During Deposition

The Catastrophic model predicts that there would have been insufficient time between the deposition of the various layers of the column for them to turn to rock. Evidence for simultaneous plasticity of layers and intermingling of layers would thus be evidence for a short chronology. The evolutionary paradigm would have to invoke heat and pressure in order to explain plasticity of rock plates. Most of the sedimentary layers do not, however, show evidence of this. In the contact zones between layers, we find intermingling of material. This can be in the form of load casts. (Top layer pressed into the lower layer, compressing the lower layer without leaving signs of breakage behind), turbidimetric flames (bottom layer being whipped up into the layer above, and solidifying together), or simply intermingling of material in cracks.

Diagrammatic representation of a section through the pipe and dikebearing strata in Kodachrome basin. Legend for formations: Tr/Jn- triassic-Jurassic Navajo; JcJ- Jurassic Caramel, Judd Hollow; Jpt- Jurassic Page Sandstone, Thousand Pockets tongue; Jcp- Jurassic Caramel, Paria River Member; Jcw- Jurassic Carmel, Winsor Member; Jcww- Jurassic Carmel, Wiggler Wash Member; Jeg- Jurassic Entrada, Gunsight Butte Member; Jec- Jurassic Entrada, Cannonville Member; Jee- Jurassic Entrada, Escalante Member; Jh- Jurassic Henrieville Formation; Kdt- Creatceous Dakota-Tropic Formations undifferentiated. (From Origins 19:44-48, 1992)

Clastic intrusions are further evidence for plasticity. These are finger-like pillars of rock, and occur where some of the underlying rock has been forced up into the overlying layer. If the layers are soft at the time of formation and then subjected to pressure through geological disturbances, an essentially circular column of liquid mud can be squeezed through the overlying areas. Roughly similar specific gravity could ensure that the intrusion remains in the new position whilst the layers harden together. If the upper layer is subsequently more readily eroded, a pillar is left as a geological feature. Had the layers formed over millions of years and the rocky plates been subjected to pressure, they would have broken, but not formed pillars. Moreover, downward-moving slumps are also found in areas with clastic intrusions and significantly, in the vicinity of such, there is a general downwarping of the surrounding rock strata, indicating that the material was soft at the time of the disturbance. 

Kodachrome Basin- Clastic Intrusion

Another feature often seen in rock strata is extensive folding. The flood model can explain this as contortion induced in soft material during an earthquake or upheaval of a portion of the earth.

Desert Deposits in the Column

Folded Limestone Strata in Switzerland

Some huge sandstone deposits, thousands of feet high, occur in Zion Canyon. Standard geology offers these as a problem to creationists, because they are supposed to represent vast dunes accumulated during long periods of desert conditions. If that is true then they are a problem to a flood model. These dunes show cross-graining supposedly due to wind deposition. Closer examination shows that the grain size is larger than expected from wind deposition, but further, the angle at which the deposits were laid down, 20 - 30, is the angle at which river sand is laid down under water in river deltas. Desert sands are laid down at 30 - 40. The very size of these dunes rules against wind eposition although some of the visible erosion on their surface could be due to wind. The Bible describes a heavy wind which followed the receding waters of the flood and helped to dry the surface of 
 Swaitbeige, South Africa- Example of mountain folding the earth.
 

Evidence for Rapid Washout
 

Kanab Creek, Rapid Recent Washout

The Catastrophic model would further predict that there would be an abundance of evidence for catastrophic washouts. This is indeed the case. The vast canyons, valleys, and hill relics of the world favor Diluvial rather than Uniformitarian formation, as do the remnants of vast inland water systems in the recent past.

Bryce Canyon, rapid washout during deluge

Geologists have been forced to admit to catastrophic formation of some of the great landscape scars that occur on every continent. The great "Dry Falls" of the Columbia River have only recently been accepted as being of catastrophic origin, as have the Goosenecks of the Colorado River. Fast erosion is known to give a V-shaped channel, whereas slow erosion in a meandering riverbed tends to have undercutting on the outer circumference of a bend, but deposition on the inner circumference. This feature is distinctly visible in the "goose necks" showing that two different mechanisms have contributed to the formation of the channel. The objection that meandering rivers are slow moving is not substantiated. There is the example of a huge canyon formed at Kanab Creek in a few hours during a recent flood. This river is also a meander.

The Grand Canyon, however, is still believed to have had a slow origin assigned to the erosive power of the same Colorado River. The Grand Canyon is particularly problematic, in that the canyon cuts through an uplifted area, and it is difficult to understand how the river cut through the uplift rather than staying in the valley. Several models have been proposed (antecedence model, superposition model, stream capture model, and the anteposition model), but each of these is plagued by the problem that the river (or rivers), cutting through the uplift, must themselves be raised to that level .
 

The catastrophic model, on the other hand, accounts for the canyon in that uplift after the formation of strata caused massive runoffs. The Grand Canyon uplift could have been rapid, causing a crack in the strata through which flood waters rushed, washing out the canyon in a short time.  

On a smaller scale, canyons are washed out rapidly even in our day. The canyons in Kanab Creek, and those formed after the eruption of Mt. Alaska in 1912 and Mount St. Helens in 1981 were washed out in a matter of hours, yet the stratographic appearance of the formations was astoundingly similar to the features which supposedly evolved over millions of years. Modern rapid erosional features, such as dongas, show landscapes in miniature which are very similar to the surface topography of the earth. The receding waters leave behind them water-formed "hills" and "valleys" which are shaped by the direction of stream flow. The material between the "hills" and "valleys" is carried away by the flood waters.

Canyon Formed after Mt. St. Helens Eruption - rapid erosional feature

The magnitude and flow rate of the flood determines how much material can be carried away. For example, if water flow increases fourfold, then 54 times as much debris can be carried in the water. A hundredfold increase in flow rate, however, means that 50 million times as much material can be carried away.

In modern landscapes, we find the same features as those produced by rapid washouts. Hills consist of layers of the geological column, and the continuity of the layers is interrupted by vast valleys. The material between hills was either eroded away by millions of years of erosion, or was carried away rapidly leaving the hills as relics. Marvelous examples of this type of erosional feature are found all over the world, but prime examples would be Monument Valley in the USA, the Karoo in South Africa, and Ayers Rock in Australia. As the intervening material would have been soft, it is not difficult to understand how the material could have been carried away catastrophically by the receding flood waters.

Overall, a Catastrophic model for the formation of the Geological Column as a whole can explain those features which are difficult to explain using a Uniformitarian model.

Material Source: The Genesis Conflict; Walter J. Veith