{"id":38345,"date":"2025-12-01T10:36:39","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T16:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/?p=38345"},"modified":"2025-12-01T16:41:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T22:41:14","slug":"if-the-flood-happened-how-did-animals-get-back-to-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/if-the-flood-happened-how-did-animals-get-back-to-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"If the Flood Happened, How Did Animals Get Back to Australia?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2 Peter 3:3-6, Peter warned his readers about a coming time in which individuals would scoff at the idea of the global biblical Flood. There is no doubt that we live in such a time. In fielding criticisms about a global Flood over the years, one argument is perhaps second-to-none in the frequency with which it is used by those who reject the Flood.1<\/sup><\/a> If the Flood killed all pre-Flood land animals on the planet (not on the Ark), then how would land animals have traveled from the Ark on Ararat to remote areas that are only accessible by boat, like Australia, North America, or England? Here are six responses to that question that exonerate the biblical Flood model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(1) A Knife That Cuts Both Ways<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

First, it should be mentioned that migration of animals to islands and remote places before<\/strong> the Flood may be an interesting question, but it is not a potential problem for the Creation model. Creationists argue that the world as God created it may have been something of a supercontinent (called Rodinia),2<\/sup><\/a> potentially making travel to places that are now isolated continents or islands much easier. More likely, however, God created animals across the planet already in their designed habitats during Creation week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After<\/strong> the Flood, however, how can animal dispersion be explained if God was not miraculously involved (which seems to be the implication of the text\u2014e.g., Genesis 8:17-11:9). First, it must be conceded that, ironically, animals in such remote places are as much a problem for the evolutionary model as they are for the biblical Flood model. Whether evolution or Creation is true, animals exist in Australia, have been there for some time, and their arrival must be explained. Whatever explanation the evolutionist uses to explain the existence of animals in Australia may very well be an option for creationists as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) Closer Continents<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is also important to realize that, as with the evolutionary model, the Creation model has no problem with the idea of plate tectonics\u2014the theory that the Earth\u2019s crust is broken into large pieces that move relative to each other, diverging, converging, and transforming. Therefore, creationists also have no reason to reject the concept of Pangaea\u2014the idea that all of today\u2019s continents were once joined together in one massive continent. In fact, it was a biblical Flood believer by the name of Antonio Snider-Pellegrini who was among the first to suggest that the continents may have once been joined together into one continent3<\/sup><\/a>\u2014long before Alfred Wegener, often credited with \u201ccontinental drift,\u201d was even born. Snider-Pellegrini believed that the Flood may have been the cause of the break-up of the original supercontinent and subsequent rapid movement of its pieces.4<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pangaea concept may even be implied by the description of God\u2019s activities given in Genesis 1:9. As is often the case, however, the problem creationists have with the conventional version of geologic history concerning Pangaea comes from the assumption of uniformitarianism\u2014in this case, the idea that the pieces of the Earth\u2019s crust have always been moving at the rate we observe today. While the continents are spreading on the order of centimeters per year today, if the Flood occurred, and \u201call<\/strong> the fountains of the great deep [presumably, the ocean floor] were opened\u201d (Genesis 7:11), surely including volcanic and significant tectonic activity, the separation rate could certainly have been much quicker for a period of time. Evidence for just such an accelerated separation rate has been documented.5<\/sup><\/a> By implication, immediately after the Flood, remote destinations like Australia, Antarctica, and India could have been much closer together than they are today, in keeping with Pangaea models, allowing migration to islands and remote continents before the continents were too far apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(3) Frozen Channels<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Other possibilities are also available which vindicate the biblical model. For example, according to the Flood model, a great Ice Age\/Ice Advance commenced after the Flood,6<\/sup><\/a> caused by warmer oceans (hence, greater precipitation) and increased volcanic activity (due to increased tectonic activity, causing cooler summers from increased volcanic aerosols and ash in the atmosphere). An Ice Age would have allowed animal migration from the Ark across frozen channels. The English Channel, as well as channels to Ireland, Iceland, and Greenland may have been frozen at the time. Significantly, a frozen channel from Russia to Alaska\u2014the Bering Strait\u2014would have allowed animal migration to North America. The water depth between the two is only 100-160 feet deep. With some 30% of the Earth\u2019s continents covered with ice (as opposed to 10% today), the Earth\u2019s sea level would have been significantly lowered making frozen channels common during the height of the Ice Age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, in Origin of Species<\/em>, glacier growth in the past was argued by Darwin to be how animals could have arrived in several remote places, including islands.7<\/sup><\/a> As a modern example of animal movement across frozen channels, in 2018 scientists tracked an Arctic fox\u2019s 76 day journey as it traveled from the far north Norway island group of Svalbard, across sea ice, the Greenland ice sheet, and Kane Basin to reach Ellesmere Island, Canada.8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(4) Land Bridges<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Some Flood skeptics superficially observe on a map the location of Australia in comparison to Asia and summarily dismiss the idea of a land bridge nearly connecting Asia to Australia. However, thanks to modern technology, we know the depth of the ocean across the planet. A closer look at the water depth between the islands of the island chain that span the distance between mainland Asia and Australia reveals that the water depth is only dozens to hundreds of feet in many places along the path. Once again, during the post-Flood Ice Advance period, roughly 30% of the Earth\u2019s land was covered with ice, significantly lowering sea level globally. In fact, secular scientists estimate that the Earth\u2019s sea level may have been 400 feet lower at the peak of the Pleistocene Ice Age,9<\/sup><\/a> which would have nearly completely opened a land path from Asia all the way to Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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U.S. Extended Continental Shelf Project Office, World Map of Extended Continental Shelf Areas, December 2023, version 1.0. https:\/\/state.gov.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That fact has led evolutionary scientists to postulate that that is how humans reached Australia during the Ice Age.10<\/sup><\/a> Gemma Tarlach, writing in Discover<\/em> magazine, explained,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From the North Sea to the island-dotted tropics between Asia and Australia, from the frigid waters of the Bering Strait to the sunny Arabian Peninsula, now-submerged coastal landscapes were exposed and accessible to our ancestors at multiple times in prehistory, including key periods of human expansion across the globe. The square mileage of these areas now under the seas is equal to that of modern North America.11<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Tarlach applies the same concept to the pathway between central Europe and England\/Scotland during the Ice Age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Look at a map of today\u2019s Europe and its northern epicenters of population and commerce: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen. Now consider that these hubs were once hinterland, mere fringes of an expanse rich in conifer forests, meadows, rivers and wetlands, all of it teeming with game. Prehistoric travelers could have walked from what\u2019s now central Europe to northern Scotland without even seeing a coastline. As the massive glaciers and ice sheets of the\u2026Ice Age began melting…, rising seas inundated this world. The North Sea was born.12<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Bottom line: using the geography of today to draw conclusions about the past is unreliable at best, even according to many evolutionists. Humans and animals could have used land bridges to disperse after the Flood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(5) Log \u201cIslands\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is also likely that for some time, remnants of the great forests of the pre-Flood period would have been floating on the receding waters of the Earth until their decay was completed. As is the case from localized floods today, small \u201cland masses\u201d composed of trees and debris are often found floating on the water (e.g., traveling down rivers). Much larger islands of plant material and debris are found associated with larger catastrophes as well. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n