Since ancient times, people have noticed that fossils existed of animals that did not resemble living species. Also, seashells could be found in the strangest places, even on the tops of the highest mountain ranges. The ancient Greeks were aware of these fossilized remains of creatures. Heredotus (484-425 BC) suggested that they came about as a consequence of changes in the positions of the sea and land. These changes were even associated with considerable time periods, and Aristotle believed that they took place so slowly that they could not be observed today.

Many theories regarding fossils have been propagated, ranging from Lusi naturae ("jokes of nature") to prehistoric animals buried by catastrophic events. Fossils were recognized as extinct species whose place has been filled by the creatures living today. The catastrophic model was also accepted by Bible-believing scholars, who attributed the fossils to the destruction of animals during the Flood described in Genesis.

But as more and more people accepted the idea of long ages of time as an explanation for what we see in the world, numerous questions also grew concerning the validity of the Biblical account.

How did all the animals get into the ark?

Why is there a particular order in the fossil record?

How did the animals get to the various continents from the ark?

Why do the animals found in the fossil record look so different from ones we see today? 

These questions led to a search for naturalistic explanations for the fossil record and the origin of life. Before Darwin, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) proposed that the geological discontinuities in the record represented gradual changes in the environment and climate to which the species were exposed, and through their effects on organisms, these changes led to the transformation of species. Geologists Hutton and Lyell expanded this concept, and Charles Darwin added the biological arm. The fossil record is today considered to be the severest blow to all anti-evolutionary ideas. But is it?

Ironically, the scientific views on the question of origins have a tendency to go full circle. Although catastrophism was rejected by exponents of the theory of evolution, many scientists are today returning to catastrophism and even to the Biblical account of the flood to explain many of the features of the geological column and the fossil record.

But the universality of the flood is the one feature that is still often met with incredulity by the modern scientific mind. The idea is often scoffed at that God would have destroyed the whole world by a flood, and that the life forms existing today are the descendants of the sea creatures that survived the catastrophe and land creatures that entered the ark.

However, the Bible is not the only source that speaks about a worldwide flood. Virtually every society on every continent has the story of a worldwide flood in its folklore.ⁱ 

There is indeed evidence in the geological column that there was a universal flood covering of the earth—compelling evidence that cannot readily be ignored:

Massive fossil graveyards with evidence of plants and animals being washed into position.

Huge sedimentary deposits (nearly three quarters of the earth's exposed surface is covered with sedimentary rock deposits) speak of large-scale coverage by water.

Vast coal and oil fields of the world, which are further evidence of a vast flood catastrophe. No process occurring today can even remotely approach the magnitude of the catastrophe necessary to account for such a vast scale of universal burial of plants and other organic material.

Chalk deposits of the world, which are universal. Chalk is formed from the skeletons of marine unicellular protozoa and algae, and can only settle out of relatively shallow water. In deep oceans, the calcium carbonate shells dissolve on the way down to the ocean floor. The chalk deposits are thus an indication of worldwide coverage of a relatively shallow sea. Chalk deposits of the same age are found in North America, Australia, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and all of these deposits are resting on the same type of glauconitic sandstone.ⁱⁱ For these factors to be so universal, the same conditions must have existed universally.

i Herbert S. Robinson and Knox Wilson, Myths and Legends of All Nations (New York: Bantam Books, 1950).

i Derek V. Ager, The Nature of the Stratigraphic Record 2nd edition (London: MacMillan Press Ltd., 1983).

Updated January 2009.