Can Popping Bubbles Carve Canyons?

What do the Grand Canyon, Uluṟu (Ayers Rock), and the White Cliffs of Dover have in common? All of these geological marvels have been shaped by the power of weathering and erosion. We envision the processes that sculpt these formations as taking place slowly and gradually over many millions of years. But what many do not know is that such processes can actually happen over a much faster timescale. This is thanks to a lot of water, a little bit of time, and cavitation, which has a lot to do with…popping bubbles.

The views expressed in this article reflect those of the author mentioned, and not necessarily those of New Creation.

What are Weathering and Erosion?

Contrary to popular belief, weathering and erosion are not the same thing. Weathering refers to when a particular material (such as the earth’s surface) is broken down into smaller pieces. Erosion, on the other hand, happens when those pieces are transported and deposited in another place.

We can see the effects of weathering and erosion everywhere around us. The cracks that form in sidewalk concrete are the product of weathering and erosion, as is the peeling paint on your car, the rust that develops on metal objects, and even potholes in the road. We usually do not notice it is happening until much time has passed. So when we look at large and impressive geologic formations all around the world, it seems logical to think that they formed similarly over a very long period of time.

This poses a big problem for a biblical young-earth timescale. According to the Book of Genesis, the earth’s surface can be no older than perhaps about 6-10,000 years old, give or take. And from ancient historical records, we know that most geological features on the earth’s surface were well in place by the time of the earliest recorded writings, somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. This does not provide very much time to create the earth’s surface as we see it today. But if weathering and erosion are so slow, how was this possible?

The answer may have something to do with a very special weathering process that uses…bubbles.

Burst Your Bubble

“Turns out bubbles can be one of the most destructive forces in nature…[Y]ou may have never been injured by a bubble, and from this information I can glean that, one, you are not a boat propeller, and two, you are not a small fish about to be eaten by a pistol shrimp!”

– Hank Green, from “Cavitation” on the SciShow YouTube Channel

Popping bubbles may sound harmless, and usually they are. But these bubbles pack a powerful punch if produced by a process called cavitation.¹ In very fast-flowing water, low-pressure vacuum bubbles form. And upon contact with an obstacle, they implode, like a tiny dynamite blast, generating up to 20,000 K (35,540.33 ℉).² That is over twice as hot as the surface of the sun!

If you are a boater, you may be more than familiar with the power behind cavitation. Boat propellers are often subject to these tiny imploding bubbles that eat away at the metal. Even our strongest metals are susceptible to cavitation. There are even predatory animals that use cavitation to bring down their prey. The pistol shrimp gets its name from its ability to snap its claw, creating a cavitation bubble. The bubble shoots out at cheetah speed—56 mph (90 km/h), and with a high enough pressure to kill small fish!³

Larger and faster water flows can create whirlpool-like vortexes that pick up dislodged material from the water bottom through a process called kolking. During transportation, they will bump along the water bottom, breaking up more pieces along cavitation to accelerate the weathering/erosion process.

There’s Power in the Flood!

Most young-earth geologists and other creation scientists believe that the rock layers making up these geologic formations were laid down during the worldwide Flood of Noah’s day. As such, the formations themselves are likely the product of weathering and erosion happening after the Flood. Volcanic and tectonic activity during the Flood increased ocean temperatures worldwide, increasing rates of evaporation. This led to much higher rates of rainfall. As a result, the world was much warmer and wet.

Old-earth and young-earth scientists often disagree on the cause and exact rate at which these formations were created. But they agree this occurred at a time when the world was a much wetter place. This created ample opportunity for cavitation to take effect. With more water, the earth’s surface was more susceptible to erosion. As such, many earth scientists (regardless of how old they think the earth is) became interested in applying what we know about cavitation to the world around us. Below, we will look at several examples, two recent and two ancient, that demonstrate the power of cavitation upon weathering and erosional processes.

Glen Canyon Dam

The Glen Canyon Dam is located on the Colorado River in northern Arizona. In June of 1983, a major failure of a reinforced spillway tunnel resulted in the emergency release of 93,000 cubic feet per second of water through a spillway tunnel. Earthquakes reverberated from inside the dam upon the release of all this water. Once the emergency release was over, engineers investigated the spillway to discover a new 63,000-cubic-feet-volume hole right through the concrete and steel reinforcements, even penetrating the bedrock.⁴

Mount St. Helens

After the initial eruption of Washington’s Mount St. Helens, smaller subsequent eruptions melted snow and ice on March 19, 1982 caused mudflows that cut several canyons 1/40th the size of Grand Canyon. Many people think all of these canyons are only carved through soft volcanic ash, but this is only partially true. Loowit Canyon’s 100-foot deep chasm was partly carved into hard volcanic rock called andesite in just a matter of months. This is noteworthy since andesite is harder than most varieties of steel.^5,6

Afton Canyon

Sometimes called the “Grand Canyon of the East Mojave,” Afton Canyon is centered along the Mojave River in California. Though originally interpreted as the product of slow and gradual river erosion, more recent research (by old-earth geologists, no less!) suggests that it had a much more catastrophic origin. At least the top 440 feet of the canyon is thought to have been carved out in less than 500 years, though more likely within as little as ten days or three weeks.⁷

Channeled Scablands

Located in eastern Washington, the Channeled Scablands is a dry, barren region shaped into massive valleys and cliffs. Though hotly contested for 40 years, the geological community finally agreed that the best explanation was the catastrophic carving of this region by large-scale flooding. They believe this flooding is the result of a natural dam failure from Lake Missoula in Montana. Most young-earth scientists think the Channeled Scablands formed by a single flood, though there is disagreement as to whether multiple floods were involved. Regardless, the total amount of time required to shape the Channeled Scablands would not have been very long.

Conclusion

Discovering the power of cavitation in geologic formations around the world is an ongoing area of research. Many open questions still remain! Young-earth geologists, and even a number of old-earth geologists, think that the Grand Canyon and similar canyons may have been the product of lots of water, a little bit of time, and cavitation. Could cavitation have played a role in the formation of so-called ‘gooseneck’ canyons like those of the San Juan River in Utah? Currently, there is little to no creationist research on these unusual formations.

Regardless, the discovery of cavitation’s relevance to geology has made it widely-discussed and an exciting area of research. Cavitation teaches us that “There’s Power, Power, wonder-working Power in the overflowing flood of the dam!”⁸

Footnotes

1. Barnes, H. L. (1956). “Cavitation as a geological agent.” American Journal of Science, 254(8), 493-505. ↩︎
2. Merouani, S., Hamdaoui, O., Rezgui, Y., & Guemini, M. (2014). “Theoretical estimation of the temperature and pressure within collapsing acoustical bubbles.” Ultrasonics sonochemistry, 21(1), 53-59. ↩︎
3. Versluis, M., Schmitz, B., von der Heydt, A., & Lohse, D. (2000). “How snapping shrimp snap: through cavitating bubbles.” Science, 289(5487), 2114-2117. ↩︎
4. Holroyd, Edmond W. (1990) “Cavitation Processes During Catastrophic Floods,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism: Vol. 2, Article 45. ↩︎
5. Morris, J., and Austin, S.A., Footprints in the Ash: The explosive story of Mount St Helens, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, pp. 50–55, 2003. ↩︎
6. Geologists often measure the hardness of a material using the Mohs hardness scale, which measures a material’s resistance to scratching. Higher Mohs hardness numbers indicate greater hardness, with talc being the weakest mineral with a hardness of 1 and diamond being the strongest with a hardness of 9. Most types of steel have a hardness of around 5.5-6, whereas andesite has a hardness of about 6-7. ↩︎
7. Meek, Norman. 1989. “Geomorphic and Hydrologic Implications of the Rapid Incision of Afton Canyon, Mojave Desert, California.” Geology 17, no. 1 (January 1): 7–10. ↩︎
8. These words were sung by an attendee at a 1985 lecture on cavitation-based erosion of the Grand Canyon, as recorded in Austin, S. , Holroyd, E. W. , & McQueen, D. R. (2020). “Remembering Spillover Erosion of Grand Canyon.” Answers Research Journal, 13, 153–188. ↩︎