The currently accepted model for the formation of the geo- logical column is that expounded in the evolutionary paradigm. According to this paradigm, each layer of the column represents a period in the earth’s history comprising millions of years of time. (See Figure 2.2) It is supposed that the first microorganisms evolved between 2000 and 3000 million years ago, and that a record of their existence can be found in the Precambrian rocks. However, the oldest layer of the column that contains macrofos- sils is the Cambrium and is estimated to be some 600 million years old.
Superimposed layers of this column are younger and contain different fossils, but each layer was once considered to represent the surface of the earth where life was enacted much as it is today. Moreover, the Uniformitarian principle implies that processes occurring today occurred in the past, including normal erosion by water, wind and weathering processes. Evidence for aerial exposure of the various layers of the column is, however, lacking, and the flat contacts between layers belie the supposition that they once represented the surface of the earth. If they had represented the surface of the earth, then they should be subject to the same erosional features that exist today on the surface of the earth. Should they be subsequently covered by new cycles of sedimentations, then the contacts would not be flat sheets but irregular in shape. This anomaly has been noted in the literature:
A puzzling characteristic of the erathern boundaries and of many other major biostratigraphic boundaries is the general lack of physical evidence of sub aerial exposure. Traces of deep leaching, scour, channeling and residual gravels tend to be lacking, even if the underlying rocks are cherty limestones. These boundaries are paraconformities that are usually identifiable only by palaeontological evidence.30
It is also noteworthy that the geological layers stretch over vast flat areas which are totally unlike anything which exists today and which imply vastly different circumstances than implied by the uniformitarian principle:
The search for present-day analogues of paraconformities in l imestone sequences is complicated by the fact that most present configurations (topography, chemistry, circulation, climate) are strikingly unlike those that must have prevailed when Paleozoic and Mesozoic limestone seas spread over immense and incredibly flat areas of the world.31
Geologists teach that millions of years are required for rock formation and to form geological features, such as erosional features, beaches and landscape development, stalactites and stalacmites, and many other geological phenomena. The rapid formation of canyons during modern catastrophic events and the appearance of new is- lands, such as Surtsey in the North Atlantic in recent years, belie this standpoint, since apparently mature beaches appeared on that island within months. Vast amounts of stalagmitic material can form in months, as has been a common occurrence in old mineshafts and other modern environments, and rapid rock formation, fossilization and petrification are also well documented today.
The concept of a universal flood is not only reconcilable with the geological features which we can observe today, but can also explain some of the features which are virtually impossible to reconcile with the standard model. The universality of the great chalk deposits in the geological column and the distribution of ma- rine deposits are just some the features which are hard to explain in terms of uniformitarian principles. There is evidence for tumultuous upheavals in the past that can only be explained by catastrophism. Megabreccias (sedimentary deposits with huge angular boulders of more than a meter in diameter) have forced some geologists at least (the so called neocatastrophists) to consider forces of enormous magnitude operating in the past.32