Abstract:
The following annotation with commentary is based on a short extract from David Johnson’s work titled The Geology of Australia 2nd Ed. The nature of this commentary is one of applying a concept of date reduction to a work that uses Stratigraphical and Radiometric dating exclusively. The basis for the reductions is Barry Setterfield’s seminal work “Cosmology and the Zero Point Energy”, a Natural Philosophy Alliance Monograph of 2013. Some surprising results can be correlated with the author’s, ably-assisted, attempts at a broad-based chronology extending from cosmological ‘day 1’ to the Greek conquest of Egypt. European oral Chronicles are also drawn upon in the excellent source reference by Roy C. Schulz, Imperial Schools, Pasadena. The author will show that every well-documented move made by Noah in a time-span of 127 pre-Flood years to his death 350 years after the Flood, which chronologically extends from -3454 to -2977, can be correlated to geological events of significant magnitude. Other activities - such as Nimrod’s governance - are easily able to be shown to be geologically-determined. No attempt will be made to justify the Flood’s reduced date as this is extensively covered elsewhere.
Introduction:
The extract follows without annotation. Any portions to be annotated will be quoted in the discussion. There will be a short summary of Chronology and a sample Ready Reckoner made available following this extract.
SUPERCONTINENTS:
RODINIA AND GONDWANA
The original theory of continental drift was supported by the same fossil species being collected on separate continents. Fossil plants, such as Glossopteris, were found in Australia, South America and India. The presence of the same land plants across these now-scattered continents suggested they were once all a single landmass.
The German climatologist and geophysicist Alfred Wegener published in 1915 an expanded version of his 1912 book The Origin. of Continents and Oceans. In this he was the first to suggest continental drift. He suggested that a supercontinent he called Pangaea had existed in the past, and then broke up, starting 200 million years ago.The initial scientific response was hostile. Then in 1937 Du Toit placed Antarctica as the central keystone of an early southern supercontinent he called Gondwana. He correctly argued that Antarctica stayed put while the other pieces `fled the Pole', with Africa, India, Australia and South America drifting away to the north.
On Scott's 1912 expedition to Antarctica, fragments of primitive sponge-like organisms Archaeocyatha had been found in limestones, supporting these links. But more than that — these fossils were marine and they match similar fossils in marine sequences in other continents such as North America.This implies that the original Gondwana had at one time been a series of fragments with sea between them, and also that it was possible the present northern hemisphere lands were linked to Gondwana!
It is important to realise that while we say something happened in Canada or South Africa, that is just because that is where the rocks lie today. In the Archaean these fragments were not assembled as they are today. The crust of the Earth has been moving since it first formed. The atlases and geography we know today are only true for now. In the past the landmasses were totally different shapes.
The geological similarity of rocks of the same age, in continents now widely dispersed across the globe is a key point. There are really only two possible causes. Either the same conditions were happening across the entire globe at the same time, which does not seem likely given the present range of climates and geological settings, or the rock masses used to be together.
In Australia, the three Archaean cratons — Pilbara, Yilgarn and Gawler — appear to have been entirely separate landmasses originally. How far apart they were we do not know. The Archaean cores of the Pilbara and Yilgarn regions were pushed together around 2000 Ma ago, and then between 1800 and 1765 Ma ago the Kimberley and Precambrian rocks in northern Australia were added to the Western Australian sections. At this time it seems the Gawler Craton had been joined to northern Australia. After c.1500 Ma it broke away, and the Gawler associated Precambrian blocks extending as fareast as Broken Hill, together with similar rocks in the present Antarctica, collided with the south eastern Yilgarn craton, forming the metamorphic rocks in the Albany region. During all these times the eastern third of Australia had not been formed.
84 THE GEOLOGY OF AUSTRALIA
Rodinia
Distinctive Archaean rocks occur in very old terranes on the other continents — in particular, igneous rocks that were all deformed at the same time, 1300-1100 Ma ago (the so-called Grenville series), which can be matched across reconstructed boundaries. Rocks in the Albany region of Western Australia match those on the coast of Antarctica and in parts of central India. More importantly, they are the same type and age as those along the eastern side of the present USA and Canada.
There are other data. For instance the komatiites can be found in Western Australia, in the Barberton Mountains of South Africa and in the Abitibi area of Canada. The thick banded iron formations of the Hamersley area in Australia are of similar age and look almost the same as those of Transvaal in South Africa and the Abitibi region of Canada. When the continental masses are reassembled the geology seems to match across the breaks.
From such evidence we are now sure that most of the present continents were united in a super-sized continent called Rodinia. The matching rocks show us how they fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle.
What do the folded rocks in these Grenville metamorphic belts signify? They show that in the period 1300-1100 Ma ago these continental blocks were being pushed together, and therefore that was the time of the final assembly of Rodinia.
In Rodinia the present-day Alaska probably abutted where Queensland is now, and the US west coast lay just off the present east Australian coast. The primitive fragments of Africa (Congo, Kalahari and West Africa) and of South America (Amazonia) were nearby. An alternative arrangement places southern China as well against eastern Australia, so there is more research needed to sort out the final story.
So between 1300 and 1100 Ma ago the primitive Australian mass, which would later form the core of the western half of Australia, was joined to India, Antarctica and Laurentia (the core of North America with Greenland) to form the early supercontinent of Rodinia.
Recent radiometric dating of granites and gabbros in southern China, and other intrusive basaltic rocks in widely spaced locations in Australia, India, Madagascar, southern Africa and North America (Laurentia), shows a major period of magmatism involving two main episodes, at 830-795 Ma and 780-745 Ma. The long duration, some 85 million years, indicates a major rifting event (perhaps caused by a mantle superplume) that was instrumental in the break-up of Rodinia.
Figure 3.14 Rodinia around 750 Ma ago, near the end of break-up of the supercontinent. The black zones represent Grenville metamorphic rocks (1300-1100 Ma) which can be traced across the old craton boundaries. Note Laurentia (present North America and Greenland) adjacent to Australia. The blank areas may have been seas, they may have been other continents which have now completely disappeared. The grey areas represent other rocks — volcanics, sedimentary rocks and granites. So there are a lot of unknowns; we are sure only that the old rocks were once joined together in this approximate shape.
Source: American Geophysical Union
PRECAMBRIAN ROCKS 85
Figure 3.15 Gondwana 180 Ma. Eastern Gondwana is grey, western Gondwana white. The separation of eastern and western Gondwana created the Indian Ocean, and the break-up of Africa from South America created the Atlantic Ocean.
Gondwana was thus composed of an eastern section (Australia, India and Antarctica), which had been a core of the old Rodinia formed before 830 Ma ago, together with a western part (Africa and South America), which had joined on in the late Precambrian (750-520 Ma). The convergence of earlier cratonic blocks after 650 Ma led to mountain formation during the early stages of the development of Gondwana. Gondwana persisted for an extraordinarily long time — up until 180 Ma ago, when it began to break up in the Jurassic (see Chapter 7).
Source: David Johnson
Gondwana
From about 830 Ma ago Rodinia began to disintegrate, and the western side of Laurentia broke away from Australia. Laurentia drifted far away, opening a gap to form the first elements of what would become the Pacific Ocean. The eastern side of the US split away, forming the earliest opening of what would later become the Atlantic Ocean.
What was left was a core of Australia, India and East Antarctica. During these plate movements between 750 and 500 Ma ago the fragments of later Africa and South America drifted around the globe towards India and Australia. By 500 Ma ago the cores of Africa and South America had locked together with Australia, India and East Antarctica form the new supercontinent of Gondwana. Evidence of this amalgamation can be seen the Petermann Ranges, which consist of rocks deformed by compression around 600 Ma ago.
In summary, Rodinia existed from 1100 around 830 Ma ago, and Gondwana existed from 520 to 180 Ma ago. In the present phase of the Earth's atlas the continents are dispersed widely, except for India, which has collided with southern Eurasia. Africa and Australia are both heading north, so the next phase of supercontinent development could be underway.
The Proterozoic supercontinents preserve far more of the Earth's history than the Archaean. Much of the Proterozoic rock formations occur in Australia, and we are only just starting to understand them.
Chronology (Short):
Creation -5589
General Cosmic Year 1 -4915/-4914
Adam -4531
Expulsion -4501
Noah -3761
Flood -3327/-3326
Heavens opened after entering Ark 829.04 Ma
Kish #1 -3240
Uruk #1 -3168
En-mer-kar = Nimrod -3117
Death of Noah -2977
Peleg commenced rule at 80 yrs in -2818
Conversion examples:
te = 1,500,000,000 0.2722514 732.6285174 -3629.628517 0.3714826 4.4577912 0.4577912 13.5048404 14th May, -3630
te = 1,765,000,000 0.313213272 842.8569158 -3739.856916
te = 1,100,000,000 0.20678733 556.464705 -3453.464705 0.53529497 6.42353964 0.42353964 12.49441938
?
te = 830,000,000 0.159914549 430.3300523 -3327.330052 0.669947688 8.039372259 0.039372259 1.161481649 2nd Sep, -3328
te = 795,000,000 0.153669135 413.5236435 -3310.523644 0.476356474 5.716277693 0.716277693 21.13019195 22nd Jun, -3311
te = 780,000,000 0.150980247 406.2878449 -3303.287845 16.37262791 0.712155148 8.545861777 0.545861777 16.10292242 17th Sept, -3304
te = 745,000,000 0.144677261 389.3265104 -3286.32651 0.673489573 8.081874871 0.081874871 2.4153087 3rd Sep, -3287
te = 180,000,000 0.03693015 99.37903257 -2996.379033 0.620967426 7.451609117 0.451609117 13.32246895 13th Aug, -2997
te = 750,000,012 0.14558018 391.7562644 -3288.756264 0.24373562 2.92482744 0.92482744 27.28240948 27th Mar, -3289
te = 500,000,000 0.0993865 267.4490702 -3164.44907 0.550929845 6.611158146 0.611158146 18.02916531 18th Jul, -3165
te = 600,000,046 0.118124668 317.8734816 -3214.873482 0.126518412 1.518220944 0.518220944 15.28751785 15th Feb, -3214
te = 570,000,000 0.112540437 302.846315 -3199.846315 0.153685045 1.844220538 0.844220538 24.90450586 24th Feb, -3200
Ready Reckoner
An example of how to use the Ready Reckoner –
Noah died according to the Chronology in use in this article in -2977. Looking in the right-most column in the red-selected row we have -2980. In the row above we have -3007. Then turning our attention to the left-most column we note the two rows we have a 50 million year difference. Thus 27 (3007-2980) years is equivalent to 50 million years. Since Noah died 3 years later than -2980 we can proportion and get a reasonable approximation. 3 * 50 / 27 = 5.5 million years. Subtracting from 150 Ma (obtained from the highlighted row and left-most column) we get 144.5 Ma for the death of Noah. So we could say he probably missed the dinosaurs.
Discussion:
We should lead off the discussion with a rubric. Intracratonic Basins are assumed to be the remains of the fountains of the deep referred to in Scripture. The Kola Ultradeep Project shows a good relation between the waters that gushed out to the current very-structured and water-logged Crust!!
We should note that in scripture, as it is translated for us, we find that Noah is assigned 600 years of life before the Flood. The chronology we are working with unfortunately does not support this number. The benchmark date for the molad of Tishri is given as -3761. This chronology recognizes -3761 as the birth date of Noah. Given that the Hebrew Calendar is often associated quite strongly with the Jews, and given that 600 is a number very special in Jewish gemmatria, it is possible that the number 600 was conceived as a means of associating the Jews with Noah.
The 120 years in which scripture records Noah’s building and preaching activities are an integral part of the chronology we are using.
The overall development of human history as set out – at least chronology-wise – in our Chronology follows the pattern of geologic progress e. g. the cratons are formed just-in-time for the departure from Eridu at 324(5) years after Adam was created.
The first point of interest date-wise is found in the following quote
In Australia, the three Archaean cratons — Pilbara, Yilgarn and Gawler — appear to have been entirely separate landmasses originally. How far apart they were we do not know. The Archaean cores of the Pilbara and Yilgarn regions were pushed together around 27th May, -3834, and then in the 14 years and 3 months ending 22nd Feb, -3740 the Kimberley and Precambrian rocks in northern Australia were added to the Western Australian sections. At this time it seems the Gawler Craton had been joined to northern Australia. After ca. 14th May, -3630 it broke away, and the Gawler-associated Precambrian blocks extending as far east as Broken Hill, together with similar rocks in the present Antarctica, collided with the south-eastern Yilgarn craton, forming the metamorphic rocks in the Albany region. During all these times the eastern third of Australia had not been formed.
The second point in the same vein is in the next quote
From such evidence we are now sure that most of the present continents were united in a super-sized continent called Rodinia. The matching rocks show us how they fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle.
What do the folded rocks in these Grenville metamorphic belts signify? They show that in the eighty-nine years and eight months (89/8) ending 13th Jul, -3454 these continental blocks were being pushed together, and therefore that was the time of the final assembly of Rodinia.
From the final assembly of Rodinia to the Flood, people from all over the world could see the ark being built because they could easily visit the site and when it was time the animals could come from all the different parts of Rodinia to enter the ark. Since the Flood was -3327 and the building of Rodinia ended in -3454, we can say that Rodinia existed for 7 years longer than the 120 years that Noah spent building the ark before the Flood.
The third point likewise is in the next quote
Recent radiometric dating of granites and gabbros in southern China, and other intrusive basaltic rocks in widely spaced locations in Australia, India, Madagascar, southern Africa and North America (Laurentia), shows a major period of magmatism involving two main episodes, from the 2nd Sep, -3328 to 22nd Jun, -3311 (a period of 16 years and 3 months) and from the 17th Sep, -3304 to the 3rd Sep -3287 (a period of 17 years). The long duration, some 85 million years, indicates a major rifting event (perhaps caused by a mantle superplume) that was instrumental in the break-up of Rodinia.
The fourth point
Figure 3.15 Gondwana 13th Aug -2997 [Noah outlived Gondwana by 20 years. In that 20 years Gondwana had begun to break up]. Eastern Gondwana is grey, western Gondwana white. The separation of eastern and western Gondwana created the Indian Ocean, and the break-up of Africa from South America created the Atlantic Ocean.
Gondwana was thus composed of an eastern section (Australia, India and Antarctica), which had been a core of the old Rodinia formed before the 2nd Sep -3328, together with a western part (Africa and South America), which had joined on in the late Precambrian (from 27th Mar -3289 to 20th May -3175, a period of 114 years and 1 month)*. The convergence of earlier cratonic blocks after (approximately -3240 [It appears from the chronology we are using that Noah was in Gondwana at least toward the end of his 10 year world tour (see Schulz) which ran from -3247 to -3237. We suspect this because Kish I which was started by his enemies was set up in -3240, most likely in his absence]) led to mountain formation during the early stages of the development of Gondwana [It is possible that aboriginal elders accompanying Noah on his world tour were the first aborigines to sight Australia and may have seen some of the mountain-building occurring as they toured. This might be the basis of various Dreamtime stories of the Petermann Ranges]. Gondwana persisted for an extraordinarily long time — up until 180 Ma ago (a total of 331 yrs), when it began to break up in the Jurassic (see Chapter 7).
Source: David Johnson
*Once East and West Gondwana had stuck together ca -3175, Noah began a project of shifting people to various parts of this new supercontinent. We have a record of the posterity of Ham commencing in the Sudan in Africa in -3175. It is highly likely that the first aborigines were settled in Australia as part of this project and certainly no earlier than -3175.
The fifth point is
From about 830 Ma ago [Our chronology is based upon Biblical dates in terms of days, months and years and so we date the disintegration of Rodinia to the reverse conversion date of 829.04 Ma. This disintegration, briefly referred to above, involved a major period of magmatism and we can therefore conclude that as well as vast amounts of water pouring out of the fountains of the deep, there were vast flows of lava. This reference to Rodinia disintegrating is really a reference to the Flood. ] Rodinia began to disintegrate, and the western side of Laurentia broke away from Australia. Laurentia drifted far away, opening a gap to form the first elements of what would become the Pacific Ocean.
The sixth point is as follows:
What was left was a core of Australia, India and East Antarctica. During these plate movements between the 27th Mar -3289 and the 18th Jul -3165 (a period of 124 years and 4 months) [During this period, Pangea had formed and a number of cities called the Swastika Cities formed and probably under the influence of Nimrod and Cush. We note that just fifty years later the tower of Babel project’s main goal had been abandoned and the cities were strung out across the shores of what today would be Africa through to South-East Asia. Their original configuration appears to have been a ring, possibly surrounding or centered on Erech and Kish.] the fragments of later Africa and South America drifted around the globe towards India and Australia. By the 18th Jul -3165 the cores of Africa and South America had locked together with Australia, India and East Antarctica form the new supercontinent of Gondwana. Evidence of this amalgamation can be seen the Petermann Ranges, which consist of rocks deformed by compression around the 15th Feb -3214.
The seventh and last point is
In summary, Rodinia existed from the 13th Jul -3454 to the 2nd Sep -3328 (a period of 126 years and 2 days) and Gondwana existed from the 24th Feb -3200 to the 13th Aug -2997 (a period of 203 years and 8 months).
Conclusion:
We can conclude that Noah did not move to disperse nations to their respective assigned places until the heavier duty tectonic activity had eased off (-3219 colonists to Italy). About 407,612,964 years ago Nimrod started his 2-year Babel experiment and probably profoundly affected the inhabitants of Gondwana. Did he do it because there were already signs that Pangaea was breaking up? Or was it because he had the opportunity of everyone together on one mostly-interconnected landmass? We can conclude both.
Finally, the tales about the Earth’s land-surface and its generation from cratonic assemblages pre-Flood to accretionary ‘bubbles of mud’ according to one native history being added on to these cratons are justified by the timelines for the most striking Earth-landmass trauma that was the 430 years post-Flood experience.