Meditation 1046
Once again, the answer is not in Genesis.
by: John Tyrrell
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Since 1880 water has been bubbling up through the granite at the bottom of a copper mine two and a half kilometers below Timmins, Ontario. Only recently have scientists looked at the water and according to a study in Nature they determined that it is the remnants of an ancient sea buried and isolated for as much as 2.6 billion years. It's Precambrian water.
The low end estimate for when this water went underground is about 1.5 billion years. That's based on the xenon isotopes it contains - isotopes which are produced by the radioactive decay of uranium in the surrounding rock. The higher estimate is based on the amount lighter xenon isotopes (which are not decay products) but which indicate that the water was last in contact with the atmosphere when the air was much richer in xenon than today. And that points to 2.64 billion years ago. And this higher estimate is also consistent with the age of the rock.
Science establishes that it is very old water, and also explains why it is where it is.
I don't know how the young earth creationists - those who claim a 6,000 year old Earth and universe - can satisfactorily explain this sort of discovery away. Do they think God deliberately designed and buried water deep within the Earth that would look like it was extremely old? Why would God do that? Certainly, the answer is not in Genesis.