Carbon Dioxide and the Flood

Copyright 1998 G.R. Morton

This may be freely distributed so long as no monetary charges and no alterations to the text are made.

Not only do volcanoes produce lots of sulphuric acid, they produce more CO2. I found this:

"Using the Kilauea eruption as a model, Terrence M. Gerlach of Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque estimated that the Deccan Traps injected up to 30 trillion tons of carbon dioxide, six trillion tons of sulfur and 60 billion tons of halogens (reactive elements such as chlorine and fluorine) into the lower atmosphere over a few hundred years." ~ Vincent E. Courtillot, "A Volcanic Eruption," Scientific American, October, 1990, p. 85-92, p. 89

Now, the Deccan traps contain 8.2 x 10⁶ cubic kilometers so the output from the Deccan traps is:

30 x 10¹² tons/8.2 x 10⁶ cubic kilometers = 3.658 megatons (Mt) / cubic kilometer of basalt.

There are huge lava flows on earth, called volcanic traps, which must have occurred during the flood year because they lie on top of supposed flood deposited sedimentary rock and beneath flood deposited sedimentary rock. So if the geology requires that they be extruded during the flood, how much sulphuric acid must come with them? Here are some of the volumes of rock extruded to the earth's surface during such episodes:

Volcanics flood basalt flows (Coffin and Eldholm).

                                      DATE                 VOLUME

Ontong Java/Nauru                    121-124 my         38-55 x 10⁶ km³

Kerguelen Plateau/ Broken Ridge    114-109.5 my         15-25 x 10⁶ km³

North Atlantic                     57.5-54.5 my           6.6 x 10⁶ km³

Deccan Traps                           65-69 my           8.2 x 10⁶ km³

Columbia River                        6-17.5 my          1.74 x 10⁵ km³

Ethiopian Traps                                           7.5 x 10⁵ km³ 

before erosion

Siberian Traps                       249-216 my           2.3 x 10⁶ km³
Central Atlantic Magmatic Prov. (CAMP)   200 my            2 x 10⁶ km³

(estimated from the data of Mohr and Zanettin, 1988, p. 63; Siberian Traps from Reichow et al, Science 296(2002), p. 1849 CAMP from Marzoli et al, Science 284(1999), p. 618).

Other Basalt flows Volcanics flood basalt flows (Hess, 1989)

                                          DATE                 Area

Snake River Plain                         16 my              .5 x 10⁵ km²

Parana Plateau Brazil                 119-149my              12 x 10⁵ km²

Karoo Basalts                        166-206 my            >1.4 x 10⁵ km²

Assuming a 1 kilometer thickness for the second list of traps this adds up to approximately 98 x 10⁶ cubic kilometers.

So at 3.6 megatons/km³ x 98 x 10⁶ cubic kilometers of basalt = 3.5 x 10¹⁴ tons of CO₂.

Given that there are 1016 kg/ton this means that during the one year flood, 3.47 x 10^17 kg of CO₂ would be released. According to my CRC the mass of the atmosphere is 5.2 x 10^21 g or 5.2 x 10^18 kg. Thus the amount of CO₂ released ONLY by the volcanic traps during the YEC global flood, is equal to 6.6% of the entire atmosphere.

How does this relate to the present atmosphere? Currently we are approaching 400 parts per million (ppm) CO₂ in the atmosphere, yet the YEC scenario would produce an atmosphere that had AS A MINIMUM a CO₂ level of 58615 parts per million. Scientists are worried about a 600 ppm CO₂ world next century, the YEC post flood world would create such a hot climate that all life would be destroyed. Yet amazingly, Creationists like Austin, Baumgardner, Wise, Snelling, Vardiman, Humphreys and Oard think that the post flood world would be glacially cold. (See "Austin et al, Catastrophic Plate Tectonics" 3rd ICC 1994, p. 615 and Michael Oard, A rapid Post Flood Ice Age," CRSQ 16(1979):29-37; Oard, An Ice age Caused by the Genesis Flood, 1990 ICR).

Of course, CO₂ is a strong greenhouse gas and young-earth creationists have not given the thought to this issue that they should have. Their global flood would choke Noah on sulphuric acid and then choke him again on the CO₂, and with an atmosphere so clogged with CO₂, Noah would burn up. Venus has an atmosphere with lots of CO₂ and the temperature there is several hundred degrees C.! But somehow, YECs want us to believe that the postflood, CO₂ rich atmosphere would be very cold. Is there any scientific fact that will move them to reconsider their views?