The New Answers Book 3 by Ken Ham

Author:Ken Ham
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: RELIGION / Religion & Science
ISBN: 9781614581086
Publisher: Master Books
Published: 2011-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

Saltiness of the Pre-Flood Ocean

To begin with, we do not know how salty the oceans were before the Flood, although early in the fossil record of the Flood we find echinoderms that could have only lived in a salty pre-Flood ocean. What we do know is that if at creation the oceans originally were totally freshwater, then at the current estimated rate of salt build-up in the oceans, all the salt in the oceans would have accumulated in only about 62 million years.[2] Of course, this assumes that the salt accumulation has always been at today’s rate.

However, in the biblical account of earth history we are told that the Flood was initiated by the breaking up of the "fountains of the great deep" (Genesis 7:11), which likely were huge outpourings of hot water and steam that burst from inside the earth, associated with cataclysmic volcanic eruptions.[3] Such waters today are very salty, because of dissolved minerals in them. Furthermore, toward the end of the Flood there was massive erosion of the new continental land surfaces as the flood waters drained back into the new ocean basins, thereby carrying a lot more salt with them.

So the oceans before the Flood were a lot less salty than they are now. And since salt has not been added to the oceans uniformly through earth history at today’s estimated rate, their current saltiness accumulated in far less than 62 million years.

However, this is still assuming freshwater oceans to begin with! We cannot, of course, be sure, because the Bible is silent about the salinity of the ocean waters at the conclusion of the creation week. We are told that when God created the earth on day 1, it was covered in water, which He divided on day 2. It may be safe to assume this was all freshwater because Genesis 1:2 reveals this water was formless and "empty" (perhaps meaning void or pure).

However, on day 3 God raised the land, and the covering waters were gathered together to form the seas.[4]Thus the earth’s land surface was shaped by erosion by these retreating waters, no doubt carrying salts with them. So it’s possible a lot of salt may have been introduced to the pre-Flood oceans by this means.

Then God created marine creatures on day 5 to live and thrive in those ocean waters, so they must have been created with the ability to tolerate the salty oceans, just as marine creatures are able to today. Thus salt tolerance was not an outcome of the biological changes we are told occurred as a result of the Curse, being instead an ability given marine creatures at their creation by the Creator. Indeed, it was much more likely that God created animals suitable for mild salinity, but with the information available to survive in both extremes (freshwater and even more saline water).

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