Coal reserves in BTUs as of 2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Coal beds formed from plant debris catastrophically buried by Noah’s Flood about 4,500 years ago? Evolutionists believe that the material in coal beds accumulated over millions of years in quiet swamp environments like the Everglades of Florida. Evolutionary geologists often object to the creationists’ explanation of coal bed formation, so what are their arguments and what answers do we give to them?
Some geologists have claimed that even if all the vegetation on earth was suddenly converted to coal this would make a coal deposit only 1-3% of the known coal reserves on earth. Hence at least 33 Noah’s Floods are needed, staggered in time, to generate our known coal beds. Therefore a single Noah’s Flood cannot be the cause of coal formation.
This argument is based on valid estimates of the volume of vegetation currently on today’s land surfaces. But it assumes that at least 12 metres of vegetation are needed to produce one metre of coal (eg. Holmes, 1965). Modern research shows that less than two metres of vegetation are needed to make one metre of coal. Some observations made by coal geologists working in mines (e.g. the compaction of coal around clay ‘balls’ included in some coal beds) suggest that the compaction ratio is probably much less than 2:1 and more likely very close to 1:1. These observations destroy this objection to coal bed formation during Noah’s Flood, since instead of today’s vegetation volume only compacting down to 1-3% of known coal reserves, today’s vegetation volume would compact down to at least 30% of the known coal reserves. But where did the other 60% come from?
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