Smoky Mountain Bible Institute
Lesson #41
Welcome back class. Please get settled in and take a hold of your
pick point rock hammer and hand lens so that we can continue our study in
geology. Let’s wrap up our discussion on
geology by looking briefly at mountain
valleys which I touched on in lesson 35, erosion, silt, dust and salt cores
from the Dead Sea .
Normal
erosion leads to V-shaped valleys. It
makes sense that over time as mountains wear down by rain, wind, and
temperature variations, the different types of rock that make up the mountains
would be broken down to varying sizes from boulders down to sand, silt, and
dust. It also follows that these byproducts of erosion would cause many valleys
to have soft gradual slopes giving us so many V-shaped valleys especially in
the places where the mountains are older and more eroded. This of course is in contrast to the
U-shaped valleys caused by glaciers mentioned in Lesson #35. We were able to identify evidence of glacial
activity in the U-shaped valleys, with the signs of glacial till and moraines
caused by the flowing ice. We can also look at the sediment, silt and dust (in
areas around mountains) caused by water and wind to see how clearly the layers
of these elements and known rates of erosion give evidence of a young earth on
a world-wide scale.
I feel the best evidence of this type can
be found in the example of salt cores drilled out of the shore line at En Gedi
on the west coast of the Dead Sea Austin
took Migowski's data on the uppermost 19 feet of laminated sediment of the Dead Sea
Dr.
Austin notes that: "The biblical
account does not specifically mention an earthquake, but the earth would have
been shaken by the wall's collapse. Archaeological excavations at Jericho confirm that the massive wall made of mud bricks
did collapse at the time of the conquest, about 1400 B.C. The site of the
ancient city of Jericho sits directly on top
of a very large fault associated with the Jordan Rift valley. Surprisingly, the
Dead Sea sediment core has a distinctive mixed
sediment layer at a depth of 15.1 feet that is evidence of a big earthquake at
about 1400 B.C." This salt core gives an amazing record of biblical earth
quakes which would have caused the brown layers visible at the point in which
they appear affirming a connection between biblical earth quakes and the salt
core evidence. If you would like to read
further on this topic, I would recommend visiting the blog: umarko.blogspot.com/2010/10/walls-of-jericho-really-did-fall-in.
And the ICR article by Dr. Austin icr.org/article/greatest-earthquakes-bible/.
That is where I got the chart below.
Well
this concludes our study of Geology. I hope you have enjoyed our study. Next month we will begin construction on our
next wing: History & Geography.
Wings still to be built in the future are Philosophy which will contain
departments on sociology, social science, and psychology and our final wing
which will be Theology....important wing for a Bible institute. So you can put away your pick point
rock hammer and hand lens and get ready next month to breakout your maps and
histories as we travel in a time machine of sorts to examine History &
Geography through a biblical world view.
Till next month, have a blessed new year.
In Christ, Pastor
Portier
