A computer simulation of the Flood.

Paul Gosselin

Creationists are not a uniform group. Varying views on different subjects may be found. For example, as regards mechanisms that might have provoked the Flood described in the book of Genesis, various explanations have been proposed. In general, creationists assume that the Flood covered all the earth and that a great number of species (of plants and animals) disappeared then or in the period that immediately following this event. All assert that the majority of sedimentary rock covering the Earth's surface was deposited during this event and that the geological strata represent not distinct geological periods, but different ecological environments, populated by different organisms. Obviously, since marine organisms did not get on the Ark, a certain number of them disappeared in the course of the Flood. For example, in general dinosaurs are considered not to have disappeared at the moment of the Flood, but in the centuries that followed and this being due to major climate and environment changes caused by the Flood that have affected both their food supplies and metabolism.

This note takes a look at the Hydroplate theory, proposed by Walt Brown, (PhD in Mechanical Engineering MIT). In the course of 21 years of service in the American aviation Brown has been director of Benet Research, Development, and Engineering Labs at Albany, New York, tenured associate professor at the U.S. Air Forces Academy and Director of Science and Technology Studies at the Air War College.

For a long time Brown was an evolutionist, but after years of study he became convinced the validity of the Creation thesis and of the concept of a global Flood. The Hydroplate theory asserts that before the Flood, approximately 50% of the water in present oceans was contained in underground reservoirs, a huge underground body of water about 10miles under the surface. One huge supercontinent would have covered the surface of the Earth, including some small mountains and small oceans. The Hydroplate theory derives for the most part from a little known verse in Genesis (Gen 7:11). The Bible gives two sources for waters of the Flood. "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." (Gen 7:11). The Hydroplate theory therefore puts the fountains of the great deep 16 km below the Earth's surface. Though this theory postulates pre-Flood conditions that differ quite significantly from those currently prevailing, such conditions are actually just what is required to provide a plausible explanation for a world-wide Flood. For example, if one postulates a pre-Flood world where conditions were to a great extent the same as present, then even a melt-down of all the Earths polar ice-caps would not provide enough water to cover the entire surface of the Earth. Many high plateau areas and mountain ranges would still be above water.

Further study of the biblical support for hydroplate theory is available on Brown's web site. The file offered here (see below) provides access to a computer simulation which gives an idea of the violence of the Flood described in the book of the Genesis. Hydroplate theory provides an interesting perspective on how mountains and the deep ocean trenches were formed. It postulates that the Flood was initially provoked by a rain of meteorites. This animation is drawn from a TV documentary entitled "The Search for Noah's Ark". Though Walt Brown's concept has morphed somewhat over the years to try to address the geometry of how a shell of granite crust could be redistributed into what we see today. Here is a (no doubt incomplete) nutshell view of his perspective:

Others approaches to the Flood.
The oldest model for the Flood proposed by modern creationists is the Hydraulic model advanced by Mr. Henry M. Morris and John Whitcomb in their book The Genesis Flood. This approach implies a universal Flood with significant volcanic activity. The hydraulic model also involves a tropical antediluvian climate, caused by a vapour canopy above the atmosphere. Numerous fossils found today in Arctic regions attest to the existence of a such climate in past times. For example, metasequoia fossilsare found at Axel Hieberg in the high Canadian arctic, tropical plants in Antarctic coal and Iguaunodon footprints in Spitsbergen. Being just 1,300 km from the north pole, In present times, Spitsbergen can't really be considered an attractive tropical holiday destination... A vapour canopy is known to exist above the planet Venus and increases surface temperatures to a great degree.

Another approach to Flood processes is known as Crustal Plate Tectonics theory (or CPT), proposed by John Baumgardner asserts that the Flood involved not only water covering all the Earth's surface, but, at the same time, massive movements of plates of the Earth's crust, possibly provoked by meteorite or comet impacts. One need only to think of the Shoemaker-Levi comet impacts on the planet Jupiter to get a general idea of the energy produced by such events. CPT implies also a form of continental drift, but on a timescale far shorter than that accepted by evolutionists. CPT does not accept hydroplates, nor the immense water reserves under the Earth's crustal. Others creationists have explored extreme weather phenomena such as hypercanes and their extraordinary erosional effects.

Issues dealt with by the animation.

1. In the past, was there a Global Flood, covering all the Earth?
2. If such is the case, where did all the water come from and where did it go to afterwards ?

This QuickTime file includes a brief explanation and computer simulation of the Hydroplate theory and a description of the physical events involved in the Flood as described in the book of the Genesis. One can obtain further information at the Center for Scientific Creation web site. See also The Hydro-Plate Theory and The Great Flood, by Walt Brown (October 31st, 2010).