I was very interested in the other articles connected to the article!
“Massive Salt Deposits in the Midst of Rock Layers”
“In many locations (see map below) there are huge salt deposits, hundreds or thousands of feet thick, laying under thousands of feet of sediment. These salt deposits were formed over many thousands of years, from the evaporation of shallow coastal lagoons or of vast inland seas. These evaporations occurred after the deposition of lower rock layers, and before the deposition of further rock layers above. This could not happen in the middle of a year-long Flood.”
There are no Creationists who want to explain how sedimentary layers of pure salt formed (which requires years of evaporation) - - right in the middle of a flood?
I believe it was Joel Duff in the Natural Historian that had a series on the Dead Sea, and he depth and layer of salt there. One of the interesting observations of it is that we have Biblical history that goes back 3000 or so years showing that it is essentially unchanged since that time, which would indicate a very long history before Abraham.
I think the answer can lay in several ideas. Here’s one shot at it:
First we start here (side note: I hate that AiG calls scientists ‘evolutionists’ lumping everyone who rejects a young Earth into a derogatory term equivalent to satanism)
Many now think the salt was extruded as warm-to-hot supersaturated salt brines passed upward along faults and then rapidly cooled when they came in contact with the colder surface water, thus immediately releasing their salt load en masse to form pure salt deposits. Today we find these pure salt deposits and other important minerals in similar deposits that can only be explained by catastrophic processes—the processes that accompanied the Genesis Flood.
Ok, next we need some good models that get some good heat flow. This is a serious problem with all YEC models. I have some favorites, but one of them is Dr. John Baumgardner. Credit to the guy, he actually built a modeling software (called TERRA I believe) working at a national lab which is used by Geologists. He puts in the most extreme conditions ever to try and recreate Noah’s flood. Then he finds moving the continental plates in a year’s worth of time created (shucks, just read this critique here: Flaws in a Young-Earth Cooling Mechanism | National Center for Science Education). In a nutshell though, moving the giant continental plates from Pangea (which nobody can deny the obvious evidence) would generate so much heat that…
It would melt a layer of silicate rock 12,000 meters thick
Or boil away a layer of water 25,000 meters deep over the entire Earth
It’s equivalent energy to 170,000 asteroids all hitting the Earth directly, each 6 miles in diameter and traveling at 33,000 miles per hour
Personal note: it’s a bummer when physics proves you wrong
My personal favorite is Walt Brown (those the Hovind Theory is a close second). I didn’t know about Brown’s Hydroplate theory until the former pastor of my church was teaching me all about it last night. Right before he told me about it he also told me he thought the young Earth position was quite weak so I’m not sure where he stands. Anyways… The Hydroplate Model. Some highlights…
The water must be completely sealed until it’s time for the water to come forth from the Earth
Any earthquakes, meteorites or fissures anywhere on the entire Earth = premature ejection
This also cannot work unless the Earth was perfectly spherical, any mountains or hills would buckle the crust and again = premature ejection
Read the link for some babble/granite hydroplate ideas, none of which are real or even physically possible
My favorite part: The energy released of this catastrophic event - in just the asteroids which he says come from the Earth - the energy equivalent of 300,000,000,000 atomic bonds exploding from the Earth If even 0.001% of this energy ended up in the Earth’s atmosphere (quite likely) the temperature on Earth would have been raised by 3000 degrees everywhere. His models also keep getting worse, as the 9th edition adds 1,800 trillion 1-megaton hydrogen bombs to the mix
Ironically, the water mixing that is required to make the salt deposits is mentioned by Brown, and if this superhot water even mixes a small amount, the oceans become a boiling cauldron - but hey, at least we get the salt, right?