How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?
A Close Look at Dr. Hovind's List of Young-Earth Arguments and Other Claims
by Dave E. Matson
Copyright © 1994-2002

A3. Coal and Oil

The amount of coal and oil existing today greatly exceeds what could have been produced by decaying plants and animals in a few thousand years. It is naive to think that today's coal and oil came from the buried remains of Noah's antediluvian world. Most creationists simply have no idea how much raw material would have been required, especially for the oil deposits.

Because coal and oil are important economic resources, geologists have worked hard to estimate how much of these resources exist. The creationist writer Morton cites data published by Hunt indicating that the carbon in the coal alone is 50 times that in the entire present biosphere!...And the carbon in all oil deposits is 666 times that in the entire present biosphere! That in oil shales and other sedimentary rocks (which Morton doesn't mention!) is 40,000 times that in the present biosphere. And that doesn't count the enormous quantities of carbonates, much in the form of fossil shells. The Livingstone Limestone in the Canadian Rockies contains at least 10,000 cubic miles of broken crinoid plates!

(Sonleitner, 1991,

Just how thick did Dr. Hovind say that antediluvian vegetation was?

In doing your math, be sure to allow plenty of open space for grasslands, so that the buffalo, horses, and numerous other grazers, past and present, have plenty of space for their herds. Be sure to have plenty of deserts or near-deserts for your reptiles. Most of them require a dry environment. You will also need plenty of marshy tundra pasture for your mammoths and other pre-flood, cold-adapted grazers.

For an alternative "creation" view-point, see this post, when modern Science and Genesis, can be reconciled and harmonized... the truth speaks for itself.

They said it couldn't be done, but here it is, thanks to modern science and praise to God.     "The various attempts to join together the biblical account of creation and evolution are not supportable by the various gap theories because the order of creation is in direct opposition to the views of modern science (e.g., the creation of trees before light.)" Source: King James Hebrew-Greek KeyWord Study Bible, AMG Publishers, 1991 Yes, finally, trees exactly as described in Genesis, before, and without sunlight. And no, it's not another lame hoax. (Short) and (Long). See, Prototaxites, Fossilized "Fruiting Fungi," 'Tree'.

Besides science discovering this fossilized, non-photosynthetic, fruiting "tree," Genesis does not mention flowers (Angiosperms), which supports Old Earth Evolution. How odd for "mere mythology".