Little Sediment Exists on the Seafloor and River Deltas
by Owen Borville
One of the most common arguments made by creationists for the young earth model is the lack of sediment on the seafloor. Evolutionists and old-earth advocates believe that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and that the ocean basins are at least three billion years old. Therefore, if the ocean basins are so old, why is there so little sediment on the seafloor? There should be much more sediment on the seafloor if there was three billion years of time to accumulate. Why is sediment found in significant quantities on the continental margins, shelf, and slope but little on the ocean basin floors? Sediment on the continental margins was likely deposited during the Genesis Flood as the floodwaters receded off the continents and onto the basins, as creationists explain. The ocean basins have very little sediment to account for three billion years of accumulation as marine organisms die and fall to the ocean floor to become organic material.
Evolutionists explain that thick limestone layers found on the continents were formed from millions of years of accumulation of organic material, so why is this accumulation not found in the ocean basins? The deep ocean trenches also have little sediment accumulation, considering millions of years of tectonic subduction processes, where one tectonic plate is believed to be pushed underneath another tectonic plate and much sediment is supposedly "scraped" onto the trench. This lack of sediment in the ocean trenches also places the concept of plate tectonic subduction processes in serious jeopardy and gives strong evidence that subduction may not occur at all. If the earth was billions of years old, the ocean basins should be filled with sediment and all of the continental hills and mountains would be eroded to sea level considering current rates of erosion on mountains. There is simply not enough erosion and sediment accumulation observed to account for the billions of years.
Evolutionists claim that much ocean basin sediment is swallowed up at tectonic subduction zones, but the lack of sediment in the ocean trenches shows evidence to the contrary. In addition, river deltas simply have not produced enough sediment to account for the billions of years of evolutionist time. Creationists emphasize that the observed river delta growth rate supports a time frame in the thousands of years and not millions of years (1). River deltas should be much larger if there was billions of years of geologic time for sediment to collect across the continents and swept into drainage basins and eventually into the large deltas flanking the oceans. At current sedimentation rates in major river deltas around the world, there simply should be more sediment accumulation than that which currently exists to account for three billion years of geologic time in the evolutionist time scale.
(1)Mississippi—Creation Research Quarterly (CRSQ) 9:96–114, 1992.
by Owen Borville
One of the most common arguments made by creationists for the young earth model is the lack of sediment on the seafloor. Evolutionists and old-earth advocates believe that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and that the ocean basins are at least three billion years old. Therefore, if the ocean basins are so old, why is there so little sediment on the seafloor? There should be much more sediment on the seafloor if there was three billion years of time to accumulate. Why is sediment found in significant quantities on the continental margins, shelf, and slope but little on the ocean basin floors? Sediment on the continental margins was likely deposited during the Genesis Flood as the floodwaters receded off the continents and onto the basins, as creationists explain. The ocean basins have very little sediment to account for three billion years of accumulation as marine organisms die and fall to the ocean floor to become organic material.
Evolutionists explain that thick limestone layers found on the continents were formed from millions of years of accumulation of organic material, so why is this accumulation not found in the ocean basins? The deep ocean trenches also have little sediment accumulation, considering millions of years of tectonic subduction processes, where one tectonic plate is believed to be pushed underneath another tectonic plate and much sediment is supposedly "scraped" onto the trench. This lack of sediment in the ocean trenches also places the concept of plate tectonic subduction processes in serious jeopardy and gives strong evidence that subduction may not occur at all. If the earth was billions of years old, the ocean basins should be filled with sediment and all of the continental hills and mountains would be eroded to sea level considering current rates of erosion on mountains. There is simply not enough erosion and sediment accumulation observed to account for the billions of years.
Evolutionists claim that much ocean basin sediment is swallowed up at tectonic subduction zones, but the lack of sediment in the ocean trenches shows evidence to the contrary. In addition, river deltas simply have not produced enough sediment to account for the billions of years of evolutionist time. Creationists emphasize that the observed river delta growth rate supports a time frame in the thousands of years and not millions of years (1). River deltas should be much larger if there was billions of years of geologic time for sediment to collect across the continents and swept into drainage basins and eventually into the large deltas flanking the oceans. At current sedimentation rates in major river deltas around the world, there simply should be more sediment accumulation than that which currently exists to account for three billion years of geologic time in the evolutionist time scale.
(1)Mississippi—Creation Research Quarterly (CRSQ) 9:96–114, 1992.
