One thing upon which scientists and Bible scholars agree is that the world of the past was much different than the world of today. There have been dramatic changes sometime in the past. The controversy is on how long it took to effect these changes. Scientists on the whole believe they are due to a gradual evolutionary process over millions of years, whereby the Bible record presents a catastrophic event as the cause. The question is what was the cause of this catastrophic event? From the fossil record we know that the antediluvian world had a semi-tropical climate worldwide from the equator to the two poles; we know that certain species of giant animals and plants existed that are now extinct; we know that volcanic activity and tectonic upheavals occurred on a much greater scale than any seen today; we know that the extensive occurrence of sedimentary rock such as sandstone and limestone are evidence that a large part of the earth was under water, marine fossils and sedimentation are found at the top of the highest mountains; we know that there are massive deposits of coal and oil which testify to the burial of huge amounts of plant and animal life; we know that one or more ice-ages have occurred; we know that the earth’s central core has been disturbed which has caused repeated reversals of the magnetic poles and a persistent spiraling of the north magnet pole toward true north.
The original world must have been a perfect one indeed with verdant hills and valleys, sparkling streams, noble rivers, shallow fresh water seas, majestic trees, no loathsome swamps nor barren deserts nor jagged peaks (PP, p 69). The Bible tells us that man became so wicked that God decided to destroy them all except the eight members of Noah’s family. All the original kinds of land animals were also preserved while marine animals had to survive on their own. Then in Noah’s six hundredth year it happened; fountains of water gushed forth from the earth in huge geysers while torrents of rain poured out of the sky; howling winds and tectonic upheavals caused huge tidal waves that circled the earth. Were it not for God’s special protection the Ark and its precious cargo would have perished.
Paleontologists have speculated as to the cause for the sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs. One of their theories is that a giant asteroid meteor crashed into the earth and caused a sudden climate change, Is it possible that they may be right, and that this could have been the cause of the Genesis Flood? Out in the cold reaches of space between Mars and Jupiter is the asteroid belt. Some believe that this is the remnant of a disintegrated planet. Some of the residue is still in orbit, but some of the debris was catapulted into neighboring planets while some of the chunks of rock and ice spiraled toward the sun. It is possible that God aimed one or more of those big chunks toward earth. An asteroid a mile or so in diameter traveling at super-sonic speed would have penetrated deeply into the earth’s crust, possibly into the mantle itself. The crust would have cracked like an eggshell releasing the underlying reservoirs of superheated water as well as magma; a sudden climate change would have drastically reduced the surface temperature; the earth’s axis of rotation could have been knocked 23 1/2 degrees from the original perpendicular orientation to ecliptic, and like a huge top it has continued to wobble ever since; The erratic sloshing of the inner core would drastically upset earth’s magnet field. Also, continental plates are still trying to reestablish torsional equilibrium with resulting earthquakes as they grind together. All of these events and residual effects could have been the result of "the day the sky fell."
