Dating the Rocks of the Grand Canyon
- Introduction
This is a comparative essay with a purpose to explain the difference between the old-Earth and young-Earth viewpoints on the dating of the rock layers of the Grand Canyon. The Canyon is located in Arizona, and it has two sides, the North and South sides which have been named as Rims. People have different views, and there has never been a scientific method to calculate the actual age of the Earth, but there are calculations which are used to estimate its age.
To arrive at the calculation, there must be certain assumptions such as the beginning and the speed at which materials increase or decrease over a period of time. For example, before calculations are done in radioisotope dating of rocks, it is necessary to assume the amount of the radioisotope present when the rock formed and also no isotope were gained or lost and rate of isotope decay has remained constant.
The young-earth creationist belief that the earth was created by God 6000-10000 years ago in just six days by showing that the geological records the scientific details of early history are supported in the bible. On the other hand, the old earth creationism also believes that God created both the earth and the universe. Both beliefs in the book of Genesis in the bible but they interpret differently through the old earth creationism tries to bring in the issue of cosmology and other theories of evolution. This essay will explain both the young earth creationism and the old earth creationism with regards to the dating of the layers of rocks in the Grand Canyon.
The origin of the canyon is still mysterious, but some reasonable explanations are likely to be correct concerning the source of the canyon. John Wesley Powell assumed the origin of the canyon was by antecedence. It has been explained that there was previously flowing water before the period of uplift, then during the uplift, the process was slow that the river was able to erode down against the rising landscape. He was convinced that the river was able to maintain its course for tens of millions of years ago it is also important to keep in mind that all these events were unobserved and thus the scientist is trying to study things that might have occurred in the past. There is no scientific proof of the history views, creation or evolution or for the old and the young earth or the Noah’s flood
- Old-Earth Secular View
The old earth creationism beliefs that God miraculously created the universe out from nothing, and also created life from no life and then he progressed and supernaturally created new species of life. They believe the surface of the was formed through rapid catastrophic processes and slow processes radioisotope dating has to some extent demonstrated the old earth viewpoint that showed moderate and slow processes overages (Levin & King, 2016). The fossils documented a rise in complexity with time with simple creatures being found at the bottom and the more complex ones found at the top, this shows the evidence of the old earth view. In this creationism, the earth is believed to be about 4.5 billion years old based on carbon dating, geological time scale, and other methods.
The description of the Grand Canyon layers of the rocks which include the Colorado River which runs at the bottom of the inner gorge with flats on each side consisting of the sandstone layers(Levin & King, 2016).. There are also rocks which have changed due to heat in the Vishnu Complex. These rocks are at the lowest layers and are very steep and narrow. The old-earth seculars usually explore these areas to find evidence concerning the age of the earth.
Old earth creationist agrees with scientific estimates of the age of the universe, the humanity and the Earth itself and on the other hand, they reject claims of the modern evolutionary theorist which respect biological evolution.
III. Young-Earth View
The young-Earth creationism beliefs that God created the universe directly in six days literal days and it states that the earth is young. The young earth creationist estimates the age of the earth to be between 6000-10000 years old. They also believe in the flood that spread globally during the day of Noah as it is in the bible (Hill, 2016). It is also believed in this that the earth was a single continent before the occurrence of the flood.
The positions of the young earth creationist come from the direct interpretation of the Bible in the book of Genesis. They also keep the creation of the plants, animals and the sun in the biblical sequence
The Grand Canyon rocks are interpreted to have been laid down by flood during the time of Noah while the Kaibab was laid down a few months after. The Tapeats is said to be present before the flood (Whitmore, 2017). The place was then uplifted in the late year of blood while the trapped water curved the canyon as it drained off the continents.
In the Grand Canyon, most of its sentiments which lied horizontally in water and after uplifting took place, they remained horizontal. The Beverly deformed the sediments at the sides of the plateau while in other areas, it left them at a vertical. Today the Tapeats are extremely hard and previously it was bent from horizontal to vertical which means that during deformation the sentiments were soft and it has not yet had enough time to harden (Whitmore, 2017). The fact is, it only takes a hundred years for sediments to turn into a sandstone under high pressure and enough cementation. Therefore, the Tapeats were not 480 million years during the period of uplifts; it took a short period when the sediments were still soft.
The old-earth creationist may propose a scenario of flowage at a high pressure which is unlikely but after all the evidence fits the young-earth idea.
- Comparison of the viewpoints
Both the old-earth and the young-earth creationist agree that God created all the things on the earth; they also believe in the literal universe creation from nothing. However, they differ in the interpretation of the first 11 chapters in the book of Genesis in the bible. Both of them also state that they should not have blind faith and they should also have a correct understanding of the word of god and religion. They also reject the claim that random mutation and the act of natural selection can adequately meet the threshold to account for life complexity.
- Contract of the viewpoints
The young-earth creationist interprets the bible in a traditional view. It views it to mean six literal days which equates to 144 literal hours. While on the other side, the old earth creationist interprets the scripture and believe that the Earth, the universe and all the forms of life in it including the human beings were created billions of years ago and not within the span of 10000 years ago as stated by the young-earth creationist. They interpret the six days as something called ‘day-ages or epochs’.it is one of the areas the two groups profoundly disagree.
- Conclusion
The purpose for this was a comparative essay to give explanations on the old-earth as well as the young-earth and give both similarities and contract concerning both the viewpoints. Both groups agree on most of the things, but they have a big difference in the way they interpret the book of Genesis in the bible.
The other thing is that one of the group believe that the earth and universe with everything in it is less than 10000 years old will the other thinks it is about 4.5 billion years but of the groups believe that God created the earth and the universe from nothing
References
Hill, C. A. (2016). How the Book, Can Noah’s Flood Explain the Grand Canyon?, Came to Be. Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, 68(2), 125-131.
Levin, H. L., & King Jr, D. T. (2016). The Earth Through Time, Binder Ready Version. John Wiley & Sons.
Whitmore, J. H. (2017). How the Coconino Sandstone of the Grand Canyon supports Young-Earth Creation and a Global Flood.
