Creationist Answer to Cave Formations

Author:
Christopher J. E. Johnson
Published: Mar 31, 2012
[creationliberty.com]

"The time for stalactite growth also has to allow for time for the cave to dissolve in the first place, which is a very slow process, sometimes on the order of tens of millions of years."

-Mark Isaak, The Counter-Creationism Handbook, University of California Press, 2007, p. 167, ISBN: 9780520249264; (Image from author's personal files, featuring 20 inch stalactite, Marengo Cave, "Dripstone Trail," March 28th, 2012)

A foundation of uniformitarian assumption (i.e. the presupposition that the way things are happening now are the way they have always been happening - 2 Peter 3:3-5) is required to come to conclusions that cave formations take millions of years to form. Stalactites, stalacmites, columns, etc -- all these are claimed by evolutionists to take tens of thousands, if not millions, of years to form. Here is another example from a children's book on geology:

"Limestone rock has lots of cracks that allow rainwater to seep (leak) through the rock. Over millions of years, the water wears away from the rock. It can form networks of caves and passages. Amazing stalactites hang from cave ceilings. Stalagmites point upward from the floor."
-Pam Robson, Our Planet: Earthwise Series, Black Rabbit Books, 2004, p. 20, ISBN: 9781932799514

In March of 2012, my wife and I visited Marengo Caves in Marengo, Indiana. There are many stalactite (ceiling) and stalacmite (floor) formations of varying shape and size throughout the cave system. They also contain many columns (stalactites and/or stalacmites that run from floor to ceiling), some of them up to 10 feet tall.

(Image from author's personal files, featuring author next to 5 foot tall columns, Marengo Cave, "Dripstone Trail," March 28th, 2012)

Right before the above video was recorded, our wonderful tour guide (who did a great job), had mentioned a standard "average" that is repeated by scientists around the world. The author of this book quotes the same thing we heard from a tour guide at Crystal Caves in Bermuda:
"[T]he guide pointed out that the surface of drip of water forms stalactites on average at 1 centimeter per 100 years."
-Andrew S. Balian, The Unintended Disservice of Young Earth Science, Infinity, 2011, p. 434, ISBN: 9781450583336

Our tour guide in Marengo gave the exact same fact to our group when she pointed to a roughly 10-foot tall flowstone formation, and then she said, "You can then imagine how many thousands of years it would take to form something like this." I calmly raised an objection to that notion to our tour guide, because I did not want the group walking away thinking their imaginations were part of the fact.

In 1903, a farmer went out into his yard and stuck a pipe in the ground, and water slowly started flowing out the top of the pipe. The farmer left the pipe in the ground, and 100 years later, we don't see a 1 centimeter formation, but rather a 20-foot tall mound. This is scientific proof that the "average" scientists refer to is only based on slow dripping that a few people have tested in a few select locations in caves across the country.

(Image of Teepee Formation in Thermopolis, Wyoming; provided by Kent Hovind of Creation Science Evangelism)

Two hours away from where we were located in the caves is George Rodgers Clark Memorial in Vincennes, IN. Underneath that memorial is a 90-inch column that formed in less than 40 years. The image on the right shows this formation, but does not include various other 1-6 inch stalactites that have grown around the ceiling.

A ten-year-old, just by thinking about it, could question if these giant formations can grow in less than 100 years, so why are we assuming that they took thousands, or millions, of years to form? We, as Christians do not, but evolutionists are forced to because they have a religious worldview to maintain. The key to answering this problem is in recognizing that evolutionists, who need millions of years for their religion to work, are laying down BIASED ASSUMPTIONS on which to base their theories.

(Image by Don R. Patson, 2000, older copies available at www.bible.ca)

If we suppose that a giant formation, like the 20-foot one in Wyoming, was located in a cave, and without calculating the width (which would make the problem much worse), adding 100 years for every 1 centimeter as the evolutionists will say, the Teepee formation in Wyoming would come out to be 61,000 years old. So why would we get a 61,000 year old estimation from a formation that's only 100 years old? This obviously incorrect math and science, and demonstrate the deeper biases of the evolutionist.

The ASSUMPTION by some evolutionists is in uniformitarianism; meaning that rate of formation at this present moment is the way it has been happening for millions years in the past. A more rapid water flow would formed the stalacmites faster after the global flood of Noah 4400 years ago, and today, due to climate and other geologic conditions, the water has come to a minor drip. Some evolutionists commonly make the drastic mistake of ASSUMING that the way things are happening right now is the way they have happened all throughout history.

Because of their assumptions, some evolutionists run into embarrassing problems of how to justify 50-inch stalactites forming around old switch-track signs in a lead mine in Australia. Most evolutionists very much want to put hundreds of thousands of years on these formations, but the fact is they are only 55 years old at the time this photo was taken.

(Image from Creation Magazine, March-May Issue, 1998, p. 27; Look closely, you can see the "SWITCH" track sign)

"[O]ne of the most controversial points is how long it takes for a cave such as S.P. [Kartchner Caverns in Arizona] to form. What geologists used to believe was fact, in terms of dating a cave, now is speculation, [cave expert, Jerry] Trout says... From 1924 to 1988, there was a visitor's sign above the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns that said Carlsbad was at least 260 million years old... In 1988, the sign was changed to read 7 to 10 million years old. Then, for a little while, the sign read that it was 2 million years old. Now the sign is gone. In short, he says, geolgoists don't know how long cave development takes. And, while some believe that cave decorations such as S.P.'s beautiful icicle-looking stalactites take years to form, Trout says that through photo-monitoring, he has watched a stalactite grow several inches in a matter of days."
-Marilyn Taylor, "Descent," Arizona Highways, Vol. 69, No. 1, January, 1993, p. 10-11; Quotation taken from Dr. Walt Brown, In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, 8th Edition, 2008, p. 223, IBSN 1-878026-09-7

When I addressed the young lady giving us a tour about how it is an assumption that they take long periods of time to form, she nodded and continued with the tour. After we continued through the cave, about five minutes later, she turned to me and said, "You know, now that I think about it, you're right about that. It is an assumption that the water has always been dripping down at the same rate."

Christians, listen up: If you don't say anything then people will continue to believe that the ASSUMPTIONS some evolutionists choose to build their theory on are factual. It does not take long for someone to think in their minds, "If this rock formation is hundreds of thousands of years old, then that conflicts with God's Word on the age of the earth." The reason evolutionary religious presuppositions find their way into cave tours is because Christians are not standing up and speaking the truth -- so let's get busy!

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
-Ephesians 4:14-15