No Dinosaurs in Iceland
Jack and Deanne visited Iceland in January 2017; here is what Jack saw.
By Jack Hoehn
“Reek” now means a strong or disagreeable smell, but it comes from what the Germans mean by Rauch or smoke, and in the past has meant a fume, vapor, or smoke. So when the ancient Norwegians in their Viking boats coming to the new land they called Iceland saw a bay (vik in Norse) with steam plumes arising from geothermal hot springs about the bay, they called it “smoke-y-bay” or Reyk-ja-vik.
As early as 871 AD they colonized this island and built Viking longhouses of stones and sod in what is now Iceland’s capital city, Reykjavik. About five blocks from the SDA Adventkirkjan in downtown Reykjavik the foundations of that ancient Viking house have been carefully excavated and are now a wonderful on-site museum with fascinating explanations of the building outlined before your eyes, now several meters below present-day street levels.
Dating the Ruins
Of course, most archeological ruins don’t come with ready-made tags on them indicating the date of the ruins (unless you find a dated lost coin in the ruins), so it is interesting how they know the date of this structure accurately enough to call the Exhibition “Reykjavik 871 (+/-2).”
The answer is a thin layer of light-colored soil just above the foundations of the sod wall about the house. This distinctive layer is volcanic ash from one of Iceland’s many volcanic eruptions. Each volcano often has different molten magma in it, so the ash from Mount St. Helens, is different from the ash of Krakatoa, or Vesuvius eruptions, and different from that now happening in Hawaii. Gulf stream trade winds carried this ash west from Iceland across Greenland’s ice fields 760 miles (1256 km) away. Above this distinctive ash layer in cores drilled from Greenland’s ice shield are 1146 annual rings of spring/summer pollens plus or minus 2 years from today, showing how long ago this structure was being made (2017 – 1146 = AD 871 +/-2)
Radiocarbon dating of ashes in the fire pit of the house show arctic birch wood of a similar age was once burnt there. And historical sagas written in the 12th century[1] confirm a similar date for the Norwegian settlement of Iceland by Vikings unhappy with the politics and a new king consolidating power in Norway.
When written records, radiocarbon dating, and tephrochronology[2] using Greenland’s annual ice layers agree on a single point in history, you have a confirmation of both the date and the relative accuracy of all three methods.
No Granite in Iceland
Iceland is a mid-Atlantic island second only to Britain in size, entirely constructed of volcanic soils. It is on the mid-Atlantic ridge between the continents of North America to the west, and Europe/Asia to the east. Continental drift is moving the Eurasian continent eastward and the North American continent westward, leaving a gap between them that allows molten magma from the center of the earth to rise to the surface as volcanoes here and further south in the Canary Islands, for example. In Iceland this drift can be measured, as cracks or fissures in the country pull apart at a measured rate of nearly an inch every year (2.5 cm). The most recent lava here in Thingevellir has been pulled apart 70 meters, which would suggest that about 2,800 years have passed since that recent volcanic lava flow finished. But that lava is on top of older flows on top of older flows, and the Thingevellir valley itself is about 7 Kilometers across which could be 280,000 years. And the entire Iceland from one coast to the other is about 375 km which leads to millions (16-18 Mya according to Wickipedia and its sources) of years since the island appeared. (These figures are a correction of my original estimate which had a calculation error corrected by a mathematically astute reader.)
Iceland has had many volcanoes in historical times. I still remember the creation of the new island of Surtsey over 50 years ago[4] off Iceland’s coast. In 2010 Eyjafjallajökull volcano[5] put enough ash into the air that it shut down international air traffic for several weeks. Laki volcano in 1783 put enough ash into the air that it cooled down Europe, led to crop failures and starvation that triggered the French Revolution when starving French farmers had neither bread nor cake to eat, while their nobility lived in luxury.
Iceland’s volcanic composition shows at least six different chemical compositions showing multiple different volcanos over time, not just one creation event. Furthermore, when molten lava comes to the surface and cools in ocean water or under glaciers or in contact with air, it solidifies with its metallic components aligned with magnetic polarity of the earth. Recent flows all point to the North Pole, but ancient flows shift from north to south and back again over time, suggesting that the magnetic poles of earth have shifted over ancient ages. Historic lava is over ancient lava, over even older lavas. None of this could have possibly happened in 24 hours during a literal six-day creation week of 144 hours’ duration.
Creationists who study and understand geology believe God’s third-day command to “Let the dry land appear” has been fulfilled many times in the long geologic history of earth, just not once a few thousand years ago, although there was an age of continental formation before land plants and animals appeared, reflected in God’s third great creation day.
No Dinosaurs in Iceland
Beyond that, there are almost no fossils in Iceland. A Noah’s flood that might be postulated to have buried the abundant fossils found all over the earth from Oregon’s John Day to Alberta’s Badlands, to the Jura Mountains in Europe, to China–appears to have skipped Iceland.
No trace of giant land animals like mammoths, rhinos, saber-toothed anythings, or even little dinosaurs has ever been found. You can find a few leaf prints, pollen grains, and a few insects. So if Noah’s flood covered Iceland, there was nothing there to bury, even though the few plant fossils do suggest it was much warmer before the later long ice ages (remnants of which still cover parts of Iceland and all of Greenland). And if all the fossils in all the world are the result of God’s cleansing the world of wicked dinosaurs and wicked humans, why are they buried everywhere except Iceland?
The answer is that Iceland, although obviously thousands and thousands of years old, has been untouched by a Noah’s flood, with billions of dead animals to be deposited in nooks and crannies as fossils. The same chronological methods we can test to events in 1964, 1783, 871 and back and back and back into prehistory, cannot be fitted into a recent planet-wide Noah’s flood.
Those of us who believe in a historical Noah and a real flood, understand that it was Noah’s world that was covered, not the planet Earth that Noah knew nothing about. We have learned that the biblical stories do not require us to understand the story in ways that are impossible based on the evidence we see in the earth.
We do not give up the Bible; we give up our previous misunderstanding of the Bible.
We accept Noah and his flood destroying his world. We accept that Jesus says when He comes again, it will be like Noah’s flood when all in Noah’s world were surprised by that event. But we also see that it could not have happened as recently as 4,000 years ago, and it is very unlikely that it covered the planet. Noah’s dove flew over “all the face of the earth” and then came back to the ark. The flood was as big as and likely much bigger than a dove could fly over in one day.[6] But even that sized giant of a 40-day flood cannot reach to Iceland, and it didn’t.
Adventists in Iceland
I went to church recently on a Sabbath in Reykjavik. 10 or so elderly friendly Icelanders were in Sabbath School, joined by two African young women from Malawi and Uganda studying in Iceland on international scholarships, two young people visiting from New Jersey, another Asian family on vacation and our little group from Walla Walla. It appeared that visitors made up at least half the congregation. I saw no young Icelanders except the organist. An Adventist school in Iceland was closed quite a few years ago. I have met lovely Icelandic Adventists serving in other countries.
But I was as angry as an Icelandic geyser about to boil over, that narrow-minded theologians counting the jots and tittles of their Biblical languages, restrained by the 19th-century science of Ellen White, and the 16th-century speculations of a Bishop Ussher have dared to elevate impossible-to-believe opinions on geology and debatable “opinions” on Creation as “doctrines” into a creed for Adventism!
“In the beginning” is not a date for creation. God creating “in six days” can be God’s days, which may not be the same as our little days. “There was evening and there was morning” can mean there was a greater controversy period of darkness (“evening”) and God then progressively created, making what was not good enough, better (“morning”), progressive step by progressive step. It doesn’t have to mean that, but it could mean that.
Genesis can be an outline of what God did, not a scientific explanation of how He did it, or when. Your Bible tells you what God did during six of His days (Steps, Stages, Ages, Eras). Science can suggest possible answers to the “when and how” questions. The Sabbath and its literal week of our days can be a Memorial of creation, without being a chronological copy of creation or the measure of its duration.
Just Asking for a Thaw
I don’t care if some Adventists wish to still believe that Iceland was created on one 24-hour day with the rest of the continents, about 6,000 years ago. I don’t care if some Adventists wish to make up a possible reason why Iceland appears to have been untouched by a supposed planet-wide Noah’s flood just 4,000 years ago.
I just don’t want them to tell me or my children we have to agree with these difficult-to-accept opinions as doctrines or we can’t be Seventh-day Adventists.
If they love Jesus and are Christ-like in character; if they realize that life had to be Intelligently Designed and intentionally created for us; if they understand that our only hope for the future lies in faith in God’s gracious plan for our salvation and resurrection; then I’m okay that 10 elderly Adventists with last-century interpretations can still come together for comfort from the icy winds of an Icelandic winter in an Icelandic Adventkirkja.
But I am as hot as the molten lava under the hot springs of Smokey-Bay, the Blue Lagoon, or brooding volcano Grimsvötn, that those of us who wish to be Adventists and to study geology, tephrochronology, and continental drift; those who see the Bible as introducing truth, not restricting or restraining truth; those who believe Creation is progressive and understandable, not instantaneous and magical, are threatened to be denied entrance and full fellowship into that warm little Church.
There is an estimated shrinking flock of under 500 Adventists in Iceland. If we could become a progressive Advent Movement again, a 21st-century church of today and tomorrow instead of a 19th-century footnote, there should be 10 times that many.
There is so much beautiful about worshiping the Creator on the Sabbath, with freedom to follow all truth wherever it leads, why can’t we open wide our warm church doors again to all interested 21st-century young people and their thoughtful elders? Welcome to all who believe that God is the creator and that the weekly Sabbath is a wonderful memorial of that fact no matter when and how that happened. That could thaw even the coldest glaciers of Iceland and many other places too.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Íslendingabók is an Icelandic History written by a priest named Ari Thorgilsson (Ari, son of Thorgil) early in the 12th century, of which copies exist today from the 17th century.
[2] Tephrochrolology, dating by presence of volcanic ash layers in a sediment.
[3] See https://apl.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=df5f94c0050b4075adfbba54fb13eaeb for source of this picture of Thingvellir in Iceland and much more information on continental drift.
[4] 1963-1967 eruption of Surtsey.
[5] A funny T-shirt sold in Iceland today says, “NOW JUST WHAT PART OF Eyjafjallajökull DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?
Eyjafjallajökull is an active volcano covered by a smallish glacier, the Icelandic name means, “Mountain of the Islands Ice Cap.”
[6] See Jack Hoehn, https://atoday.org/does-noah-s-flood-explain-everything/ (Jack would rewrite the paragraph on a possible DNA bottleneck at the flood today, but his opinion of the size of the flood based on the story in Genesis is still his opinion as the best estimation of the size of Noah’s world.)
COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE are welcome and will all be read by the author. After a delay those that expand, improve, and support the ideas in this article may be republished, for other readers to enjoy. Delays in approvals are due to author’s work schedule, not the value of your comments!
(Unedited free-for-all comments can be posted on the Facebook edition of this article, if that is what you prefer.)
Thanks for the insightful article and for your visit to our church in Reykjavik. I think I may have been translating that day.
Thank you for your service. It was the Sabbath that Martin Luther’s contribution to Christianity was emphasized. It is very kind for the Reykjavik SDA church to offer translation for English speaking visitors.
I’m reading a book Creation in Scripture by Herold Weiss, in which he presents creation through out Scripture not just Genesis 1 and 2-4. I recommend it as a read for all creationist.
Glad you enjoyed visiting Iceland. I wish I could have been there! I have only seen the inside of the Reykjavik airport for a couple of hours (enough time to buy some souvenirs).
Very many thanks for this well crafted article. I like the description of your anger and I share it.
My not supporting the literal 7-day 24-hours creation caused me a lot of grievances with individuals in that congratulation and it may have contributed to the fact that I am no longer pastor there.
I need to emphasise that, just as everywhere, the flock in Reykjavik (and indeed Iceland) is polarised in this and many other subjects at times to the extreme. The majority would concur with your notion but would be contested by a very loud, proud and combative minority.
Marvelous article! Thank you so much. You are right on target. I agree with you, and my late husband, Ed Hare, would have liked it also. May your tribe increase!
I enjoyed the article and acknowledge the challenges that the scientific data pose to our view of the world.
I’ve had the opportunity to pastor small churches in Western Europe and felt slightly amused at the existential “angst” that they cause to those who have experienced the luxury of institutional Adventism. (Maybe we all have a deep seated fear of being insignificant. Maybe it is a product of the evolutionary forces that accompany this view of deep time.) I understand the link between cultural relevance and dealing rightly with scientific truth. But I just want to stand up for the small churches and say that it would be a little bit too easy, and overly reductionistic to suggest a causal link between a question that arises from within a well established Adventist institutional milieu and the travails of these communities on the edges of a European continent.
I agree with your notion, Weiers. But are you so sure that Institutional Adventism is a luxury? I would use slightly more negative words since personally I have now drawn a clear line between “organisation” and “church” and they are in my view not mutually inclusive (if not even exclusive…)
I really enjoyed reading this . And a new perspective for me to think about . Or to think in at way . Thanks for sharing
Thanks Dr. Hoehn. Well-written and to the point!
Jack,
What a splendid insightful article,on Iceland!
I was there. For a week last year, thanks to a free stopover in Reyjavik by ICELANDIC AIRLINES. and WOW, another airline with a hub in Reyjavik also offers amazingly cheap fares from both North America and Europe.
I highly recommend a visit to this magical place with its dramatic, iconic scenery.
You made it come alive again for me!
Other “islands ” with creation and flood enigmas are Australia and Tasmania– how did their absolutely unique fauna travel across oceans from Noah’s ark landing on Mount Ararat?
Once again, written by someone who believes in a small God. Once again, we hear about man’s theories and not what the bible clearly states. If Iceland is an island created by volcanic activity, I don’t expect there would be many fossils if any. Who is to say that this land was not created over time after all the burying activity of the flood? I just have to shake my head in awe as I see Adventists get sucked into man’s interpretation of what God has clearly stated. There will be many surprises in heaven. Hopefully those who question what the bible states will not take too many people into perdition.
Hermes, which is the small view of God, the one that accepts the Universe and the solar system as God made it, or a sand box version of creation that pretends it all happened simply, magically, and just a few thousands years ago? And who will block too many people from coming to a saving knowledge of Christ, those who say you have to believe this little simple view of Creation to be saved, or those who say, come to Jesus and we can discuss the details later?
This is another attempt to disprove the bible to fit in with the world view. The bible clearly says that the entire earth was covered and only eight people survived and the only land animals that survived were on the ark. The bible does not say that God would evenly distribute the fossil evidence nice and neat. If fossil debris ware distributed evenly there wouldn’t be massive coal and oil deposits. The organic material from those areas could easily be an oil or coal deposit somewhere els in the world. It is interesting that liberal theologians are quick to toss out the clear word of the bible for their theories. Are they afraid of being called names by the unbelievers and those that have been taken captive to and atheist world view?
Why should we trust the biblical narrative of world events rather than modern science? First of all He is worthy of trust and His word is true and hasn’t changed, science has a terrible track record of ever changing without comping to the knowledge of the truth. None of their theories include Christ the creator of all things. So why should we entertain their godless imaginations? Lets stand up for the Word of God and not be found with their lie in our mouths on that great day…don’t give them even a hand full of the field the Lord has given us.
David, your intention is admirable. But you are not defending “the Bible” you are defending one interpretation of the Bible. You are defending Simplicity. You are defending archaic cosmology. You are demanding that the Bible be written by holy men instructed to make it easy for you to understand. You are defending your reading of the Bible, and that God would not do it any other way. Others like Jack love the Bible but interpret it differently. How much room in your church is there for those who worship Jesus as the Creator on the 7th day week to week, but can not accept your simplistic view of “what the Bible says to me in KJV English” as true?
Interesting article but I am a bit unclear on its intended purpose. Was it primarily to extol the virtues of a vacation to a rough and beautiful land, or was it to try to get the reader to queation God’s word of His creation as recounted in Genesis?
It seems the sophistries of claiming heartfelt worship of a Creator God while causing doubt about the truthfulness and reliability of His words is treading on ground as unstable and shifting a foundation that which supports the Iceland written about in the article.
foundations.
Bud, glad to talk to you. I am not writing as a travel agent. I am trying to get the reader to question their narrow and restrictive interpretation of God’s word, that prevents souls from worship of the creator when they are told they have to believe in impossible things contradicted by Iceland, Bristlecone Pines, fossil layers all over the earth, etc. etc. etc. I am asking for an open Bible without barriers to belief created by 19th century science, theological intransigence, and pride of opinion unwilling to rethink their old ideas on Creation. I am asking for Adventists to worship the Creator, not our previous interpretations.
Jack: 1M=100CM, 70M x 100CM/1M = 7,000CM, given 2.5CM = 1in = rift movement per year
7,000CM / 2.5CM / year = 2,800 years
The rift valley in Thingvellir National Park is certainly a place to consider physical forces and the time to cause it.
The SDA Church is not the first church to frown on its questioners. Servatus, discoverer of the human pulmonary system, was reviled by both Catholic and Protestant clergy. I believe Calvin had him killed after fleeing from Catholic controlled territory.
Yes, Jeff, you and another reader are correct my math on the 70meter crack in the most recent lava was faulty by a factor of 10. I have revised the math and expanded it to the whole Thingvellir graben and Iceland as a whole. Thank you for the correction.
Being a member of the congregation In Reykjavík I feel slightly defensive but replying to this article, I put that aside. I think I was so fortunate to visit my good old Newbold Church on that Sabbath. I really enjoyed your article and I am happy to read an article that shows a broad minded approach and allows for a great and almighty creator. I happen to work as principal for our only Adventist school (and only Christian school) in the country. We are situated about five kilometers from our downtown church, about five minutes by car. We teach grades
1-10 (age 6-16) and I am happy to invite you next time you come or stop over in Iceland. Maybe you could share some thoughts on faith and science.
I want to thank you again for your article.
I am sure the author has a rebuttal.
But why not a traditional interpretation of Genesis, with Iceland formed in the flood or post flood chaos?
Don I can see Iceland or parts of it forming under water (it did) or ice (it does). But I can not see how if Noah was or was not involved in those North Atlantic conditions that it could have happened “recently” ie about 4,000 years ago. Please remember I am not disputing creation or a historical Noah and his flood. I am disputing that it could have happened “recently”, and being told that to be an Adventist I have to accept a short young earth chronology.
I have no problem with members believing in the symbolism of the seven days especially including the blessedness and meaning of the Sabbath. It is highly improbable that the writer of Genesis had a 21st-century view of earth science. There was no reason he should–it was not necessary. Faith is not based on material proofs. Each must come to their personal conclusion without being judged as “lost” because of their belief. Salvation does not depend on this knowledge. But its spiritual meaning is Truth. God rested, His people rested, and they still rest in Christ’s righteousness as a continuation of that Sabbath symbol to be celebrated each week. Having said that, if faith must be based on facts as we know them (perhaps that’s materialistic), I struggle with the concept of death before sin. It’s difficult to imagine Adam and Eve existed some 50,00 years ago. This is an issue of time and dating. We don’t have the answers, but there is no sin in speculating with the brains God has given us. We should not keep anyone away from Christ or His church over this issue.
Hi Jack
Wish I had been there, sounds like we could have had an interesting conversation. Since you seem very interested in geology and Iceland and consider yourself an Adventist then it seems reasonable to me that you’d be interested in how people who believe in a literal creation, view the things you mentioned in your article: https://grisda.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/the-geological-story-told-by-iceland/
Kind regards
Halldor
Halldor, I thank you and I strongly urge all interested to read the discussion of Iceland on the Geological Research Institute website. They correctly note that volcano’s under water or ice behave differently than Hawaiian or Vesuvian volcanos. But there is no chronology in the article. So first let’s agree that terms like “recent” do not mean 4,000 years ago, and we need to detach our creationism and flood geology from Bishop Ussher and his speculations? The SDA GRI article uses old earth terms like “Miocene”, ” Ice Age (Plio-Pleistocene)” and “after the Ice Age (Holocene)”, in the Chronology of Iceland. There is no possibility of fitting in the multiple layers of Iceland, the noted presence of warm trees and plants in earlier flows, with a chronology of 4,000 years ago. So lets agree many Iceland’s layers look like they were formed under water/ice/massive floods and this might let us speculate it was Noah’s flood. But can we also agree that it could not have happened “recently” and free Adventist scientists and theologians from that commonly taught and believed SDA dogma? That of course puts Noah a LOT farther away from Abraham that we have taught. And creation a LOT farther away from us that we have taught. I would be very comfortable with a church that let its members and scientists and theologians openly and honestly struggle with such truths. How about you?
Just a couple of thoughts: why do you suppose Iceland was formed pre-flood, during creation week? As far as I’m concerned most creationists believe Iceland was formed post-flood through volcanic eruptions, which would of course explain why there are few fossils there.
And if the crack at Þingvellir is 70 meters wide and is parting by 2.5 cm a year, it suggests that 2.800 years has passed, not 28.000. It perfectly suits a creationistic worldview. That’s a significant difference, especially considering your whole point with the article. I’m a bit concerned that people reading this doesn’t notice things like that.
Aaron, you are absolutely correct. Thank you very much. The calculation was off by 10. I have edited the remark. The most recent lava was about 3,000 years ago, the crack using the 2.5 cm/year estimate for the movement of the North American from the Eurasian, shows 2,800 (not 28,000) years. But this young lava is on top of older lavas and the entire graben or Thingvellir valley is a separation of about 7 km apart from wall to wall (280,000 years). And the west coast to the east coast is 375 km apart which could suggest 15,000,000 years using the same estimate of 2.5 cm/year, which roughly accords with the estimate of Iceland appearing above ocean 16-18 Mya. The latest young crack fits Biblical times to BC, but the 7 km wide crack or rift, and the 375 km spread since Iceland’s creation does not fit any possible young earth or recent Noah’s flood speculation. If Iceland all came during or after Noah’s flood, then Noah’s flood was a very long time ago. I’m not a geologist (and clearly not a mathematician) but I am asking for humility and openness to alternative creation chronologies in church dogma. Adventists do need to believe that God is the creator of all that is. And that there was a Noah with a catastrophic flood. But the dates of creation and Noah’s flood are details to be discussed, not doctrines.
It seems to me that to fight and argue with one another about whether the days of creation were literal 24-hour days, or symbolic days; and whether creation of the earth was recent, or in the distant past, is futile. I undrestand that the sabbath question is what encourages some to argue for a literal 24 hour day.
To me, if the time periods were the important factors in these stories, ther would be no discrepancies in the two separate stories recorded in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, in regard to sequence of events. There would be perfect co-incidence. Most of us do not seem to read the account in Genesis 2 with any degree of seriousness, so we take the Genesis 1 account seriously, and overlook what Genesis 2 clearly teaches. Why two accounts, if the intention is not to have one emphasize (or explain) the other?
If we put too much emphasis on time periods and the sequence of events, the total account givin in both chapters do not inspire confidence in its accuracy. For example, in Genesis 1, both Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day after the other creatures. According to Genesis 2, Adam was created first, then a garden was planted and given him to care for; thenthe other creatures were created as company for the man. God saw the animals all well mated, but there was no mate for Adam, so he then created the woman as mate for him.
God created the earth and put man in charge of the rest of His creation. Let us spend our energies to care for one another, and the…
As I understand it, many creationists use the conventional nomenclature of the geological column, Miocene, Pliocene, etc., detached from the alleged ages. It does not really matter what you call a layer, creationists and non-creationists agree fairly well on the relative order of the strata, they just disagree on the alleged ages in between the layers and on the processes that formed the layers (catastrophic vs. slow and gradual). Even the radiometric ages could be used in a relative sense, because they give an order, but creationists claim to have good reasons to doubt these ages being absolute ages.
Skimming over the questions you have raised here I see some genuine problems that are difficult to answer, and that creationists are working on. However, many of your points have never been a concern for creationists or are well explained within creationist models. I interact with scientists that are creationists and know they are not just closing their eyes to these problems. Creationists have pointed out two important observations, 1) is the catastrophic nature of the geological column, and 2) the apparent lack of evidence for deep time within and in between these geological formations in the column from a relative assessment.
This apparent lack of deep time in the geological column is a very strong argument against the reliability of radiometric ages, and gives the creationist hope, that as science progresses towards a deeper understanding of the geological column, it will become more in line with traditional biblical thinking. This is the position of the Adventist church, while there is still an apparent contradiction between the relative ages as extracted from the rocks, and the absolute ages from radiometric dates, the church has no reason in compromising its traditional view on creation, which is substantial for its theology.
If you are interested in the latest developments in creationist thinking, I want to encourage you to read an article by Austin et al. on catastrophic plate tectonics (CPT), although Iceland is not mentioned in this article. This model is gaining grounds within creationist circles. CPT is of course work in progress, and will undergo several adaptations with time. But it seems a good working model for creationists with great explanatory power.
http://static.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Catastrophic-Plate-Tectonics-A-Global-Flood-Model.pdf
In this model, any current tectonic movement on earth is residual from these catastrophic tectonic movements in the past. Therefore the spreading rate of 1.8 cm per year in Iceland would be residual and should not be extrapolated to the past, despite its coincidental correlation with radiometric ages in some places of the oceanic crust as you mentioned (in Iceland this is problematic however, google “excess spreading in Iceland” and you will find articles that mention this discrepancy in spreading). In Þingvellir, note that the graben cuts the Þingvellir lava (Þingvallahraun) which is dated 9000 years, C14 dating, also something that creationist dispute, but meaning that the graben is younger than the lava, and that its width cannot be extrapolated into spreading ages as you did using current rates of spreading. Graben form where plates are pulling apart, but often subside associated with volcanic events and earthquakes. I can mention the graben that formed associated with the volcanic event in Bárðabunga and Holuhraun 2014-15, it was 750-1000 m wide in some place, and formed only in a few days prior to the eruption of the Holuhraun lava. It is evident that we are not talking about 55.000 years of spreading (1.8 cm spreading rate) here for a 1000 m wide graben.
If you think about it, only in recent years have creationists become more organized developing their models (geological, biological, etc). For this reason their science is still unheard of and their presentation simple in comparison to tax-funded institutions. Their science also progresses slowly, because there is lack of scientists willing to explore these questions further. However me and others are quite positive and excited that science is more and more coming towards an understanding of reality that is more in line with biblical thinking, that is the catastrophic view. Therefore I urge my Adventist friends to be patient with the good-hearted efforts and intentions of our scientists that are working these difficult problems, and to rather encourage the young people to explore these topics further, pick up their shovels and dig deeper, embrace science as a tool for learning more about Gods creative works, and not give up Adventist thinking.
Just for the record. More than 53,000 oil and gas wells been drilled into the Michigan Basin, the average depth is 4,000 to 5,000 feet. About 400 wells have been drilled to more then 10,000 feet. The deepest well drilled is more than 17,000 feet. Of the millions of feet that have been drilled in the Michigan basin 300,000 linear feet of drill core have been preserved. In all of that geologist have found no evidence of a global flood. Rocks don’t lie!
The author seems to imply a connection between the decline of the Adventist church in Iceland and the unwillingness of many Adventists to accept modern OEC theories of creation. He thinks this stubborn idolatry of opinion is driving the youth from the Seventh-day Adventist Church. But what about the decline of the Church of Iceland? What about the decline of all Christianity in Europe? Or the flip-flop of ethnicity in the Adventist church in N America? The Adventist church is the fastest growing denomination in both the world and in N America, where a majority of the adherents are now minorities. “The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity,” by Phillip Jenkins documents the rapidly shifting demographics of Christianity.
I agree with Weiers Coetser, Jack Hoehn’s idea is overly reductionist. The church is not growing in Iceland for reasons not related to opinions about the age of the earth.
And David is right. The bible does say the whole earth was covered by the flood waters. A different interpretation is a rejection of the plain text. That is not how Jesus Christ interpreted the scriptures.
And the problem with natural clocks isn’t math errors. Its their battery of assumptions; you assume a geologic constant of 2.5 cm movement per year based on very recent observations. But in one of the most geologically active places on earth, isn’t that assuming a lot?