The Earth. Christianity. They go together.
Welcome to The GeoChristian, a blog primarily about the relationship between the Earth sciences and Christianity. My name is Kevin Nelstead, and I have been writing at geochristian.com since 2006. The most important thing about me is that I am a Christian. The passage of Scripture that opened up my eyes to the Good News about Jesus Christ was Ephesians 2:8,9, which says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
I often write about young-Earth creationism (YEC), which I believe to be Biblically unnecessary and scientifically unworkable. Because of these things, I believe that YEC is an unfortunate obstacle to both evangelism and effective discipleship, especially of our youth. But I do not want The GeoChristian to be known primarily as a blog about origins issues, as there are many other areas in which Christian faith and the Earth sciences interact, such as environmental issues, energy policy, aesthetics, and natural resources.
I have an M.S. degree in Geology from Washington State University, and a B.S. degree in Earth Sciences from Montana State University. I have worked as a senior cartographer, geospatial analyst, natural resources specialist, high school and middle school science teacher in Christian schools; and missionary. You can read more about my background at https://geochristian.com/more-about-the-author/.
I am the author of Earth Science: God’s World, Our Home, a new middle school textbook for Christian students from Novare Science and Math. This book fills a critical niche in the Christian school market, providing a curriculum that is faithful to God’s Word yet doesn’t promote the young-Earth creationism and anti-environmentalism that is prevalent in materials from Christian school publishers.
http://novarescienceandmath.com/catalog/es/es/
Whether you are a Christian or non-Christian, scientist or non-scientist, creationist or evolutionist (or somewhere in between), I hope you find something that blesses you and points you to Christ through The GeoChristian.
GeoChristian 
What is the answer to the many places between Grand Canyon layers that show zero erosion? I’ve not found that even after Googling it. It does seem fantastic that there could be thousands or millions of years with no erosion. I’m just trying to find the truth and struggling to find it.
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Richard,
Here is my short answer:
There are some contacts between geologic units in the Grand Canyon that indicate the occurance of times of considerable erosion. For example, the top of the Redwall Limestone exhibits all of the characteristics of karst topography. Karst occurs where soluble rocks like limestone are exposed to weathering for long periods of times, resulting in a landscape with an abundance of sinkholes and caves. The uneven erosional surface on the top of the Redwall Limestone has a topographic relief of up to 400 feet! This undulating surface is filled in with the Surprise Canyon Formation, which does not form a continuous layer in the Grand Canyon. The erosional surface on top of the Redwall is hardly the “lack of erosion between layers” that young-Earth creationists like to talk about.
A similar example in the Grand Canyon is the Temple Butte Formation, which fills channels eroded into the Muav Formation.
There are other contacts between formation that are pretty flat-lying. Young-Earth creationists cannot visualize how a flat-lying surface could represent millions of years. This would be true in an above-water continental setting, where many landscapes are dominated by erosion. But flat contacts between layers is exactly what we should expect on vast marine platforms, such as existed across much of North America in the Paleozoic. An area a thousand miles across with water just a few hundred feet deep across the entire area will result in deposition of flat-lying layers, with flat contacts between layers.
If you want to know more about this from an old-Earth perspective, you really should read the book The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth. It goes into answering your question in more detail.
I have written a longer article that addresses your question to some extent: Six bad arguments from Answers in Genesis (Part 5).
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Nels, we miss you over at the BIA! Just a heads up there are some higher level GIS positions coming open soon as we are moving to Arc Enterprise. I believe there will be an 11/12 and a 13/14 being advertised soon. Email me if you get this and I can give you notice when I hear of the advertisements . Love your site ! What we do in GIS is mans feeble attempt to represent Gods glorious work. Take care my friend send me an email if you get this .
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Is citing Grand Canyon significant because it can be used to support YEC? Isn’t it more compelling to observe that we have several / many atomic clocks (to borrow from Richard Dawkins) and that it is very unlikely they would all be consistently unreliable? Because YEC vs OEC timelines differs by several orders of magnitude, not just a little bit.
From a paper I have called “Radiometric Dating – A Christian Perspective” by Dr. Roger C. Wiens:
Dating Methods for Igneous Rocks, par example:
– K/Ar
– Ar/Ar
– Rb/Sr
– Sm/Nd
– Lu/Hf
– Re/Os
– U/Pb
So far YEC arguments just dismiss these as legitimate outright, I find that hardly appealing because it’s dualistic “us vs. them” thinking. Even Christian Orthodoxy, according to my priest anyhow, says that Christianity thoroughly repudiates all forms of dualism. This is a fallen and tainted world and ALL have sinned (not just “them”).
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http://www.chongonation.com/articles/oldarticles/light_speed.htm
“ According to relativity, time stands still at the speed of light. Moving at that speed, the second hand on the clock would not have advanced, in the least. This means that the time spent for its journey would be reduced to zero, which is to say, reduced to an infinitely small moment.”
Time is relative. When theorizing the age of the earth and the universe, whose time-frame is being considered?
2 Peter 3:8
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Hello … just a minor point. 3rd paragraph, “which I believe to Biblically unnecessary” should be “which I believe to be Biblically unnecessary” .
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Thank you Jim for pointing out the missing word. I proofread these articles and read them out loud and still miss obvious things like that.
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