It is claimed that both the polygonal rocks at Fingal Head, and the basalt underlay in the Mt Cougal section of the Springbrook National Park are 23 million years old - but considerably more erosion is claimed at Mt Cougal than seems evident to me at Fingal Head.
At Mt Cougal it is claimed that 5000 million tonnges (or 1.8 cubic kilometres) of rock has been eroded away from the half-kilometre think basalt underlay in the area between the waterfall lookout and the carpark just a few hundred metres down the track; while at Fingal Head, much of the exposed rocks have maintained their polygonal shape.
Both landscapes allegedly come from the same volcanic eruption 23 million years ago. The large amount of erosion at Mt Cougal appears to have been caused by a mere waterfall, while the rocks at Fingal Head have been subject to the forces of the Pacific Ocean - and yet the rocks at Fingal Head appear to have undergone considerably less erosion than the rock at Mt Cougal. Why?
Assuming they're right that the erosion at Mt Cougal has required 23 million years to occur (whoever "they" are. The plaque states the figure of 23 million years not as someone's theory but as a fact. I wondered though - how many people have devoted time to actually studying the small stretch of landscape between the Mt Cougal waterfall and the carpark a few hundred metres down the track? There are probably only 40-something universities in Australia; and of the few people who have been involved in geological research, I wonder how many people happened to have specifically studied the small landscape between the Mt Cougal waterfall and the carpark? Probably not many. So there might not have been a whole lot of peer review. Yet the plaque states the figure of 23 million as a fact, probably depending in part on the use of popularly accepted broader geochronological tools. And I'm not necessarily saying that's not academic - it was just a thought).
But be that as it may - even if they're right (right that such a magnitude of erosion in the area would ordinarily require 23 million years to occur), I'm thinking that that still wouldn't necessarily mean the landscape must be 23 millions years old. And here's why.
Science can only make conclusions about things that are observable and measurable - but it's outside the domain of science to say whether or not something extraordinary and interventional originally happened to contribute to what we now see.
If you leave it to the natural elements to blow leaves and dirt off your pavement, for example, it might take some days before it happens - but if I come along with a pressure cleaner, it can happen in a few minutes!
When Adam looked at the river in the garden in Eden, on the day he was made, and saw how it cut its way through the surrounding terrain, he might have assumed the landscape had taken a long time to form. But the truth was, God had made it all just a few days before.
Some people protest, "Why would God have deceived Adam by unnecessarily giving the earth the appearance of age!"
But it wouldn't have been to deceive Adam - it would have been to make the place liveable! You can't have a river unless the ground around the river has been carved out to hold the water - otherwise you'd have a lake, not a river! It was God's prerogative to carve out the ground for the river in a day.
Besides original creation, there was another extraordinary, interventional event - Noah's worldwide flood. The fountains of the great deep were broken up. Later the land was divided. The upheaval might have been similar to using a pressure hose on your pavement as opposed to leaving your pavement to time and the elements. Things may have happened a lot quicker than usual.
So could it be that some of the landscapes we see today around the Tweed Shield Volcanic Rim, although they may appear to be very old given currently measurable rates of erosion, were at one time subject to extraordinary and interventional original influences that more rapidly contributed to their current appearance, and that the landforms may therefore be much, much younger? It is outside the domain of science to say whether or not that can be the case.
I realise there are Old Earth Creationists as Well as Young Earth Creationists. But no matter what the process was nor how long it took, I thank God for giving us the idyllic spots by the Mt Cougal waterfall and by the beach near the Fingal Head rocks.
Now let's go swimming!
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