Instead of millions of years this happened during the flood.
Let’s start with the idea of millions of years. Certain scientists look at the landscape & think change is slow now, therefore it's always been slow. The bigger the change = the longer the time (millions of years). This is called Uniformitarianism = uniform, consistent, regular.
Other scientists look at the landscape & think a huge(!) devastating event caused the earth's upheaval. The bigger the change = the bigger the event. This is called Catastrophism = disastrous, shattering, devastating.
Link for below article:
http://www.gotquestions.org/pangea-theory.html
Question: "Is the theory of Pangea possible? Does the Bible say that there was once a Pangea / Pangaea?"
Answer: Pangea is the concept that all of the land masses of the earth were at one time connected as one giant super-continent. Looking at a world map, some of the continents look like they could fit together (Africa and South America for example), like giant puzzle pieces. Does the Bible mention Pangea? Not explicitly, but possibly. Genesis 1:9 records, “And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so.” Presumably, if all the water was “gathered to one place,” the dry ground would also be all “in one place.” Genesis 10:25 mentions, “…one was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided…” Some point to Genesis 10:25 as evidence that the earth was divided after the Flood of Noah.
While this view is possible, it is most definitely not universally held by Christians. Some view Genesis 10:25 as referring to the “division” that occurred at the Tower of Babel, not the division of the continents via “continental drift.” Some also dispute the post-Noah Pangea separation due to the fact that at the current rates of drift, the continents could not possibly have drifted so far apart in the time that has transpired since the Noahic flood. However, it cannot be proven that the continents have always drifted at the same rate. Further, God is capable of expediting the continental drift process to accomplish His goal of separating humanity (Genesis 11:8). Again, though, the Bible does not explicitly mention Pangea, or conclusively tell us when Pangea was broken apart.
The post-Noahic Pangea concept does possibly explain how the animals and humanity were able to migrate to the different continents. How did the kangaroos get to Australia after the Flood if the continents were already separated? Young-earth creationist alternatives to the standard continental drift theory include the Catastrophist Plate Tectonics Theory (see http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v16/i1/plate_tectonics.asp) and the Hydroplate Theory (seehttp://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/HydroplateOverview2.html), both of which place accelerated continental drift within the cataclysmic context of Noah’s flood.
However, there is another explanation offered by Christian scientists that does not require a post-Noahic Pangea. According to this view, intercontinental migration most likely began while sea levels were still low during and immediately following the post-Flood Ice Age when much of the water was still trapped in ice at the poles. Lower sea levels would have left the continental shelves exposed, connecting all of the major land masses through land bridges.
There are (or at least were) shallow underwater land bridges connecting all of the major continents. North America, Southeast Asia, and Australia are all attached to continental Asia. Britain is attached to continental Europe. In some places, these intercontinental bridges are only a few hundred feet below our current sea level. The theory can be summarized as follows: (1) After the Flood, an ice age occurred. (2) The vast amount of water that was frozen resulted in the oceans being much lower than they are today. (3) The low level of the oceans resulted in land bridges connecting the various continents. (4) Human beings and animals migrated to the different continents over these land bridges. (5) The ice age ended, resulting in the ice melting and the ocean levels rising, resulting in the land bridges being submerged.
So, while Pangea is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible, the Bible does present the possibility of a Pangea. Whatever the case, either view presented above presents a viable explanation for how humanity and animals were able to migrate to continents now separated by vast oceans.
Other scientists look at the landscape & think a huge(!) devastating event caused the earth's upheaval. The bigger the change = the bigger the event. This is called Catastrophism = disastrous, shattering, devastating.
Link for below article:
http://www.gotquestions.org/pangea-theory.html
Question: "Is the theory of Pangea possible? Does the Bible say that there was once a Pangea / Pangaea?"
Answer: Pangea is the concept that all of the land masses of the earth were at one time connected as one giant super-continent. Looking at a world map, some of the continents look like they could fit together (Africa and South America for example), like giant puzzle pieces. Does the Bible mention Pangea? Not explicitly, but possibly. Genesis 1:9 records, “And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so.” Presumably, if all the water was “gathered to one place,” the dry ground would also be all “in one place.” Genesis 10:25 mentions, “…one was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided…” Some point to Genesis 10:25 as evidence that the earth was divided after the Flood of Noah.
While this view is possible, it is most definitely not universally held by Christians. Some view Genesis 10:25 as referring to the “division” that occurred at the Tower of Babel, not the division of the continents via “continental drift.” Some also dispute the post-Noah Pangea separation due to the fact that at the current rates of drift, the continents could not possibly have drifted so far apart in the time that has transpired since the Noahic flood. However, it cannot be proven that the continents have always drifted at the same rate. Further, God is capable of expediting the continental drift process to accomplish His goal of separating humanity (Genesis 11:8). Again, though, the Bible does not explicitly mention Pangea, or conclusively tell us when Pangea was broken apart.
The post-Noahic Pangea concept does possibly explain how the animals and humanity were able to migrate to the different continents. How did the kangaroos get to Australia after the Flood if the continents were already separated? Young-earth creationist alternatives to the standard continental drift theory include the Catastrophist Plate Tectonics Theory (see http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v16/i1/plate_tectonics.asp) and the Hydroplate Theory (seehttp://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/HydroplateOverview2.html), both of which place accelerated continental drift within the cataclysmic context of Noah’s flood.
However, there is another explanation offered by Christian scientists that does not require a post-Noahic Pangea. According to this view, intercontinental migration most likely began while sea levels were still low during and immediately following the post-Flood Ice Age when much of the water was still trapped in ice at the poles. Lower sea levels would have left the continental shelves exposed, connecting all of the major land masses through land bridges.
There are (or at least were) shallow underwater land bridges connecting all of the major continents. North America, Southeast Asia, and Australia are all attached to continental Asia. Britain is attached to continental Europe. In some places, these intercontinental bridges are only a few hundred feet below our current sea level. The theory can be summarized as follows: (1) After the Flood, an ice age occurred. (2) The vast amount of water that was frozen resulted in the oceans being much lower than they are today. (3) The low level of the oceans resulted in land bridges connecting the various continents. (4) Human beings and animals migrated to the different continents over these land bridges. (5) The ice age ended, resulting in the ice melting and the ocean levels rising, resulting in the land bridges being submerged.
So, while Pangea is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible, the Bible does present the possibility of a Pangea. Whatever the case, either view presented above presents a viable explanation for how humanity and animals were able to migrate to continents now separated by vast oceans.
Link for below article:
Question: "What does the Bible say about uniformitarianism vs. catastrophism?"
Answer: Geologically speaking, uniformitarianism is the idea that geological processes (rates of erosion and uplift, etc.) are essentially the same today as they were in the unobservable past. We can, therefore, make accurate determinations about the past simply by observing the present. This principle is often summed up aphoristically in the phrase: “the present is the key to the past.” A strict uniformitarian would look at a canyon with a river running through the bottom and see millions of years of slow, gradual erosion caused by that river.
Catastrophism is the idea that natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, etc) can dramatically alter the surface of the Earth very quickly and that we can be certain that at least some of the geological features we see today were formed rapidly during past catastrophes rather than by the slow, gradual processes of uniformitarianism. We must, therefore, take the possible effects of unknown catastrophes into consideration when considering the history of the Earth’s surface. A catastrophist would look at the same canyon with the river running through the bottom and wonder if it was the result of gradual uniformitarian or rapid catastrophic erosion (like the canyon rapidly formed by the Toutle River washing out a mudslide following the Mt. St. Helens eruption in Washington State).
The uniformitarianism versus catastrophism debate is essentially this: how much can geologists rely on extrapolations of present day geological processes when postulating the history and age of geological phenomena?
While you won’t find the words uniformitarianism or catastrophism anywhere in the Bible, it is abundantly clear which side it takes in the debate. According to the Bible, the Earth was inundated in a global deluge not many thousands of years ago (Noah’s Flood). Thus any geological phenomena caused by gradual uniformitarian processes prior to that catastrophe were either eroded by the flood’s waters or else lost under the massive amounts of sedimentation deposited during the flood. We cannot therefore rely upon uniformitarian reasoning to take us any further back in time than to the flood of Noah’s day. The only canyons we see now are those that were carved out either during the flood or after its waters receded.
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