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ETS 2001: Boundaries on creation and Noah's Flood: Early 19
th
century British Scriptural Geologists
Terry Mortenson, PhD


tmortenson@AnswersInGenesis.org
P. 13
and buried catastrophically. And since the formations where these trees were found were
analogous in their mineralogical characteristics to other formations where no trees were found, the
Scriptural geologists saw them as an important piece of evidence that most of the strata were
deposited rapidly by Noah's flood. Polystrate fossils are still being used (by both young-earth
creationists and old-earth, evolutionary "neo-catastrophists") to argue for the rapid, catastrophic
deposition of the strata in which they are found.
32
A third important geological objection related to shell creatures. Since these made up the
majority of fossils, they had a great, if not singular, importance for old-earth geologists in working
out their history of the earth. William Smith, the "Father of English Stratigraphy," based his
depiction and relative dating of the geological record primarily on shell creatures.
33
In 1828 Lyell
worked out his interpretation of the Tertiary formation (or Cenozoic, as it is called today) solely
on the basis of shells.
34
Buckland stated that fossil shells were "of vast importance in
investigating the records of the changes that have occurred upon the surface of our globe" and that
"in fact without these [organic remains], the proofs of the lapse of such long periods as Geology
shows to have been occupied in the formation of the strata of the earth, would have been
comparatively few and indecisive."
35
Geologist James Smith said in 1838 that judging the age of a
deposit purely on the basis of shells was a sound rule of geological reasoning.
36
Even in 1888
shells were still the primary tools used to date the strata. The highly touted, but now
demonstrably unreliable, radiometric dating methods were not developed until the early 20
th
century.
37
Fossil shells remain the dominant index fossils (OHT) used for dating geological
formations.
38

Phillips, Illustrations of the Geology of Yorkshire (1829-36), I:95; John Phillips, Treatise on Geology (1837-39),
I:160; John Lindley and William Hutton, The Fossil Flora of Great Britain (1831-1837), II:xx-xxi; Henry Witham,
"A Description of a Fossil Tree discovered in the Quarry of Craigleith," Transactions of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh, Vol. XII, Pt. 1 (1834), 147-52.
32
E.g., John Morris, The Young Earth (Colorado Springs: Master Books, 1994), pp. 100-102 and Derek
Ager, The New Catastrophism (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993), pp. 47-50.
33
William Smith, Stratigraphical System of Organized Fossils (London: , 1817), p. vi and "Geological
Table" after page xi. Most of the fossils he discussed were shell creatures.
34
Charles Lyell, The Antiquity of Man (London, 1863), 3-5.
35
William Buckland, Bridgewater Treatise (London: John Murray, 1836), I:110, 112.
36
James Smith, "Relative levels of the land and sea in the British Islands," Memoirs of the Wernerian
Natural History Society, Vol. VIII (1838), 84-85.
37
For information exposing the fatal problems with the radiometric dating methods, see the following.
Arguments written for non-specialists but with full documentation include: Marvin Lubenow, Bones of Contention
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), pp. 247-266; Steven Austin, Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe (El Cajon:
Institute for Creation Research, 1994), pp. 111-132; John Morris, The Young Earth (Colorado Springs: Master
Books, 1994), pp. 45-68. For a thorough technical analysis see: John Woodmorappe, The Mythology of Modern
Dating Methods: Why million/billion-year results are not credible (El Cajon: Institute for Creation Research, 1999),
117pp., and Larry Vardiman, Andrew A. Snelling & Eugene F. Chaffin, eds., Radioisotopes and the Age of the
Earth: A Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative (El Cajon: Institute for Creation Research, 2000), 675pp.
The latter scholarly book sets the stage for a 5-year scientific research project involving many Ph.D. young-Earth
scientists working to solve the riddle of radiometric dating (for they are convinced by the existing scientific research
that this method is not giving the true age of the rocks).
Also, search the Web site, www.AnswersInGenesis.org, for relevant articles for the specialist and non-
specialist.
38
John Thackray, The Age of the Earth (London: Institute of Geological Sciences, 1980), p. 8-9, 10, 13.
Referring to his figure 21 on p. 10 (showing predominantly shell creatures) Thackray says (p..8-9), "Two ideas form