Rapid Canyon Formation Revisited

Geologists recently investigated Canyon Lake Gorge, Texas, USA, a 22-km (14-mile) long, 7-m (23-foot) deep gorge, that was cut by raging floodwaters in three days, because it has given researchers a rare first-hand look into canyon formation (for details here: creation.com/canyon-lake-gorge).

The researchers found that the flood was so rapid that the ability of the floodwaters to carry sediment limited the erosional capability of the flood. However, the flood was able to pick up and move large limestone boulders metres in diameter from the broken bedrock. This would have caused most of the erosion as they were carried along the sediment-laden waters.

Canyons and gorges have long been thought to form by small water flows over millions of years. However, the researchers stated that there are no real ways to tell the difference between canyons formed rapidly by megafloods and those that formed over millions of years of slow erosion. So why evoke millions of years at all if we know it doesn't take that long to form - and when the only observed ways to form canyons is rapidly? Millions of years is the foundation of secular geology and yet appears totally unnecessary the more we learn about how landforms are actually made. The uniformitarians who profess the present is the key to the past should be more consistent.

Extracted from the Creation Magazine Vol. 34 No. 4  2010