Mount St. Helens

Dave Powell

Ministry Co-Director Truth of Genesis

For over 150 years, Naturalists and Evolutionists have tried to convince the world that the Earth is millions of years old. In recent history, one area they point to is the Grand Canyon. They proclaim that the canyon has been carved out by the Colorado River over millions of years.

Creationists have spent much time and effort debating and debunking the Naturalists’ idea of millions of years. On May 18, 1980, God gave them spectacular insight into the formation of the earth during and after Noah’s flood.

Mount St. Helen’s exploded on May 18, 1980, and on June 12, 1980, the pyroclastic flow deposited volcanic ash in layers. It created layered strata…the same as the type of layering in the sandstone of the Grand Canyon. This didn’t happen over years, months or days. It happened over the course of 3 hours.

Consider also that the avalanche of rock debris leveled 150 square miles of forest. About ¼ of the avalanche went into Spirit Lake, creating an 850 foot water wave. It ended with the lake being 200 feet deeper and containing about a million floating logs.

Another event was the mud flow of March 1982. The mud flow rapidly eroded the area of Step Canyon over 600 feet deep. The mud flow made the canyon, and then the canyon became a channel for the stream flowing through it. This happened over a short period of time, not millions of years. This gives evidence that the Colorado River did not carve out the Grand Canyon over millions of years, but that the canyon is a channel for the river.

Mount St. Helen’s is considered to be a small to average size volcano and yet it created catastrophic destruction for hundreds of miles. Just the mud slides alone created a gigantic water wave and carved out a 600 foot deep canyon. If we imagine these events on a global scale (Noah’s flood), it isn’t very difficult to see that the destruction would be total devastation.

Because we have record of specific dates and times for all of the events related to Mount St. Helen’s (from 1980 to 1982), we can compare this to the Grand Canyon and the Biblical account of Noah’s Flood. Therefore, we can be confident that the Earth is thousands, not millions, of years old.