Creationists and Ice Core Research

Proponents of deep time circulate their talking points (or so it seems; there is a great deal of similarity), and one of these is that ice core layers prove that the earth is old. Simply counting layers is not useful. Many ice cores have been drilled in eastern Greenland and the Antarctic.

Biblical creationists do not shy away from challenges, putting their Bibles over their heads and simply chanting Scripture. No, creation scientists meet them. Although they do not have the funding of the secular science industry, they can analyze available data.

EastGRIP ice core, Wikimedia Commons / Helle Astrid Kjær (CC BY 4.0)

It is interesting that creationists agree with their secular counterparts in the results of ice cores in the upper layers. In the lower layers, however, come the problems. Secularists presuppose deep time so Papa Darwin can have those years to work his magic. Biblical creationists presuppose a young earth. Each group interprets data according to their worldviews.

While the Genesis Flood-induced Ice Age models of creationists explain a great deal, there is still work to be done. We admit that creationists need to develop their models to make them more robust.

Although the ability of the Flood to explain the Ice Age is one of the great strengths of the Creation model, Bible skeptics claim the vast ages assigned to deep Greenland and Antarctic ice cores are insurmountable challenges to the Bible’s 6,000-year chronology.

However, thick ice sheets do not need millions of years to form. Uniformitarian glaciologists acknowledge thick ice sheets can form in thousands of years, given sufficiently high ice accumulation rates. Hence, the high Ice Age accumulation rates posited by the Creation Ice Age model can plausibly enable thick ice sheets to have formed in the 4,500 years since the Flood.

To read the rest of this report, skate on over to "The current state of creationist ice core research."