Radiolarian Chert in the Marin Headlands
On a recent trip to the Marin Headlands, I had the wonderful opportunity to see radiolarian chert up close. Radiolarian chert is rock that was formed around 200 million years ago from the skeletons of microscopic organisms called radiolaria. The radiolaria died and fell to the bottom of the ocean floor, where their skeletons piled up. The particular radiolaria that ended up in the Marin Headlands died near the equator, as evidenced by the fact that they are very similar to present day equatorial radiolaria.
At around the same time as this trip, I came across a website apparently created by Creation Ministries International, a young Earth organization that seeks to undermine evolution. I was interested to see that one of their webpages dealt with radiolarian chert. In it, the author uses radiolarian chert to attack the geologic concept of uniformtarianism all the while seeking to explain the presence of radiolarian chert by pointing to the great biblical flood. Essentially, the author argues that we must accept the flood as the explanation for the development of radiolarian chert because radiolarian chert is not being formed in the present at the levels it was in the past.
Uniformitarianism states that the same natural processes that have shaped the world in the past continue to so shape the world. Existing processes acting in the same manner and with the same intensity will produce the same results. This is all about the processes. And the processes that created the radiolarian chert in the headlands also created all sedimentary rocks in the world. The concept of uniformitarianism isn’t put into question simply because radiolaria aren’t present today in the same quantities that were necessary to produce the chert that we can see today. That’s not a process. That’s a volume of biological organism. If it makes sense for the creationists out there, it’s the same as saying, “Jesus isn’t alive today, so we can’t explain our lives through the teachings of Jesus today.”
San Francisco from the Marin Headlands
The flood could not have produced the radiolarian chert. It is basic geologic knowledge (and basic logic) that fast running water will carry all but the large rocks and heavy pebbles away in its rush. Alternatively, stiller water will allow fine sediments to settle on the water bed. The flood would have been fast running water which would not have supported fine sediment deposition.
Additionally, the radiolarian chert formed between 100 million and 200 million years ago. It took a long time for the radiolaria skeletons to settle and form into rock. The flood story does not support such a timeframe. In fact, in the flood story, humans were supposedly washed away, with the exception of Noah and his ark. Yet, humans weren’t around on earth until only about 4.1 million years ago. The flood story just doesn’t fit into the timeline.
If you’re ever in the Marin Headlands area, I highly suggest visiting these chert outcroppings. They are a marvel of our natural world.
