Evidence of Noah’s Flood: Canyons

(5 Minute Read plus video. 20Apr2022)

Does evidence exist of a worldwide flood?

The Bible vividly underscores Noah’s Flood. The first eleven chapters of Genesis cover the first two millennia of world history, yet four of those chapters, six through nine, describe Noah’s Flood. The report in Genesis describes the Flood as covering the entire earth.

If a flood of water once engulfed the entire globe, surely it would have left evidence of such a disaster. Is there evidence today that a flood once covered the earth?

Canyon Evidence

Which came first, the river or the valley?

Many years ago I spent several days hiking in Cuyahoga Valley National Park south of Cleveland with one of my sons. Cuyahoga is an Indian word meaning crooked, and it aptly describes the river in that valley.

Park signs claimed the valley resulted from millions of years of gradual river erosion. However, I had a completely different opinion regarding the valley’s formation.

Park geologists and I both saw precisely the same facts: a deep broad valley with steep side ravines dwarfing a crooked little river. Yet we had totally different explanations of those facts stemming from radically divergent worldviews.

I thought the valley formed quickly by turbulent run-off from a massive flood — probably Noah’s Flood 4500 years ago. After a flood carved the valley, water draining into the bottom of the valley formed the Cuyahoga River.

The river did not make the valley. The valley came first and caused the river.

This is exactly what happened with the North Fork of the Toutle River in Washington state. When the Mount St. Helens volcano erupted again in 1982, geologists watched a violent mud flow carve an enormous canyon in one day. Shortly thereafter the river formed in the bottom of the new canyon as water drained into it.

The formation of Arizona’s famous Grand Canyon was surely similar. Flood waters or mud flows carved the canyon rapidly.

If canyons resulted from Noah’s Flood, Arizona’s Grand Canyon should not be the only canyon. There should be significant canyons all over America. Is this the case?

It certainly is! There are canyons all over the United States. I myself have personally visited the following 14 impressive canyons throughout the USA that probably resulted from Noah’s Flood:

• Grand Canyon in Arizona
• Zion Canyon in Utah
• Bryce Canyon in Utah
• Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Wyoming
• Bighorn Canyon in Wyoming
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado
• Elevenmile Canyon in Colorado
• Grand Canyon of the East in New York’s Letchworth State Park
• Niagara Gorge in New York and Canada
• Watkins Glen Gorge in New York
• Quechee Gorge in Vermont
• Tallulah Gorge in Georgia
• Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio
• Palo Duro Canyon in Texas

Palo Duro Canyon

In September 2009 I camped in Palo Duro Canyon in west Texas southeast of Amarillo. The rocky vistas of “The Grand Canyon of Texas” took our breath away. It is America’s second largest canyon — 120 miles long, 20 miles wide, 800 feet deep. By comparison, Arizona’s Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, 18 miles wide, 6,000 feet deep.

Official dogma is that the Palo Duro Canyon was formed over millions of years through erosion by the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River. This is a small river flowing through the bottom of the canyon. In many places it is just a tiny stream that you can wade across and in places even easily step across with a single step. I personally stepped across it multiple times during our camping trip visit. Did this tiny river form the huge 20-mile-wide Palo Duro Canyon? No way! Rather, the canyon formed the river.

The canyon likely formed rapidly by turbulent run-off from a massive flood — probably Noah’s Flood 4500 years ago. Floodwaters quickly carved through still-soft, water-deposited sediments to reveal the beautiful layers we see today. After the flood carved the canyon, water collecting in the bottom formed the little river.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming is 24 miles long, up to 1,200 feet deep, and a half-mile wide.

When we camped at Yellowstone National Park in September 2007, it fascinated me that official Yellowstone literature and Yellowstone tour guides said Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon was cut rapidly in weeks or months — probably by floods from melting ice dams at the mouth of Yellowstone Lake and not by the Yellowstone River in the canyon. That’s a huge departure from their previous “millions of years of river erosion” theory that had been so confidently mongered. I think runoff from Noah’s Flood formed the canyon, or possibly post-Flood glacial action formed it as the earth gradually stabilized in the immediately ensuing centuries following the Flood.

Canyons Worldwide

If canyons resulted from the global Flood of Noah, then North America should not be the only continent with canyons. There should be significant canyons all over the world. Is this the case?

It certainly is! There are massive canyons on all continents. Here are some of the most famous canyons of the world outside the USA:

• Copper Canyon in Mexico. It is deeper and longer than Arizona’s Grand Canyon.
• Indus Gorge in the Himalayan Mountains is one of the world’s deepest gorges ranging from 14,800 to 17,100 feet deep.
• Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon in Tibet is one of the world’s deepest canyons reaching 19,714 feet deep and extending for 313 miles.
• Kali Gandaki Gorge in Nepal is the world’s deepest canyon at about 36,000 feet from the top of the adjacent mountains to the bottom of the gorge.
• Fish River Canyon in Namibia. It is Africa’s largest canyon at 100 miles long, 16 miles wide, 600 feet deep.
• Greenland’s Mega Canyon was discovered hidden under a mile of ice in 2013 using radar data from NASA’s Operation IceBridge. It may be the longest canyon in the world at 460 miles long and a half-mile deep.

Here is a short (1:14) NASA video on Greenland’s Mega Canyon:

In Conclusion . . .

As I have camped at many canyons throughout the country, I have marveled at the scenery. I’ve imagined the titanic forces required to carve out immense canyons and to raise rugged mountains.
The mountains rose; the valleys sank down to the place which Thou didst establish for them. (Psalm 104:8)

Some of earth’s most stunning scenery and most striking geographic features resulted from Noah’s Flood — canyons and badlands of highly intricate formations displaying hundreds of layers of sedimentary rock of varied hues. The evidence truly floods the world. What a terrible trauma Noah’s Flood inflicted! What unimaginable upheaval in geology, geography, and weather systems — evident in so many awesome remnants from the Flood as I have personally witnessed at Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, Badlands, Bighorn Canyon, and Roosevelt National Parks.

Canyons are evidence of Noah’s Flood, and they occur worldwide. Evolutionist dogma is that canyons formed over millions of years through erosion by the rivers in the canyon bottoms. Sometimes these rivers are tiny, like the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River in Palo Duro Canyon in Texas.

A more rational alternative to the evolutionist view is that most canyons were formed quickly as a result of Noah’s Flood via rapid erosion by flood waters and mud flows.

Dam breaches show the power of water to rapidly transform a landscape. Canyons were formed by a lot of water over a little amount of time, not by little rivers of water over a long time.

Evolutionists love to pronounce, “The present is the key to the past.” This is exactly backwards. The truth is, “The past is the key to the present.” A Biblically-informed understanding of the past explains the present geological condition of the earth by Noah’s Flood.

Was the Flood a catastrophic worldwide deluge, or was it only local? Your answer profoundly affects Creation/Evolution perspectives and radically impacts your worldview. Only one answer fits the geological evidence. The Biblical worldview rightly identifies these canyon effects with Noah’s Flood and understands the Flood as God’s global judgment on a sin-soaked world.

Questions to Ponder

1. What evolutionist mis-information has leaked into your worldview from recent media input?
2. What impressive canyon have you seen? Can you envision its formation through massive runoff from Noah’s Flood?

Share your thoughts on these questions in the comments below. It could encourage or help another reader.

For Christ and His Kingdom. Soli Deo Gloria. Alere Flammam Veritatis.

This is the 12th in a series of articles on Noah. This Noah Series will suggest answers to many of the questions believers and skeptics have about Noah, Noah’s Ark, and Noah’s Flood.
Read the prequels:
1. Think You Know Noah?
2. Did Jesus Think Noah Was Real?
3. How Long Did It Take Noah to Build the Ark?
4. Could Noah Build the Ark in 75 Years?
5. How Big Was Noah’s Ark?
6. Were Dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?
7. Could Noah Fit All the Animals on the Ark?
8. What Was Noah’s Flood Like?
9. Was Noah’s Flood Global or Local?
10. Life on Noah’s Ark
11. Were Zebras on Noah’s Ark?

Read the sequel:
13. Evidence of Noah’s Flood: Fossils

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©William T. Pelletier, Ph.D.
“contending earnestly for the faith”
“destroying speculations against the knowledge of God”
“for the defense of the gospel”
(Jude 1:3; 2 Cor 10:5; Phil 1:16)
Wednesday April 20, 2022 A.D.

Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. You shall make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish.
(Genesis 6:13-17)

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