Introduction to the Presentation Main Points - Flood Geology and Conventional Geology Face Off Over the Coconino Sandstone
By Tim Helble
Summary. This paper introduces a presentation entitled Main Points - Flood Geology and Conventional Geology Face Off Over the Coconino Sandstone. The presentation was created to summarize the main points in a September, 2024 article in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith which uses essentially the same title. The presentation is built around twelve arguments used by flood geologists to convince people that the Coconino Sandstone of the Grand Canyon was laid down during Noah’s Flood:​​​
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Coconino crossbed dip angles support the underwater deposition view.
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Ripples on exposed surfaces of the Coconino could be formed underwater.
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Sand grains in the Coconino are neither well rounded nor well sorted.
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Liquified Coconino sands were injected downward into cracks in the Hermit Formation.
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Fossil footprints in the Coconino were made underwater.
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So-called raindrop imprints in the Coconino really are not raindrop imprints.
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​Large contorted beds in the Coconino, like the ones in Lizard Head near Sedona, Arizona, could only be formed by strong water currents.
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Mica could only be present in the Coconino if it was deposited underwater, because mica disappears in eolian transport.
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Dolomite, marine minerals, ooids, and angular feldspar have been found in the Coconino, indicating a marine depositional environment.
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The frosting of sand grains in the Coconino did not occur by ballistic collisions of grains in an eolian environment as some have imagined.
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Modern sand dunes are not as thick as the Coconino, and the Coconino could not have been deposited in a slowly subsiding basin because it crosses through many ancient basins.
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Large sand waves comparable to those in the Coconino have been found in many marine settings. The Coconino was deposited by sand waves during the global flood “in a matter of a few days.”
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In evaluating the features of the Coconino associated with these twelve arguments, it is found that each one actually points to the conventional geology explanation. It is found that flood geologists were directing most of their efforts towards presenting data to refute generalized statements from critics in
the popular science literature. By placing so much emphasis on refuting critics, opportunities were missed to increase scientific understanding of the Coconino. Flood geologists’ findings were consistently framed to argue for aqueous deposition, which they implicitly equate to global flood deposition. It is shown in the presentation that an astronomical difference exists between the two.
The Grand Canyon is truly one of the most amazing natural wonders on Earth. Photos don’t do it justice
– the first time you experience the depth and immensity of the canyon, your breath is taken away. The
canyon is a testament to complex geologic processes going back more than a billion years. However, a
few decades ago, young earth creationists – people who believe the earth is only 6 to 10 thousand years
old – decided to make the Grand Canyon “Exhibit A” for a young earth. How and why did this happen?
A lot of people visit the Grand Canyon – about five million per year. Many of these visitors are
Christians. For some of these Christians; faith can coexist with a very ancient earth. For others, a literal
interpretation of the scriptures requires a young earth. Still others have never thought much about the
issue. With all the museums, ranger talks, wayside exhibits, books, and other educational materials
exposing visitors to the idea that the canyon’s layers are millions of years old, you can see the problem
for leaders of the young earth ministries who want to keep as many Christians as possible towing the
young earth party line. These leaders had to do something to counter this “millions of years
propaganda” being pushed by “secular scientists” who were trying to keep people from “believing the
Bible.”
Young earth leaders figured out an innovative (but ultimately flawed) way to turn the Grand Canyon into
an evangelistic tool. They argued that the “layer cake” sedimentary formations in the canyon with “no
erosion between the layers” are evidence for a global Flood. Of course, the Grand Canyon’s layers aren’t
really flat on a state or even county scale and there is plenty of evidence for erosion between most of its
formations. However, you can’t see it from the canyon viewpoints, so the young earth leaders get away
with their over-generalization.
One of the most prominent layers in the Grand Canyon is the Coconino Sandstone, which is often
referred to as the buff-colored “bathtub ring” just below the canyon rim. The Coconino became a major
cause of young earth creationists known as flood geologists. Flood geologists try to prove that a one-
year global flood in the time of Noah deposited most of earth’s sedimentary record. To understand why
flood geologists focused so much on the Coconino, it is useful to review a little history.
In 1934, noted Grand Canyon geologist Edwin D. McKee published a paper entitled The Coconino
Sandstone: Its History and Origin and concluded that the Coconino Sandstone was the product of eolian
(wind-driven) processes. We see such eolian processes at work today in sand dunes. McKee’s eolian
interpretation of the Coconino soon became the consensus view of conventional geologists. Flood
geologists admit that this poses a problem for their case, because you can’t have a layer that was
deposited by the wind in the middle of a global flood. Clearly, an eolian Coconino interfered with efforts
to make the Grand Canyon “Exhibit A” for a young earth.
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​But what really got flood geologists really fired up about the Coconino were statements by several flood
geology critics in videos and the popular science literature. The critic who was probably the most
irritating to flood geologists was YouTuber Wildwood Claire, who summarized the Coconino issue this
way:
Of all the rocks in the Grand Canyon, the stratum most likely to make a young earth creationist’s
ass grow up tighter than a snare drum is the Coconino, and here’s why. The consensus of
geologists is that the Coconino Sandstone was formed in an enormous desert. Obviously, a
desert in the midst of your giant deluge is… inconvenient.
Christian geologists such as Davis Young and the authors of The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient
Earth offered up more civil criticisms of the flood geology position on the Coconino. Flood geologists
viewed statements from critics, both Christian and non-Christian, as efforts to discredit the Bible. To
refute these critics, flood geologists set out to prove that the Coconino was deposited by water. They
published numerous papers on the Coconino in both young earth creationist and conventional geology
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Flood geologists’ Coconino “charges” are having a significant impact among evangelicals. It would take a
whole book-length to address all their claims, but that would reach a limited audience. Therefore, I
developed an article for the journal Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith (PSCF) to give a more
concise response to flood geologist’s main “charges” against the consensus view of the Coconino. I
decided to develop a presentation to supplement the PSCF article which summarizes its main points and
provides additional explanatory graphics.
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If you read any of the flood geologists’ articles or longer papers on the Coconino Sandstone, their arguments seem convincing at first, but after reviewing the presentation, you will see that the Coconino does not support a global flood. It turns out that flood geologists were largely directing their efforts toward refuting generalized statements from critics in the popular science literature. It is interesting how flood geologists characterize these critics’ statements as representing the conventional geology view of the Coconino, when none of the critics had actually engaged in research on the Coconino. Sometimes flood geologists had to mischaracterize what these critics were saying before proceeding to tear down the strawman they erected.
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Even though flood geologists chose to focus on refuting critics and selectively present their data, they
did come up with some useful findings. But by placing so much emphasis on refuting critics and trying to
prove underwater deposition, they missed opportunities to advance scientific understanding about the
Coconino. This is because flood geologists were really writing to reaffirm the beliefs of their young-earth
believing target audience rather than participate in the scientific process. They rarely described how
their data fits with previous findings of other scientists. Their goal was to prove that their critics were
wrong.
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The mica “charge” covered in the presentation provides an example of flood geologist’s tactics. Flood geologist John Whitmore noted how Davis Young and Ralph Stearley stated in The Bible, Rocks and Time that “less resistant mica grains and ultra-fine clay particles have been abraded to oblivion and/or wafted off-site by the wind” when Coconino sands were deposited. Whitmore then examined thin section slices of the Coconino and found small mica flakes sandwiched between sand grains. Photos of thin sections (with scales) that he provided in several creationist articles showed that mica in the Coconino ranged from 0.07 to 0.43 millimeters in size. One of Whitmore’s students at Cedarville University then conducted an experiment with mica-rich sand blown around the bottom of a pickle jar. Anderson, Struble, and Whitmore reported in the journal Aeolian Research that the mica flakes were abraded down to 0.2 to 0.5 millimeters after being blown around in the jar for four days. When describing their results to young-earth believing audiences, Whitmore states that the mica in this experiment disappeared in two to four days. He never lets on that that mica in the Coconino was the same size as mica from the pickle jar experiment!
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If flood geologists had made advancing scientific understanding their top priority, their papers and articles would read very differently. Continuing with the mica example, they could have published a paper in a peer-reviewed scientific journal about how they found mica in the Coconino. In such a paper, they could have described how it supports other geologists’ proposals that huge quantities of sediment (including mica) were brought westward from the early Appalachian Mountains by transcontinental rivers and dumped in terminal lakes of the Western Interior Desert. They could have also discussed how it supports the idea of strong north/northwesterly monsoonal winds in the region during Permian time as proposed by numerous researchers. This would have transported mica and clays from the terminal lakes in dust plumes like those from the Sahara Desert. Instead, flood geologists opted for the argument that supports their narrative – that mica could only end up in the Coconino through water transport.
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In stating that the mica disappeared in their pickle jar experiment, Whitmore seems to assume that his
young-earth believing target audience doesn’t check out original sources. Photos in creationist journal
articles revealed the size of mica in the Coconino. The size of mica flakes at various points in time during
the pickle jar experiment was reported in Anderson, Struble, and Whitmore’s Aeolian Research article. If
a curious young-earth believer ever checked out these sources and found that mica in the pickle jar
experiment didn’t disappear, but instead was abraded down to the size of mica in the Coconino, they
would realize that someone has been pulling the wool over their eyes.
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After going through the presentation, it will become apparent that each flood geologist “charge” was
similarly framed to argue for water deposition of the Coconino. Alternate explanations were consistently
downplayed or ignored. Underwater deposition was implicitly equated to global flood deposition. But it
turns out that even if each flood geology “charge” was correct, only normal underwater sediment
transport processes would be indicated, not the astronomical deposition required by a global flood. The
vast difference between the two is explained near the end of the presentation. Both conventional and
flood geologists almost always overlook this problem, preferring to focus on the geologic minutiae like
cross bed angles and sand grain frosting. The deposition rates required by flood geology are so
astronomical that none of the features they use to argue for underwater deposition could even exist if
the Coconino was laid down during a global flood. Flood geologists seem to feel secure in assuming that
their target audience will not know the difference.
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It is important to realize that flood geologists believe they are defending the Bible in arguing that the
Coconino was laid down by a global flood. Whitmore and Garner made this clear in the first sentence of
the abstract to one of their key papers on the Coconino:
The Permian Coconino Sandstone is one of the most prominent layers of rock in the Grand Canyon and is important to creationists because it has often been used by conventional scientists to discredit the Bible.
Conventional geologists acknowledge that they have so much more to learn about the Coconino. The average young-earth-believing Christian looks at what flood geologists produced for the Coconino and concludes that everything has been figured out – the Coconino was deposited underwater. However, the presentation (and the PSCF article) can lead you to a different and potentially inflammatory realization – that flood geologists were employing many of the elements of propaganda in their articles. Specifically, data was consistently bent to support a predetermined conclusion. Flood geologist John Whitmore basically admitted that he had already reached his conclusion at the start of his research, stating the following at a student assembly at Cedarville University:
And that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re looking at the scientific evidence and trying to find some evidence that this sandstone is not a desert sandstone, but is a marine formation.
Whitmore’s statement shows that he was not following the scientific method, because he had already reached his conclusion from the start. Given that Cedarville requires all faculty to annually sign a doctrinal statement which specifies a literal six-day creation, it seems highly unlikely that Whitmore would ever publish articles and papers arguing that a layer in the Grand Canyon was deposited in a desert and not a global flood.
When using the scientific method, the researcher starts by forming a hypothesis. It would be fine to start with a hypothesis that a sandstone was deposited by water, because many are. However, if the data then shows that a sandstone like the Coconino was not deposited by water, the scientific method doesn’t allow that data to be excluded. The scientist must be neutral and able to admit that their initial hypothesis was incorrect. Science only works when the data is not forced to support any predetermined conclusion. The presentation provides many examples of how Whitmore and his associates bent their data to support the aqueous view when the data was actually neutral or supports the eolian interpretation.
Given that the Coconino does not support the aqueous view, even after many years of effort by flood geologists to prove otherwise, perhaps it is time to consider that God operated over long eons of time in ways that seem hard to understand. Clearly, this forces us to think more deeply about how to interpret difficult Bible passages like the Genesis flood account. Admittedly, biblical interpretations are often held tightly and changes to such views don’t come easily. Many Christians are taught that there are only two options – atheistic science or a wooden-literal interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis. It is hoped that such people who read through the presentation (or PSCF paper) will realize that the Bible can still be true, but maybe some scriptures like the account of Noah’s flood in Genesis have been misinterpreted. Many Christians have found that they can have a vibrant faith and accept science at the same time.
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The Main Points: Flood Geology and Conventional Geology Face Off Over the Coconino Sandstone presentation is accessible at this link.
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Tim Helble is a retired hydrologist who worked for a half year at the Grand Canyon and spent most of his career in the National Weather Service. He is now involved in the science communication effort, particularly in relation to hydrology and geology. He was an author and editor for The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth: Can Noah’s Flood Explain the Grand Canyon? He obtained a masters in Science from the University of Arizona in Watershed Management with a specialty in watershed hydrology.