Lake Suigetsu: No Help for Old Earthers

Posted in Creation/Evolution, Genesis Flood on April 11th, 2008 by dhawkinsmo

Lake Suigetsu is a small lake in Japan which is often used by Old Earth believers to try to disprove the Young Earth timescale. They say that Lake Suigetsu has a continuous record of varves (fine laminations deposited annually) in the sediment below the lake for the last 100,000 years or so. Here’s Glenn Morton’s description of Lake Sugetsu. One person I debated recently claimed that Lake Suigetsu disproves the Book of Genesis as a historical record. But does it really? Or is this just one more false claim put forth by anti-creationists?

We cannot say for sure yet, but it’s looking like yet another false claim. I have now been investigating Lake Suigetsu off and on since June 2007 and I have discovered some very fascinating stuff. For instance …

1) INCREASING RECOGNITION THAT MANY “VARVES” ARE NOT ANNUAL LAMINATIONS AFTER ALL.

“It is very unfortunate from a sedimentological viewpoint that engineers describe any rhythmically laminated fine-grained sediment as ‘varved.’ There is increasing recognition that many sequences previously described as varves are multiple turbidite sequences of graded silt to clay units … without any obvious seasonal control on sedimentation.”
Quigley, R. M, Glaciolacustrine and glaciomarine clay deposition: a North American perspective; in: Eyles, N., editor, Glacial geology—an introduction for engineers and earth scientists, Pergamon Press, New York, p. 151, 1983.

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