Antarctica Puts a Chill on Uniformitarian Geology

The overriding viewpoint for evolutionary geology is uniformitarianism; the present is the key to the past. Geologic processes are observed and measured in the present, and then the assumption is that these rates have been the same throughout geologic history. However, not only do these conflict with biblical creationist models on the age of the earth, but they even contradict the expectations of secular scientists.

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Problems down south. Antarctic ice has been rising and falling at rates that are far too rapid for evolutionary assumptions. Worse for them, the rates are not constant. This is problematic for uniformitarian geology, but not for young earth creationists.

Land is not supposed to rise this fast. Generations of geologists have been trained to think in terms of slow and steady processes to explain Earth features. New results show that the continental crust underlying Antarctica is rising rapidly as parts of its massive ice sheet have been melting away. This unexpected bounce might help better position the timing of similar effects that occurred in northern North America near the close of the Ice Age.

Since 1995, entire ice shelves the size of cities have been falling from the Northern Antarctic Peninsula into the sea. The land below that ice has been moving up to elevations where only ice once lay.

A European team used satellites to track Antarctica's up-and-down motion, publishing their results in Earth and Planetary Science Letters. A Newcastle University press release said, "the land in this region is actually rising at a phenomenal rate of 15mm a year—much greater than can be accounted for by the present-day elastic response alone." The team investigated reasons why it has been rising so quickly.

You can read the rest of this really cool article at "Antarctica Rising: Uplift Rate Suppresses Conventional Geology".