Dr. Steven A. Austin is a field research geologist with a Ph.D. from Penn State University in sedimentary geology. He is “Senior Research Scientist” with Institute for Creation Research in Dallas, Texas. He has performed geologic research on six of the seven continents of the world. His research adventures have taken him by helicopter into the crater of Mount St. Helens volcano, by bush plane onto glaciers in the high mountains of Alaska, by raft through the entire Grand Canyon, on horseback into the high Sierra, by elevator into the world’s deepest coal mines, by SCUBA onto the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, by rail into the backcountry of Korea, by foot onto barren plateaus of southern Argentina, and by four-wheel drive into remote desert areas of Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He is the author of three books, three videos, one computer software package, and more than thirty technical geology papers.
Dr. Austin’s field research within Grand Canyon includes over 400 nights camped out below the Canyon’s rim. He has launched 22 raft trips within Grand Canyon. He has explored very remote areas of Grand Canyon by mule, helicopter and ATV. His book “Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe” and his DVD “Grand Canyon: Monument to the Flood” summarize his investigations. He has over ten technical papers on Grand Canyon. Subjects of his technical publications on Grand Canyon include lava dams, breached dams, fossils, limestones, sandstones, basalts, diabase sills and radioisotope dating. He is widely known for his discovery of the regionally extensive mass-kill and burial bed within the Redwall Limestone about 2000 feet below the Canyon’s rim.
Steven A. Austin, Ph.D.
Institute for Creation Research
1806 Royal Lane
Dallas, Texas 75229
Phone: 800-337-0375
Email: SAustin@icr.edu
Current research
Mass-kill event and rapid burial of nautiloid fossils in a limestone layer within the Grand Canyon.
Mega-flood deposits within the Santa Cruz River valley of southern Argentina.
Frozen cones of spruce trees within a deeply buried peat layer on the shore of the Arctic Ocean in extreme northern Canada.
Gigantic slurry-flows in southern Alaska that were launched along superfaults and that produced widespread deposits composed of enormous boulders.
Professional data
Education
B.S. in Geology from the University of Washington
M.S. in Geology from San Jose State University
Ph.D. in Geology from Pennsylvania State University
Professional Organizations
Member of the Geological Society of America
Member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists
Member of the Society for Sedimentary Geology
Member of the International Association of Sedimentologists
Publications
Articles
Creationist
Archaeoraptor: Featured Dinosaur from National Geographic Doesn't Fly by Steven A. Austin. Acts & Facts Mar 1, 2000.
The Declining Power of Post-Flood Volcanoes by Steven A. Austin, Ph.D. Institute for Creation Research. August, 1998.
Did the Early Earth Have a Reducing Atmosphere? by Steven A. Austin. Institute for Creation Research. July, 1982.
Did Landscapes Evolve? by Steven A. Austin. Institute for Creation Research. April, 1983.
Earthquakes in these Last Days by Steven A. Austin. Institute for Creation Research. December, 1989.
Excess argon within mineral concentrates from the new dacite lava dome at Mount St Helens volcano Journal of Creation 10(3):335–343 December 1996
Excessively Old "Ages" For Grand Canyon Lava Flows by Steven A. Austin. Institute for Creation Research. February, 1992.
Grand Canyon lava flows: A survey of isotope dating methods ICR Impact No. 224 February 1992
Grand Canyon Lava Flows: A Survey of Isotope Dating Methods ICR Impact No. 178 April 1988
Helium diffusion rates support accelerated nuclear decay by D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D., Steven A. Austin, Ph.D., John R. Baumgardner, Ph.D., and Andrew A. Snelling, Ph.D. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism, R. L. Ivey (Ed.), pp. 175–195, 2003.
Mt. St. Helens and Catastrophism by Steven A. Austin. Institute for Creation Research. July, 1986.
Origin of Limestone Caves by Steven A. Austin. Institute for Creation Research. January, 1980.
Red Rock Pass: Spillway of the Bonneville Flood by Steven A. Austin Acts & Facts. 37 (7): 10. 2008
Springs of the Ocean by Steven A. Austin. Institute for Creation Research. August, 1981.
Ten Misconceptions about the Geologic Column by Steven A. Austin. Institute for Creation Research. November, 1984.
Twentieth Century Earthquakes - Confronting an Urban Legend by Steven A. Austin. Institute for Creation Research. January, 1998.
Washington Scablands and the Lake Missoula Flood By Steve A. Austin. Institute for Creation Research. October, 2005.
Were Grand Canyon Limestones Deposited by Calm and Placid Seas? by Steven A. Austin. Institute for Creation Research. December, 1990.
Secular
Austin, S.A., A.A. Snelling and K.P. Wise, Canyon-length mass kill of orothocone nautiloids, Redwall Limestone (Mississippian) Grand Canyon, Arizona, Abstracts with Programs, Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado, p. A-421, 1999.
Austin SA, Wise KP. 1999. Gigantic megaclasts within the Kingston Peak Formation (Upper Precambrian, Pahrump Group), Southeastern California: evidence for basin margin collapse. Geological Society of America Abstracts With Programs 31(7):A455.
JR Baumgardner, AA Snelling, DR Humphreys, and SA Austin. "The enigma of the ubiquity of 14 C in organic samples older than 100 ka". Eos Trans. AGU, 84(46), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract xxxxx-xx, 2003
Videos
Geologic Evidences For Very Rapid Strata Formation In The Grand Canyon seminar by Steven Austin
Grand Canyon: Monument to the Flood
Mt. St. Helens: Explosive Evidence for Catastrophe by Steven Austin
Radioisotopes & the Age of the Earth
Books
Footprints in the Ash
Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe 1994. ISBN 0932766331