Salt, Meteors and the Global Flood

Copyright 2003 G.R. Morton  This can be freely distributed so long as no changes are made and no charges are made.

Salt and the Global flood.

Global Flood advocates put most of their efforts with regard to salt to explain how the oceans supposedly couldn�t be as old and evolutionists say. But they never tell their readers about the evidence within the salt which proves huge ages and slow deposition of the salt. The very presence of bedded salt in the geologic record is evidence that it was not deposited during a WET global flood. Salt dissolves in water, it doesn�t deposit out of water unless the water is saturated with salt. And when it is saturated with salt, no vertebrate life can live in those waters. So, why do we find huge salt beds in the middle of the geologic column and which are very widespread? All of Michigan is underlain by the Salina Salt which reaches as much as 3100 feet thick. How did this happen in the midst of the biggest water event in history�the Noachian flood? Some creationists have claimed that a mechanism by Omer B. Raup will explain the salt. In this mechanism, brines of different mixture come in contact with each other and when the interface is stirred, salt is deposited. That is the only known method of salt being deposited under water. But will it explain the salt we see in the geologic column? No. If the salt were deposited by Raup�s mechanism in a global flood with its turbulence, the salt should contain much mud quarts and other impurities. But salt is relatively pure. The biggest contaminants are other evaporative minerals like gypsum, anhydrite and carbonate. Salt beds contain almost no clastics But one other contaminant they have are microscopic plankton. The existence of such creatures makes it appear as if the salt really were evaporated! They also contain pollen grains, which are known to fall out of the air. This contamination makes it look as if the salt were open to the air at the time it was deposited. This is something that is incompatible with the global flood concept. Jux writes: "Samples of diapiric and bedded salt from the Gulf Coastal Province were studied for their pollen-spores content. Twenty-four different species were observed among them one new genus Gordoniella atwateri. The microfloral remains also include forms of algae (Chroolepidaceae or Mikrothyriaceae) and fungi. "The phytologic data obtained indicate a Rhaetic-Liassic (late Triassic-early Jurassic) age for the diapiric salt of Texas (Grand Saline), Louisiana (Winnfield, Avery Island, Weeks Island, Jefferson Island), and the bedded salt (Louann Salt) in northern Louisiana. There seems to be no difference in age between the salt in the interior belt of salt domes and the one stretching along the coastal region. The Louann salt is most probably the mother source bed from which the tremendous amount of diapiric salt originated." ~ Ulrich Jux, The Palynologic Age of Diapiric and Bedded Salt, Department of Conservation, Louisiana Geological Survey, Geological Bulletin 38, October, 1961, p. 1 It has always seemed strange to me that during the violent global flood, not a single fish or marine dinosaur would stumble into these supposed precipitational spots, yet algae and fungi could. Another deposit contains meteoritic dust in quantities consistent with what would be expected from a slowly evaporating basin. "The sedimentation rate of the A-1 Evaporite of Michigan was determined by analysis of micrometeorites found as inclusions in the halite deposit. The samples were obtained from the Dow Chemical Company salt well number eight. The residue from the dissolved salt was magnetically separated and later analyzed by Particle Induces X-ray Emission (PIXE), x-ray diffraction, and microprobe techniques. The amount of extraterrestrial material was determined from the quantity of nickel present. "A sedimentation rate of .01 to .4 centimeters per year was calculated for the salt based on a constant influx rate of meteoritic material of 1 x 10^4 tons per year. This sedimentation rate is much slower than previously reported sedimentation rates for salt. This relatively slow sedimentation rate and the close association of hydrocarbons with salt suggests that the original hydrocarbon content of petroleum-producing evaporite basins may be much greater than previously believed." James Matthew Barnett, Sedimentation Rate of Salt Determined by Micrometeorite Analysis, M. S. Thesis, Western Michigan University, 1983, p. i. And this rate is as I noted, consistent with what we find coming in from space: "Abundances of magnetic spherules in 26 Silurian and Permian salt samples are very similar to abundances in recent collections from the atmosphere. This suggests that meteoritic influx has been constant for the three periods of time sampled." Thomas A. Mutch, "Abundances of Magnetic Spherules in Silurian and Permian Salt Samples", Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 1 1966 p. 325 The Silurian salt was from the International Salt Co., Inc. Mine at Detroit Michigan. The Permian specimens from Carey Salt Co. Mine Hutchinson, Kansas the American Salt Corp. Mine, Lyons, Kansas and the International Mineral and Chemical Corp. Mine Carlsbad, New Mexico. Why would a global flood, which all agree was a very watery event, deposit salt in such a fashion as to make it look like it was really evaporating. The salt beds lack the features we would expect in a global flood�large quantities of the erosive quartz and shale generated by all the erosion going on in the flood---but they contain the features�pollen and meteoritic dust-- at just the quantities expected from slow deposition. Did the flood meteoritic dust influx speed up just exactly as much as is needed to make the salt LOOK like it was deposited slowly? Why would God do that? I bet no global flood advocate here can tell us how the flood did this without speaking about my credentials or spiritual condition. They have no explanation and thus must speak of irrelevancies. All I am asking for is an explanation of how the features above were generated by a global flood?. Any explanation guys? Note added later: Below is from http://home.entouch.net/dmd/geo.htm: The Opeche shale is of Permian age and overlies the Minnelusa. The interesting thing about the Opeche is that in the center of the basin, at its deepest part, it is salt - 300 feet of salt. Permian pollen is found in the salt, modern pollen is not found (Wilgus and Holser, 1984, p. 765,766). This bed has the appearance of a period of time in which the Williston Sea dried up, leaving its salt behind in the deepest parts of the basin as would be expected. The area of salt deposition is 188,400 square kilometers. Assuming that over this area the salt averages half that 300 feet(91 m) or averages 45 meters, then this deposit represents 9 trillion cubic meters of salt! With a density of 2160 kg/m^3 this represents the evaporation of 845 million cubic kilometers of seawater. This is 1/14 of the world's ocean water. This is hardly something to be expected in a global flood.