The Iridium Anomaly and Earth's Impact Events Both Preclude a Young Earth and a Global Flood

Iridium is an incredibly unique element. It rests on the periodic table with atomic number 77, and is the second densest metal present. It's also the most corrosion resistant metal, maintaining it's integrity at temperatures up to 2000 degrees Celsius. 

It also obliterates Young Earth Creationism. 

Part 1: The Iridium Shortage

Our planet is abundant in many elements, particularly those conducive to life. But as everyone knows, there are elements that are rarer than others. Iridium fits into this category. 

This element one of the rarest of those found in Earth's crust. This means that it is essentially present enough to be considered among the crustal makeup, but practically it is very difficult to find. How rare are we talking here? 

Well only 3 tons of iridium are produced and consumed in the Earth's Crust annually. 

Gold is thus 40 times more abundant in comparison. 

What this means is that finding large quantities of this element is very rare, and when it occurs it is usually a big geologic deal. This is because large iridium deposits on our planet usually have an story to tell, as the element's presence is very much out of this world. 

Part 2: The Iridium Surplus

While our planet's crust may be lacking in this metal, it seems to call another type of place home:

Iridium is abundant in meteorites. (Becker, Luann (2002))

Found at .5 ppm (parts per million) or more, this element sets up shop in the majority of recovered meteorites discovered post-impact on our world. Compare this to the .001 ppm that our crust sports and it becomes clear that wherever mass amounts of iridium are found, geologists and astronomers begin to look for the smoking meteorite. 

And curiously, many of these heavily iridium-infused locations are craters, indicating an impact event occurred at some point and left iridium behind in the soil and rock. And it is this fact that leads us to an important point that many already accept, but creates big problems for YEC for reasons to be addressed: 

Part 3: Iridium and the Dinosaurs

In 1980, Luis and Walter Alvarez, both prominent geologists, noticed something strange. 
It was well known at the time that the dinosaurs had gone extinct due to some enormous global event and that this event was recorded in the rocks. No dinosaur fossils could be found after a geologic formation known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary after all, meaning whatever had caused this boundary (in most places denoted by a large rock band of unique composition) likely also triggered the mass extinction event. 
Meteor impacts were being thrown around, but like the supervolcano hypothesis there was nothing supremely solid to back it up. 
But that's when the Father-Son team noticed that this band of rock, which could be found globally and marked the disappearance of the dinosaurs everywhere,had incredibly high concentrations of iridium. Iridium, the element that was primarily found in meteorites. 
But to deposit such a massive amount of the rare metal, and to do so all over the world, the impact event would have to be enormous. 
Enter Chixulub Crater. 

This enormous crater was formed by a large asteroid or comet about 11 to 81 kilometres (6.8 to 50.3 miles) in diameter, is found in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. This crater is almost certainly the result of the stellar object that collided with Earth and killed the dinosaurs off in a resulting climactic disruption. 
How do we know this? 

• Chixulub Crater is chock full of iridium and is dated precisely to the time period the global iridium band was laid down. (Hildebrand, Penfield, et al.)
• Chixulub Crater is also chock full of tektites, small balls of hardened glass that occur as a result of superheated impact events and are also commonly found in the K-Pg boundary globally.
• It has jumbled, coarse rock fragments that are typical of either a mega-tsunami or an impact event
• It possesses an andesite layer, typical of major impact events.

So. We know that 65-ish MYA an enormous asteroid or comet hurtled through our atmosphere, slammed into our planet's crust and left Chixulub Crater as well as a global band of debris made up of iridium and tektites. We also know that after this impact event, there are no more dinosaurs in the fossil record. 

So what exactly does this have to do with Creationism?

Part 4: Iridium and Creationism

According to Young Earth Creationists, the Earth was created ex nihilo some 6000-10000 years ago, piece by piece over the course of 7 days. This is due to a "literal" reading of the Bible, which continues onward to suggets that 4000-6000 years ago (depending on the group) God sent a Global Flood to wipe out all life on Earth except for Noah and his family, who loaded 2 of each kind of animal onto an enormous wooden vessel and sailed to safety.

With this knowledge we can make some inferences. If this is what is to be believes than:

• Prior to the Global Flood, there were no enormous impact events such as that of Chixulub as all life would have been wiped out. 
• Because of this, ALL impact events that would cause mass extinctions MUST have occurred DURING the global flood. 
• No impact events occurred after either, for the reasons mentioned in inference 1. 
• This means the Global Iridium Anomaly was NECESSARILY laid down during the Global Flood
• It also means ALL iridium deposits were laid down during the flood, as they are only found by mining the Crust, unusual Volcanic Events and MOST commonly by impact events. 

Here lies the issue. 
Iridium is the second densest metal on the periodic table. Dense things sink. Underneath the Global Iridium Anomaly in locations such as the Grand Canyon we have enormous bands of Limestone, a mineral that is very fine and takes a LONG time to settle. 

Most limestone is made of the skeletons and shells of trillions upon trillions of marine microorganisms. Deposits can be hundreds or even thousands of meters thick. Approximately 1.5 x 10^15 grams of calcium carbonate get deposited on the ocean floor annually [Poldervaart, 1955]. This is INCREDIBLY slow. Furthermore, this mineral cannot even begin to settle out of water unless the water is calm and warm. 

With all of this in mind, there should NEVER be ANY limestone below an Iridium layer if they were deposited in a single flood over the course of a single year. 

This is true no matter when the impact of Chixulub is placed during the year-long flood. 

If it is at the beginning, the lowest flood layer, that which is above the basement granite, should be iridium. It isn't. 

If the impact is sometime during the middle of the flood year, we should see a steady gradient of mineral/layer density decreasing from the anomaly, but we don't. We find silt, limestone, evaporites and clay above AND below the iridium layer. 

But iridium is not the only problem. 

Part 5: Impact Events and YEC

Pasted below are the top 10 biggest known impact events from Earth's History. These were taken from a National Geographic article.  ALL of these impacts must have occurred during a single year according to Young Earth Creationists. 


1. Vredefort Crater
Asteroid impact date: Estimated 2 billion years ago
Location: Free State, South Africa
Specs: Also known as the Vredefort Dome, the Vredefort crater has an estimated radius of 118 miles (190 kilometers), making it the world's largest known impact structure. This crater was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.

2. Sudbury Basin
Asteroid impact date: Estimated 1.8 billion years ago
Location: Ontario, Canada
Specs: The Sudbury Basin is considered one of largest impact structures on Earth, with an estimated diameter of 81 miles (130 kilometers). Dating back 1.8 billion years, it is also one of the oldest known impact structures in the world.
3. Acraman Crater
Asteroid impact date: Estimated 580 million years ago
Location: South Australia, Australia
Specs: Located in what is now Lake Acraman, this impact structure has an estimated diameter of 56 miles (90 kilometers).
4. Woodleigh Crater
Asteroid impact date: Estimated 364 million years ago
Location: Western Australia, Australia
Specs: This crater is not exposed at the surface and has led to many discrepancies regarding its actual size. Reports on its diameter vary from 25 to 75 miles (40 to 120 kilometers).
5. Manicouagan Crater
Asteroid impact date: Estimated 215 million years ago
Location: Quebec, Canada
Specs: This impact crater formed what is now Lake Manicouagan. Even with erosion, it's considered one of the largest and best-preserved craters on Earth, with an estimated diameter of 62 miles (100 kilometers).
6. Morokweng Crater
Asteroid impact date: Estimated 145 million years ago
Location: North West, South Africa
Specs: Located near the Kalahari Desert in South Africa, this crater contained the fossilized remains of the meteorite that created it.
7. Kara Crater
Asteroid impact date: Estimated 70.3 million years ago
Location: Nenetsia, Russia
Specs: Now greatly eroded, the Kara crater is a non-exposed impact structure in Russia. Some have claimed that the impact structure actually consists of two adjacent craters: the Kara and the Ust-Kara crater.
8. Chicxulub Crater
Asteroid impact date: Estimated 65 million years ago
Location: Yucatán, Mexico
Specs: Located on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, many scientists believe that the meteorite that left this crater caused or contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Estimates of its actual diameter range from 106 to a whooping 186 miles (170 to 300 kilometers), which if proved right could mean it's the biggest.
9. Popigai Crater
Asteroid impact date: Estimated 35.7 million years ago
Location: Siberia, Russia
Specs: Russian scientists claim that this crater site contains trillions of carats of diamonds, making it one of the largest diamond deposits in the world. These diamonds have been referred to as "impact diamonds."
10. Chesapeake Bay Crater
Asteroid impact date: Estimated 35 million years ago
Location: Virginia, United States
Specs: Discovered in the early 1980s, the Chesapeake Bay Crater is located approximately 125 miles (201 kilometers) from Washington, D.C. Some estimates suggest this crater is 53 miles (85 kilometers) wide.

As it turns out, impact events release heat. And heat in mass quantities can ONLY be dissipated through our atmosphere.

Whitcomb and DeYoung, both Flood Geologists, propose that given ALL cratering on earth occured during this year, the event was probably similar to the cratering events seen on the Moon. Just the LARGEST of the lunar craters released 3 X 10^26 joules of heat. 

For reference this is just shy of the joules (5.6 X 10^26) required to boil all the Earth's oceans.

Part 6: TL;DR Conclusion

Both Impact Events AND Iridium deposits tell a story of a planet bombarded through the Eons, not one nearly shattered in a single year by all it's collisions. In order to combat this YECs would need to provide an alternative method for dissipating heat from impact events, as well as a reasonable explanation for the layering of the Iridium Anomaly.