Noah's flood, as described in Genesis, was a real historical event.

I will present my opening arguments in no particular order and will defend them in the fourth round. IntroductionThe nature of such a historical debate requires a hypothetical approach in which evidence is gathered to demonstrate the validity of a particular model of Earth history. If the model truly describes past events and is able to withstand the integration of any and all scientific observations, then such a model is deemed scientifically valid. At best, a model can become a well supported theory, but never can it be verified as rigorously and demonstrably as present day events since integral parts of the scientific method, namely experimentation and repition, are unable to be performed on past events. For example, a claim for the speed of light traveling through a particular medium can be tested via experimentation, and scrutinizingly repeated for certainty. Such a caim could be validated or invalidated through real time observation of experiments. However, a claim for the change of the speed of light in the past through a particular medium cannot be ultimately verified since we cannot experiment and repeat historical events. Likewise, we cannot test such past events as the formation of the Grand Canyon or the deposition of the Tapeats Sandstone since we cannot observe and repeat an expirement involving an historical event for the simple reason that we were not there to observe the conditions and record details of the event itself. Every historical model in science gathers data post hoc and seeks to make sense of it in light of a framework of history. While the limits of historical science are readily understood, most importantly it should be noted that any scientific model of Earth history must be able to be scrutinized using real-time, observable data, that is, every model should make predictions which can be tested. Such predictions can certainly be made using current data combined with the cohesive hypotheses of the model, however, once a prediction has been outlined by the model, it cannot be changed after the fact to fit the data in such a way that it changes the original deliniation put forth by the model. If observabe data demonstrably falsifies a prediction, the model must be rejected in favor of the next best model. If no such model exists to replace another, one must hit the drawing board and concede to not quite understanding the real picture of Earth history. With all that said, let us consider a few of the predictions the Catastrophic Plate Tectonic (CPT) model makes which are derived from the framework of scripture. Massive Subteranean Water BasinsSince the Bible tells us that "the fountains of the great deep" broke open and flooded the planet at least to the highest mountains which then existed, the existance of such a vast resevoir of water is predicted to not only be geologically feasible but a certain kind of evidence should exist to demonstrate its validity, namely, massive subteranean water basins. Research in the past ten years has demonstrated not only the possibility of such huge resevoirs of water but indeed has provided mounting evidence of these water basins still with us today. Secular scientists have long mused about the possibility of icy comets forming today's oceans, however scientists are now rethinking their model of oceanic history and are looking toward an originally subterranean propagation. The problem with such a hypothesis given their over-arching acretion model of Earth history is that the temperatures of the early Earth are thought to have been to high for any significant amount of water to have existed. The CPT model is, on the other hand, contingent upon the existance of such large underground bodies of water. In the CPT model, giant fissures extending across the planet as the result of super-quakes allowed massive basins of subterranean water to be released providing the water for the Flood. Ringwoodite found in Earth's transition zone (between the upper and lower mantle) within a diamondhas demonstrated the existance of water since the mineral can retain H20 in the form of hydroxide ions. Given expirements demonstrating the saturation potential for these minerals and that which was found in the actual sample, direct evidence demonstrates the potential for the transition zone to be hydrous to about 1%, which in-turn means that the transition zone may contain a resevoir of water three-times greater than that of today's oceanic volume (1). This is consistent with experiments which have shown that abrupt decreases in seismic velocity detected in the transition zone due to mantle downwelling are consistent with what we should find given the intergranular melt which should take place in the polymorphic transition of hyrdous ringwoodite to perovskite, Fe and Mg (2). These experiments also demonstrates a mechanism of dehydration melting in the mantle which serves to trap the H20. So we basically have both direct evidence and a consistent mechanism whereby these resevoirs are able to remain in existance. According to geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling, ". . . this study also concluded that the diamond hosting this ringwoodite inclusion must also have come from the 410–660 km zone. This in turn means that the explosive volcanism responsible for blasting diamonds in volcanic rocks into the earth’s upper crust and even to the surface within a matter of hours, must have in at least some instances started from this 410–660 km zone. Similar explosive volcanism could therefore have potentially been responsible for releasing and catapulting water from this deep mantle storage reservoir up to the earth’s surface during the Flood. So this study seems to confirm a major component of the catastrophic plate tectonics model. The break-up of the earth’s crust into plates and the resultant continental sprint was initiated by the cataclysmic release of the waters for the Flood through these fountains of the great deep (3). "Karst GeomorphologyThe CPT model predicts vast amounts of acidic hydrothermal solutions upwelling from deep within the Earth due to seismic activity during the Flood. These hyperactive solutions combined with the voracious turbidity which helped eat away at the rock created the amazing karst geomorhology we see exhibited in caves around the world today. Since karst are madeup of limestone, great amounts of acidic solutions are required to reach through these vast cavern formations. The longest recorded cave which resides in the US is the the Flint Ridge-Mammoth Cave System in Kentucky which extends over 350 miles! Quite simply, given experiments which study the erosion rate of limestone by acidic solutions at different pH levels, the vast amount of erosion required for the formation of the world's karst formations demonstrates the need for magnificent amounts of acidic solution to be flowing at high, pressurized rates worldwide. Studies looking at the effect of acid rain on limestone show that under chemical equilibrium, ". . . the incremental effect of hydrogen ion is expected to be small (i. e. , 6% for a rain of pH 4.0);" basically the rate of dissolution is small given low rates of flow, however, "Under nonequilibrium (i. e. , high flow rate) conditions, kinetic considerations suggest that the incremental effect of hydrogen ion deposition could be quite significant" (4). This means that karst geomorphology requires historic conditions predicted by the CPT model, namely high flow rates of acidic hydrothermal solutions resulting from the tectonic activity during the Flood. According to karstologist Dr. Emil Silvestru, "After the Flood the HTS from deep underground died away and the solutions linked to water seeping from the surface took over the caves and started to reshape everything. The slow processes we can see and measure today are not the ones that created the caves. They only added the ‘final touch’ to what HTS created quickly at the time of the Flood. . . In addition to being immensely beautiful, caves are a spectacular reminder of the massive physical and chemical processes that accompanied God’s watery judgment upon the world of Noah’s time" (5). Fossil Formation The conditions required to create a fossil are exemplified by those which were present during the Flood. The CPT model predicts that global fossil graveyards were formed and deposited by the terrifyingly powerful hydrologic turbidity of massive amounts of dense, sedimentary solutions. These specific conditions involve rapid mud deposition via mineral-laden solutions to quickly trap and permineralize organisms to be stuningly preserved as intricate fossils. "The fossilization process begins when the whole organism or hard body part is trapped in sediments. Because most of these body parts are typically composed of substances which are soluble in carbonated water, this entrapment usually occurs in coarse and porous rock such as sandstones. The porous nature of the rock enables the carbonated ground water to permeate and dissolve the original tissue leaving a detailed mold of the organism" (6). Since fossil are found worldwide from the highest to lowest of places, and the conditions to form such fossils require the trapping and permineralization which only a hyrdologic event of mineral-rich solution can provide, the CPT model, which flows out of the biblical model of Earth history, is resoundingly vindicated by the presence of fossils within sedimentary layers (7)! References1 - . http://www.nature.com...2 - . http://science.sciencemag.org...3 - . https://answersingenesis.org...4- . http://wwwbrr.cr.usgs.gov...5 - . http://creation.com...6 - . http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu...7 - . http://www.icr.org...