Learning the lessons of Mount St Helens. How its eruption backs biblical history

Creation ^ | 5-24-17 | Tas Walker

[fishtank]

Learning the lessons of Mount St Helens. How its eruption backs biblical history

by Tas Walker

It was not until I visited Mount St Helens volcano in Washington State, USA, that I fully appreciated the immensity of its 1980 explosion. Over many years, I had learned a lot about the eruption, watching videos, listening to lectures, and reading reports. When the mountain blew up physically, it also blew away many false ideas about geology, ideas that were wrong, but had been believed for more than a century.

After decades of inactivity, Mount St Helens coughed to life in March 1980, some two months before its explosive eruption. Its smoke and rumbling were warning that something big was building up. Officials set up an exclusion zone around the volcano based on scientists’ ideas about how an eruption would occur. However, the blast was larger than expected, plus it first erupted sideways to the north instead of vertically. Of the 57 people that died, all but three were outside the exclusion zone.Wrong geological ideas can be deadly.

[Fantasywriter]

I consider myself an Old Earth Creationist too. However, the part of the article that detailed the rock-dating gave me pause for thought. I’m sure evolutionists would have a pat explanation for how a 10 yo rock could be dated as 2,800,000 yo (iirc). They can explain everything else.

[Bodleian_Girl]

There is no use discussing it as such.

Don't be so closed-minded.

[JimSEA]

This is the most absurd analysis of volcanic geology I’ve ever read. Volcanos like St. Helens are common atop subduction zones around the “ring of fire” and elsewhere. There was a gross underestimate of the eruption potential here just as there have been in other volcanoes (i.e. Mount Pinatubo). Secondly, the formation of a volcanic tuff is an igneous deposit, not a typical sedimentary rock like sandstone.

[gundog]

Sort of. The blast blew out the north face and the top collapsed.

[Jed Eckert]

Have a look at this book,(it's free online), which goes into quite a bit of detail about what may have happened. Can be quite technical at times but well worth the read.

Presents the theory that a planet sized object passed Earth at just the right distance ( The Roche Limit) to cause a massive tidal effect on Earth.

The Biblical Flood And The Ice Epoch

[Fantasywriter]

That sounds very interesting. Thanks for the recommendation and the link.

[huldah1776]

As an artist who loves to watch things grow, I would never want to have a replicator. If God wanted to He could have created only our solar system and told it to stay there. The nebulas are stinkin awesome. I think He loves to create too much to do it in 6 days. Challenges our faith, too.

[aimhigh]

A day or two after the mountain blew, the Oregonian newpaper ran an article interviewing a geologist. He said he was amazed at at the extent of the changes. He said we had just witnessed 10,000 years of geological changes in one day.

[Raymann]

We already know that during the last ice age, sea levels were hundreds of feet lower then they are now. For the most part the rise was slow but there were a few dramatic rises that would have affected costal communities worldwide. For instance the black sea flood and the several north American glacial lake dam burst.

There are even underwater cities in crete, India, and elsewhere to attest to that...bet they have some flood stories.

[fishtank]

"Figure 4. Cliff face showing sediment deposited by eruptions of Mount St Helens, including an 8 m (25 ft) deposit of layered sediment."

Is it possible to believe in a recent worldwide flood AND be an old earth creationist?

[21twelve]

Interesting question. I’m sure I could justify it to myself somehow!? But at first glance - it might be difficult with the idea that the first time it ever rained was with the flood. Although there obviously were lakes and rivers before the flood - so the evidence of ancient water-erosion and deposits would have been able to get the water from that.

Not sure how lakes and rivers worked without rainfall though. Springs??

In eastern Washington state and along the Columbia river there is the “scablands” - landforms caused by the collapse of an ice dam for ancient Lake Missoula from the last ice age. There are ridges a mile long and hundreds of feet tall which are basically ripple marks left over from the flood!