The Grand Canyon would strike almost anyone as the perfect example of “deep” geologic time, and thus a great example of why the “Young Earth” views of Biblical creationists are absurd. Creationists recognize the challenge that places like the Grand Canyon pose, and thus work very hard to explain how this could have been formed in a timeframe amenable to the timeline of a literal reading of the Bible. This had led to a model of “flood” geology, which ascribes most of the sedimentary rock on the earth to the flood of Noah, as described in the Bible. This leads to explanations that seem plausible to the average untrained person, but seem laughable to trained geologists when they hear them. Yet, they gain traction with the general public. So what are the arguments and how can geologists deal with them a way that does not appear defensive? This presentation will seek to answer this question.

a presentation in the
UNLV Department of Geoscience
Seminar Series