Is Yellowstone Dying?
Genesis 7:11
“In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.”
If you have read the headline and are wondering if Old Faithful is about to stop putting on a show, then fear not! The geysers of Yellowstone show no sign of abating.
Yellowstone is described as a super-volcano. It has a caldera about 45 miles across. One article describes an alleged super-eruption as “at least 1,000 times more [powerful] than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens”. The article confesses that there seems to be little evidence in the geologic record of such super-eruptions, but maintains that there is evidence of two such eruptions, which are assigned evolutionary deep-time dates of 9 million and 8.7 million years ago.
Dr. Thomas Knott, of the University of Leicester, England, refers to the “younger” of these eruptions as Grey’s Landing. He says: “The Grey's Landing eruption enameled an area the size of New Jersey in searing-hot volcanic glass that instantly sterilized the land surface.” He suggests that super-eruptions take place about once every 1.5 million years and estimates that the most recent eruption was 630,000 years ago, so on an evolutionary timescale, we aren’t due for another for a million years!
Knott also maintains that successive eruptions are getting smaller. So, on this basis, his team suggests that Yellowstone is beginning to fade away.
Creationists maintain that volcanoes began as a result of the geologic upheaval caused by the worldwide flood. God has promised that resultant major climate changes will not occur while the Earth remains in place.
Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for the beauty of Your creation and the incredible forces that we see in nature. We praise You for putting them in place and for caring for us much more than even the nature around us. Amen.
Author: Paul F. Taylor
Ref: Geological Society of America. "Discovery of ancient super-eruptions indicates the Yellowstone hotspot may be waning." ScienceDaily, 3 June 2020. < www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200603132516.htm >.
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