Troublesome Topic: PHASE 4.1  THE WATER LEVEL ROSE EVEN FASTER

This was the Absaroka Megasequence which was characterized by the following:

The waters rose quickly;

Runaway subduction began to occur in many parts of the ocean floors simultaneously;

And the ark floated.

RUNAWAY SUBDUCTION MOVED CONTINENTS

During this time, more continents were being moved. During the early part of the Absaroka Megasequence, the continent of North America finished being smashed into Northern Africa, and by the end of it, North America had started moving away from Africa once again. South America stayed connected to Africa for a while longer and that is why South America sits further East than does North America today. The rate at which North America moved away from Europe and North Africa was calculated by Dr. John Baumgardner to be meters per second!

The escalation of runaway subduction also meant that earthquakes became stronger and were felt everywhere, although far inland they would not have been as bad. During this time, the magnitude of the quakes would have risen to be close to that of the first set of super powerful quakes that broke open the ocean floor. But these were continual. The tectonic plates, some the size of continents, were scraping against each other in a continual motion, and each catch and jerk created a powerful earthquake that caused damage for hundreds of miles around it.

We know that the vibrations caused by earthquakes can make the dirt act like a liquid. We know that the constant scraping of runaway subduction would cause constant earthquakes, i.e. constant vibrations. Therefore, whenever an area experienced constant vibrations for several minutes instead of just a few seconds, the soil would have stayed in a liquid state for several minutes.

Anything heavy that was not founded on solid rock would have sunk into the ground faster than sinking into quicksand. This would have included people, personal belongings, and entire buildings, especially buildings made of large stones. They would have sunk until they disappeared, or until they hit bedrock.

THE WATER LEVEL ROSE RAPIDLY  

During the first three Megasequences (the Pre-Sauk through the Tippecanoe), the water level of the ocean rose so slowly that it was hardly noticed by anyone on earth. During the Kaskaskia Megasequence, the waters began to rise more quickly, but not alarmingly.

However, during this phase, the Absaroka Megasequence, the water level did rise at an alarming rate. The difference was easily observed by people on the land, and they were forced to flee what was for them, a new terror.

The water did not rise as a steady increase; it was more tumultuous than that. We need to picture in our minds the rising water level as successive waves or surges, each one higher than the last.

WHERE DID THE EXTRA WATER COME FROM?

It was not the rain that raised the level of the Oceans. Rain is just one step in the water cycle which carries water up, down, back up and back down again.

The cause of the rapid rise in water level was the escalation of runaway subduction in new places. When God opened fissures in the ocean floor, the tectonic plates were still not free to move because they were jammed tightly together. The first step in subduction was that the edges of two plates, or possibly entire ocean plates, would heave upwards. The more they rose the larger the cracks became. Then one would dive under the other and become submerged in the liquid magma underneath, which rose to create new ocean floor at the new higher level. Later, the cooling process lowered the level of the new floor. It was this heaving of the ocean floor that produced most of the rise in water level throughout the flood event.

What’s more, according to an article published by Answers in Genesis, the waters of the oceans were heated to around 86 degrees Fahrenheit during the flood, which is 47 degrees warmer than our current average of 39 degrees Fahrenheit. To say that 86 degree oceans would cause rapid evaporation would be quite an understatement.

WHAT ABOUT GROUND WATER COMING UP FROM THE WATER TABLE?

Genesis 7:11 is clear that the “eyes” or “spring-like sources” were in the “abyss” – the seas, not under the ground.             If there was any water in the ground before the flood, it did come out at some point, but it was not enough to raise the water level as high as it needed to be raised. According to the US Geologic Survey, ground water accounts for only 1.69% of earth’s water today. It seems clear that the primary source of the higher water levels was the way the ocean floor heaved upward, pushing the surface of the oceans upward as well.

The next lesson in this stud is PHASE 4.2   THE ARK FLOATED