Creationists love pointing to the Grand Canyon, saying that it shows evidence of massive flooding. But the dirty little secret they won't tell you is that it shows evidence of not one flood, but many floods.

In the upper-left photo, Dr. Genie Scott illustrates one piece of evidence of multiple flood events. The photo was taken on a hike through North Canyon, one of the tributary canyons along the Colorado River. This would put these rock layers in the mid-Supai group, probably the Manakacha Formation. At her shoulders, is a layer of sandstone which is pretty smooth and clean. It looks rather solid. But at her waist is a layer beneath which is pockmarked and rough. It doesn't look smooth at all. That's because this particular layer once had small invertebrates feeding and digging into the sandy, muddy bottom, looking for food. Later, they were suddenly buried. In geologic terms this is what's called a bioturbated rock layer.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. Above Genie's head is another bioturbated layer, followed by another smooth layer, followed by another bioturbated one, and so forth. Below Genie's feet, is another smooth layer, followed by another bioturbated one, followed by another smooth one, et cetera. So, if the Canyon layers were layed down in a great cataclysm, why did things get calm long enough for little critters to come in and start feeding, then get buried, then get calm again, then have little feeders come in again.... Doesn't this cycle indicate a shallow sea with the occasional hurricane burying things? Doesn't that make more sense than a global flood?

The Canyon is pretty unambiguous about what happened to form it. Many, many floods once passed over those rocks. Not one big one. Many hurricanes, many freezings, many dryings. There will be more on this in later postings, but one big event didn't make the rock formations in that Canyon. To insist so is just plain silly.