Covenanter Witness Vol. 86 - Rparchives.org

Address at Carleton Conference by one of a panel onChristianity vs. EvolutionThe Problem of the Geologic Ages(continued)Mr. James Honeyman *2610 Upper Terrace, La Crescenta, Calif. 91214OCEANOGRAPHYOceanography is another relatively new science and itpresents powerful evidence that the ocean sediments wereseriously disturbed in rather recent times. Ericson andWollin are scientists working with the Lamont Laboratoriesof Columbia University, a leading oceanography institute. Intheir book, The Deep and the Past, they repeatedly refer tothe disturbance of the ocean sediments which they weretrying to date by standard geologic methods. This is exactlywhat one would expect if, as explained in the first part of thisstudy, the ocean bottoms were elevated at the same time thecontinents were depressed. Such a disturbance of theequilibrium between oceans and continents would cause wildand terrible movements of water over both.Another fact found by oceanographers concerns thedepth of sediments in the Pacific Ocean. They have beenproved to average only about 1,800 feet deep. Sediments inthe Atlantic are somewhat deeper, but many of these arefound to be washed off the continents, according toTwenhofel, a leading authority on sedimentation. Theshallow sediments in the Pacific pose a serious problem toscientists who believe the oceans are billions of years old.The known amount of sediments could easily be deposited inseveral thousand years, so some scientists have beenworking very hard to explain the "missing sediments."PALLYNOLOGYSome of the severest blows to the theory of longgeologic ages are delivered by the science of pallynology.This is the study of fossil pollen, which is being found inmany, many sediments, (too many, actually, to suit thegeologists). Again a little background is necessary.Historical geologists, on the basis of evolutionarytheory, assume that life commenced about two billion yearsago, but that it would take three fourths of that time toproduce forms which would leave fossils, shells, skeletons,etc. So the oldest sediments they date about 500 to 600million years ago if they contain fossils. These are calledCambrian formations. If the sediments contain no fossils oronly simple forms like algae, they are called Pre-cambrianand are considered even older.In studying plants, scientists decided that if thesimplest forms of plant life were to be found in the Cambrian,then it would probably take about 300 million yearsfor the highly complex flowering plants to "evolve." Inother words, the flowering plants which produce pollen,they claim, did not exist before about 200 million years ago,and of course no pollen could be found in sediments olderthan that. You can check with any of the geological tablesand you will find this clearly shown.Now this is what many scientists believed, but thefacts are somewhat different. Twenty or thirty years ago,scientists began to study pollen to identify the types of plantlife in peat bogs. Pollen, although microscopic, has severalidentifying characteristics and the study of it, pallynology,became a branch of science. Strangely enough, it wasRussian scientists who found ways to separate pollen fromrocky sediments. In examining older and older sediments,they found pollen right on down to the Cambrian.Scientists in the United States, for several years, justrejected this information as false. Flowering plants, theysaid, did not exist at that time, so there could not be anypollen in the oldest sediments. Imagine their shock anddismay when continued research discovered pollen frommany kinds of plants in the Cambrian. Recently, Leclerc ofBelgium, a world renowned scientist, stated that pollengrains from at least sixty groups of species (called genera)have been discovered in Cambrian formations. Rememberthat the geological tables say that no flowering plants existeduntil 200 million years ago, but here is pollen in rocksconfidently dated by geologists at 500 million years of age.Actually the evidence seems to indicate that a tremendousamount of pollen, fossils and sediments were laid down inone rather brief period.NEW GEOLOGIC FACTSOne of the most interesting geologic finds of all timewas made by Mr. William J. Meister, on June 1, 1968, nearDelta, Utah. To understand its significance, one mustunderstand that geologists use certain 'index' fossils to datethe layers of sediments. The most famous of these aretrilobites, a marine organism considered by evolutionists tobe one of the earliest forms of life that are found as fossils.Geologists say they existed from about 500 to about 200million years ago and then became extinct. Mr. Meistercollects trilobite fossils as a hobby, and on the day mentionedhe found a slab of shale which had nothing of interest on theoutside so he set it on edge and hit it with his rock hammer.It opened like the leaves of a book, showing the imprint of asandal with one trilobite embedded in the heel and two or8 COVENANTER WITNESS