Grand Canyon - quickly carved by the power of God's Flood

Michael Oard continues his creationist geology series on the origin of Grand Canyon. Millions of years hinder and do not help to explain how the canyon was carved. Sheet flow of water toward the east was stilled by the rising of the Rockies, which happened in a matter of months. While southern California was bottoming out afterward, the flow quickly reversed, creating channels that funnelled downward and quickly cut the tremendous canyon. Scientists with eyes to see can detect the incredible energy and power of God's re-creation, during the global Flood of Noah's day.

Selections from The Origin of Grand Canyon Part V: Carved by Late Flood Channelized Erosion, by Michael J. Oard.

(These selections by Marko Malyj are of the article published in Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal, Volume 47, Number 4, Spring 2011)

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Uniformitarian geologists have studied Grand Canyon for over a century...

The Grand Canyon can only be explained by recognizing
the awesome power and energy of the Flood.

West to East Sheet Flow.

They agree that two different stages were involved. The "Great Denudation" was the first of two erosional events on the Colorado Plateau. Great sheets of sediment were eroded, but left few canyons. It was accomplished by broad sheet currents flowing toward the east to northeast and.

This was followed by the "Great Erosion", when most canyons were cut, but which had very little sheet erosion. That is when the Grand Canyon was carved by currents flowing west, and the erosion was focused downward, and not spread across a broad area.

Therefore, there had to be a paleocurrent reversal in the Floodwater flow. Such a reversal would fit well with the transition from sheet flow to channelized flow. What caused that turnaround?

Geologist Elliot Blackwelder (1934) proposed that the uplift of the Rocky Mountains was the key factor leading to the carving of Grand Canyon. The rise of the Rockies caused precipitation to increase on the western side of the mountains. Increasing rain and snow led to large rivers that carved Grand Canyon. The two erosional stages were separated by millions of years.
 
While Blackwelder is probably correct that the rising mountains helped create Grand Canyon, he and other uniformitarians have not accounted for all of the field data, and none of them can even provide reasonable answers to the major enigmas surrounding the canyon. The scientists in question are intelligent, they have received ample funds to conduct numerous studies, and more than enough time has passed to work the problem. The most reasonable explanation for their failure is that they are trapped in a paradigm that cannot be squared with observations in the field.

Uniformitarians fail to comprehend just how it worked. Creationists offer a better paradigm: Grand Canyon was catastrophically eroded.

Upper sections of the Rockies become
exposed above the Floodwater,
breaking up the sheet flow.

In the Flood, the Great Denudation was caused by sheet flow toward the east and northeast. Then, the rising Rockies created a flow barrier that caused the broad Flood currents to reverse themselves, and flow back toward the Pacific Ocean. As the flow reversed, there was a period of time when the current energy diminished, much like slack water between tides. For a brief time, the Colorado Plateau would have appeared to be a giant lake or inland sea with mountain ranges rising out of the Floodwater, mainly to the east. At this time, practically all the southwest United States was still underwater.

Channelized flow toward the Pacific,
with a convergence of 2 (or possibly 3)
main currents carving Grand
Canyon across the plateaus.

When the flow reversed, channels began to form. Grand Canyon was carved by channelized flow to the west that increased in velocity as the relative water level fell. Strong flow from converging currents cut a notch in the Kaibab Plateau. The northwesterly current eroded the southeast Kaibab Plateau and the northwest trending run of Grand Canyon along the southwest edge of the Kaibab Plateau. That channel continued west, then south, then back to the northwest before exiting the Grand Wash Cliffs, based on topography, volcanism, and faulting.

At the time Grand Canyon was forming, Grand Wash trough and the whole area of southeast California was rapidly sinking, creating a rapidly changing bottom and influencing the flow of water off the Colorado Plateau. As the water level continued to fall, the eroding currents narrowed, forming the Esplanade and the Tonto Platform and the slotlike canyon of the inner gorge. The narrowing currents also carved the Little Colorado River Canyon and Marble Canyon with its backwards tributaries.

This creationist model, which utilizes the full power and energy of the Flood offers a much more reasonable explanation. A global flood, especially one receding from the continents, would have supplied more than enough water for the sheet erosion of large regions and for the channelized erosion of deep canyons. A rapidly sinking ocean bottom and the tectonic uplift of the continents would have added tremendous energy to that water. The mystery of the two-stage erosion event, the Great Denudation followed by the Great Erosion that formed the canyon systems, is entirely congruent with the two phases of the retreating stage of the Flood.

References (selected)

Blackwelder, E. 1934. Origin of the Colorado River. GSA Bulletin 45:551–566.