by Bill Nugent
Article #178
We are all familiar with statements in the popular media that describe rock formations as being 10 million, 100 million or even one billion years old. The old age – multibillion year – view of earth’s chronology is the dominant view in geology but a distressingly persuasive ‘mountain’ of evidence is pointing to a much younger age of planet earth.
In these Defending the Faith articles I have occasionally discussed some of the evidence that points to an age of earth measured in the thousands of years rather than billions. Evidence such as the fact that carbon 14 is measurable in every sample of coal (carbon 14 has a very short half life) points to young earth. There have been several publicized recent finds of blood proteins and preserved soft tissue inside dinosaur bones showing that the bones couldn’t be more than several thousand years old. The oceans are nowhere near being saturated with salt as they certainly would be if they were even one million years old.
In this article I’ll focus on the recent collapse of part of one of Australia’s most famous geological formations. On Sunday, July 3rd 2005 a huge, 150 foot high, pillar of sandstone off the coast of Victoria Australia suddenly collapsed. This pillar was among eight other pillars called the “Apostles” which are famous rock formations and are often pictured in promotional photos in tourist brochures. Old earth geologists claim the Apostles started forming up to 20 million years ago. If they were millions of years old what is the probability that we would see one of these pillars of stone fall in our own lifetime? If it were an isolated example it could easily be dismissed.
There are many such examples around the world of geologic formations that were supposedly in place for millions of years that have come crashing down, sometimes with deadly consequences. Australian geologist Tasman Walker Ph. D. relates an example that occurred in western Australia when a rock strata formation collapsed onto a beach and killed nine people during a surfing competition. In 1990, in another example from Australia, an arch called “London Bridge” collapsed and left two people stranded on a rock formation. (From online article: Collapsed Apostle Tells a Story available at answersingenesis.org.)
In the United States we have recently witnessed the collapse of the formation called “Old Man of the Mountain” in New Hampshire. Also the frequent and often deadly mudslides in California are hard to explain from an old earth perspective. The standard old earth view is that the thick layers of gravel and sand on the southern California mountains were laid down as sediment over the course of millions of years. Young earthers point out that considering the rate at which these mountainsides collapse, if they were deposited great ages ago, they would all be down and the area would have stabilized long ago.
Old earth geology gives a distorted view of the stability and longevity of rock formations and this influences building codes and zoning boards. The false assumptions of old earth geologists can be summed up in the view that “if it’s been there for a million years it’s not gonna come down any time soon.” The tragic fact is that geologic formations have been collapsing all too soon.
The Bible, in the book of Genesis, records the flood of Noah and other catastrophes that happened within a short time frame. The Bible, in the book of Revelation, prophesies that in the end-times just before the second coming of Christ there will be earthquakes and other catastrophes occurring in a short time frame. “There was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great” (Revelation 16:18.)