"He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in."

Isaiah 40:22

This page offers a tutorial of facts, recognized and accepted in the scientific community, and all without violating any of the laws of science. Theories have been identified as such in an effort to assure you are not deceived like that from "evolutionary" sponsored propaganda.

Physics and Chemistry

• Does hot water freeze faster than cold?

No! However, a bucket of water that has been heated or boiled, then allowed to cool to the same temperature as the bucket of cold water may freeze faster. Heating/boiling drives out some of the air bubbles in water; because air bubbles cut down thermal conductivity, they can inhibit freezing.

• What is the kindling point for paper?

450 F (230 C).

• Did you know water drains differently in the Northern hemisphere then it does in the Southern hemisphere?

With a perfect symmetrical drain, water in the Northern hemisphere will drain out counterclockwise where as in the Southern hemisphere it will drain clockwise. This is called the "Coriolis effect" - that is, the effects of the Earth's rotation influencing any moving body of air or water.

• What is the "Speed of Light"?

186,282 miles per second (299,792 kiolmeters). At this speed one could circle the earth nearly seven times in one second. Currently it is believe that speeds are limited to this rate.

• What is a light year?

A light year is a measure of distance, not time. It is the distance that light, which travels in a vacuum at the rate of 186,282 miles (299,792 kilometers) per second, can travel in a year (365.25 days). Or, 5.87 trillion miles.

• What is the "Speed of Sound"?

The speed of sound is not a constant; it varies depending on the medium in which it travels. The measurement of sound velocity in the medium of air must take into account many factors, including air temperature, pressure, and purity. An example, and it must be disclosed that there are differing opinions, at sea level and 32 F, estimates range from 740 to 741.5 miles per hour (1191.6 to 1193.22 kilometers). As air temperature rises, sound velocity increases. Sound travels faster in water than in air and even faster in iron and steel.

• Who is the founder of modern atomic physics?

A British physicist, Sir Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940) in 1897.

• What is radioactive "half-life"?

Half-life is the time it takes for the number of radioactive nuclei originally present in a sample to decrease to one half of their original number. A layman's analogy would be to use 1 lb of coffee and say it has a half-life of one-year. It's radioactivity will be reduced to _ lb at the end of a year (it's half-life) and to _ lb at the end of two years.

Relativity

The theory of relativity is in fact two theories.The special theory of relativity (1905) and the general theory of relativity (1915).

The special theory gives a unified account of the laws of mechanics and of electromagnetism. Einstein rejected the concepts of absolute space and time and made two postulates (a) the laws of nature are the same for all observers in uniform relative motion and (b) the speed of light is the same for all such observers.

The transformation of time implies that two events that are simultaneous according to one observer will not necessarily be so according to another in uniform relative motion. It will appear to two observers in uniform relative motion that each other's clock runs slowly. This is the phenomenon of time dilation.

A mathematical formulation of the special theory of relativity is based on the idea that an event is specified by four co-ordinates: three spatial co-ordinates and one time co-ordinate. These co-ordinates define a four-dimensional space and the motion of a particle can be described by a curve in this space. The special theory of relativity is concerned with relative motion between non-accelerated frames of reference.

The general theory deals with general relative motion between accelerated frames of reference. In accelerated systems of reference, certain fictitious forces are observed, such as the centrifugal and Coriolis forces found in rotating systems. These are known as fictitious forces because they disappear when the observer transforms to an non-accelerated system.

The predictions of general relativity only differ from Newton's theory by small amounts and most tests of the theory have been carried out through observations in astronomy. For example, it explains the shift in the perihelion of Mercury, the bending of light or other electromagnetic radiation in the presence of large bodies, and the Einstein shift.

Space and the Universe

• How old is the universe and is it expanding?

We can't be absolute as to the age because none of us were there to witness it but by using the genealogies of the Bible, it can be expected to be between 5,950 - 9,000 years old. Some scientists who support evolutions "big bang" say the universe is expanding because of the "red shift" yet others say the red shift has nothing to do with an expanding universe. The truth is, we don't have any factual evidence it is expanding.

• The distance to the most distant object seen in the universe is about 18 billion light years (18 x 109 light years). However, the universe extends farther than any astronomer can see, even with the most powerful telescopes. More powerful telescopes reveal only more galaxies we have never seen before.

•What is "parallax?"

Parallax is a term astronomers use to describe how close or far away an object is. For example, when you drive down the road you notice the trees closer to the road seem to move past you faster then the trees up on the mountain at a distance. Thus, the trees nearest to the road that move past rather quickly have "high parallax," and the trees off in the distance have "low parallax."

Astronomers use this term in identifying the distance an object is to earth. Imagine the earth orbiting the sun. Since the earth is nearly 93 million miles from the sun, the orbit would be almost 186 million miles across.

Astronomers on the earth can see nearby stars moving against a background of distant stars that do not seem to move at all. Thus, the nearby stars have high parallax and the distant stars have low parallax. So the closer the object is to the earth, the higher its parallax. The maximum distance for detecting parallax is about 600 light-years from the earth.

• Quasars appear to be stars, but they have large red shifts in their spectra indicating that they are receding from the earth at great speeds, some at up to 90% of the speed of light. However, their exact nature is still unknown.

• The distance to the galaxy M87 in the Virgo cluster is 50 million light years.

• The nearest star (other than the Sun) is 4.3 light years away.

• What is the "Milky Way"?

The Milky Way is a hazy band of light that can be seen encircling the night sky. This light comes from the stars that make up the Milky Way galaxy, the galaxy to which the sun and Earth belong. Estimates of 100 billion stars that spread across 100,000 light years make up the Milky Way galaxy.

• How many galaxies are there?

We can only guess there is 100 billion in the observable universe.

• Which galaxy is closest to us?

Galaxies are huge systems of stars separated from one another by largely empty space. The Andromeda galaxy is the galaxy closest to the Milky Way galaxy, where Earth is located. Estimates are that it is 2.2 million light years away from Earth. Bigger than the Milky Way, Andromeda is a spiral-shaped galaxy that is also the brightest in Earth's sky.

• What is the "North Star"?

If an imaginary line is drawn from the North Pole into space, it will reach a star called "Polaris", or, the "North Star" less than one degree away from the line. As the Earth rotates on its axis, Polaris acts as a pivot-point around which all the stars visible in the northern hemisphere appear to move, while Polaris itself remains motionless.

• How many constellations are there?

88.

• What is the largest constellation?

Hydra (Greek monster).

• What is the sun?

The sun is an isolated star with temperatures ranging from 10,000 F at its surface to about 27,000,000 F at its center. Its mass is 330,000 times as great as the Earth. It is comprised of Hydrogen, Helium, Oxygen, Carbon, Iron, Neon, Nitrogen, Silicon, Magnesium, and Sulfur.

The sun is unique in comparison to other stars as it is stands in isolation where as most other stars are members of systems of two or more stars. If we contrast the sun to the star system Alpha Centauri, we see this system of stars to be surrounded by other dimmer stars which are visible only to the most powerful telescopes.

In fact, if the earth were in this kind of star system, life would probably not survive because other nearby stars would be tugging and pulling on the earth, which would sometimes place the earth so close to the sun it would literally broil all living things. At other times the earth would be so far away that all life would freeze.

The unusual isolation of the sun makes it a predictable giver of light and heat, and a predictable time-teller for life on the earth. In addition to its unique isolation is the fact that most stars demonstrate an extremely variable level of energy output but not the sun. The sun is relatively constant while other stars are sometimes very hot while other times relatively cool. If this were the suns characteristics, it would be impossible for life to survive such extreme variances in temperature.

The sun is also very self-destructive as its surface continuously experiences huge explosions of super-hot gas called "solar flares," which shoot out half a million miles spilling solar matter into space. With this, the sun is losing tons of matter every day, besides the energy it radiates - thus, it is slowly dying (consistent with the second law of thermodynamics).

• How long does it take light from the sun to reach the Earth?

Sunlight takes about eight minutes and 20 seconds to reach the Earth, traveling at 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers).

• What is a Nova?

Numerous stars die annually by exploding. When this happens, the star flares up for a few weeks or months and is much brighter than normal. When this happens it is called a "nova," and if the explosion is extremely noticeable, it is called a "supernova."

• When do solar eclipses happen?

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun and all three bodies are aligned in the same plane. When the moon completely blocks Earth's view of the sun and the umbra, or dark part of the moon's shadow, reaches the Earth, a total eclipse occurs. A total eclipse happens only along a narrow path 100 to 200 miles (160 to 320 kilometers) wide called, "the track of totality".

• How far are the other planets from the sun?

• How long do the planets take to go around the sun?

• What are the diameters of the planets?

* All diameters are measured at each planets equator

• What are the colors of the planets?

• Which planets have rings?

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Jupiter's rings are 4,300 mile in width, 20 miles thick but are to narrow to be seen from the earth.

Saturn's rings are the most spectacular and are nearly 10 miles thick. Many scientists believe the dust, rock, and ice, fragments, which is the material the ring is comprised of, are the leftover fragments from the explosion of one or more moons. In the more than 300 years since the rings of Saturn were discovered, astronomers have observed the rings widening. The rings seem to be spreading out because of collisions between the particles in them. So how long would it be before the rings spread so far they are gone altogether? Calculations indicate about 10,000 years and since the rings still exist today, the catastrophe which formed the rings was not more than 10,000 years ago.

Uranus's rings are thin, narrow and very dark. Voyager II discovered a series of rings in '89 and some of the rings appear to have arcs where there is a higher density of material than at other parts of the ring.

• How long does it take to complete "one day" on each of the planets?

* Identifies planets that rotate in the opposite direction of the other planets.

• Why is Venus's rotation so unique?

Venus rotates so slowly that only two sunrises and sunsets occur each Venusian year.

• What is "Planet X"?

Since the discoveries of Uranus and Neptune, astronomers have observed perturbations, or disturbances in their orbits. Many astronomers have speculated that their orbits are being influenced by the gravity of another celestial body. Hence, the "theory of a 10th planet", Planet X, orbiting beyond Pluto was conceived. However, till this day has been no such sightings and only speculation continues.

• How far is the moon from the Earth?

The moons orbit is elliptical so its distance varies between 221,463 miles (356,334 kilometers) at perigee (closest point), to 251,968 miles (405,503 kilometers) at apogee (farthest point).

• What is the circumference of the moon?

The moons circumference is 6,790 miles (10,864 kilometers). This makes the moon 27% the size of the Earth.

• Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. If Jupiter were a little bigger, it would have become a small star. Although Jupiter's core is as hot as the surface of the sun, it never reached the temperatures needed to start the nuclear reactions that make stars shine. Jupiter's vivid surface colors are produced by traces of methane, phosphorus, and ammonia. The pattern of bands, caused by the different layers in the planet, is always changing. But one permanent feature is the Great Red Spot, a huge storm colored by phosphorus which reddens in the suns ultraviolet light.

• Most of the planet Uranus is made up of ammonia, water, and a thick greenish atmosphere of hydrogen, helium, and methane. The tilt of Uranus's axis is so great that the planet rotates in the opposite direction to all the other planets. This means its poles, usually the coldest parts of a planet, face the sun and can actually be warmer than its equator.

• Stars can be one of a variety of colors. A star's color depends on its surface temperature, just as heated metals go from red to yellow to white and blue as they get hotter. Stars range from below 6,300 F - red, to 45,000 F - blue. When they are born, most stars are close to the size of our Sun. With the larger the stars, the hotter they are the bluer they appear. With newborn medium size stars, there is also a simple link between color and brightness. The whiter and hotter a star, the more brightly it glows. The redder and cooler it is, the more dimly it glows.

• Black holes are better defined as regions in space where gravity is thought to be so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. The entire concept of black holes have been promoted by the worshippers of evolution to be the final stage of "stellar evolution" for some stars. Since the evolution of stars has never been observed, and black holes can never be observed, a belief in black holes is really based on nothing.

Some physicists argue that the laws of physics predict this but it is yet to be observed. In this black hole, it is believed that matter is squeezed so powerfully that its gravity becomes irresistible. The potential gravitational pull of a black hole the size of the Sun would be so immense that anything within range would be sucked inexorably into its black heart. Even light could not escape. This is why it is referred to as a black hole.

Earth

• What is the composition of the Earth's atmosphere?

The Earth's atmosphere, apart from water vapor and pollutants, is composed of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and less than 1% each of argon and carbon dioxide. There are also traces of hydrogen, neon, helium, krypton, xenon, methane, and ozone.

The atmosphere contains five layers:

The Troposphere is the lowest level; it averages about seven miles in thickness, varying from five miles at the poles to 10 miles at the equator. Most clouds and weather form in this layer. Temperature decreases with the altitude in the troposphere.

The Stratosphere ranges between seven and 30 miles above the Earth's surface. The ozone layer, important because it absorbs most of the sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation, is located in this band. Temperatures rise slightly with the altitude to a maximum of about 32 F.

The Mesosphere is above the stratosphere and extends 30 to 55 miles above the Earth. Temperatures decrease with altitude to - 130 F.

The Thermosphere, also referred to as the hetereosphere, is between 55 to 435 miles. Temperatures in this layer range 2,696 F.

The Exosphere, beyond the thermosphere, applies to anything above 435 miles. In this layer temperature no longer has any meaning.

The Ionosphere is a region of the atmosphere that overlaps the others, reaching from 30 to 250 miles. In this region, the air becomes ionized (electrified) from the sun's ultraviolet rays, etc. This area affects the transmission and reflection of radio waves. It is divided into three regions: the D region, at 35 to 55 miles, the E region, 55-95 miles, and the F region, 95-250 miles.

• What does Winter and Summer have to do with the Earth's rotation?

The Earth's axis, which is the line around which the planet rotates, is tipped at 23.5 with respect to the plane of revolution around the sun. When the earth is closest to the sun (about January 3), the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun. This causes winter in the northern hemisphere while the southern hemisphere is having summer. When the earth is fartherst from the sun (around July 4) this scenario is reversed, with the northern hemisphere tilted towards the sun. At this time, it is summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern hemisphere.

• What is the circumference of the earth?

The Earth is an oblate ellipsoid, which means a sphere slightly flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator. The distance around the Earth at the equator is 24,902 miles (40,075 kilometers). The distance around the Earth through the poles is 24,860 miles (40,008 kilometers).

• What was the Tunguska Event?

On June 30, 1908, a violent explosion occurred in the atmosphere over the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, which is in a remote part of central Siberia. The blast leveled thousands of square miles of forest and the shock from the explosion was heard more than 600 miles away.

We can't be sure because none of us were there to witness the event but one model studied is that it was from pieces of a comet, which produced a large fireball and blast wave. Since there was no evidence found around the impact area, this model makes the most sense as the large fireball composed primarily of ice, would have melted during its passage through the Earth's atmosphere leaving no impact crater or debris.

• At the equator, the Earth's spin is approximately 1,000 mph and the speed of the EarthÕs orbit around the Sun is 66,500 mph.

• The highest and lowest points on the Earth are:

Highest: Mt. Everest, 29,028 feet above sea level and is in the Himalayas on the Nepal - Tibet border. Lowest: Dead Sea, 1,312 feet below sea level and is located between Israel and Jordan.

• The Earth's surface is 30% land, or, 57,259,000 square miles, and 70% water, or, 139,692,000 square miles.

•If the Earth were a uniform sphere, water would cover the earth's surface by 800'.

• If all the world's ice were to melt, the ocean's water level would rise about 180'.

• The average depth of the oceans are:

• The salt content in the Earth's oceans is between 3.3 - 3.7%. Direct evidence for a "Young Earth".

• The world's deepest lake is, Baikal, located in southeast Siberia, Russia and is approximately 5,371 feet.

• 10.4% of the Earth's surface, or, 6,020,000 square miles, is glaciated (covered in some form of ice).

• At its thickest point, the ice that covers Antarctica is 15,700 feet. This is nearly 10 times taller than Chicago's, Sears Tower.

• The Grand Canyon is the largest land gorge in the world. Its 4 - 13 miles wide at its brim, 4,000 - 5,500 feet deep, and 217 miles long.

• There are four kinds of volcanoes:

Cinder Cones: These are built of lava fragments and are generally sloped between 30 degrees - 40 degrees and seldom exceed 1,640 feet in height.

Composite Cones: These are built from alternating layers of lava and ash. Their s lopes range from up to 30 degrees at the summit and taper off to 5 degrees at the base.

Shield volcanoes: These are built primarily from lava flows. Their slopes are seldom more than 10 degrees and the summit and 2 degrees at the base.

• The most destructive volcanoes in the last 250 years were:

• A Tsunami is a giant wave set in motion by a large earthquake occurring under or near the ocean that causes the ocean floor to shift vertically. This vertical shift pushes the water ahead of it, starting a tsunami.

• Were the continents ever connected?

This has been one of the most puzzling questions to Geologists. Many well respected scientists have noted many unsolved problems with this theory.

It is easy to see that they do seem to fit together and what's most impressive is the matching of the rock layers on opposite sides of a proposed split. Even disjointed mountain chains and fault systems seem to span the ocean. Furthermore, comparing the apparent time of formation of the continents versus the time of formation of the oceanic crust, it appears that the oceanic crust is younger, evidently having formed as the continents split apart.

This idea however is far from settled as the most important problem is that there is no apparent way to move the continents. They're too big to push; they would crumble. They're too big to pull, as they would break. In addition, they continental plates are not just flat plates but rather are anchored down by bulging roots. The last of the problems is that at the present time the continents are not moving as expected. In fact, in some places they are moving as the theory predicts, but in other places they are going in the opposite direction.

Earth's continent's act like giant rafts but are up to 100 miles thick sitting on top of many plates. What is needed is a major event operating at energy levels far greater than those seen today and at a global level. The best answer for this would have been the catastrophic events of the Genesis Flood.

Prior to the flood of Noah, the continents most likely sat as one gian landmass; commonly identified today as the continent of Pangea. During the flood, the scope of the geologic activity that took place would have been catastrophic. India, for an example, violently slammed into Asia buckling-up the Himalayan mountain's and the same can be said in other regions that host current mountain ranges such as the Alps.

When the plates slipped past each other, a series of earthquakes occured. When plates disappeared beneath another, deep ocean trenches formed and volcanic activity took place.

Outside of the Noahican Flood, it's not likely any other event in our history would have generated the energy required for such catastrophism.

• Meteor Craters:

Just outside of Winslow AZ, USA is a Meteor crater nearly 600' deep and one mile across. In Canada is the Chubb Meteor Crater with a diameter of two miles. Now a lake, it was not recognized as a crater until aerial photography showed its circular outline. Later research confirmed that it was made by a huge meteor.

Meteors are often rich in iron and nickel, and the nickel-rich veins at Sudbury (Canada) provide 20 percent of the world supply of nickel. This means that much of the nickel coinage we use today could possibly have space-origins.

Weather

• Many variables comprise the weather; temperature, precipitation, wind speed, visibility, the amount of water vapor, air pressure, cloud conditions, and air quality.

The sun is the ultimate cause of weather. As sunlight enters the atmosphere its rays are either absorbed by the air or reflected back to space from the white clouds. The sunlight absorbed at the earth's surface heats the ground. As the surface warms, it heats the atmosphere above it.

The ground and atmosphere continually lose heat by infrared radiation. Many of these infrared rays are absorbed by the atmosphere, but those that escape into space cause the cooling. Clouds act like a blanket to keep the earth warmer at night. They absorb most of the infrared radiation and redirect some of it back to the ground. As a result, the ground and air below the clouds do not cool off much at night.

The infrared radiation cools the earth at night. When the sun comes up, the sunshine warms the ground and air. This is why the air cools at night and warms during the day. This is why the air cools at night and warms during the day. In the summer when the days are long and the nights are short, more heat is gained by sunshine than is lost by infrared radiation in a 24-hour period. So temperatures warm as summer approaches. Just the opposite happens in winter. The shorter days and longer nights result in more heat loss in a 24-hour period. As winter approaches, temperatures become colder.

• Weather Facts:

Geology

• Rocks are classified into three groups:

There are many igneous rock types so we'll just cover four of the more popular types.

Ignenous rocks:

Granite: The continents are made up of massive volumes of granite. Huge blocks bulge up forming the central mass of many mountains. The roots of the continents that extend down into the upper mantle also consist of rocks of granitic composition. Granite always contains abundant quartz and feldspar with a good bit of mica and hornblende mixed in. A granite like rock can be formed today by melting a similar rock in a laboratory and allowing it to cool and crystallize once again, under great pressure.

We don't know exactly how the granite bodies found everywhere on the continents formed as they certainly aren't forming like this today. Granite forms by the solidification of molten magma that that squeezes up through the Earths crust like toothpaste via volcanic activity. There it cools and solidifies fairly rapidly due to the circulation of underground water. Just as the cool water gets heated by the hot rock, so the rock is cooled by the water.

When the molten rock which forms granite erupts onto land, is solidifies as rhyolite. A series of rhyolite lavas was erupted at what is now known as Yellowstone Park. These eruptions were much larger than any observed in modern times. At Yellowstone, the hot underground rocks are being cooled by water, which trickles down, gets heated, and returns to the surface as hot springs and geysers.

Obsidian is a common type of rhyolitic volcanic rock, which almost looks like a piece of black glass. It is formed by the rapid cooling of lava as it flows on the surface of the ground. This type of rock has been used by the Indians for arrowheads, because it fractures into sharp points.

Pumice is another type of igneous rock which forms from eruptions on the land. The rock is full of air holes due to cooling and thus is very light in weight. Some pieces actually float on water.

Basalt is what comprises most of the world's oceanic crusts. Many scientists think molten lava was squeezed up onto the ocean bottom from the upper mantle, where it solidified into solid rock as it cooled.

Basalt is also formed by volcanism on land. Often these land-based basalt deposits are incredibly huge, covering hundreds of thousands of square miles in area and are several miles thick. The necessary series of volcanic eruptions which produced these deposits operated on a scale far beyond anything ever witnessed in the modern world.

Sedimentary rocks:

All sediments, by definition, are transported by moving fluids, either water or air. In almost every case the sediments are deposited by water - the ocean, rivers, or lakes. These are the rock layers which contain most of the world's fossils, petrified wood, and things like that. Most of the worlds mountain chains primarily consist of this type of rock, so it forms the cliffs and banks we see today. Much of these rocks are the left over evidence from global flood of Noah's day some 4,450 years ago. The life forms fossilized in this layer were those that perished in the global Noahican flood.

There are two categories of sedimentary rocks, clastic and chemical, which are identified depending on where their materials came from and how they were deposited.

Clastic

The sediments which make up clastic rocks were derived from previously existing rocks, which were either eroded or broken up, then transported and redeposited somewhere else. In all forms of clastic rock, the grains must be bonded together by some form of cement. Usually this is a chemical which crystallizes, attaching itself to the adjacent grains.

Shale is the most abundant sedimentary rock made up of cemented particles of clay and minor silt. These particles require a microscope to see.

Sandstone is shale but with particles visible to the naked eye. Most often, the particles are made up of quartz sand, just like that on most beaches.

If the grains are bigger then normal sand grains, then the rock is called a Conglomerate. The particles which make up the conglomerate may range from pebble-sized up to boulder-sized. In between these larger particles will be smaller sand or clay particles.

Chemical

Chemical sedimentary rocks are sediments built up on the ocean floor when water can no longer keep various chemicals dissolved within it. They can be divided into two categories; those derived from organic or once living sources and those from inorganic sources.

Organic
Limestone can be both organic and inorganic and both consist of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Organic limestones can contain much inorganic material but do tend to have a significant percentage of organically derived materials such as shells of sea creatures, reef fragments, or the limey secretions of sea creatures.

Limestones often cover large areas. Today limey sediments are being deposited in many places, such as the Caribbean Sea. Modern limey sediments are very fine grained sediments made primarily of aragonite, while the limestone deposits of the past were of the even finer-grained calcite. These early conditions must have been different than conditions today.

Diatomaceous Earth are made up of a collection of the shells from single-celled organisms called diatoms or radiolarians, and certain algae in the case of chalk. These sediments never harden to any significant degree.

These sediments are used to filter and purify drinking water or to make chalk which we use to write on blackboards. Although these single-celled organisms do exist today, they do not collect in the vast quantities we find in the geologic past. Some presently unobserved process must have been involved in their production and collection.

Coal is the altered remains of huge masses of buried plant material and found in large areas all over the earth. These plant materials were part of the original, perfect ecosystem God had created but then perished in the flood. Organic material today does accumulate in swamps as peat but we know of no instance where it changes into coal under normal conditions. Some coal deposits cover large areas with extremely flat beds, but peat swamps are always small in comparison and quite irregular. There's no question, our geological past experienced significant catastrophism.

Inorganic
Limestones - Adding to the definition above, the inorganic deposits are usually fairly small in lateral extent, and form today in places where the water has a great deal of mineral material dissolved in it, such as in caves or around mineral springs.

Dolomite is similar in many ways to limestone with atoms of magnesium included in the calcium carbonate. The origin of this type of sedimentary rock remains a mystery today.

Evaporites are composed of many different minerals including metals, which are left behind from seawater evaporation. Very few impurities or organic remains are found in it and often times pure salt is found - so pure it can be mined and put right on the dinner table. These could not be the remains of evaporated seawater, but appear to have been formed when a huge volume of mineral laden water came up through the ocean floor basalts and released its dissolved content when it hit the cold ocean waters. Gypsum and anhydrite fall into this category, neither of which is forming today in quantities equal to those of the past.

Metamorphic rocks:

When limestone metamorphoses, it changes into marble. Usually the heat and pressure destroy any remnants of fossils that were in the original rock, but in some rare cases, those fossils remain.

When shale is subjected to heat and pressure, it can be metamorphosed into slate. It readily splits into thin, even slabs and is used for roofing, blackboards, and decorative sidewalks.