When you are a Christian young-earth creationist taking geology class for the first time, it is pertinent to be prepared with good fact. Or should I say, good theory.

That is what I learned when I began debating my geology professor about the Genesis Flood and the age of the earth. Since it is an online class, talking about minority views is much easier, since you don’t have to fumble with words and feel all your classmates snickering behind you for believing “myths.” And fortunately, my professor is wondrously polite and thorough in her written responses, so it was actually enjoyable to discuss with her.

She and I went back and forth giving evidence and counter-evidence, and I truly learned a lot from her insights as a professional geologist as she helped me understand the science more. She valiantly defended the old-age geologic view against each of the points I brought up — all points, that is, except one: the hydroplate theory of the Genesis Flood and its explanation of radioactivity.

I was extremely curious as to what she, as a real-life geologist, would say about this theory, but she just wrote that she did not know enough about the theory to discuss it. Hmmm, interesting. I had described the theory in great detail to her, giving point-by-point evidence for each of its tenets. Apparently having a PhD in an earth science wasn’t enough to counter this theory — maybe she didn’t have an answer.

Her silence gave me great encouragement that creation science can withstand its critics in the scientific arena. The critical factor about this flood theory is that it has compelling scientific evidence, not just the easy appeal to miracle that skeptics charge creationists with. To examine this theory for yourself, check it out below. It’s the basic outline (with minor editing) I had sent my professor (By the way, the mind behind the theory, Walt Brown, had discussed his theory and relevant evidences with his professor and friend, Robert S. Dietz, one of geology’s greats. So Brown had his ideas thoroughly tested):

Dr. Walt Brown, an MIT mechanical engineer, originated the hydroplate theory to explain the flood. His theory solves many earth mysteries, including radioactivity, which is the basis for long-age dating. (“The Hydroplate Theory: An Overview” and “The Origin of Earth’s Radioactivity” www.creationscience.com/onlinebook):

1. The preflood earth contained water chambers 10 miles below earth’s surface. Half of today’s water was in these chambers. This highly-compressed, “super-critical” water could dissolve many minerals like salt, limestone, quartz, etc. The crust atop these chambers was granite, while the crust below was basalt. Heavier portions of the overlying crust weighed down and caused some of the top crust to “flow” downward into pillars on the chamber floor (rock below 5 miles flows like stiff putty).

Evidence: Some of this water has been detected 10 miles under the Tibetan Plateau, (In the Beginning, p. 125).

Evidence: Remnants of this super-critical water are jetted by the black smokers on today’s ocean floors. Smokers are super-heated and contain many dissolved minerals.

2. The waters burst to the surface. As tides from the moon acted on this huge underground ocean, the pressure inside grew like a stretching balloon. It grew so great until a crack burst at earth’s surface, where it ripped explosively through the crust to the chambers and circled the entire earth within 2 hours.

Evidence: The path of this crack is the globe-encircling Mid-Oceanic Ridge. This crack must have begun near Alaska, because the Mid-Oceanic Ridge intersects itself in the Indian Ocean, which is opposite Alaska. Basically, the two ends of the crack circled the globe and then met each other and stopped in the Indian. This V-pattern intersection of two cracks can be seen and tested at a smaller scale.

3. Water jetted supersonically out of the crack, even reaching space. As this water left the chambers, the chamber pillars and the overlying granite crust experienced extreme pressure as they were forced to carry the weight that the water had been carrying. Since the overlying granite crust had a huge area (whole earth) compared to its width (10 miles), the crust “fluttered” like a horizontal flag in a strong wind. Each fluttering wave put the crust through compression-tension cycles.

Evidence: A small example of rock “flutter” happens when an earthquake undulates the ground.

4. This compression caused major electric shocks like lightning to pass throughout the granite crust and chamber pillars. Quartz, a major component of granite, has a unique piezoelectric effect, whereby a little compression of the quartz can produce much electricity. Vast volumes of this electricity shot through the crust repeatedly for many weeks as the waters jetted out.

Evidence: Earthquakes like the New Madrid Quake have produced thousands of cases of electrical activity like eruptions of fire or lightning-like phenomena near the ground and in the air.

5. High voltages created radioactivity. Electricity squeezed atoms together, briefly combining them into superheavy elements that then decayed into all our observed radioactive elements. Vast voltages produced elements like uranium and billions-of-years-worth of radioactive decay by nuclear fusion and fission.

Evidence: In experiments (1999) by Dr. Fritz Bosch, rhenium atoms were stripped of all their electrons (highly electricized), reducing its half-life (time for half of a parent to decay into a daughter) from 42 billion years to 33 years!

Evidence: Inventions like the Van de Graaff generator use huge voltages to reduce radioactive waste by accelerating nuclear decay. The Van de Graaff uses 50,000-500,000 volts for 30 minutes to increase alpha, beta, and gamma decay.

Evidence: Since 2000, the Proton-21 Electrodynamics Research Laboratory in Ukraine has conducted thousands of experiments that have created every element and isotope in earth’s crust through brief currents of 50,000 volts. By concentrating electricity in a microscopic area according to the z-pinch force, temperatures in the area exceeded those found in supernovas. The percentage of elements produced matches the percentages of elements in earth’s crust. What resulted: Beta and alpha particles, which are released during radioactive decay, and superheavy elements (12 times heavier than uranium) that decayed into other elements.

6. Radioactive decay was greatest in the water chamber pillars since compressive pressure and electrical shocks were strongest there at the bottom where weight was greatest. These pillars were swept by the current and blasted into space as comets, meteors, and asteroids. That’s why meteorites have the oldest radiometric ages.

Evidence: Scientists have puzzled over the presence of “chondrules” in meteorites. These tiny BB-sized spheres are found in 86% of meteorites. According to their composition, chondrules were once molten at 3,000° F, without melting the surrounding rock, which has a lower melting temperature! How can tiny spheres be heated to 3,000° F in outer space’s extreme cold? The hydroplate theory explains that these meteorites were once part of the pillars, thus experiencing the hottest temperatures from electrical shocks. Each electrical current concentrated itself into microscopic points through z-pinches as seen in experiments like those in Proton-21, creating chondrules.

Thus, radioactivity was formed. Other events in the flood: As the jetting fountains eroded the global crack hundreds of miles and exposed the chamber floor, the chamber floor at the Atlantic was released from pressure and thus rose upward to fill the void. The Atlantic Ridge rose, followed by other parts of the future Mid-Oceanic Ridge. As the Atlantic Ridge rose, rock within the earth successively buckled toward the Atlantic (to fill the void) all through earth’s interior (melting large portions of it), eventually buckling down (subsiding) the opposite side of the earth, the Pacific Ocean, and creating trenches (most are concentrated opposite of the Atlantic’s center).

The plates on each side of the Atlantic Ridge were now on an uphill slope and began to “slide” on the lubricating water under them, moving the once-connected continents to their present positions. Once the water below ran out, the continents ground to a massive halt that compressed the continents and pushed up major mountain chains. As mountains and continents rose, the waters receded to their present positions. Incidentally, the Rocky Mountains and Appalachians are aligned parallel to the Atlantic, since they were pushed up perpendicularly from the movement of the American plate away from the Atlantic. The continent was like a rug pushed up against a wall; the folds are perpendicular to the motion.

Since continents were pushed up, they were higher than today’s continents. The oceans were lower and warmer than today’s oceans, since much lava had been released on their floors (after all, the Pacific plate [boundary Ring of Fire] just buckled downward towards the Atlantic, so much volcanic activity was started there). These higher, colder continents and warmer oceans were the key to creating an Ice Age. An ice age requires the contradicting conditions of cold continents and warm oceans, since that’s the only way massive evaporation can take place, followed by massive condensation. The Flood provided these conditions for the Ice Age.

The earth was massively imbalanced by the flood, and many processes today have their roots in the flood, such as earthquakes. Each earthquake makes the planet more spherical (this has been detected), trying to fix the imbalances that were caused by the rising Atlantic, subsiding Pacific, and rising mountain ranges. If the earth has been around for billions of years, it should already be as round as it can get from all the shifting inside it. Thus, many things were caused by the flood.

P.S. Did you finish it? Congrats to your attention span! But seriously, this theory is absolutely amazing and shocking when you think about it — it describes the greatest “natural” disaster that ever happened to earth — so great that the earth literally “shook to its foundations.” And not only does its science amazes me, but so does its confirmation of the reliability of the Bible, the Word of God. The hydroplate theory truly is consistent with the Bible.

God sent the worldwide flood as a just punishment on an exceedingly wicked world (“every intent of the thoughts of his [man’s] heart was only evil continually” Gen. 6:5), saving only Noah, his family, and a number of land animals. If God had not warned Noah beforehand and told him to build a huge box-like ship to save life (which, incidentally, was built perfectly for stable floating in rough water without need for speed), then the extremely catastrophic nature of the global flood would surely have destroyed all land life and every one of mankind. We would not be here to tell about it, as so many ancient cultures have done in their traditions. Thus, the hydroplate theory shows not only that the worldwide flood happened, but that the God of the Bible exists and supernaturally stepped into history to save the ones He loved.

If you want to learn more about the theory, check out www.creationscience.com/onlinebook. Dr. Walt Brown invites anyone, scientist or layman, to disagree with him or ask him questions about the theory through email or telephone. I’ve been blessed to recently be in contact with him during my geology class and the experience is truly wondrous — he answers my questions thoughtfully, cordially, and personally. It is both his and my goal to get this information out to as many people as possible, for the Genesis Flood and age of the earth are pertinent issues inextricably linked to the truth of the God of the Bible Himself.