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And a special note, I want to let everyone know that this essay I wrote talks about the Global Flood mentioned in Genesis however, whenever I mention the Bible, it is not meant to be used as 'scientific evidence' rather just to point out where the theory I am talking about happens to agree with what is written about in scripture. The Bible is not scientific evidence for the model!

The purpose of this essay is mostly to outline the theory because when people start asking me to spew out evidence, we first need to know the basic model we are talking about. Here is the basic model, Please feel free to ask more questions! but please don't go beating me up with a stick just because I outlined a model.
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I guess I’ll start with the global flood model and giving a brief over view of how the theory works and how it provides a cause for an ice age and how it corresponds with the fossil record.
The global flood read about in the Bible (I suggest reading the passage before continuing on since it will give a better understanding of what I am about to say [Genesis 6-8 online Bible: [link]) tells a story of Noah and the ark he built and the animals, two of each kind, in it and how the springs of the great deep burst forth and it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. It is not likely at all that a 40 day period of rain could flood the earth and in fact, the Bible does not say that the rain is what caused the earth to flood. It just says that the springs of the great deep burst forth and it rained for thirty days. The theory is that before the flood, the world was very different. There is reason to believe that there may have been a thin canopy of water surrounding the earth or in the atmosphere (this is also supported by the Bible in Genesis 1:6-8). The canopy would have to have been either a very thin water vapor or possibly ice crystals or something of the sort. This canopy would sort of insolate the earth by trapping in the heat from the sun keeping the earth warm like a green house. This is called the Green house affect. It would cause a world-wide temperate climate. This would also change the air pressure. A high air pressure would promote healing, possibly account to longevity of life accounting for gigantic fossils which we find and accounting for in the Bible why people lived for so long and this would also affect aerodynamics which would allow creatures such as pterodactyls to fly (they wouldn’t be able to fly in the air today due to air pressure). A vapor canopy would also cause a temperature inversion. Taking in the higher air pressure and temperature inversion this gives the idea that there were no major storm cells before the flood and no rain but would instead create heavy dew in the morning that would cover the ground. Now, the Bible says that “the springs of the great deep burst forth”. This is a very key verse.
Ever heard of Pangaea? For all those reading who may not know, most scientists agree that the continents where previously all together and where one big super continent called Pangaea (also supported by the Bible in Genesis 1:9). This is also a part of the flood model. The theory is that the continents were violently and quickly ripped apart and split in several places, the major splitting point being the mid Atlantic oceanic ridge. The ripping apart would have created the tectonic plates.

Here’s an excellent map by NASA showing the oceans topographical features and the tectonic plates which are outlined in red and blue. Please note the legend on this map and notice the areas of subducting plates (where plates are colliding and going under each other) and spreading zones (where the plates go away from each other) and the areas where volcanoes are located on the earth. [link]
Note that the area where the mid-oceanic ridge is located is a spreading center and how there is a continental shelf along the eastern half of the Americas and on the western half of Africa and Europe. Also note how the western side of the Americas and the eastern side of Asia and all the area around the Pacific Ocean is for the most part a subduction zone. The continents violently ripping apart from the mid-oceanic ridge and other spreading centers would cause subduction in all the areas of the earth where we find it. The North American Plate being pushed toward the Pacific Plate (what with the oceanic plate being denser than the continental plates) would cause the North American Plate to over-ride the Pacific plate and so on and so forth with the plates on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. The continental plates being squished onto the top of the Pacific Plates would be sufficient to cause the formation of mountains and the displacement of magma caused by the subduction of the oceanic plate would be a very sufficient explanation for the volcanoes found in the ring around the Pacific Ocean. This theory of plate tectonics is an excellent explanation for why there is a mass of cooler and denser rock material sitting on the inner core of the earth [link] . Scientists who believe that the splitting of the continents was slow and took forever really do not have an explanation for why there is that cooler rock mass in the interior of the earth because if it was that old and happened as slow as their model claims, that rock matter should not be as cool as it is and should be almost as hot if not just as hot as surrounding magma.
The spreading center at the mid-oceanic ridge would then be pouring out lava creating the floor of the new Atlantic Ocean.

Back to the vapor canopy, 40 days of rain and the source of the flood waters.
All of that tectonic activity releasing hot temperatures into the atmosphere would be sufficient to bring down the vapor canopy (provided there was one) causing it to rain for the first time. Not only that but all of that hot air and water being splashed about by rapid tectonics would create lots of precipitation for heavy rain fall hence the 40 days of rain. The 40 days of rain however would not be the cause of the earth flooding; The rapped tectonic movement would be of course causing major earth quakes all over the world bringing about tsunamis which would flood the earth not to mention the fact that a continent being thrust toward an ocean would cause the ocean waters to come up unto land. The 40 days of rain really was just icing on the cake when it came to flooding the earth, the tsunamis did the real grunt work in flooding everything.
Now that I’ve gotten the canopy theory, green house effect theory, rapid tectonics, rapid tectonics being the cause of the flood waters and the ocean being the source of the flood waters and the 40 days of rain covered and all explained, lets move onto… *has to make a choice of topics* the fossil record.
Here is a poor diagram of the fossil record: [link] it’s a poor diagram because it’s not very in-depth. There’s a more in-depth one here at Wikipedia: [link]
Scientists struggle with explaining the reason for the lack of fossils in the Precambrian rock and the boom of fossils in the above rock layers.
Most scientists such as the ones who made these diagrams interpret the order in which they find fossils the order in which things must have evolved where a catastrophist would look at the order in which we find fossils as the fact that the things found lower in the record died first and ability to escape the massive violent tectonic action and tsunamis (ocean dwelling things would be the first to go, smaller land animals and land plants being next, bigger animals being able to run away from the tsunamis quicker would be the last to die because they were farther from the ocean and they were able to survive longer and well you get the basic idea). The tsunamis bearing the ocean dwelling critters and what not would explain marine fossils found on land. The massive tsunamis covering the earth would also explain the massive amounts of diatomaceous earth found on land and the massive layers sand which blanket a great part of the continents, an example is the sandstone layer at the bottom of the Sauk Sequence [link] . Another thing to bring up is that most areas where fossils found generally contain bones scattered across a stretch of land. Also, many times you will find fossils together that would not in an ecosystem, belong together (example of this is finding a deep-sea animal fossil with a land fossil) or finding fossils of different plants that you would normally not find living together. These facts give catastrophist scientists reason to believe that these are not fossils from an ecosystem but rather a death assemblage; the burial ground of this that were mixed together in the sloshing around of the flood waters.
Now, onto the ice age.
This flood model provides a perfect set up for an ice age. The rapid tectonics causing the pouring out of lava and the hot ocean water combined with a now cooler atmosphere (the atmosphere would be cooler because there would no longer be the vapor canopy creating a green house affect) would be a perfect setting for massive storm cells to generate. Lots of precipitation from the ocean being carried by storm cells onto land where it would snow and the cooler atmosphere would keep everything nice and cool and would keep the accumulating snow from doing a lot of melting.
Also, just to bring up a few other things briefly, it has been proven that layers of strata can be formed as a result of high speed running water containing mixed sediment particles. The water will sort out the mixed sediment particles. This shows that flood waters can also be responsible for the strata and micro strata which are seen today.

I think that’s about it. This really wasn’t mostly evidence but more explaining the models and a brief overview of how evidences such as the geologic column, fossils, the ice age rapid tectonics, etc. fit into the idea of a global flood.
Really, quite a bit of the things seen today can be supported by both models; it is just a matter of interpretation. The geologic column and the order in which we find fossils can go toward both models, the idea of a super continent can fit into both models, and the ice age fits into both models. I just happen to think that the catastrophic model better explains more things than a uniformitarian (old earth/evolution) model and that is why I chose to go with it.
There are many other things that I didn’t get into such as the formation of coal and how that supports a catastrophic model and things having to do with how strata can be formed and ect. Because well, it’s almost 11 at night, I’ve been writing this for several hours, the formation of coal chapter was the only chapter I actually disliked and well, I’m tired and this is onto the fourth page in a MS Word document (not double spaced). If you really are interested in hearing more about the following topics and what the catastrophic model has to say about them, let me know and if I have the time I can write out another one of these.
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