente e um lençol de água subterrâneo homogêneo de aproximadamente 1 km de espessura, com cerca de metade da atual quantidade de água dos oceanos, que se situaria cerca de 15 km abaixo da superfície.

Um aumento de pressão da água subterrânea sobre rochas com menor resistência teria promovido uma ruptura da crosta terrestre, lançando violentamente uma enorme mistura de água, terra e rocha na superfície, com uma energia superior à explosão de dez bilhões de bombas de hidrogénio.

Fase de inundação

Ao chegar à estratosfera, a água lançada teria congelado rapidamente, produzindo cristais de gelo que, ao caírem, teriam originado uma forte chuva torrencial, ao mesmo tempo que teriam promovido o congelamento instantâneo de animais como o mamute, encontrado na Sibéria e no Alasca.

A água em alta pressão emergindo das rupturas teria produzido o grande volume de sedimentos que agora cobrem todo o globo terrestre. Esses sedimentos teriam soterrado plantas e animais, formando os registros fósseis. A Bíblia descreve a inundação global como sendo o Dilúvio e, segundo ela, teria ocorrido em quarenta dias de chuvas contínuas.

Fase da deriva continental

A erosão promovida pela água em alta pressão teria alargado rapidamente o tamanho das rupturas da crosta terrestre, promovendo a compressão de rochas. O leito do oceano, que até então era plano, teria começado a emergir, formando as cordilheiras mesoceânicas, cobrindo 74.000 km ininterruptos do fundo oceânico.

As placas continentais, definidas como hidroplacas pela teoria de Brown, ainda contendo água subterrânea lubrificante, teriam deslizado rapidamente pelo oceano. Ao encontrarem resistência, as rochas das hidroplacas teriam sido comprimidas como uma espécie de "efeito mola", formando as montanhas acima do oceano e as fossas abissais abaixo deste. Isso teria acarretado o surgimento de oceanos mais profundos, e, ao mesmo tempo, por causa da compactação de rochas, continentes mais altos.

Fase da acomodação

O movimento dos continentes, em velocidades aproximadas de 60 km/h, teria aberto profundas bacias oceânicas, nas quais as águas da inundação teriam se retraído. Nos continentes, cada cavidade teria moldado depressões ou bacias, as quais naturalmente teriam sido preenchidas com água, produzindo os lagos. A erosão das águas continentais teria produzido cânions em pouco tempo.

• Brown, Walter; In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood; 8ª Edição (Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved)
• Lourenço, J.B., Adauto; Como Tudo Começou; Uma Introdução ao Criacionismo.

Ver também

• Arca de Noé
• Placas tectônicas
• Tectónica de placas