Book Review:
Environment of Violence
C. Warren Hunt
Polar Publishing, Calgary. 1990.
Reviewed by David J. Tyler
Catastrophism in geology has come a long way since the 1960s, when J Harlan
Bretz won his extended battle with the uniformitarians over the interpretation
of the Channelled
Scablands near Spokane. Many geologists in the academic community and in
industry now affirm their willingness to consider catastrophic explanations
for field evidences. Perhaps the best known instance today is the asteroid impact
theory of events bringing the Cretaceous Period to an end and concluding the
story of the dinosaurs’ demise. Diluvialists have been active also in pointing
out numerous evidences of large-scale catastrophism in the Earth's past.
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A major challenge for contemporary catastrophists concerns the integration
of data and theory. It is not sufficient for evidences of catastrophism
to be pointed out. A scientific approach is one that seeks to link cause
and effect and which constructs a geological history of a locality or
region. C. Warren Hunt is an experienced professional geologist who has
stood aside from the plate tectonics revolution and has used his critical
mind to assess field evidences in the western and central parts of North
America. The result is a remarkable book that presents Hunt's reconstruction
of a series of interrelated catastrophic events.
The structure of the book is made clear by Hunt's divisions of his material
into four parts. Part 1 is concerned with internal processes leading to
hyper-explosive cratering. Part 2 considers secondary fluviatile features.
Part 3 seeks an integration of diverse evidences and comments on timescales.
Finally, part 4 has a discussion of several enigmatic features that might
be better explained in terms of catastrophism.
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The early chapters of the book focus on the geology of the Klamath arc north
of San Francisco. Hunt rejects the terrane accretion model that plate tectonic
theorists have proposed for the area. Instead, Hunt proposes an alternative
based on catastrophic diapirism. One of the events is suggested to be responsible
for the devastations at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary, and it is argued that
this is a more satisfactory explanation of observations than asteroid impact.
Hunt advocates the carbide-hydride theory of the inner Earth as this also integrates
a number of observations ranging from core and mantle density variations to
the existence of deep crustal hydrocarbons. This theory provides a mechanism
for catastrophic diapirism involving the upwards migration of volatiles, partial
melting of crustal rocks and periodic violent surges leading to extraordinary
explosive volcanism.
A range of catastrophic surface processes are discussed, with particular reference
to the emptying of glacial lakes and the rapid melting of ice caps. Many widely-held
theories are challenged, such as the mode of formation of drumlin fields and
the processes involved in landscape development.
It is worthy of note that three of Hunt's fluviatile catastrophic interpretations
were published in papers prior to the book's appearance. When he submitted his
Klamath theories, he received rejections from two professional journals. "Some
new concepts found in this volume will not be found elsewhere. This is because
they are new and heretical, and because I wish to present them without the inordinate
delay and effective censorship that characterise the review process of scientific
journals." (page 11).
Environment of Violence is a highly original book written by someone
with personal familiarity with field data and competence in handling relevant
theory. Hunt accepts the conventional timescale of geological history. His important
contributions to catastrophism are in the areas of integrating field evidences,
suggesting possible mechanisms and reconstructing the geological history of
a region. It is a book written with both professional and amateur geologists
in mind, although non-geologists will find that it makes considerable demands
on readers (geological terminology, concepts and background geography). There
is much of interest here to stimulate thought and promote ideas.
This review is revised from that appearing in the Creation Research Society
Quarterly, 28(2), 73-74, September 1991.
Document date: May 2004
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