Volcanoes and the Genesis Flood

The volcanoes that seem to get the most attention are those shaped like steep cones, and have a history of explosive eruptions. Several mountains we see today are actually dormant volcanoes. Mount St. Helens had its big eruption in 1980 and provided support for creation science. It is still considered active.

Kīlauea Volcano — Fissure 8 Eruption, June 10, 2018
Credit: USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents)

However, there are other kinds of volcanoes, and they get attention when they act up. The volcanoes in Hawaii are actually the peaks of mountains with their bases on the ocean floor. When they erupt, they tend to "fountain", and the lava flows are not all that rapid (until the get into downhill gullies and so forth), but toxic fumes and ash are concerns as well as their destructive power. As there are different kinds of volcanoes, there are also different kinds of eruptions and kinds of magma.



The volcanoes we see today and in recent recorded history are actually rather small in impact compared to what happened long ago. Uniformitarian geology cannot explain huge magma deposits that have been found. Instead, the Genesis Flood models reveal what really happened, and that Earth is far younger than secularists want to believe. The world is still settling down all these years after the Flood, but the world is broken (recent reminders in Guatemala, Hawaii, and Yellowstone), and will be restored at the end of all things, as we read in Revelation.

The Mount St. Helens eruption produced an impressive 0.25 cubic miles (1 km³) of volcanic ash. But that is nothing compared to the eruption of Taupo (New Zealand) about 1,800 years ago, which produced 8 cubic miles (35 km³) of ash. Even this is dwarfed by an earlier Yellowstone eruption, soon after the Flood, which produced at least 480 cubic miles (2000 km³) of ash.

Such was the magnitude of these explosions that they blasted away huge holes in the earth, called calderas. The Taupo caldera is now filled by a huge lake, and the Yellowstone “hole” is so big you can only discern its boundaries with the help of satellites.

Yet these eruptions are tiny compared to a different type of volcano that deposited gargantuan stacks of thick layers known as “continental flood basalts.”

To read all of this hot article or download the audio version, click on "Volcanoes — Windows Into Earth’s Past".

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