DNA, Information, and the Signature in the Cell

Where Did We Come From?

Where did we come from? A simple question, but not an easy answer. Darwin addressed this question in his book, On the Origin of Species. Although he never really answered how the universal common ancestor first came to life, he implied that it was from natural causes. In this article, we are going to look at Darwin’s method of deducing occurrences in the past based on observations we see today. This is now referred to as the historical or origins science method. We will find that purely naturalistic causes fall short of explaining what we know about DNA, but intelligent design seems to be a promising alternative. Then we will look at scripture and see how Christians can use these evidences for design to talk about who that designer is. We will be using Stephen Meyer’s new book,Signature in the Cell, to guide us on the science and method of approaching this question.

Charles Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Species discusses his theory on how natural selection acts on living things so that the fittest organisms for a particular environment survive, and how this process eventually leads to novel species and body plans. Implied in his work is the notion that all living things came from nature and from natural causes. So his presupposition is that life must have first come from impersonal things like matter and energy. Because of this, origin-of-life scientists have been trying for years to demonstrate how life may have come from non-life.

Let’s try to figure out how a cell could form from purely naturalistic processes. Better yet, since we now know that natural selection acts on random mutations within the genome, let’s focus in on DNA, the instruction booklet for the cell. Without DNA, cells would not function.

DNA is part of a complex information-processing systems{1} DNA is a long, helical structure found inside the nucleus and mitochondria of the cell. It is made of a four-molecule alphabet arranged in a very specific order. This sequence is like an instruction book telling the cell what parts to use to build a protein. But this instruction book needs to be de-coded with other proteins. The difficult thing is that proteins are needed to make more DNA, but DNA is needed to make proteins. And the cell cannot function without proteins. This means that the first DNA molecule must have been made differently than how it is made today.

DNA is a very complex information processing system. In fact, Bill Gates has compared it to a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.{2} DNA is more than just an improbable sequence of bases; it is functional. It tells the cells what to do. So the question we really need to answer is, how can this kind of information arise in the first place?

Origins and Operations Science

We are investigating what science can tell us about the origin of life. Did we just come out of a chemical soup, or was it something else? First, we need to answer this question: How did DNA, the body’s instruction book, first get here? In order to answer the question, we need to decide what method to use to investigate this question. Since we are looking at the science, we should use the scientific method. However, we need to make a distinction between approaching something that is a re-occurring, testable phenomenon, and a singular event in the past.

As a scientist, I usually work in the area of operations science. This is the type of science we learn in school. You start with a hypothesis, then you conduct an experiment to test your hypothesis. Repeat your experiment several times, collect data, and make conclusions about your hypothesis. Operations science deals with regular, repeatable things that can usually be described by mathematical formulas. Oftentimes, operations science is looking at some kind of naturally occurring process.

But there is another type of science that forensics experts and archeologists use. It is called origins science. Origins science determines what caused a singular event in the past. The role of origins science is to first determine if something was caused by chance, natural laws, or intelligence. For example, one could find a rock formation that looks very similar to a human head. Was this formation caused by chance and natural laws, such as wind and rain wearing away the rock? Or was it caused by intelligence? Did someone carve the rock to look this way?

Origins science operates under a different set of rules than operations science because the event in question has already happened, and it is not a reoccurring, observable phenomenon. The best that we can do is look at clues to give us a reasonable guess as to what might have happened. In Signature in the Cell, Meyer uses origins science to determine if DNA is a result of chance, natural laws, or intelligence:

Thaxton and his colleagues argued that inferring an intelligent cause was legitimate in origins science, because such sciences deal with singular events, and the actions of intelligent agents are usually unique occurrences. On the other hand, they argued that it was not legitimate to invoke intelligent causes in operations science, because such sciences only deal with regular and repeating phenomena. Intelligent agents don’t act in rigidly regular or lawlike ways, and therefore, cannot be described mathematically by laws of nature.{3}

DNA replication happens all of the time, but it requires proteins. But proteins are made by instructions from DNA. So the first DNA molecule must have been made in a special, atypical way, meaning it qualifies as origins science. Origins science allows for singular acts of intelligence to explain certain phenomena.

This means we need to investigate, using origins science, how the first DNA molecule with its information-carrying capacity was produced.

What Are the Possibilities?

DNA is the code for life. If we determine where it came from, then we are one step closer to determining the origin of life. Let’s look at the typical origin of life theories posed by scientists as our first step in our origins science method, and see where theories are lacking or where they are helpful. Two things these theories all have in common is that they presume no designer, but only natural causes, and none of them can explain the origin of information.

The first option is that DNA might have arisen by chance. When scientists talk about chance, they are not saying that some entity called Chance did something. They mean random chemical shuffling, and out of that came DNA. But it’s not good enough to explain how random chemicals came together. Think of scrabble pieces. To say that DNA came about by chance would be similar to saying that someone shook a bag of scrabble pieces and threw them on the floor and it spelled out a sentence. And this would not be just any sentence, but step-by-step instructions on how to build a cellular machine. Chance is not a good explanation for the origin of DNA, because the probability of getting something as specified and complex as DNA is well beyond the accepted probability of zero.

The other option is DNA might have come about because of necessity or natural law. Maybe there is some chemical or natural reason that forced the DNA molecules to form. Two examples of this type of origin of life theory are self-organization and biochemical predestination. The idea behind both of these is that the molecular alphabet in DNA arranged itself because of chemical properties or environmental factors. Unfortunately, scientists have found that the molecules in DNA do not chemically interact with each other because they are stuck to a phosphate backbone, not to each other.{4} On top of that, there isn’t even a chemical attraction between these DNA sequences and the protein parts they code for (known as a codon). Since there is not a self-organizing motivation for this, and there is not an environmental factor that would favor certain combinations over others, necessity seems to fall short of explaining the functional information of DNA.

Some scientists propose that it is a combination of chance and necessity. The most popular origin of life models are based on this theory. However, Stephen Meyer shows in his book that the two most popular models, the RNA-first world and the Oparin model, do not explain how functional information first arose. Ultimately these theories boil down to claiming that random chance causes functional information.

So if all of the naturalistic theories of origin of life fall short, then perhaps we should expand our options to theories that allow for intelligent agents.

What if We Allow Intelligence?

It seems that all of the naturalistic explanations for the origin of life fall short of accounting for the information-rich molecule, DNA. As Meyer points out, apart from DNA and the machinery in cells, such specified information is not found anywhere in the natural world.{5} The only time we see these properties is in human language and writing. So if DNA has the properties of something that was designed, then why not entertain the idea that it was designed?

Today design is not permitted as an explanation in science. However, historically, this has not been the case. In fact, it was a belief in an intelligible and coherent world created by God that motivated early scientists such as Newton, Boyle, and Pascal.{6} However, after the Enlightenment (mid-1700s), many scientists started operating under different assumptions. They assumed that only natural causes, such as chance and necessity, are permitted to explain observations.

Flash forward to Charles Darwin’s time (1860s). Darwin looked at presently acting conditions to extrapolate back to the origin of all living things. He saw that environmental factors select for certain traits, such as beaks on finches. And he saw that things like dog breeding will select for certain desired traits. He therefore concluded that maybe the various animals and body plans came from conditions similar to this. He named this selective force, this breeder, natural selection. This was based on what Darwin knew in the 1850s, and some assumptions about intelligent causes influenced by Enlightenment thinking. At that time Darwin knew nothing about DNA. It would not be discovered until the 1950s.

Stephen Meyer discusses how presently there are no known natural causes for the kind of functional information we see in DNA. The only place we see this is in human language and writing. So perhaps we cannot assume natural causes. Maybe DNA arose by intelligent design. Furthermore, experimental efforts to try to produce DNA or RNA in the lab show that a chemist or a computer programmer must be involved in the experiment in order to obtain functional information. Natural selection cannot act as a breeder, because it does not have the end goal in mind.

Intelligent Design is a strong possibility for explaining the origin of DNA. It is something that we see in operation today. And it is experimentally justified.

What Does This Have to Do with Christianity?

We have been looking at the properties of DNA and how it has all of the characteristics of a written code. Using the methods of origins science that Stephen Meyer used in Signature in the Cell, we can conclude that intelligent design is the best explanation for the origin of DNA. Intelligence is causally adequate to produce a code like DNA. It is observable, in the sense that today intelligent agents produce codes. And any experiments that try to reproduce DNA seem to require the input of information by an intelligent agent to make anything meaningful. This is why Meyer calls DNA the signature in the cell. However, the science alone cannot tell us whose signature it is, so we need to look elsewhere for that. That’s where Christianity comes in.

As Christians we believe that God reveals himself through general and special revelation. General revelation is God revealing things about himself in nature. Think of it like God’s fingerprints on creation. Special revelation is what God has specifically revealed in the Bible. If we want to find out whose signature is in the cell, we need special revelation to inform us on that. And the Bible says this much. Right before Paul says that creation reveals the attributes of God in Romans 1:18-20, he says it is the gospel that brings salvation in verses 16 and 17.

From the science it is reasonable to say DNA first arose by intelligent design. DNA is one of many extra-Biblical clues pointing us to a designer. This evidence, taken with many other extra-biblical evidences such as the fine-tuning of the universe for life, the moral law on our hearts, and even the way that we know gravity works the same today as it did yesterday, makes one suspicious that there must be a designer. Now take the evidences for the authority of Scripture from archeology and the Bible’s internal structure and consistency and we have many reasons to believe that this designer is the God of the Bible. As Paul says in Romans 1, “His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (v. 20). So, even though the science will not bring someone to a saving knowledge of Christ, they are without excuse because it does reveal God’s attributes. Maybe when someone sees the Signature in the Cell, they will ask, whose signature is it?

Notes

1. “After the early 1960s advances in the field of molecular biology made clear that the digital information in DNA was only part of a complex information-processing system, an advanced form of nanotechnology that mirrors and exceeds our own in its complexity, storage density, and logic of design.” Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell (HarperOne, 2009), 14.

2. Bill Gates, The Road Ahead (Viking, 1995), 188; quoted in Meyer, Signature, 12.

3. Meyer, Signature, 29.

4. The only time the nucleotides in DNA interact with each other is when they are paired, A-T, C-G, and they do this through hydrogen bonding. However, this pairing is with nucleotides across from each other and serves to protect the DNA molecule. The coding has to do with the sequence of bases next to each other, and there is no chemical reason for one nucleotide to “prefer” being next to another.

5. “Apart from the molecules comprising the gene-expression system and machinery of the cell, sequences of structures exhibiting such specified complexity or specified information are not found anywhere in the natural—that is, the nonhuman—world.” Meyer, Signature, 110.

6. In the radio transcript, I included James Maxwell in this list. While he is among scientists whose belief in God did influence his work, he lived from 1831-1879 which was after the beginning of the Enlightenment. I chose to take his name out here for clarity, although he is a good example of someone who did not hold to the typical presuppositions of the Enlightenment.

© 2010 Probe Ministries

By

Heather Zeiger is a former Research Associate with Probe. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Texas at Dallas with a B.S. in chemistry and a minor in government and politics. She received her M.S. in chemistry, also from UTD; her research was in organic synthesis and materials. She is currently working part-time on a M.A. in bioethics from Trinity International University while teaching and tutoring SAT prep classes. She is a regular contributor to Evolution News and Views and works with the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. Her interests include science and culture issues, running, art and literature, and working with teens. She is married to David, another former Probe intern and teacher at Trinity Christian Academy. Heather can be contacted at hkzeiger@sbcglobal.net.

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Startling Evidence for Noah’s Flood

Footprints and sand ‘dunes’ in a Grand Canyon sandstone!

by Andrew A. Snelling and  Steven A. Austin

“There is no sight on earth which matches Grand Canyon. There are other canyons, other mountains and other rivers, but this Canyon excels all in scenic grandeur. Can any visitor, upon viewing Grand Canyon, grasp and appreciate the spectacle spread before him? The ornate sculpture work and the wealth of color are like no other landscape. They suggest an alien world. The scale is too outrageous. The sheer size and majesty engulf the intruder, surpassing his ability to take it in.”1

wikimedia commons

Figure 1. A panoramic view of the Grand Canyon from the South Rim at Yavapai Point. The Coconino Sandstone is the thick buff-coloured layer close to the top of the canyon walls. Compare with Figure 2. 

Click for larger view.

Figure 2. Grand Canyon in cross-section showing the names given to the different rock units by geologists. Click for larger view.

Anyone who has stood on the rim and looked down into Grand Canyon would readily echo these words as one’s breath is taken away with the sheer magnitude of the spectacle. The Canyon stretches for 446 km (277 miles) through northern Arizona, attains a depth of more than 1.6 km (1 mile), and ranges from 6.4 km (4 miles) to 29 km (18 miles) in width. In the walls of the Canyon can be seen flat-lying rock layers that were once sand, mud or lime. Now hardened, they look like pages of a giant book as they stretch uniformly right through the Canyon and underneath the plateau country to the north and south and deeper to the east.

The Coconino Sandstone

To begin to comprehend the awesome scale of these rock layers, we can choose any one for detailed examination. Perhaps the easiest of these rock layers to spot, since it readily catches the eye, is a thick, pale buff coloured to almost white sandstone near the top of the Canyon walls. Geologists have given the different rock layers names, and this one is called the Coconino Sandstone (see Figures 1 and 2). It is estimated to have an average thickness of 96 m (315 ft) and, with equivalent sandstones to the east, covers an area of about 519,000 sq km (200,000 sq miles).2 That is an area more than twice the size of the Australian State of Victoria, or almost twice the area of the US State of Colorado! Thus the volume of this sandstone is conservatively estimated at 41,700 cu km (10,000 cu miles). That’s a lot of sand!

What do these rock layers in Grand Canyon mean? What do they tell us about the earth’s past? For example, how did all the sand in this Coconino Sandstone layer and its equivalents get to where it is today?

To answer these questions geologists study the features within rock layers like the Coconino Sandstone, and even the sand grains themselves. An easily noticed feature of the Coconino Sandstone is the distinct cross layers of sand within it called cross beds (see Figure 3).

For many years evolutionary geologists have interpreted these cross beds by comparing them with currently forming sand deposits — the sand dunes in deserts which are dominated by sand grains made up of the mineral quartz, and which have inclined internal sand beds. Thus it has been proposed that the Coconino Sandstone accumulated over thousands and thousands of years in an immense windy desert by migrating sand dunes, the cross beds forming on the down-wind sides of the dunes as sand was deposited there.3

Andrew Snelling

Figure 3. Cross beds (inclined sub-layering) within the Coconino Sandstone, as seen on the Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon. Click for larger view.

The Coconino Sandstone is also noted for the large number of fossilized footprints, usually in sequences called trackways. These appear to have been made by four-footed vertebrates moving across the original sand surfaces (see Figure 4). These fossil footprint trackways were compared to the tracks made by reptiles on desert sand dunes,4 so it was then assumed that these fossilized footprints in the Coconino Sandstone must have been made in dry desert sands which were then covered up by wind-blown sand, subsequent cementation forming the sandstone and fossilizing the prints.

Yet another feature that evolutionary geologists have used to argue that the Coconino Sandstone represents the remains of a long period of dry desert conditions is the sand grains themselves. Geologists have studied the sand grains from modern desert dunes and under the microscope they often show pitted or frosted surfaces. Similar grain surface textures have also been observed in sandstone layers containing very thick cross beds such as the Coconino Sandstone, so again this comparison has strengthened the belief that the Coconino Sandstone was deposited as dunes in a desert.

At first glance this interpretation would appear to be an embarrassment to Bible-believing geologists who are unanimous in their belief that it must have been Noah’s Flood that deposited the flat lying beds of what were once sand, mud and lime, but are now exposed as the rock layers in the walls of the Canyon.

Above the Coconino Sandstone is the Toroweap Formation and below is the Hermit Formation, both of which geologists agree are made up of sediments that were either deposited by and/or in water.5,6 How could there have been a period of dry desert conditions in the middle of the Flood year when ‘all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered’ (Genesis 7:19) by water?

This seeming problem has certainly not been lost on those, even from within the Christian community, opposed to Flood geologists and creationists in general. For example, Dr Davis Young, Professor of Geology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in a recent book being marketed in Christian bookshops, has merely echoed the interpretations made by evolutionary geologists of the characteristics of the Coconino Sandstone, arguing against the Flood as being the agent for depositing the Coconino Sandstone. He is most definite in his consideration of the desert dune model:

‘The Coconino Sandstone contains spectacular cross bedding, vertebrate track fossils, and pitted and frosted sand grain surfaces. All these features are consistent with formation of the Coconino as desert sand dunes. The sandstone is composed almost entirely of quartz grains, and pure quartz sand does not form in floods … no flood of any size could have produced such deposits of sand …’7

Those footprints

Figure 4: A fossilized quadruped trackway in the Coconino Sandstone on display in the Grand Canyon Natural History Association’s Yavapai Point Museum at the South Rim.

The footprint trackways in the Coconino Sandstone have recently been re-examined in the light of experimental studies by Dr Leonard Brand of Loma Linda University in California.8 His research program involved careful surveying and detailed measurements of 82 fossilized vertebrate trackways discovered in the Coconino Sandstone along the Hermit Trail in Grand Canyon. He then observed and measured 236 experimental trackways made by living amphibians and reptiles in experimental chambers. These tracks were formed on sand beneath the water, on moist sand at the water’s edge, and on dry sand, the sand mostly sloping at an angle of 25 degrees, although some observations were made on slopes of 15deg; and 20° for comparison. Observations were also made of the underwater locomotion of five species of salamanders (amphibians) both in the laboratory and in their natural habitat, and measurements were again taken of their trackways.

A detailed statistical analysis of these data led to the conclusion, with a high degree of probability that the fossil tracks must have been made underwater. Whereas the experimental animals produce footprints under all test conditions, both up and down the 25° slopes of the laboratory ‘dunes’, all but one of the fossil trackways could only have been made by the animals in question climbing uphill. Toe imprints were generally distinct, whereas the prints of the soles were indistinct. These and other details were present in over 80% of the fossil, underwater and wet sand tracks, but less than 12% of the dry sand and damp sand tracks had any toe marks. Dry sand uphill tracks were usually just depressions, with no details. Wet sand tracks were quite different from the fossil tracks in certain features. Added to this, the observations of the locomotive behaviour of the living salamanders indicated that all spent the majority of their locomotion time walking on the bottom, underwater, rather than swimming.

Putting together all of his observations, Dr Brand thus came to the conclusion that the configurations and characteristics of the animals trackways made on the submerged sand surfaces most closely resembled the fossilized quadruped trackways of the Coconino Sandstone. Indeed, when the locomotion behaviour of the living amphibians is taken into account, the fossilized trackways can be interpreted as implying that the animals must have been entirely under water (not swimming at the surface) and moving upslope (against the current) in an attempt to get out of the water. This interpretation fits with the concept of a global Flood, which overwhelmed even four-footed reptiles and amphibians that normally spend most of their time in the water.

Not content with these initial studies, Dr Brand has continued (with the help of a colleague) to pursue this line of research. He published further results,9 which were so significant that a brief report of their work appeared in Science News10 and Geology Today.11 

Furthermore, these tracks often show that the animals were moving in one direction while their feet were pointing in a different direction.

His careful analysis of the fossilized trackways in the Coconino Sandstone, this time not only from the Hermit Trail in Grand Canyon but from other trails and locations, again revealed that all but one had to have been made by animals moving up cross bed slopes. Furthermore, these tracks often show that the animals were moving in one direction while their feet were pointing in a different direction. It would appear that the animals were walking in a current of water, not air. Other trackways start or stop abruptly, with no sign that the animals’ missing tracks were covered by some disturbance such as shifting sediments. It appears that these animals simply swam away from the sediment.

Because many of the tracks have characteristics that are ‘just about impossible’ to explain unless the animals were moving underwater, Dr Brand suggested that newt-like animals made the tracks while walking under water and being pushed by a current. To test his ideas, he and his colleague videotaped living newts walking through a laboratory tank with running water. All 238 trackways made by the newts had features similar to the fossilized trackways in the Coconino Sandstone, and their videotaped behaviour while making the trackways thus indicated how the animals that made the fossilized trackways might have been moving.

These additional studies confirmed the conclusions of his earlier researches. Thus, Dr Brand concluded that all his data suggest that the Coconino Sandstone fossil tracks should not be used as evidence for desert wind deposition of dry sand to form the Coconino Sandstone, but rather point to underwater deposition. These evidence from such careful experimental studies by a Flood geologist overturn the original interpretation by evolutionists of these Coconino Sandstone fossil footprints, and thus call into question their use by Young and others as an argument against the Flood. 

Desert ‘dunes’?

The desert sand dune model for the origin of the Coconino Sandstone has also recently been challenged by Glen Visher12, Professor of Geology at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, and not a creationist geologist. Visher noted that large storms, or amplified tides, today produce submarine sand dunes called ‘sand waves’. These modern sand waves on the sea floor contain large cross beds composed of sand with very high quartz purity. Visher has thus interpreted the Coconino Sandstone as a submarine sand wave deposit accumulated by water, not wind. This of course is directly contrary to Young’s claims, which after all are just the repeated opinions of other evolutionary geologists.

The desert sand dune model for the origin of the Coconino Sandstone has also recently been challenged.

Furthermore, there is other evidence that casts grave doubts on the view that the Coconino Sandstone cross beds formed in desert dunes. The average angle of slope of the Coconino cross beds is about 25° from the horizontal, less than the average angle of slope of sand beds within most modern desert sand dunes. Those sand beds slope at an angle of more than 25°, with some beds inclined as much as 30° to 34°, the angle of ‘rest’ of dry sand. On the other hand, modern oceanic sand waves do not have ‘avalanche’ faces of sand as common as desert dunes, and therefore, have lower average dips of cross beds.

Visher also points to other positive evidence for accumulation of the Coconino Sandstone in water. Within the Coconino Sandstone is a feature known technically as ‘parting lineation’, which is known to be commonly formed on sand surfaces during brief erosional bursts beneath fast-flowing water. It is not known from any desert sand dunes. Thus Visher also uses this feature as evidence of vigorous water currents accumulating the sand, which forms the Coconino Sandstone.

Similarly, Visher has noted that the different grain sizes of sand within any sandstone are a reflection of the process that deposited the sand. Consequently, he performed sand grain size analyses of the Coconino Sandstone and modern sand waves, and found that the Coconino Sandstone does not compare as favourably to dune sands from modern deserts.

He found that not only is the pitting not diagnostic of the last Process to have deposited the sand grains (pitting can, for example, form first by wind impacts, followed by redeposition by water), but pitting and frosting of sand grains can form outside a desert environment.13 For example, geologists have described how pitting on the surface of sand grains can form by chemical processes during the cementation of sand.

Sand wave deposition

A considerable body of evidence is now available which indicates that the Coconino Sandstone was deposited by the ocean, and not by desert accumulation of sand dunes as emphatically maintained by most evolutionary geologists, including Christians like Davis Young. The cross beds within the Coconino Sandstone (that is, the inclined beds of sand within the overall horizontal layer of sandstone) are excellent evidence that ocean currents moved the sand rapidly as dune-like mounds called sand waves.14

Figure 5. Schematic diagram showing the formation of cross beds during sand deposition by migration of underwater sand waves due to sustained water flow.

Figure 5 shows the way sand waves have been observed to produce cross beds in layers of sand. The water current moves over the sand surface building up mounds of sand. The current erodes sand from the ‘up-current’ side of the sand wave and deposits it as inclined layers on the ‘down-current’ side of the sand wave. Thus the sand wave moves in the direction of current flow as the inclined strata continue to be deposited on the down-current side of the sand wave. Continued erosion of sand by the current removes both the up-current side and top of the sand wave, the only part usually preserved being just the lower half of the down-current side. Thus the height of the cross beds preserved is just a fraction of the original sand wave height. Continued transportation of further sand will result in repeated layers containing inclined cross beds. These will be stacked up on each other.

Sand waves have been observed on certain parts of the ocean floor and in rivers, and have been produced in laboratory studies. Consequently, it has been demonstrated that the sand wave height is related to the water depth.15 As the water depth increases so does the height of the sand waves which are produced. The heights of the sand waves are approximately one-fifth of the water depth. Similarly, the velocities of the water currents that produce sand waves have been determined.

Thus we have the means to calculate both the depth and velocity of the water responsible for transporting as sand waves the sand that now makes up the cross beds of the Coconino Sandstone. The thickest sets of cross beds in the Coconino Sandstone so far reported are 9 m (30 ft) thick.16 Cross beds of that height imply sand waves at least 18 m (60 ft) high and a water depth of around 90 m to 95 m (300 ft). For water that deep to make and move sand waves as high as 18 m (60 ft) the minimum current velocity would need to be over 95 cm per second (3 ft per second) or 3.2 km (2 miles) per hour. The maximum current velocity would have been almost 165 cm or 1.65 m per second (5.5 ft per second) or 6 km (3.75 miles) per hour. Beyond that velocity experimental and observational evidence has shown that flat sand beds only would be formed.

Now to have transported in such deep water the volume of sand that now makes up the Coconino Sandstone these current velocities would have to have been sustained in the one direction perhaps for days. Modern tides and normal ocean currents do not have these velocities in the open ocean, although deep-sea currents have been reported to attain velocities of between 50 cm and 250 cm (19 in to 8.2 ft) per second through geographical restrictions. Thus catastrophic events provide the only mechanism, which can produce high velocity ocean currents over a wide area.

Sand waves have been observed on certain parts of the ocean floor and in rivers.

Hurricanes (or cyclones in the southern hemisphere) are thought to make modern sand waves of smaller size than those that have produced the cross beds in the Coconino Sandstone, but no measurements of hurricane driven currents approaching these velocities in deep water have been reported. The most severe modern ocean currents known have been generated during a tsunami or ‘tidal wave’. In shallow oceans tsunami-induced currents have been reported on occasion to exceed 500 cm (16 ft) per second, and currents moving in the one direction have been sustained for hours.19 Such an event would be able to move large quantities of sand and, in its waning stages, build huge sand waves in deep water. Consequently, a tsunami provides the best modern analogy for understanding how large-scale cross beds such as those in the Coconino Sandstone could form.

Noah’s Flood?

We can thus imagine how the Flood would deposit the Coconino Sandstone (and its equivalents), which covers an area of 518,000 sq km (200,000 sq miles averages 96 m (315 ft) thick, and contains a volume of sand conservatively estimated at 41,700 cubic km (10,000 cubic miles). But where could such an enormous quantity of sand come from? Cross beds within the Coconino dip consistently toward the south, indicating that the sand came from the north. However, along its northern occurrence, the Coconino rests directly on the Hermit Formation, which consists of siltstone and shale and so would not have been an ample source of sand of the type now found in the Coconino Sandstone. Consequently, this enormous volume of sand would have to have been transported a considerable distance, perhaps at least 320 km to 480 km (200 or 300 miles). At the current velocities envisaged sand could be transported that distance in a matter of a few days!

Thus the evidence within the Coconino Sandstone does not support the evolutionary geologists interpretation of slow and gradual deposition of sand in a desert environment with dunes being climbed by wandering four-footed vertebrates. On the contrary, a careful examination of the evidence, backed up by experiments and observations of processes operating today indicates catastrophic deposition of the sand by deep fast-moving water in a matter of days, totally consistent with conditions envisaged during the Flood.

Related Articles

• The origin of the Grand Canyon
• How old is Grand Canyon?
• Flood geology vs secular catastrophism
• Tsunami tragedy
• The Flood—a designed catastrophe?
• Controversy over the uniformitarian age of Grand Canyon
• Evidence of Noah’s Flood from Mexico
• Do rivers erode through mountains?
• Grand Canyon
• Grand Canyon limestone—fast or slow deposits?
• How did the waters of Noah’s Flood drain off the continents?
• Is Genesis History?
• The Grand Canyon in the thralls of shallow, doctrinaire uniformitarianism
• Geological field trips

Further Reading

• Geology Questions and Answers
• Grand Canyon strata show geologic time is imaginary
• Horse Shoe Bend, Arizona
• A gorge in three days!
• A canyon in six days!
• Canyon creation

References and notes

1. Morris, J.D., Cumming, K.B. and Ham, K.A., in press. The grandest of canyons. In: Grand Canyon — Monument to Catastrophe, S.A. Austin (ed.), Institute for Creation Research, San Diego, chapter 1, p. 1. Return to text.
2. Baars, D.L., 1962. Permian System of the Colorado Plateau. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, vol. 46, pp. 200–201. Return to text.
3. Middleton, L.T., Elliott, D.K. and Morales, M., 1990. Coconino Sandstone. In: Grand Canyon Geology, S.S. Beus and M. Morales (eds), Oxford University Press, New York, and Museum of Northern Arizona Press, chapter 10, pp. 183–202. Return to text.
4. McKee, E.D., 1947. Experiments on the development of tracks in fine cross-bedded sand. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, vol. 17, pp. 23–28. Return to text.
5. Blakey, R.C., 1990. Supai Group and Hermit Formation. In: Grand Canyon Geology, S.S. Beus and M. Morales (eds), Oxford University Press, New York, and Museum of Northern Arizona Press, chapter 9, pp. 147–202. Return to text.
6. Turner, C.E., 1990. Toroweap Formation. In: Grand Canyon Geology, S.S. Beus and M. Morales (eds), Oxford University Press, New York, and Museum of Northern Arizona Press, chapter 11, pp. 203–223. Return to text.
7. Young, D.A., 1990. The discovery of terrestrial history. In: Portraits of Creation, H.J. Van Till, R.E. Shaw, J.H. Stek and D.A. Young (eds), William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, chapter 3, pp. 80–81.
8. Brand, L.R., 1979. Field and laboratory studies on the Coconino Sandstone `(Permian) vertebrate footprints and their paleoecological implications. Palaeogreography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, vol. 28, pp. 25–38. Return to text.
9. Brand, L.R. and Tang, T., 1991. Fossil vertebrate footprints in the Coconino Sandstone (Permian) of northern Arizona: Evidence for underwater origin. Geology, vol. 19,pp. 1201–1204. Return to text.
10. Monastersky, R., 1992. Wading newts may explain enigmatic tracks. Science News, vol. 141 (1), p. 5. Return to text.
11. Geology Today, vol. 8(3), May–June 1992, pp, 78–79 (Wet tracks). Return to text.
12. Visher, G.S., 1990. Exploration Stratigraphy, 2nd edition, Penn Well Publishing Co., Tulsa, Oklahoma, pp. 211–213. Return to text.
13. Kuenen, P.H. and Perdok, W.G., 1962. Experimental abrasion—frosting and defrosting of quartz grains. Journal of Geology, vol. 70, pp. 648–658. Return to text.
14. Amos, C.L. and King, E.L., 1984. Bedforms of the Canadian eastern seaboard: a comparison with global occurrences. Marine Geology, vol. 57, pp. 167–208.
15. Allen, J.R.L., 1970. Physical Processes Sedimentation, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London, p. 78. Return to text.
16. Beus, S.S., 1979. Trail log third day: South Kaibab Trail, Grand Canyon, Arizona. In: Carboniferous Stratigraphy in the Grand Canyon Country, Northern Arizona and Southern Nevada, S.S. Beus and R.R. Rawson (eds), American Geological Institute, Falls Church, Virginia, p. 16. Return to text.
17. Lonsdale, P. and Malfait, B., 1974. Abyssal dunes of foraminiferal sand on the Carnegie Ridge. Geological Society of America Bulletin, vol. 85, pp. 1697–1712. Return to text.
18. Rubin, D.N. and McCulloch, D.S., 1980. Single and superimposed bedforms: a synthesis of San Francisco Bay and flume observations. Sedimentary Geology, vol. 26, pp. 207–23 1. Return to text.
19. Coleman, P.J., 1978. Tsunami sedimentation. In: The Encyclopedia of Sedimentology, R.W. Fairbridge and J. Bourgeois (eds), Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, pp. 828–831. Return to text.

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