Turns out the title Cretacous period just means “chalk time” in fancy lingo! To learn more about this, read my post on The Geologic Column.
So, what can we learn about the world from this stuff?
Chalk cliffs of Königsstuhl
Chalk is formed from microscopic animals and algae (called protozoa when they’re still alive today) mixed together with calcite mud (not from animals or plants). The most famous chalk formation starts runs across northern Europe from Ireland, across England to the White Cliffs of Dover. Then it continues east with chalk cliffs in France, Denmark and the coast of Germany.
In fact, the same chalk layer goes all the way through eastern Europe down into Israel and over as far as Kazakhstan. Identical formations also cover a huge section of North America.
Under parts of this chalk layer that can be up to 405m (1,329 feet) thick, people find petroleum, especially in the North Sea and under Texas. Turns out, along with rock salt, chalk makes an excellent top seal to hold petroleum in place underground. What does this tell us about when chalk was laid down? It had to be after a whole bunch of animals got buried to start the petroleum making process (I’ll have to cover that some other time, here’s an Answers in Genesis article for now).
Evolutionists say it took millions of years to build up chalk layers like these from “ooze” collecting at the bottom of the sea, “at a rate of only about 1 to 6 centimeters per thousand years.”
Billions of coccoliths (what chalk is made from) floating in the water-column
But is that much time really necessary? When the Flood was at its highest, there was a period of a couple of months that was ideal for the little creatures that make up chalk to thrive. We still have mini versions of this happening with today’s “phytoplankton algae.” I found a long page on a bloom in the Gulf of Maine that discusses all the ingredients you would need for this to happen: sunlight, nutrients, and warm water.
All of these would have been in abundance at this point of the Flood. You had sunny skies because the 40 days of rain were right at the beginning of the Flood period. There was lots of freshly stirred-up water full of everything a tiny critter could want to grow. And you had warm water from the Fountains of the Great Deep being broken up.
There seem to have been three periods of extra fast growth before things got nasty again with the break up of the continents as God brought the Flood to its end. New layers of sediment quickly squashed the chalk down and soon you had huge layers of chalk covered with later sediments.
Just for fun- There are places in England where the topsoil above the chalk is very thin. For thousands of years the locals have enjoyed making giant pictures on the hillsides by peeling off the upper layer to expose the white chalk underneath. Some of these figures are very ancient, some are brand new.
Quotes of the Day:
From the University of Washington: “On a worldwide scale sea level had risen 600 meters [1968ft] and “many continental areas, which had been land since the Paleozoic, were flooded by shallow water” ” I’ll say. Like at least 15 cubits deep!
Discovering Fossils UK: “Most chalks formed during the Cretaceous period, between 100 and 60 million years ago, and chalks of this age can be found around the world. The Cretaceous chalks record a period when global temperatures and sea levels were exceptionally high. This coincided with the break up of the supercontinent Pangea, which broke apart to form the continents of today.” Take out the “millions of years” and you’ve just about got it!
Here’s a bit I’ll add to my post on Erosion Predictions. The chalk cliffs of both Dover and the Island of Rügen in Germany have had some big landslides recently. Makes you wonder how many more “millions of years” such cliffs can stand straight and tall.
Teens and Grownups with a lot of time might enjoy this research article on Chalk from Answers Research Journal.
The “slate pencils” and chalks that students and teachers used to use, and even today’s sidewalk chalk is made from Plaster of Paris, not chalk, so it’s actually just gypsum.
And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered….And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days. And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged; The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; Genesis 7:19,20,24; 8:1,2
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