The Amazon basin isn't all a lush tropical forest. In large portions of western Amazonian wet seasonally flooded grasslands - not trees - are the norm. The upper branches of the Amazon River wind themselves across massive flood plains like snakes writhing across a sandy surface. One feature of these nearly featureless flat plains that... Continue Reading →
Imagine a tropic island paradise with beautiful beaches and thousands of plants and birds. Chances are you are imagining an island that formed as the result of volcanic activity. Examples would include the Caribbean islands, the Polynesian islands, and the Hawaiian Islands. But imagine what those islands looked like when they first formed. Rather than... Continue Reading →
Trillions of stone artifacts cover the surface of the African continent. The product of the manufacturing of stone tools by hunters and gathers over long periods of time, these stone artifacts literally carpet the ground in some places in Egypt and Libya. Just how much Stone-Age produced rock could be strewn across the African continent? Trillions and trillions... Continue Reading →
News of evidence that Mars was once host to a volume of water equivalent of the Arctic ocean on Earth has been hitting the newswires. This might sound like new news but this is really just a more comprehensive analysis of work that has been ongoing for several years. Preliminary analysis had already suggested that... Continue Reading →
In November of 2013, over 600 miles south of Tokyo, a volcanic eruption formed a new island. That new island continued to grow for over a year, eventually joining itself to the neighboring island of Nishino-shima, a volcanic island formed long ago. Today, volcanic activity continues to cause this new ocean-island to expand bringing it... Continue Reading →
Diatoms with their symmetrical highly-photogenic glass houses may get most of the attention but the foraminiferans (forams) present some formidable competition. In my recent article (Life in a Glass House) I revealed that the glass-house remains of diatoms are conspicuously absent from the bottom two-thirds of the geological column. This raised a rather uncomfortable question... Continue Reading →
Diatoms are single-celled organisms that live in almost any moist environment. They are found by the millions in a cup of sea water or a puddle in your back yard. They play a critical role in the environment as oxygen producers. But they are best known for their visually stunning homes constructed of glass. I... Continue Reading →
Eleven years into a three-month primary mission the Opportunity rover is still making discoveries on Mars. Talk about exceeding your specs! That is eleven years of observations of rocks, craters, sand dunes, weather conditions and the occasional glance into the skies to do some astronomy. To celebrate its 11th anniversary the rover has just climbed to... Continue Reading →
Evangelical Christianity, broadly defined, has seen a number of science and faith battles over the past 50 years. For most of those years the debate has focused on the age of the earth and the closely – though not universally - associated debate about the extent of Noah’s Flood. Today, the age of the Earth... Continue Reading →
The landscape of science and faith discussions within conservative evangelical Christianity has shifted noticeably over the past 20 years. Vigorous debates over the meaning of the day of creation in Genesis 1 were common in the 1990s, resulting in study committee reports from conservative denominations like the Presbyterian Church in America, “Report of the Creation Study Committee”... Continue Reading →
"Every breaking wave on the shore Tells the next one there'll be one more" Bono and Edge, U2 "Every Breaking Wave" 2014 I was in San Diego a few weeks ago attending the Evangelical Theological Society conference. I will report on that later but today I bring you a few pictures I took before hopping... Continue Reading →
Do you remember the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham back in February? Probably, but if it is becoming a hazy memory then that's a sure sign you aren't visiting the Answers in Genesis website often enough. For if you were, you could not forget. For a month after the debate AIG had a... Continue Reading →
While writing about the origins of the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley I was confronted once again with one of the most striking pieces of evidence for an ancient earth that I am aware of. Take a look at the figure below. This figure shows the smoking gun. Smoking gun evidence of what? That the earth's plates... Continue Reading →
Does fossilization require rapid burial as the result of catastrophic global flooding? Literalist creationists would have us believe so for they point to the fossil record as being proof of a cataclysmic global flood. Look a bit deeper though and you will find that creationists frequently concede there are thousands of exceptions to this general... Continue Reading →
Moab will have yet another dinosaur attraction coming this fall. More than 200 reptilian footprints scattered over an area less than a football field have been uncovered after a resident discovered a few tracks while hiking. Dinosaur tracks are known from dozens of locations in this area but this site is unusual because of the... Continue Reading →
Naturalis Historia 