EMAIL: mike@geocreationism.com
Introduction
According to Genesis 1:20-23, Day 5 must meet the following conditions:
1) There were fish, but they weren't teeming
2) There were birds, but they weren't filling the skies
3) There were no whales
4) There was an event that "let" sealife and birds flourish
5) Forms were produced according to their pre-existing kinds
6) Any land mammals in the whales' ancestry precede Day 6
Can we scientifically determine a time in the earth’s history that is consistent with the scriptural requirements above? The answer to this is yes.
The KT Impact
A meteorite big enough to be called a small asteroid hit Earth precisely at the time of the K-T extinction. The evidence for the impact was first discovered by Walter Alvarez and colleagues. -- "The K-T Extinction" by Richard Cowen
Alvarez and his time discovered high amounts of Iridium, a metal ever rarer than gold. So, when found in such high concentration, it gets one's attention.
Upon studying the Iridium, it dated to 65 Ma (million years ago), precisely when the dinosaurs died out, and a date for which evidence of some world-wide catastrophe was already known. This dating was consistent, whether the Iridium was found on land, buried, or in the sea.
Over time, it was found that the balance of Iridium to gold and other elements in the vicinity was the same as known asteroids, and wherever this balance was found, it dated to 65 Ma. The question now was, where did the meteor (or small asteroid) land, and what else could be figured out?
The K-T impact crater has now been found. It is a roughly egg-shaped geological structure called Chicxulub, deeply buried under the sediments of the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico. The structure is about 180 km across, one of the largest impact structures so far identified with confidence on Earth. A borehole drilled into the Chicxulub structure hit 380 meters (more than 1000 feet) of igneous rock with a strange chemistry. That chemistry could have been generated by melting together a mixture of the sedimentary rocks in the region. The igneous rock under Chicxulub contains high levels of iridium, and its age is 65 Ma, exactly coinciding with the K-T boundary. -- "The K-T Extinction" by Richard Cowen
Cowen goes on to describe the results of computer models, which predict many of the side effects of such an impact, and those side effects appear to have been found. This evidence ranges from discoveries of quartz to damage of the North American continent. The event would have clearly had a world-wide impact, and appears to confirm how dinosaurs and most other life became extinct 65 Ma.
Scripture and Science Confirm Each Other
"Despite the scale of the extinctions, however, we must not be trapped into thinking that the K-T boundary marked a disaster for all living things. Most groups of organisms survived. Insects, mammals, birds, and flowering plants on land, and fishes, corals, and molluscs in the ocean went on to diversify tremendously soon after the end of the Cretaceous." -- "The K-T Extinction" by Richard Cowen
Other Sources
1. http://we.vub.ac.be/~dglg/Web/Claeys/Web-Chix/ICDP-Chix/chixintro.html
2. The K/T Extinction Event - The Global Extinction That Killed the Dinosaurs