1. Genesis 7:20,24 says that the floodwater covered all earth’s preflood mountains on the 150th day of the flood. Then Genesis 8:1 states that “God caused a wind to pass over the earth and the waters subsided.” Finally, at the end of the 150th day, the waters steadily receded from the earth, and the Ark landed on the mountains of Ararat. (Genesis 8:3–4).
The hydroplate theory describes these events in Genesis in a broader, easier-to-visualize, physically meaningful way:
The floodwaters prevailed on Earth for 150 days (Genesis7:24), steadily rising 15 cubits (about 22 1/2 feet) above all Earth’s preflood mountains. Then on the 150th day of the flood, the continental-drift phase began. Hydroplates began sliding (accelerating, actually) downhill on a very thick, slick layer of supercritical water, opening up what would become the 4,000-mile-wide Atlantic Ocean. No more than 24 hours later, the compression event crushed and buckled up Earth’s major mountain ranges. The great wind must have been indescribably powerful all over the Earth. At the end of the 150th day, it was clear that the floodwaters were receding, because the Ark landed on the mountains of Ararat.
The 150th day was literally earthshaking.
2. Lester Haar et al., NBS/NRC Steam Tables (New York: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation, 1984), p. 263.
3. See Introductory Geology by Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin and Rollin D. Salisbury (New York: Ulan Press, 2012), p. 224).
4. Even neglecting wind resistance, a steel ball rolling down a smooth slope moves more slowly than a frictionless slab sliding down the same slope. This is because some of the ball’s initial potential energy at the top of the slope must produce the ball’s angular velocity (rotational speed), leaving less energy for the ball’s linear velocity (speed).