HELEN
It is impossible to present a model, which is, in effect, what has been requested here, in a short space. I am hoping the administrators will allow this to take up two posts. I have condensed a section of the rewrite of
Creation and Catastrophe below. Some of it I made notes of and some is quoted, but since I am one of the authors, I didn't mark the differences. I can understand the problems in seeing the thing as a whole, so, with Barry's permission, here is the basic model in terms of earth as well as I can condense it:
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Gen. 1 – first evidence of strata formation – 1:9-10 suddenly rising land mass. Waters “one place” means land “other place” – one supercontinent.
Rising of supercontinent – one day – vast energy -- washing a great deal of material into the sea, possibly depositing thousands of meters of clays and bedded ores.
These earliest deposits may be less evident today after the subsequent processes acting on the earth, resulting in metamorphic activity (or processes which would cause distinct changes in the rocks and strata themselves). The deposition of the original material might be reflected today by what we see when we look at the ‘black smokers’ of the South-East Pacific Rise.
Gen. 2:6 – streams or mists from ground watered whole earth – clear evidence of underground pressure. Eden on rise of land – source of four headwaters, four rivers. Another indication of high underground pressure. Noah’s Flood when these ‘springs’ exploded from increasing pressure (Gen. 7:11) and did not stop releasing scalding water until Gen. 8:2.
Heat buildup interior earth due to high light speed/rapid rate of radioactive decay of both long and short half-life materials.
Evidence outside Bible? Yes.
There is a class of meteorites which is considered to reflect the original composition of earth material. These are the ‘chondrites.’ These meteorites indicate that the earth’s mantle may have been comprised of minerals containing as much as 19% water. One of these minerals, serpentine, contains 13% water. When heated by the decay of radioactive elements in the interior, serpentine released that water and became olivine, a major mantle component today. As the earth heated internally, the water and heat pressure built.
Critical time for earth. Started cool. Water (Gen.1:2 and 2 Peter 3:5) , then heated up interior. Reason – radioactivity; heat released dramatically.
About 900 orbital years before the Flood, some major activity occurred. … Plugs of molten material from underneath the surface rose. The heat from these basalts and granites changed, or metamorphosed, the original sediments, producing stable craton areas. These areas were later to be the ‘shields’ which were the foundations of the continents as we recognize them today. The melting of the interior rocks resulted in a resetting of the radiometric clock and metamorphosed the basal sediments of the crust. At that time there was also the initiation of a world-wide network of geologically mobile belts bordering the shield areas in that original super-continent. Today the margins of our continents closely follow their outline.
Did the people before the Flood recognize that there were changes happening? When we look at the names of the antediluvians told to us in the Bible, there may be a good clue that they did know something was going on. For instance, the time of the above metamorphic activity would have roughly coincided with the birth of Methuselah. Interestingly, his name means, “His death will bring it.” Methuselah died the year the Flood of Noah started.
Noah’s Flood ends Pre-Cambrian.
Along fracture lines almost a thousand years old at the time, the heated waters exploded upwards with the force of thousands of volcanoes. Jets of water and chewed-out debris would have shot thousands of feet into the air in an episode that outgassed about half the volume of our present oceans (volcanoes today, releasing less pressure, can send exploding material to heights of over 50,000 feet into the atmosphere). Much of this heated water would have evaporated immediately, forming massive storm clouds which started a rain never before seen on earth. The waters that didn’t form these clouds would have fallen back to earth with the pulverized rocky material which had exploded upwards with it, forming a different sort of thick, hot, muddy rain. The results would truly have devastated earth and all life on it.
Evidence for ‘hot rain’ – extra-biblical -- other people have brought down the memory in their ancient stories. Chronicled by Marcus VonWellnitz (Creation Research Society Quarterly – CRSQ – 1979, vol.16, pp 44-46 & 59), there are memories of people left behind being scalded by the hot waster. Memories are recorded that both the water that fell from above and the waters which exploded upwards burned the flesh off bodies and dissolved the land. Noah, his wife, or some member of the family on the Ark must have seen the beginnings of this horror. So many times we simply think of rains like we know them – even torrential, hurricane-force rains, beating down for forty days. It was nothing like that. This would have been something never before or after experienced by men. Under these conditions, almost no fossilization could possibly have occurred. What we have instead are carbon-rich layers which may be the result of life-forms destroyed by the Flood.
outgassing waters not in shield areas, but on edges. Shield areas stable. Areas between cratons become mobile belts, later plate boundaries. Flood washed great amounts of sediment into down-warped areas – Pre-Cambrian tillites (unsorted boulders and rocks in concrete-like matrix)
n -- one line of weakness: Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
n -- also earth tilt on axis (possibly due to force of exploding waters over land area whereas ocean area would absorb much of force of any explosive extrusions; possibly due to impact events as other solar system bodies were affected by same radioactive build-up of pressures)
Time Correlation
Current estimates of the age of the entire universe can run anywhere from 10 billion to 20 billion years old. The data from the redshift curve indicates a maximum age of about 14 to 15 billion years. Lightspeed data agree with the redshift data, indicating a maximum age of about the same time. These estimates would be in terms of atomic years, not orbital years.
…With this as a start, we can go to the ages listed in the Bible and coordinate them with geological events and the curve begins to show total coordination with the mathematical predictions made with regard to this model in years past.
… Adam and Eve were created on day 6. Because the speed of light was dropping quite dramatically at first, however, over five billion atomic years had already passed since creation on day 1, and so day six corresponds to about 9 billion atomic years ago.
So why do the earth rocks only date at about 4 billion atomic years (the oldest moon rocks actually date a little older, which is interesting)? If you recall in the preceding section, it was mentioned that there was some major geological activity that occurred about 900 years before the Flood due to the heating of the interior of the earth. This heating had the effect of ‘resetting’ the radiometric clocks, as it separated the mother and daughter elements, not allowing later scientists to measure the original ratios for dating purposes. Thus, we have an atomic date for this resetting event of about 4.35 billion years ago.
Geologically, there is a division in rock type even closer to the time of the Flood. We see a change in the Archeozoic strata where the metamorphosed material stops. The rising molten material, having metamorphosed (changed by heat) the surrounding sediments, finally cooled and stabilized. This appears at the atomic time of about 2.5 billion years ago and is referred to as the Archean/Proterzoic boundary. -
Noah’s Flood dates at about 720 million years ago. That was, however, only about 600 orbital years later.
Biblical Correlation
So, matching the light speed curve with radiometric data and the events of Genesis until the Flood, we have some interesting ‘coincidences.’ The time of the resetting of the radiometric clocks was just about the time Methuselah was born. As previously mentioned, his name means “His death will bring it.” Bring what? There is linguistic evidence here that some were already aware of not only God’s anger with the sin run rampant in the world, but with the geologic changes which seemed, perhaps, to presage something disastrous. Until our own time, names have almost always meant something which was important to the parents. Enoch was Methuselah’s father, and the Bible tells us “Enoch walked with God.” Enoch, close to God, would have been as aware as anyone could have been of God’s wrath with the disobedience and violence in the world of that time. What was evident to those living at the time in terms of geology is impossible to know, but the possible earthquakes and perhaps the appearance of ‘hot spots’ such as Yellowstone (which was not there then), would have certainly been noticed and remarked upon. It may have been that God revealed directly to Enoch something of what was going to happen. We don’t know. But whatever it was that Enoch was aware of, it was enough for him to give his son a name that was a warning.
The stabilization of the cratons and the resultant change in the geologic record corresponds roughly with Noah’s birth, which is another interesting ‘coincidence.’ It was now 600 years before the judgment of the Flood, and 1.85 billion atomic years have elapsed between the births of the two men. The Bible tells us Noah received directions from God 120 years before the Flood. This dates to about 870 million atomic years ago. This also marks the beginning of some of the downwarping of some of the mobile belts. This earth movement may have given Noah added impetus to obey God! As a side note, it might be mentioned that when all of this is considered, Noah probably was not building his Ark near the coast, but inland, away from the geologically active areas that would later explode so devastatingly. There is no other way the Ark and its population could have survived the scalding, exploding waters.
THE PALEOZOIC ERA AND THE SECOND CATASTROPHE
Geologic activity continues after Flood. Readjustment of crust; continued internal heating. Later catastrophes generall (not always) confined to super-continent margins and mobile belt areas.
This s beginning of Paleozoic Era.
Fossilization requires burial and mineral-rich waters. Upwelling waters mineral-rich; continuing activity in draining of flood waters as well as uplifts and downwarping of land areas result in giant burials of associated life. Much activity underwater – big waves wash up on land – local catastrophic effects.
First episodes of fossil building associated with immediate post-Flood activity quite dramatic – “Cambrian Explosion” – but processes continued throughout era.
Internal heating of earth moderating but still building.
The massive heating effects took their toll around the universe, with results we are aware of in our own solar system. It is very possible that a planet between Mars and Jupiter exploded around this time, leaving us with our asteroid belt of today. Both Mars and our moon, in particular, show signs of this initial heating and cracking process.
World after Flood: warm, humid, great marshy areas. Vast bodies of warm, shallow waters.
Insects and amphibians, which had been maintained for the flood year on enormous floating vegetation mats, would have proliferated quickly and the spore-bearing plants would have been favored as the waters would have transported the released spores great distances, spreading plant life rapidly. What do we see in the fossil record of the life of this Era? Spore bearing plants such as algae, mosses, and ferns, giant insects, and amphibians – along with multitudes of marine life. The larger life forms, which take much longer to reproduce, would not have been able to recover from the Flood nearly as quickly. The Bible also indicates that this would have been the result, for in Genesis 7:21-23 we read that in the Flood, everything died that was ‘upon the face of the ground (or earth)’, or that ‘was upon the dry land.’
How could the amphibians, fish, and insects have survived the scalding waters? The mid-sea waters were not scalding. The original waters remained, to be later mixed with the infusion of waters (and many salts) from the earth’s interior. But even during the height of the Flood, there would have remained large sections of the original seas, not near the cracking vents, which simply experienced a rise of waters and were not directly subject to the intense heat. Here, on these seas, massive vegetation mats would have floated from areas ripped up by the initial water surges and brought together by wave activity. And on these floating islands of rotting and newly seeded and growing plant life was a haven for insects and amphibians especially. Thus the world after the Flood would have been quickly populated by that which survived in the greatest numbers and had the shortest generation times. And that was the world Noah and his family began to populate.
-- basically still one super-continent, but it was showing signs of breaking up and the northern and southern sections of the land mass have been given different names. The northern section is referred as Laurasia, and the southern as Gondwana (part of which straddled South Pole)… Moisture-laden air from the warm surface waters circulated down to this colder polar region – colder because the earth’s axis was now tilted… moist air precipitated as vast quantities of snow and ice. Referred to as the Permian Ice Age, this process eventually had a drying effect on the earth’s atmosphere. The rapidly growing ice sheet enlarged to encompass significant portion of Gondwana,
Underneath crust, heating continues. – rocks liquefy – plasticity – building pressure again.
The downwarped areas which had continued receiving so much debris began to rise in response to the pressure of the molten rock beneath them. The final phase of the upthrusting of the Appalachian Range in the United States, part of one of the mobile belts, was a result of this activity. Although this type of activity was in response to the pressure building, it did not release it. When and if this pressure was released, the ‘plastic’ hot rock was ready to become molten and either flow or volcanically explode in the area of released pressure.
…massive plumes of hot, low-density, highly fluid material rose upwards toward the surface. Far to the north of Gondwanaland, in Laurasia, there is the area we know as Siberia today. Here we find what are known as the “Siberian Traps.” These are layers of outpoured basalt covering an extraordinarily large area of about 1.5 million square kilometers, with thicknesses of up to 1 kilometer… These flood basalts in Siberia have two possible causes, perhaps even working in conjunction with one another: upwelling and possibly impact (crater hidden by Traps) would crack earth at this point. Traps…appear to have been outpoured in one intense episode unrelated to Noah’s Flood, but rather as the result of ongoing processes.
The interior heating continued. The release of the superheated waters had been the initial effect. Then, as the rocks themselves became plastic and then molten, large areas of uplift occurred. These uplifts had an additional effect of promoting the fault lines started by the Flood. These fault areas, or fault blocks were rising in some sections and sinking in others.
n -- not enough to release the building internal pressure.
n -- pressure release at time of Bable – massive volcanic activity all over earth.
n -- possibly associated with impact event as well
many of the flood basalts in the world seem to coincide with the time of asteroid impact events. The Siberian Traps were one possible example. Aside from them, four impact structures have been identified as forming at the Permian-Triassic boundary – the same time as the second catastrophe. The larges of these is the Araguainha dome in Brazil, some 40 kilometers across. Then follows the complex structure at St. Martin in Manitoba, Canada, about 23 miles across. A 15 kilometer astrobleme at Dellen, Sweden and a 5 kilometer circular formation at Kursk in the old Soviet Union can also be added to this list.
Another event which happened during this catastrophe, and in response to it, was the dropping of a major fault block in the crust extending from an area we today associate with east of Greece to America, through what we know as the Appalachian area and down into the southern United States. It extended from roughly where England is in the north to about where Spain is in the south. Into this dropped area, the wave action caused by the volcanic activity and associated earthquakes washed enormous amounts of vegetation. This resulted in the major coal seams we see in these areas today. Similar things were happening in other places, although not as dramatically, and they also resulted in the other coal seams which are associated with volcanics.
This massive movement of earth in the Mediterranean area and its surrounds could certainly have been a reason for the panicked rush to escape the area which ended up resulting in the diffusion of peoples throughout the world and the resultant changing of languages as each group endeavored to not only find protection from ashen skies and jolting earthquakes, but to somehow start anew, after what has come to be known to us today as the Permian extinction. Here we see a sudden change in the geologic record of both fossil types and rock types in the strata.
…As areas of land experienced rapid sinking, or down-faulting, during the multitude of earthquakes that would have resulted from the geologic activity of this time, many of them would have been rapidly inundated with inflowing water, which brought with it sediments washed from the land over which it flowed. …. Thus some of the land life forms, especially those predominant in swamp life and marshy areas, were also being fossilized during the Paleozoic Era. Other fossilization can be effected by the minerals in volcanic ash deposits which are then introduced to remains that are buried there via rains or possibly tidal action if near coastlines. Because humans and the animals not comfortable in marshy environments, and wary of volcanoes, would not have been around these areas, we don’t see their fossils at this time.
Other cultures remember this catastrophe:
One that is very clear in associating the elements of this catastrophe comes from the Kukubidaji people of the Palmer river area of Northern Australia. They tell of the worldwide wanderings of Julmbanu, the Kangaroo-Man. Upon his return, he found that his people had gone off in different directions, talking different languages. Legend says the steps of Julmbanu can be traced from the remains of his campfires – white men call them coal.
Time Correlation
The Paleozoic, or ‘Early life’ Era lasted for 350 million atomic years, from 600 million years ago to 250 million years ago. On the orbital clock, this translates into about 300 actual years, from approximately 3536 B.C. to 3230 B.C. (or about 2256 A.C. – after creation – to 2562 A.C.). When the second catastrophe closed this era, the speed of light was about 1.1 million times its current value.
Biblical Correlation
Bible does not mention much. Goes straight from Flood to Babel catastrophe.
Extra-biblical sources in the form of ancient writings and legends tell us that it was Nimrod, Ham’s grandson through Cush, who coordinated the building of the tower – possibly some kind of temple or minaret – erected in defiance of God.
THE MESOZOIC ERA AND THE THIRD CATASTROPHE
World radically changed again. Volcanism yields dry and windy climate. Very destructive to marshy, humid life forms. Formation of Permian ice cap drained atmosphere of much moisture.
The result was semi-desert areas with broad river valleys where the ongoing life forms were concentrated and then became predominant. Spore-bearing plants, depending as they did on water, were wiped out in many areas and then concentrated in the few that were left that were environmentally friendly. However because the gymnosperms, such as palms and pines, propagate by wind-blown pollen, this was their time. The conditions were favoring them. This was also the time of the dinosaurs, both small and giant. The broad river valleys and deltas, luxuriant in their new growth, provided both the supportive water environments for the larger animals as well as the abundant vegetation necessary to sustain them.
Extensive migrations during this time – humans and animals. Continuing geologic activity; search for food both impetus for migrations. Genesis 10 – Table of Nations – shows linguistic and cultural/ethnic roots.
Time of sub-arial lava deposits – cannot be Flood related. New Red Sandstone of England (and similar through Europe); Dakota and Navajo sandstone, USA – all non-marine origin and need time to develop. …In Europe and Canada, eggs from dinosaurs such as protoceratops and styracosaurus have been found in layer upon layer of stacked nests, which are presumed to have been annually constructed. The layers of dinosaur prints in the Paluxy Mesozoic strata overlie thousands of feet of Paleozoic sediments. Their food supply and method of survival is not a problem if their demise was in a disaster that was separate from Noah’s Flood.
The Mesozoic strata also provide us with evidence of massive reef structures and their remains which are found above the Archeozoic and Paleozoic strata. …study done by La Trobe University zoologist Dr Alan Marshall in his work with corals [
http://www.avcc.edu.au/news/univation/jun96/art6.htm] shows that perhaps the algae are not as beneficial as commonly thought but that they actually inhibit the reef-building processes. Thus if warm waters, conducive to corals, yet absent – at least for a time – of the symbiotic algae, were present during this age, reef-building could have happened much more quickly than normally assumed. An excellent article on the possible rapid growth of coral and coral reefs was done by Ariel Roth in Origins 6(2):88-95 (1979), available online here:
http://www.grisda.org/origins/06088.htm
Also standing above the fossiliferous Paleozoic strata is a giant fossilized sponge reef which extends 2900 kilometers across Europe from Spain to Romania and as far north as Germany. It is strong evidence, given the time it would have needed to grow, that it belonged to a different Era than the Flood, and was fossilized by a different catastrophe.
Geologic activity continues, primarily around rim areas of supercontinent. Rising and sinking of some landforms – tidal waves -- massive tidal action resulted in the burial and fossilization of life forms inhabiting those coastal areas, including some dinosaurs, small mammals, and gymnosperms. We see evidence of dinosaurs evidently trapped in some of the massive, wind-blown sand dunes which were then inundated by the seawaters in some of these areas.
beginning of the Mesozoic, extensive volcanic activity, -- numerous ash layers in the associated strata. The lavas from these volcanoes do not show the effects of chilling by water (pillow lava). In the early Mesozoic, the Palisades of the Hudson River valley near New York were formed as a volcanic lava flow. Although the most extensive mountain-building would take place after the catastrophe which closed this Era, some ranges were in the process of being upthrust at this time. This was in large part due to the beginning separation of the northern sections of Laurasia, which would later become the North American continent. However this separation may not have been as evident as it would seem, as a great plug of mantle material – a mantle plume – was updoming the area between the separating sections. This formed what has become known as the Blake Plateau.
Era came to a sudden and explosive end with the Peleg disaster, only briefly referred to in Genesis 10:25 -- famous K/T or ‘cretaceous/tertiary’ boundary. There are several meteorite craters associated with this time, the largest known crater being the one in the Yucatan. Evidence for asteroid impacts can be seen in the iridium layer existing in the geological strata around the world at the close of the Mesozoic Era. Iridium in the concentrations found at this point is only normal in meteorites. These strata also contain coesite and stishovite – types of quartz which only form above 200,000 atmospheres pressure, such as would occur with an impact. Furthermore, many quartz grains found in these layers possess laminar deformations due to hypervelocity shock. Such ‘shocked’ quartz is only typical of nuclear or impact explosions. At Zumaya and elsewhere, tiny spherules of meteoritic composition with a high platinum concentration have been found. These spherules are thought to be melted fragments of the asteroid in question. Along with all of this is a carbon ash layer from wildfires which were the result of the impacts. There is an enormous amount of soot found with the iridium later in Denmark, Spain and New Zealand. This cumulative evidence points to impact events as the source of Catastrophe 3.
The major impact at Yucatan hit a critical point of weakness on the edge of the Blake Plateau. The crater is 180 kilometers wide. The strategic location of this impact, coupled with its size (comparable to the largest crater on the Moon), tore the crust apart. This initiated a major phase of continental separation on the now highly-mobile mantle. A ‘smaller’ impact formed a 32 kilometer-wide crater at this time in Manson, Iowa, USA.
Impacts continued. A 25 kilometer impact crater from that time is in Kamensk, in Southeast European Russia. An 8 kilometer crater can be found in Yakut, in Northeast Siberian Russia. In Algeria, at Tin Bider, there is a 6 kilometer crater, and at Quarkziz another that is 3.5 kilometers. A 5 kilometer crater of the same age is found at Rotmistrovka in the Ukaraine. Thus, in the same way the Schumaker-Levi comet hit Jupiter in a series of closely-times impacts, we can see the same happened to earth. The eastern areas were hit first by the smaller pieces followed by the main meteorite, which then slammed into the Yucatan. The piece that hit Iowa came in close behind. In India we also have the Deccan Traps, which is a layered basaltic lava deposit, similar to the Siberian Traps, but formed at this time, rather than earlier when the Siberian Traps were formed. Like the Siberian Traps, they may be hiding an impact crater. The Deccan Traps consist of over two million cubic kilometers of basaltic lava flows, in some areas reaching a thickness of over 2,400 meters. The Brito-Arctic basalt flows from this catastrophe were outpoured at this time and laid down over a very short time interval. Individual flows covered 10,000 square kilometers, in depths up to 15- meters. It is probable that the Moon also was the subject of bombardment at this time, which resulted in cratering there as well.
This time of catastrophe resulted in the most famous of all the extinctions – that of the dinosaurs and their world. The actual extinctions could have been a result from one of two causes, or a combination of both. It has been estimated that the formation of the Deccan Traps involved an outgassing of 33 trillion tons of CO2 (carbon dioxide), 6.6 trillion tons of SO2 (sulfur dioxide), and about 66 billion tons of fluorine and chlorine into the atmosphere. This would have had a devastating effect on the environment all by itself, killing much plant life and thus the dependent animal life as well.
The second possible cause was the effect of the series of impacts. Huge vapor plumes would have disrupted the atmosphere. Winds of hundreds of kilometers per hour would have swept around the globe. Massive fireball and lightning discharges would have produced the global wildfires which left the ash deposits evident in the strata at this point. Massive quantities of dust would have blanketed the atmosphere and darkening the skies, while the water vapor added to the atmosphere, especially if in conjunction with the sulfur dioxide extruded at the formation of the Deccan Traps, would have resulted in acid rains as well as greenhouse effects. Giant tsunamis would have disrupted the oceans and torn apart coastal areas. The disruption of the oceans, by both impact and resulting tsunamis, would have introduced cold, oxygen-poor waters from the depths to overwhelm the warm, oxygen-rich shallow seas along areas of the continental shelves, resulting in death to many life forms and devastating reefs and reef builders. Given the combination of both the impact series and the formation of the Deccan Traps happening essentially simultaneously, the massive extinction recorded in the geologic record becomes understandable.
This series of impacts on an earth crust which was now floating on a plastic-to-liquid and heated mantle was the catastrophe of Peleg which resulted in the final division of the original land mass, eventually producing the continents we see today. These impacts, all in the Northern Hemisphere, may have caused an increase in the axis tilt of the earth. There is some evidence for this as, in the same way the initial axis tilt at the time of the Flood resulted in the Permian Ice Age, another ice age was to follow this catastrophe.
Time Correlation
The Mesozoic Era, or Era of “middle Life’ laster about 185 million atomic years, from 250 million atomic years before the present time to about 65 million years before the present. This only translates into about 225 orbital years in the life of men, extending from about 3230 B.C. to 3005 B.C. (or 2560 A.C. to about 2785 A.C.). This Era ended with the catastrophe associated with Peleg, when light speed was 555,000 times its current value.
Biblical Correlation
impacts ending the Mesozoic Era about time of birth of Peleg. …separate from the Babel dispersion. Importantly, the word used for ‘earth’ in Genesis 10:25, where we are told that the earth was divided in the days of Peleg, is almost always used to describe a geographical unit rather than people or nations. On this basis, Peleg was two generations removed from the Babel dispersion. The time gap between Babel and Peleg is about 225 orbital years. This would allow ample time for human and animal migration to occur before the continuing ‘division’ of the supercontinent occurred, eventually making crossing from one section of land to another an impossibility, thus trapping the various groups in their new localities.
Further evidence comes from a study of the linguistic roots of the word Peleg, whose brother’s name was Joktan. The word ‘Peleg’ means ‘earthquake’, ‘division’, or ‘channel of water.’ It is the root word for Pelagos, which was the old Grecian name for the Mediterranean Sea. In geological nomenclature, pelagic deposits are those found in the ocean. The name of Peleg’s brother Joktan, means to ‘cut off’, ‘make small’, ‘ to kill’, ‘to destroy’, ‘diminish, or ‘tear off.’ Thus the picture presented is one where the tearing apart of the earth’s landmass in a great earthquake has occurred, with a channel of water coming to separate fragments. It would be illogical to merely name Peleg and Joktan after some tribal migration, or even a small cluster of earthquakes. Naming of children often carried significant meanings, and the naming of these two boys was the same.
It was this material in Genesis which first led Antonio Snider to propose the continental ‘drift’ idea in 1858 in his book ‘Creation and its Mysteries Unveiled.’ With the publication of Darwin’s book a year later, most people forget much of the other material that was being published at this time.
? I am, of course, playing with your previous conclusion