Gina, very little is really known about what it was like before the Flood, except a few things the Bible tells us. We know from Genesis 1:29-30 that there was no predation on land or among birds and no meat-eating among people before the Flood. We know from Genesis 4 that there were cities and music and metalwork. We know from Genesis 5 that very long ages were the norm. We know from Genesis 6 that evil had ended up dominating the human race. There is very little else we know. There are stories that have come down through various cultures of ideal living conditions a very long time ago; and we are left to imagine a lot from there.
There is also a strong indication in the original Hebrew in Genesis 8:22 (which does not come across well in the English) that seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter are all new. The actual Hebrew indicates that, as with day and night, these will now never cease. This indicates a possible axis tilt during the Flood which would have produced seasons, with the accompanying cold and heat, seedtime and harvest.
We know for sure there was glaciation at the time of Job, for the description of it is quite definite in Job 38:30. This was after the Flood, and after Babel and the time of Peleg, too.
We also have clear impact craters here on earth as well as on the moon and other bodies in our solar system which show that there have been numerous asteroid and comet hits. These must have come after the Flood or they would have been erased by the sediments from the Flood.
Also, if you look at Genesis 7:11, you will see that the rain came second. The great fountains of the deep exploded first. These were waters under incredible pressure from internal heating and so they would have burst out as boiling geysers, as well as carrying vast amounts of pulverized debris up with them. This would account for the immediate pouring rains not just because what goes up must come down, but also because the heated waters would vaporize quickly and then, as they rose and cooled, condense and come back down as rain. The idea of a vapor canopy supplying all the rain is probably not feasible. It does seem that most people who read Genesis sort of skip over the import of that little mention of all the great fountains of the deep bursting forth at once.
Unlike the standard creation models, a number of us are pretty sure that boiling muds and waters would not fossilize anything. They would just be destroyed en masse. This would create the very carbon-rich layer of sediment, and in fact that is something we do see under the Cambrian strata. It is about 2 miles thick. That's a LOT of sediment! The carbon may well be from a LOT of dead and rotted plant and animal life.
There are several different types of fossils: imprints, carbon films, and actual mineralized remains are the most commonly considered (there is also mineralized dung, called 'coprolites'). Imprints cannot be made by moving, swirling masses of water and mud. Neither can carbon films. Mineralization requires something the Flood couldn't do -- both rapid covering and then rapid drainage, leaving the remains in a mineral-impregnated environment, sealed off from the air. The Flood had mineralized waters, that is for sure, but the churning and the fact that the waters stayed on the earth for so long both indicate that fossilization by mineralization would have been very difficult to accomplish.
For these reasons, it makes sense to consider the option that the fossilizations we are digging up now are from more regional catastrophes, such as mud and landslides, which would have been occuring rather frequently around the geologically active zones where the fountains of the deep had all exploded at the start of the Flood.
Please don't be embarrassed about any of this. I know my response will probably start a lot of evolutionist-types disagreeing with just about everything I have said. What I have said, however, is the result of quite a bit of research on the part of my husband and a number of other folk who are determined to see where the actual evidence leads.
But your questions are good, and real questions. When I was teaching, one of the things I said to my kids (of any age) was "Don't be afraid to ask any question, no matter how 'stupid' it seems. If you have that question, then so do others. It just happens that you are the only one brave enough to ask it." I would tell you that, too. There are lots of people with these questions, but you were the one brave enough to ask.
One last thing -- as far as the dating goes. The genealogies are generally considered to be accurate and so we can go back to Adam that way. There is a difference in years between the oldest texts, such as the Alexandrian Septuagint and the 'newer' ones which most of our Bibles today are translated from. It was the Alexandrian Septuagint which was the Scripture quoted by Jesus, the writers of the New Testament, and Josephus, the historian. This version gives us longer ages for some of the patriarchs, and, I think, adds one or two that the Masoretic leaves out. For this reason, the age of the earth dates a little older using the Septuagint version than the Masoretic.
There is a pretty good chart of who thought what in the early church about this here:
http://www.robibrad.demon.co.uk/Contents.htm
Check the charts in the first three chapters for some interesting information. (The text is also good! But the charts will tell you a lot all by themselves.)
I hope that helps. Brace yourself now for everyone who thinks I am a little wacko! However, if you have any questions about what I posted, feel free to ask...
