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Part 2One of the reasons so many Christians have come to accept an old Earth is they believe that science does not support a global Flood and a young Earth. Dr. Snelling is a geologist with an impressive resume having broad experience with the actual data and getting it published. In this interview we discuss several significant factors that confirm both the global Flood and a young Earth.
Dr. Snelling was a significant partner in the RATE project, which the findings were powerfully in favor of creation and the Flood. In this interview we primarily discuss findings related to helium in zircons and carbon in coal samples. On the web Dr. Snelling has been attacked fiercely, so I wanted to find out if he really had the data to support the Earth being young and the global Flood. Watch for your self to see how he did in this stirring encounter.
Andrew A. Snelling, BSc (Hons), PhD
Director of Research, AiG-USBiography
Andrew A. Snelling is a geologist, research scientist, and technical editor. He completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Geology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, graduating with First Class Honors in 1975. His Doctor of Philosophy (in geology) was awarded by The University of Sydney, Australia in 1982 for his research thesis entitled “A geochemical study of the Koongarra uranium deposit, Northern Territory, Australia.” Between studies and since Andrew worked for six years in the exploration and mining industries in Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and the Northern Territory variously as a field, mine and research geologist.Andrew commenced in full-time creation ministry at the end of 1983, first working with the Creation Science Foundation of Australia until late 1998, including three years with Ken Ham before Ham moved to the USA. From 1983 to 1992 Snelling was still required to be a geological consultant to the Koongarra uranium project. He was involved in research projects with several CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organization) scientists, and in major international collaborative research effort with ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization) and university scientists across Australia, and with scientists from the USA, Britain, Japan, Sweden and the International Atomic Energy Agency, to investigate the Koongarra uranium deposit as a natural analog of a nuclear waste disposal site. As a result of these research endeavors, Andrew was involved in writing numerous scientific reports, and scientific papers that were published in international science journals.
In late 1998 Andrew joined the Institute for Creation Research near San Diego, as a Professor of Geology. His responsibilities included teaching Master’s degree geology courses in ICR’s Graduate School, leading tours to the Grand Canyon, England, Yosemite, and Death Valley; and research and writing projects. Andrew was a principal investigator in the eight-year, ICR-led RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) research project to which he made major contributions in rock dating studies using radioisotopes, and in studies of radiation halos (radiohalos) and tracks (fission tracks) in various minerals. He contributed two chapters to the first RATE technical volume in 2000, and three chapters to the second RATE technical volume in 2005, as well as being the primary production editor of both volumes. Andrew’s time at ICR was also spent writing a major two-volume book on Earth’s Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation, and the Flood (Dallas, TX: Institute for Creation Research, 2009).
In June 2007 Andrew’s employment began with Answers in Genesis as their Director of Research. He initially resided in Brisbane, Australia and commuted regularly as necessary to the USA. But in mid-2011 he moved with his wife to live in northern Kentucky (near Cincinnati, Ohio). As a result of joint research, he has contributed to and jointly edited (with Dr. Steven W. Boyd) the book Grappling with the Chronology of the Genesis Flood (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2013).
Andrew’s talents have enabled him to be involved in extensive creationist research in Australia, the USA, Britain, New Zealand and elsewhere, majoring on the radioactive methods for dating rocks and evidence for the Flood of Noah. Such research has included the formation of igneous and metamorphic rocks (for example, granites and schists, respectively), all types of mineral deposits, sedimentary strata, and landscape features (for example, Grand Canyon, USA, and Ayers Rock or Uluru, central Australia) within the biblical framework of earth history. Technical papers by Dr. Snelling on regional metamorphism and rock dating have won the prestigious “Technical Excellence Award” as best technical paper at the 1994 Third and 1998 Fourth International Conference on Creationism respectively. As well as writing regularly and extensively in many international creationist magazines, journals and publications, Andrew was founding editor in 1984 and served as editor for almost 15 years of the Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal (now Journal of Creation), and served as the Editor-in-Chief for the Sixth International Conference on Creationism.
Andrew has traveled around Australia, the USA, and widely overseas (Britain, New Zealand, South Africa, Korea, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China) speaking in schools, churches, colleges, public and university meetings, to both lay and technical audiences, on the overwhelming scientific evidence consistent with the biblical account of Creation and the Genesis Flood, based largely on his own research. Andrew’s research has demonstrated that a global flood about 4,300 years ago explains many rock layers and most fossil deposits found around the world. Building from that foundation, Dr. Snelling has made predictions as to what should be found if a catastrophic global flood actually happened (for example, the existence of extensive, fossil-bearing rock layers). Additionally, Andrew’s research has indicated that radioactive decay rates have not been consistent in the past, having been grossly accelerated, so the radioactive methods for dating rocks at millions and billions of years old are not reliable, and the rock evidence overall is consistent with a young earth. He is currently researching the radioisotope dating of meteorites.
Andrew was raised in a Christian family in Sydney, Australia, is married to wife Kym, and has three adult children and three grandchildren. Andrew’s interest in geology began very soon after his conversion to Christianity at nine years of age. His very firm conviction in the authority and veracity of the Scriptures brought him to the creation/evolution controversy early in his teens, so that by the commencement of university studies, Andrew already had a clear scriptural perspective on the literalness of Creation and Noah’s Flood, and an unmistakable call from the Lord for a life-long involvement in creationist ministry.
Education
BSc Applied Geology, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, First Class HonoursPhD Geology, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Associations
Geological Society of AustraliaGeological Society of America
Geological Association of Canada
Mineralogical Society of America
Society of Economic Geologists
Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits
Creation Research Society
Honors and Awards
At the Third International Conference on Creationism in Pittsburgh (1994), he was presented with the Technical Excellence Award for the best technical paper, a paper on evidence for regional metamorphism within the creationist timeframe.At the Fourth International Conference on Creationism (1998), he gained the first three prizes for technical excellence: first prize for his studies on anomalous radiometric “dates” of recent lava flows from Mt Ngauruhoe volcano, New Zealand. The second and third prizes were for co-authored papers with John Woodmorappe on the cooling of granites, and Dr. Steve Austin on radiometric “dating” of a rock unit in the Grand Canyon respectively.
Publications
Books
Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Vol. 1, edited by Larry Vardiman, Andrew Snelling and Eugene ChaffinRadioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Vol. 2, edited by Larry Vardiman, Andrew Snelling and Eugene Chaffin
Earth’s Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation and the Flood, 2 volumes
The NEW Answers Books 1–4, Featuring many authors such as Ken Ham (who also served as general editor), Dr. David Menton, Dr. Andrew Snelling, Professor Andy McIntosh, Dr. Georgia Purdom, Dr. Danny Faulkner, Dr. Jason Lisle, Dr. Terry Mortenson, and Dr. Clifford Wilson
Grappling with the Chronology of the Genesis Flood, edited by Steven W. Boyd and Andrew Snelling
Some Creation magazine articles written by Dr. Snelling
- Darwin the City
- Coal Beds and Noah’s Flood
- Forked seams sabotage swamp theory of coal formation
- Noah’s Flood and Mt Isa Metal Deposits
- Is The Sun Shrinking? Part Two
- A ‘165 million year’ surprise
- Iceland’s recent ‘mega-flood’
- Grand Canyon: Startling Evidence for Noah’s Flood
- The First Atmosphere:
Geological Evidences and their Implications - Australia’s Amazing Kangaroos
- The Bear That Isn’t
- Dating Dilemma: Fossil wood in ‘ancient’ sandstone
- Where Are All The Human Fossils
- Amazing ‘Ark’ Exposé
- Radioactive ‘Dating’ in Conflict
(simplified version of the technical paper on the Crinum wood, below) - Radioactive ‘dating’ failure: Recent New Zealand lava flows yield ‘ages’ of millions of years
(simplified version of the technical paper on the Mt Ngauruhoe lava flows, below) - Geological conflict: young radiocarbon date for ancient fossil wood challenges fossil dating
- Rapid Rocks: Granites didn’t need millions of years of cooling
(with John Woodmorappe) - That Matter of the Shrinking Sun
(Be Skeptical About the Skeptics! Part 4)
Some articles by Dr. Snelling from Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal (now Journal of Creation)
- Galaxy-Quasar Connection (red shift anomaly)
- Sedimentation Experiments: Nature finally catches up!
- Can Flood Geology Explain Thick Chalk Layers?
- Saturn’s Rings—Short-Lived and Young
- The ‘Principle of Least Astonishment’!
[Rapid reversals of Earth’s magnetic field] - Microscopic Diamonds Confound Geologists
- Moon Dust and the Age of the Solar System
- ‘Rapid’ Granite Formation?
- Conflicting ‘ages’ of Tertiary basalt and contained fossilised wood, Crinum, Central Queensland, Australia
- See also Dr. Snelling’s paper on anomalous ‘dates’ of Mt Ngauruhoe (New Zealand) lava flows
(First Prize for technical excellence, Fourth International Conference on Creationism, 1998.
