Addresses of All Authors
Aaron Hutchison: Science and Mathematics Department, Cedarville University 251 N. Main St, Cedarville OH, 45314, United States
Campbell Bortel: Campus Box 2308 Cedarville University 251 N. Main St, Cedarville OH, 45314, United States
Author's Biography
Aaron Hutchison earned his B. A. in Chemistry from Cedarville University (then Cedarville College) in 1998 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Kentucky in 2007. He is currently an associate professor of Chemistry at Cedarville University.
Campbell Bortel is an independent researcher studying in his fourth year of geology at Cedarville University.
Proposal
One potential consequence of Noah’s Flood would be the mobilization of toxic elements such as arsenic (As), a group 15 metalloid with a significant solubility and redox chemistry in water and a high toxicity to human beings. This paper discusses the likely chemistry of arsenic during the Flood. The Flood would have released arsenic through hydrothermal activity, volcanic eruptions, and weathering of crustal rock. Arsenic in hydrothermal fluid would likely be rapidly precipitated by sulfides. Likewise, much of the arsenic in volcanoes would actually be deposited sub-surface as sulfides. In the presence of oxygen-rich waters, these sulfide minerals can undergo oxidative dissolution, releasing the arsenic back into the water to join that liberated by the weathering of the surface. Iron oxyhydroxides would form in such an environment, however, and these will sorb and remove arsenic from the water once again. In waters rich in organic-carbon, reducing conditions can return periodically. This would lead to reductive dissolution to liberate the arsenic from the iron oxyhydroxides. However, these conditions can also reduce sulfates to sulfides and thus reprecipitate the arsenic sulfide minerals. Furthermore, the extremely rapid formation of sedimentary rock during the Flood would likely bury both the original sulfide minerals and the arsenic-sorbed iron oxyhydroxides before they could be significantly dissolved. The modern distribution of arsenic gives evidence of this; the element is often concentrated in large sedimentary basins adjacent to orogenic belts. It appears that arsenic sulfides (formed during the Flood) were in some cases subject to uplift during orogenesis associated with the Flood and underwent oxidation, resulting in the arsenic being sorbed to iron minerals and clays. These eroded into the foreland basins and were buried before the arsenic could leach into local waters to a major degree. In modern times, however, reductive dissolutions of these deposits has resulted in arsenic poisoning. While arsenic does not threaten the Flood model (rather the Flood explains the modern distribution of arsenic), modern arsenic contamination is an ongoing result of the judgement of the Flood.
Disciplines
Environmental Chemistry | Geology
Keywords
Arsenic, Genesis Flood, toxic elements
DOI
https://doi.org/10.15385/jpicc.2018.8.1.23
Print Reference
Pages 229-237
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Recommended Citation
Hutchison, A.R., and Bortel, C.F. 2018. The fate of arsenic in Noah’s Flood. 2018. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism, ed. J.H. Whitmore, pp. 229–237. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Creation Science Fellowship.
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