Questions, Questions . . .

What is a fossil?

Does it really take millions of years to make a fossil?

How fast can fossils form?

When did fossils form?

Are fossils forming today?

THE FLOOD of Noah as described in Genesis chapters 6 through 9 is responsible for virtually all the geologic features and geologic processes on earth, past and present (see Note 1). While there are many facts of geology pointing to this conclusion, it is wise to remember that Scripture itself goes to redundant lengths to emphasize again and again the catastrophic death and destruction wrought by the Flood.

On the first day of the Flood, as the historical record states in Genesis 7:11, "were all the fountains of the great deep broken up" -- the surface of the earth was destroyed -- "and the windows of heaven were opened" -- there was cataclysmic rainfall. Genesis 7:17-24 records in chilling monotony the death of absolutely every air-breathing creature on earth in the Flood. To accomplish such complete and global death, the Flood itself was clearly global and terrible.

With the historical record in Scripture so emphatically demanding that we acknowledge the Flood as a global disaster of unparalleled destruction, how is it possible for anyone to claim the Flood was only local and tranquil? There are in fact two arguments put forward which seem at first to make a terrible global Flood an impossible myth. One argument is the claim that the earth is very old.

With a very old earth all geologic features hypothetically could be shaped very slowly by gentle processes over eons of time, and a sudden cataclysmic Flood is not necessary to explain geology. However, the genuine data of science -- as opposed to evolutionary wishful thinking -- invalidate the alleged radiometric "proofs" that the earth is very old, and in fact the evidence shows it is relatively young (see Note 2).

There is another argument people sometimes use to show that upheavals in the cataclysmic Flood of Noah cannot have been responsible for geology. It is the claim that fossils must require a long, long time to form. Fossils are the remains of buried organisms that have been mineralized or petrified. As minerals replace the substances in a once-living organism, a rock begins to take shape having the actual form of the buried remains. A fossil is therefore a special kind of rock -- a rock having the overall shape or appearance of something that lived in the past, such as dinosaur bones or petrified wood.