Meterorite Craters Challenge YECism

(DRAFT) 2006, Glen J. Kuban

Abstract

Most strict "young earth" creationists (hereafter abbreviated YECs) hold that the earth and all life forms on it were created supernaturally during a literal creation week about six to ten thousand years ago. Conventional scientists have presented numerous lines of evidence against YECism, and in support of an earth approximately 4.6 billions years old. However, one argument not commonly dealt with concerns meteorite impacts and their implications for earth history. Evidence indicates that the numbers and sizes of impacts that have occurred on earth are incompatible with the YEC timetable and human survival.


Crater evidence indicates that the earth, its moon, and other bodies in our solar system have been impacted by millions of meteorites, including many large ones. Many of these may have hit during the early history of the earth, although there is evidence that a number of large impacts occurred during the Phanerozoic, causing massive ecological damage, and contributing to several mass extinction episodes, including those at the end of the Permian and Cretaceous periods.

An early attempt to deal with the crater evidence was made by the "father of modern creationism," Henry M. Morris, who suggested that lunar and Martian craters might represent battle scars of a cosmic war between angels and Satan (Morris, 1972; Spears, 2006). In recent years most YECs seem to have distanced themselves from Morris's fanciful proposal. Recognizing the scientific evidence that the craters represent millions of real meteorite impacts, some have attempted to accommodate them within the YEC timetable by proposing that all occurred during one or two major bombardment episodes during the creation week, and/or the "Flood year."

In an article entitled "A biblically-based cratering theory" on the "Answers in Genesis" website Danny Faulkner writes:

If this latest impact catastrophe is equated with the biblical Flood, 
then it follows that the Flood on earth was accompanied by large impacts. 
The time frame of the Flood constrains the period over which the impacts 
could have occurred to no more than a few months less than a year. 
Depending upon the model adopted, the impacts may have happened over 
just a few days. 

However, this author and other YECs do not seem to appreciate the implications of such massive bombardment within the YEC time frame. Over 150 major craters have been documented in the geologic record, and this is undoubtedly a small fraction of the actual number of major impacts, since most are obliterated by continental plate movement and erosion, or hidden under sediments. However, we can get a good idea for the number of meteorite impacts on earth by studying the moon and other bodies in our solar system which largely lack such geologic activity.

The moon's surface has over 1700 craters over 100 km in size. Dozens of these are over 150 km (the size of the Chiczulub crater believed to have contributed to the K-T extinction). Many of these impacts are thought to have occurred during an intense bombardment period about 3.9 billion years ago, which saw the formation of 1700 craters 100 kilometers wide or larger (some several hundred km across), resurfacing 80% of the Moon's crust (Cohen, 2001). As Cohen notes: "The Earth would not have escaped a similar beating during this time." Indeed, since the earth's surface is over 13 times that of the moon, we can estimate that over 20,000 meteors over 100 km each would have impacted the earth during this early bombardment episode alone. If compressed into a "Flood year," that amounts to over 50 major impacts a day.

It might be argued that impacts in deep water would be less destructive than those on land; however, the combined effect of numerous large impacts within a "Flood year" would still be devastating. The tidal waves alone would be so massive that any Ark would be thoroughly engulfed and pulverized. Even a single 10 km wide meteorite (approximately the size of the one which formed the Chicxulub crater, is estimated to have created tidal waves 50 to 100 meters (approx. 230 to 400 ft) high. Imagine thousands of such impacts, plus many larger ones, all occuring within a year or less. No human life, in or out of an Ark, could have withstood such an onslaught.

YECs already had difficulty explaining how millions of aquatic species--including many sensitive to narrow ecological conditions and specific ranges of temperature, salinity, acidity, turbidity, etc. survived a violent global Flood; adding the implications of massive meteorite bombardment further undermines the plausibility of their model.

Perhaps realizing these difficiutlies, some YECs have proposed that virtually all meteorite bombardment occurred during the "creation week" (presumably before humans were created). However, this entails other major problems, including:

1. The creation of the Garden of Eden and God's declaration that the creation was "very good" hardly seem consistent with the idea that massive bolide bombardment was taking place during this time. One might propose that all the bombardment took place within the first day or two of the creation week (before humans and other life forms were created), but this leads us to other problems...

2. Environmental conditions would not have been favorable to life immediately after such bombardment, to say the least. Indeed, the earth would be a smoldering inferno for some time to come.

3. Craters occur in different parts of the geologic record on earth, including Paleozoic and Cenozoic strata. Most creationists interpret these not as creation-week rocks, but as Flood or post-Flood deposits.

4. Many craters on moon and other bodies show evidence of impacts over a significant period of time, including ones that are marred or subdued by volcanic activity (Herres and Hartmann, 2004). Radiometric dates on lunar samples support the great age of the impacts and their formation over millions of years--certainly not within a literal earth week.

Conclusion

Abundant evidence indicates that the earth has been subjected to millions of meteorite impacts, including many large ones. Such evidence is incompatible with the YEC timetable and human survival, as well as extensive independent evidence for an old earth and old solar system.

References

Cohen, Barbara, 2001. Lunar Meteorites and the Lunar Cataclysm. University of Tennessee website at: http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Jan01/lunarCataclysm.html

Faulkner, Danny, 2006 web article at: http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i1/crater.asp Originally published in the Technical Journal 13(1):100-104, April 1999

Morris, Henry M. 1972, The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth.

Spears, John, 2006, web article at: http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/www_of_creationism_craters.htm

Gregg Herres and William K. Hartmann, 2004. Web article at: http://www.psi.edu/projects/mgs/cratering.html Anonymous article at University of Tennessee Dept of Physics and Astronomy: http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/meteors/impacts.html