Mini-Grand Canyon at Mt. St. Helens

[church mouse guy]

Two major catastrophes combined to produce a mini-Grand Canyon near Mount St. Helens. During the initial blast, more than two-thirds of a cubic mile (2.8 km3) of rock material slid down the side of the volcano, blocking the drainage from Spirit Lake into the Toutle River. It was the largest debris avalanche observed in human history.2 The deposits averaged 150 feet (45 m) thick.

Nearly two years later, on March 19, 1982, the hot volcanic ash from another explosive eruption of Mount St. Helens melted a thick snowpack in the crater, creating a destructive, sheet-like flood of water and mud, which became a mudflow. Reaching the earlier deposits blocking Spirit Lake, the flow cut channels through the debris at a speed of 40 miles per hour (65 km/h). Individual canyons up to 140 feet (43 m) deep appeared in a single day.2,3,4,5 On either side of the canyons were elevated plateaus resembling the North and South Rims of the Grand Canyon.

Side canyons also appeared, resembling the side canyons of Grand Canyon (technically known as gully-headed and amphitheater-headed side canyons). The breach did not cut straight through the obstruction, but took a meandering path, similar to the meandering path of the Grand Canyon through the high plateaus of northern Arizona. Indeed, this “Little Grand Canyon of the Toutle River” is a one-fortieth scale model of the actual Grand Canyon.

This amazing feature was cut through soft debris, but another eruption two months later (on May 19, 1982) melted a snowpack that cut through hard basalt bedrock. The resulting Loowit Canyon was more than 100 feet (30 m) deep. Nearby, the avalanche cut through lava and ash layers to form a third canyon, Step Canyon, up to 600 feet (180 m) deep.

Small creeks now flow through these deep canyons. In other places, geologists assume creeks cut the surrounding canyons very slowly over a very long time period. Yet at Mount St. Helens they know that the canyons formed first and formed extremely rapidly!

Four Lessons from the Mount St. Helens Eruption

 

[Scott Downey]

Our grand canyon formed after the flood. The waters receded and there was an ocean like lake. A dam like rock and earthen structure held back the waters. The earth gave way and the water flowed out catastrophically creating the canyon.
Sedimentary rock is also proof that the land was formerly under the waters of oceans-seas. the sediments fall out of the water forming layers. If you take a mud slurry of earth grains in various sixes, shake it up in a jar and let it settle, what forms are sedimentary bands. The flood shook up all the earth, the great deep of water and earth formed a slurry and it all settles out. The banded layers formed as the flood waters recede, the earth settles out.

Now in the beginning the earth was under the great deep (made of water)
The water receded, gathered together forming seas, and the dry land appears, so it had been wet and all stirred up and settled out forming sedimentary layers possibly at that time too.
The earth 'sits' , is laid out above the waters of the great deep.
It is no problem for the earth to be be drowned in a flood if you understand that under the earth is the great deep of water.
None of the scriptures speaking of the nature of the earth agrees with modern science.

Psalm 136:6
To Him who laid out the earth above the waters, For His mercy endures forever;

Now it describes how the waters steadily rose, even covering mountains, you know flood waters today stir up all the surface of the earth and it says the fountains of the great deep were broken up, so under the earth a lot of rushing water stirred up all of the earth and afterwards it settled into sedimentary rocks. We see those bands all over the earth and deep in sedimentary rock we find the fossils of life killed in the flood. Pretty much animal fossils look to have died in agonies, and many intact, it is a record of the flood. And some fossilized bodies are all jumbled together.

Genesis 7
17 Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18 The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. 20 The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. 21 And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man.

 

[AustinC]

I hiked to the top of Mt Margaret back in 1991, which is a beautiful peak to see Spirit Lake, Mt St Helens, Mt Baker, Mt Rainier and Mt Hood. It was fascinating to see the wildflowers coming back through many feet of ash. Also, walking past large trees that had been twisted like candy cane made you consider the amazing power of destruction that came from the eruption. I really should go back to see how the land has changed.