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Creation's Tiny Mystery

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Par. 10.—Again Wise erroneously asserts that I associate polonium halos only with granites. And to clarify terminology, I used the term "Precambrian granites" to avoid any possible confusion with a variety of rocks that sometimes are associated with crystalline granite. However, an integral part of my creation model is that granites with polonium halos, of whatever presumed geological age, are created granites. Thus, contrary to Wise's opinion, polonium halos in these other granites do not at all invalidate my creation model.

Par. 11.—Wise recognizes that granite synthesis has not occurred because he states, "And truly, an artificial granite has not yet been produced." Yet he attempts to leave the impression that synthesis is soon to come by quoting various geological reports relating to the synthesis of various single crystals of minerals. The fact is, however, that single crystals of minerals are not pieces of granite; granite, as I have used the term, is a coarse-grained mixture mainly composed of feldspar, quartz, and biotite, and this has not been reproduced in a hand-sized specimen. Thus Wise begs the question when he admits, "though a true granite has not yet been produced in the laboratory, many granitic features have been." At the very best, this is an overstatement because, first, biotite, one of the primary mineral components of granite, has not been synthesized in macroscopic-sized crystals. Secondly, whatever minerals have been synthesized in the laboratory do [p. 332] not contain the polonium halos which are in natural granite, and Wise ignores this tremendous disparity between laboratory synthesis of single minerals and the actual occurrence of granite in nature. Wise is entitled to his belief that a true granite may soon be synthesized in the laboratory, though such a belief is inconsistent with the fact that, when a granite melt cools in the earth, it recrystallizes to rhyolite, not granite.

Wise apparently feels that granite studies over the past few decades bear on the crucial issue concerning polonium radiohalo evidence for creation. Do they? For many years (Gentry, 1979) I have proposed that there is a test whereby it is possible to determine whether the creation or evolutionary view of earth history is correct. This falsification test enables the nonscientist to distinguish real facts from what are simply deductions based on unproven uniformitarian assumptions. Evolution's basic premise is that the earth geologically evolved to its present state over billions of years by the action of known physical laws. A consequence of this premise—technically known as the uniformitarian principle—is that all the rocks now on or within the earth formed by natural processes. The evolutionary scenario views granites—a widely distributed rock type that contains polonium halos—as having formed countless thousands of times during the course of earth history. If this is true, then it certainly should be possible to synthesize a small, hand-sized piece of granite or a 10-cm-wide crystal of biotite in a scientific laboratory. Thus, I have invited (Gentry, 1979, 1984, 1986) my scientific colleagues who believe these rocks formed naturally to confirm their view by experimental demonstration. But my nine-year-old invitation (Gentry, 1979) for them to produce such specimens has produced only silence. This is not surprising. The parentless polonium halos in these rocks provide unique evidence that they did not form by natural processes.

Par. 12.—There are places where granites (or granodiorites) are surrounded by metamorphosed, fossiliferous-bearing, sedimentary rock. But contrary to Wise's view, such occurrences do not falsify my creation model. Conventional uniformitarian geology teaches that granitic melts have intruded into fossiliferous sedimentary rocks, thereby producing a metamorphic zone. But my explanation of such metamorphism is quite different from that scenario and is based on the previously mentioned fact that, when granite is melted in the earth and subsequently cooled, it recrystallizes to form rhyolite, not granite. My model for explaining metamorphosed, sedimentary rocks adjacent to granites—such as those that occur in the Santa Rita mining district in southeastern New Mexico—is as follows: Sometime during the Flood, movements within the earth could have broken open an underground aqueous reservoir which then contacted an intensely hot magma at considerable depth. That contact could then have produced a superheated fluid loaded with volatile components extracted from the magma. (In this scenario these volatile components would subsequently become the mineralizing agents in producing the ore bodies.) This superheated fluid would in turn have generated tremendous subterranean pressures. Movements within the earth also would have fractured the heretofore unbroken granodiorite basement rock. Once that happened, extremely high pressure from both underground magma and the geothermal fluid would cause the uplift of a huge section of the fractured granodiorite into the overlying sediments. The magma referred to here would cool to form rhyolite and other secondary rocks in the area, whereas the hot geothermal fluid is envisioned as the mineralizing agent for both the uplifted granodiorite as well as the surrounding sedimentary rocks. In such cases the metamorphic zone in the surrounding sedimentary rocks would be produced by heat from the geothermal fluid rather than from a cooling granitic melt.

Par. 13.—Again Wise maintains that granites surrounded by metamorphosed, fossiliferous deposits would invalidate my view that granites are created rocks. And he tacitly assumes the causative agent in producing such metamorphism is heat from a cooling granitic melt, which is contrary to the experimental evidence, namely, for the third time, that a granitic melt cools to form rhyolite, not granite. In response to the previous paragraph I have outlined a scenario whereby metamorphosed, sedimentary rocks can be produced around granites by hot geothermal fluids at the time of granite uplift. Thus, such occurrences are within the framework of my creation model.

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