TJ-lehden numerossa 19(1) on sivuilla 126 ja 127 muistokirjoitus
A legacy of ideas: Roy D. Holt, 1955-2003
jossa kuuluisia kreationistitiedemies Humphreys muistelee ystäväänsä ja
työtoveriaan. Sivulla 127 Humphreys kertoo Holtin teoriasta, joka selittää
kuinka fossiilit joutuivat siihen järjestykseen, jossa ne nykyään ovat
maaperässä:
Reversing land and sea
Another big idea dominated his creationist intellectual life, but few have heard of it. That was the thought that, somehow, sea and land reversed their roles during the Genesis Flood. Before the Flood, the continents we now stand on would have been the floors of shallow seas. The dry land of Genesis 1:9 would have been elsewhere.
To develop that concept, Roy suggested that the created pre-Flood continents consisted of less-dense material (such as lime, gravel, sand and dirt) than the granites of today’s continents. The Genesis Flood would then have swept those lighter materials, mixed with land plants and animals, into the lower-altitude seas.
First, mud from the land would bury seafloor life, such as the shellfish fossils we find in Cambrian strata. Then it would catch and bury more mobile sea life, such as the fish we find mainly in Devonian strata. Next, we would have shoreline plants and small reptiles (Carboniferous strata), followed by low-altitude swamp-dwelling animals such as the dinosaurs (Mesozoic strata). Finally, there would be larger mammals and plants from the interior of the pre-Flood continents, high plains and mountains, depositing the Cenozoic (Cainozoic) strata atop the others. Then the present continents would rise up out of the world ocean. The waters running off would erode much of the Cenozoic strata, grinding up the larger fossils and dumping the mud into our present ocean basins.
This simple picture explains the fossil order (mainly of ecological zones) more satisfyingly than any other creationist Flood model I know of. In particular, it explains how the delicate fossils of the Cambrian, such as crinoids, could be buried in place without the rough transportation that might have destroyed them. It also explains another difficult pair of puzzles: where most of the sedimentary material came from, and why most of it is piled on the continents instead of elsewhere.
Roy knew that this role-reversal picture contradicts the presuppositions of some Flood modellers. Consequently, he planned a series of articles presenting the idea in logical steps over many years. The first of these articles was on the stratigraphic location of the Flood/post-Flood boundary.4 It made his case with 59 pages of detailed data and over 300 references. But poor health prevented him from writing the rest of the series. I believe it would be helpful to Flood modellers to know what his aim was, perhaps stimulating them along similar lines. We will miss Roy very much.