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Another evidence for an old Earth is the Grand Canyon Supergroup, which is the layers of rock circled in red in the picture below. This is a set of rock thousands of feet thick at the bottom of the Grand Canyon that has tilted. These tilted layers show every indication of having been deposited over an extended period. Notice also that there are two blocks, with the layers of one block matching the adjacent block, except with an offset. It is obvious that these layers were once continuous across the two blocks. But as continental plates collided, the entire area squished together and uplifted. The tilted layers shown below broke into separate blocks and tilted.
Before the layers tilted, additional sediments had piled up above the Grand Canyon Supergroup rocks. But erosion wiped away the upper rocks including the extension of these layers beyond the surviving rocks. The upper layers continued to erode until the surface dropped down to the level known as The Great Unconformity (marked with a blue line below). Most of the rocks below The Great Unconformity are metamorphic rocks that have been transformed by intense heat and pressure to look quite different from the original rocks. But those tilted layers of the Grand Canyon Supergroup are down there also, still basically in their original state.
[picture removed] - Base picture from https://zionpark.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GEO-MAP-1.jpg
Years later, the Colorado River changed path and carved out the Grand Canyon, exposing the Grand Canyon Supergroup once again. All of that took millions of years. There is no way around it. It must have taken millions of years.
The layers in the Grand Canyon Supergroup have fossils of single-celled lifeforms piled together to form stromatolite fossils. But there are no fossils with skeletal parts down here. Fossils with skeletons end up above the Great Unconformity line, and single-cell colonies like this end up below that line.
Above these supergroup rocks we find multiple layers, each with their own story. The overall story is illustrated quite elegantly in the beautiful book, The Grand Canyon: Monument to an Ancient Earth. In these layers we find buried sandstones from ancient beaches, shale from clay that had been deposited in shallow waters, and limestone from shells deposited in deeper water. We find buried sand dunes, buried nests, and buried footprints. You can read about all this in that easily understood book.
Each such layer is unexpected by creationism. Each requires an ad hoc explanation. And yes, you can propose an ad hoc explanation for each, but when you multiply the probabilities of each unlikely explanation together, your young Earth creationism beomes very improbable.
Excerpted from Billions of Angels Did It! at my website.
1/25/2023 Corrected per post below.
Before the layers tilted, additional sediments had piled up above the Grand Canyon Supergroup rocks. But erosion wiped away the upper rocks including the extension of these layers beyond the surviving rocks. The upper layers continued to erode until the surface dropped down to the level known as The Great Unconformity (marked with a blue line below). Most of the rocks below The Great Unconformity are metamorphic rocks that have been transformed by intense heat and pressure to look quite different from the original rocks. But those tilted layers of the Grand Canyon Supergroup are down there also, still basically in their original state.
[picture removed] - Base picture from https://zionpark.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/GEO-MAP-1.jpg
Years later, the Colorado River changed path and carved out the Grand Canyon, exposing the Grand Canyon Supergroup once again. All of that took millions of years. There is no way around it. It must have taken millions of years.
The layers in the Grand Canyon Supergroup have fossils of single-celled lifeforms piled together to form stromatolite fossils. But there are no fossils with skeletal parts down here. Fossils with skeletons end up above the Great Unconformity line, and single-cell colonies like this end up below that line.
Above these supergroup rocks we find multiple layers, each with their own story. The overall story is illustrated quite elegantly in the beautiful book, The Grand Canyon: Monument to an Ancient Earth. In these layers we find buried sandstones from ancient beaches, shale from clay that had been deposited in shallow waters, and limestone from shells deposited in deeper water. We find buried sand dunes, buried nests, and buried footprints. You can read about all this in that easily understood book.
Each such layer is unexpected by creationism. Each requires an ad hoc explanation. And yes, you can propose an ad hoc explanation for each, but when you multiply the probabilities of each unlikely explanation together, your young Earth creationism beomes very improbable.
Excerpted from Billions of Angels Did It! at my website.
1/25/2023 Corrected per post below.
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