Abstract
Probable constraints on pre-Flood water volume, purity and temperature are considered to preclude deposition of the Precambrian Archaen, dominantly volcanic, and Proterozoic, dominantly sedimentary, strata during Creation Week. A Flood origin for these strata at the base of the stratigraphic record is thus proposed. A pre-Flood land:sea area ratio of 50:50 and a postulated pre-Flood water volume of 138 x 10to the 6th km³, about 10 per cent of today's free water volume, would have been sufficient to provide required depth environments for all pre-Flood fish and sea creatures. The extrusion of about 60x10 to the 6th km³ of Archean submarine volcanic strata, at 1200 degrees C, at the base of the stratigraphic record, into the volume of pre-Flood water would probably, without miraculous intervention, have caused such a large temperature rise as to preclude survival of fish and sea creatures created on Day 5 of Creation Week. Erosion from the emergent 'dry' landmass, transport, and sedimentation of the Proterozoic sedimentary strata in a 24-hour period on Day 3 would have had to have been accomplished with a water:sediment mass ratio of approximately 1:6, and again, without miraculous intervention, should have caused land and water environments unsuitable for growth of land plants and survival of fish and sea creatures created on Day 5, and land creatures and mankind on Day 6. Environmental factors during deposition of the Archaean and Proterozoic strata would have prevented the preservation of fossils. The water of the 'fountains of the great deep' was probably exsolved from magma, which rose from depth in the Earth's mantle to be extruded as the Archaean volcanic strata and intruded as the Precambrian 'basement granites'. The 'basement granites', the immediately overlying Archaean volcanic strata and possibly the Proterozoic sediments might be considered to be the products of magma differentiation processes initiated in the mantle, hence the pre-Flood/Flood boundary might be considered to exist in the mantle where these differentiation processes were initiated.