Creation Science Articles

While the Flood Rages, Termites Dig, Dinosaurs Dance and Cicadas Sing

This is a modification and compilation of 3 posts on TheologyWeb in March 2004:

No, this isn't about termites eating the ark, although that is quite a problem. I do know where the termites were during the flood. They were busy eating and being eaten by predators. They were living their lives as if a global flood wasn't happening. Amazing, I know.

Here is a picture of a termite nest given to me today by a friend. This nest is in the Salt Wash Member of Morrison Formation of Utah. Termites dig down to the water level so that they can drink. One can see that they went through the entire sandstone into the shale below, which is shadowed by the overhanging sandstone ledge.

and even more interesting is a photo from a book which this friend had. It shows a termite nest, and the digging done by an insectivore trying to get into the nest to eat the little white critters. The pattern seen below looks just like what we find today when insectivores dig to get to termites.

This dinner attempt took place in the Oligocene.

Where the A is, is where the mammal tried digging into the nest. The T marks the termite nest. And all this was going on during the raging global flood which was supposedly dumping 50-100 feet of sediment each day on top of these hapless animals who didn't know that, and who continued digging even when under 100 feet of sediment!!!!! Believing the global flood stuff is simply illogical.

While the flood was supposedly raging, the termites, as I said, were blithely digging their tunnels and going about their business, apparently unaware that there was such a global catastrophe going on. But then so were the dinosaurs. Above the termite mounds were some dinosaur tracks. My friend gave me some pictures showing one of them.

There is much more to the tale of the biological activit nest in the Salt Wash member of the Morrison Formation. In addition to the dinosaur tracks on top of them and below them, there are cicada burrows as well. And since cicadas take 13 years to fulfill their life cycle, it is difficult to see how this could fit into a global flood.! Here is a picture of the top of a cicada burrow. The blue arrow and half dollar show its location:

Here is what the very straight, vertical cicada burrows look like:

One also finds channels in this same formation, the Morrison formation. The formation of river channels takes time and they can not form in the turbulence which would have been associated with the flood. Channels are the result of confined water flow, not global inundation. For more info on this see http://home.entouch.net/dmd/rivchan.htm

This is a picture taken from a distance of a channel sand coming out of the mountain side. The picture was taken just over the border into Colorado. Note that the green line marks the base of the channel. the flow of the channel is towards the camera.

Now, the next picture is a closeup of the channel. Note the man standing to the right side of the picture.

The interesting thing is that sand is being deposited ONLY in the channel at the level where the channel is. This is not easily explainable during a global flood.

There is one more thing which is observed in the Morrison formation of Utah/Colorado, which is also observed in Africa along rivers. When hippos and/or elephants walk along an area near a river, they pack the dirt down due to their heavy weight. Then when a flood occurs in the area, the low area is filled with sand. That is what is seen in this area where the termite nest is found. These biways are the low spots which filled with sand after herds of dinosaurs walked over the area for years. The wide area the men are walking on is one of those dinosaur biways.

Features like these, termite nests, dinosaur tracks, cicada burrows and channels are not easily explainable by the YECs. They don't show their followers this type of data, and they have not explained it. Such photos do not make it into the YEC literature, which shows the intellectual dishonesty of the YEC leaders. Honesty demands that data like this be shown and explained. But sadly it isn't.

Did you know that you can be a Christian, and believe that the earth is billions of years old? The author of this article, Glenn Morton, made the transition from young earth creationism to old earth creationism. To learn more about old earth creationism, see Old Earth Belief, or check out the article Can You Be A Christian and Believe in an Old Earth?