"South-East Australia’s Latrobe Valley has some extremely thick deposits of brown coal which are mined to fuel several huge power stations.
Latrobe Valley coal consists of a mass of very fine plant debris containing partly-decomposed plant remains. It is clear that a great quantity of plant material accumulated in the past to produce such huge deposits of coal.
How would such a great amount of vegetation collect together in one place? It is consistent with the devastation of Noah’s Flood, which would have uprooted the entire pre-Flood biosphere and buried it with huge quantities of sand and mud.
However, geologists who do not believe the Bible base their explanations on a different philosophy. For these brown coal deposits, they say that the vegetation accumulated as peat in a swamp during ideal climatic and geologic conditions. They say the swamps formed on floodplains near the coast, which were slowly sinking and eventually inundated by the ocean.
But the evidence indicates that these brown coal deposits did not accumulate in a peat bog or a swamp.
First, there is no sign of soil under the coal, as there would be if the vegetation grew and accumulated in a swamp. Instead, the coal rests on a thick layer of clay and there is a ‘knife edge’ contact between the clay and the coal. This kaolin clay is so pure that it could be used for high-class pottery. Furthermore, there are no roots penetrating the clay.
Then there are a number of distinct ash layers that run horizontally through the coal. If the vegetation had grown in a swamp, these distinct ash layers would not be there. After each volcanic eruption, the volcanic texture of the ash would have been obliterated when the swamp plants recolonized the ash, turning it into soil. Not only is there no soil, but the vegetation found in the coal is not the kind that grows in swamps today. Instead, it is mostly the kind that is found in mountain rainforests.
Large broken tree trunks are found randomly distributed through the coal in many different orientations. Even swamp advocates wonder how such large trees could have obtained an adequate root-hold in the ‘very soft, organic medium’, and how the roots could have breathed under water. These large trunks are not consistent with slow accumulation over thousands and thousands of years in a swamp, but indicate fierce and rapid transportation by water.
If ever there was a geological phenomenon that should remind us of Noah’s Flood, it is coal. Coal points to a global catastrophe, because huge quantities of vegetation have been uprooted, transported, and buried by water under great volumes of sediment all over the world. Coal is a stark memorial to the Flood of Noah, and bears witness to the reliability of the Bible." CMI
Latrobe Valley coal consists of a mass of very fine plant debris containing partly-decomposed plant remains. It is clear that a great quantity of plant material accumulated in the past to produce such huge deposits of coal.
How would such a great amount of vegetation collect together in one place? It is consistent with the devastation of Noah’s Flood, which would have uprooted the entire pre-Flood biosphere and buried it with huge quantities of sand and mud.
However, geologists who do not believe the Bible base their explanations on a different philosophy. For these brown coal deposits, they say that the vegetation accumulated as peat in a swamp during ideal climatic and geologic conditions. They say the swamps formed on floodplains near the coast, which were slowly sinking and eventually inundated by the ocean.
But the evidence indicates that these brown coal deposits did not accumulate in a peat bog or a swamp.
First, there is no sign of soil under the coal, as there would be if the vegetation grew and accumulated in a swamp. Instead, the coal rests on a thick layer of clay and there is a ‘knife edge’ contact between the clay and the coal. This kaolin clay is so pure that it could be used for high-class pottery. Furthermore, there are no roots penetrating the clay.
Then there are a number of distinct ash layers that run horizontally through the coal. If the vegetation had grown in a swamp, these distinct ash layers would not be there. After each volcanic eruption, the volcanic texture of the ash would have been obliterated when the swamp plants recolonized the ash, turning it into soil. Not only is there no soil, but the vegetation found in the coal is not the kind that grows in swamps today. Instead, it is mostly the kind that is found in mountain rainforests.
Large broken tree trunks are found randomly distributed through the coal in many different orientations. Even swamp advocates wonder how such large trees could have obtained an adequate root-hold in the ‘very soft, organic medium’, and how the roots could have breathed under water. These large trunks are not consistent with slow accumulation over thousands and thousands of years in a swamp, but indicate fierce and rapid transportation by water.
If ever there was a geological phenomenon that should remind us of Noah’s Flood, it is coal. Coal points to a global catastrophe, because huge quantities of vegetation have been uprooted, transported, and buried by water under great volumes of sediment all over the world. Coal is a stark memorial to the Flood of Noah, and bears witness to the reliability of the Bible." CMI
And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground,
Genesis 7:23
