Biography

Michael Oard became interested in creationism after reading Whitcomb and Morris’s The Genesis Flood in the early 1970s. Having a focus on research, his interest grew to the point that he asked himself what he could contribute. That is when the idea of an Ice Age model started. The first paper on the Ice Age was published in 1979 in the Creation Research Society Quarterly. Since then dozens of articles and about six books have been published on the Ice Age. Research on the Ice Age ignited an interest in glaciology, geology and geophysics, which he has been ardently studying for over 35 years.

Michael has a B.S. and M.S. degree in atmospheric science from the University of Washington. He was a research meteorologist for 6 years at the University of Washington. In 2001, he retired as a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in Great Falls, Montana. Since then he has been doing full time research in creationist earth science. Over the years, he has learned to speak to lay adults and children on a variety of subjects in the earth sciences.

Michael has published eight papers or technical monographs in the secular technical literature of the American Meteorological Association and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Since becoming a creationist, he has published about 200 articles in the creationist technical literature and has authored, coauthored, or been editor of fourteen published creationist books for different ages on the Flood, the Ice Age, weather, geology, and National park guides. He is on the board of the Creation Research Society.

Michael has been married to Beverly for over 40 years, and they have four grown children with 10 grandchildren. All but the youngest son live close by in Bozeman, Montana.

Click here to read an interview with Michael Oard.

Selected articles:

Ice age

• More cretaceous ‘glacial’ deposits
• Will a woolly mammoth be cloned and placed in Siberia?
• Siberian Ice Age climate supports the biblical model
• Could humans take down mammoths with spears?
• The hippos of England: A mystery solved by the biblical Flood and its Ice Age aftermath
• Ice Age megalakes did exist in the Sahara
• Greenery beneath Greenland Ice Sheet?
• Earth’s upper mantle viscosity may be lower than assumed (co-authored with Nathan Mogk)
• Cave, stalactites, and other cave formations
• A famous ice age deposit re-interpreted as a product of mass flow
• Do five dropstones define another Proterozoic cold period?
• Ice core oscillations and abrupt climate changes: part 1—Greenland ice cores
• Ice core oscillations and abrupt climate changes: part 2—Antarctic ice cores
• Ice core oscillations and abrupt climate changes: part 3—Antarctic ice cores
• Ice core oscillations and abrupt climate changes: part 4—abrupt changes better explained by the Ice Age
• Ice core oscillations and abrupt climate changes: part 5—the early Holocene green Sahara
• The lush green Sahara
• The origin of meteorite chondrules
• Only one glaciation observed in western Alberta, Canada—the ice-age reinforcement syndrome
• Well-watered deserts. How the Flood solves another Ice Age mystery
• Ice Age megafloods provide insight into Flood sedimentation
• Plants feeding on quartzite support rapid plant growth after the Flood
• Over-kill, over-chill, or over-ill?
• Flood impacts reinforce volcanic cooling to start the Ice Age
• Secular scientific problems with the Ice Age
• New evidence for rapid Ice Age deposition on the Greenland Ice Sheet
• Yedomas show one ice age
• The unique post-Flood Ice Age
• Planation surfaces below the Antarctic Ice Sheetf
• Pediments: Rapidly carved by channelized Flood runoff
• Continental margins: Their rapid formation during Flood runoff
• The challenge of ancient ice ages answered
• Did a lake exist under the north-western Laurentide Ice Sheet?
• What caused the Ice Age?
• How many ice ages?
• How did 90% of large Australian Ice Age animals go extinct?
• Non-glacial landforms indicate thin Scandinavian and British-Irish Ice Sheets
• The puzzle of disharmonious associations during the Ice Age
• Two more late Ice Age megafloods discovered
• Are the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets old?
• Loess problems
• How did 90% of large Australian Ice Age animals go extinct?

Mammoths

• The Woolly Mammoth
• The extinction of the woolly mammoth: was it a quick freeze?
• ​Woolly mammoths were cold adapted
• Evidence some woolly mammoths asphyxiated from dust
• Woolly and Columbian mammoths likely the same species
• New woolly mammoth dated 5,725 bp on St Paul Island, Alaska

Milanković (Milankovitch) Cycle

• Phase problems with the astronomical theory
• Astronomical troubles for the astronomical hypothesis of ice ages
• Are pre-Pleistocene Rhythmites Caused by the Milankovitch Mechanism?
• On interpreting deep sea data as evidence of Milankovitch cycles
• Another threat to the Milankovitch theory quelled?
• The 100,000-year Milankovitch Cycle of Ice Ages Challenged
• Cold comfort for long-agers

Lake Missoula Flood

• The Lake Missoula flood—clues for the Genesis Flood
• Further evidence of only one large Lake Missoula flood
• Only one Lake Missoula Flood

Noah’s Flood

• The Flood origin of amber and insects in amber
• Lowermost mantle becomes more complicated
• Enormous erosion of the continents during the Recessive Stage of the Flood
• Tower karst and sharp pinnacles—Fascinating Flood-formed limestone structures
• Log mats solve many geological riddles
• Planation surface and strath terraces point to a Flood origin for the Chinese Loess Plateau
• The Florissant redwood trees deposited from a Flood log mat
• Waterfall formation may not need tectonics or climate change
• The origin of laminae in shales
• Water and wind gaps carved during channelized Flood runoff
• How valleys and canyons formed during Noah’s Flood
• Tremendous erosion of continents during the Recessive Stage of the Flood
• The Nile Valley was carved in Noah’s Flood
• A new mechanism to form freestanding arches questionable
• The Cenozoic, Flood processes, and post-Flood catastrophism—problems and parameters
• Post-Flood log mats potentially can explain biogeography
• Geomorphology provides multiple evidences for the global flood
• Controversy over the uniformitarian age of Grand Canyon
• Analysis of Walt Brown’s Flood model
• Did the Mediterranean Sea desiccate numerous times?
• Sulfur-cycling bacteria 1.8 billion years old the same as today
• The problem of the wet Sahara
• Large cratonic basins likely of impact origin
• The Messinian salinity crisis questioned
• ​The paradox of Pacific guyots and a possible solution for the thick ‘reefal’ limestone on Enewetok Island
• Internal oceanic waves and sedimentation
• Kelp could have produced abundant dropstones during the Flood
• ‘Gastroliths’ deposited by mass flow

Inundatory stage

• The incredible Heart Mountain slide: A spectacular phenomenon during the Flood
• The meaning of unconformities
• Not enough rocks: the sedimentary record and deep time
• The Jurassic Coast—Icon for the Genesis Flood
• Precambrian impacts and the Genesis Flood
• The Appalachian Mountains are young
• An impact Flood submodel—dealing with issues
• What do impacts accomplish in the first hour?
• How many impact craters should there be on the earth?
• The mountains rose

Recessive stage

• Devils Tower—powerful witness to Flood runoff
• Surprising ecosystem in northeastern Greenland supports biblical Ice Age
• Passive margins explained by Flood runoff
• What is the origin of clastic pipes?
• Land bridges after the Flood
• ‘Paleosols’ can form faster than secular scientists think
• It’s plain to see
• Do rivers erode through mountains?
• The remarkable African Planation Surface
• How did the waters of Noah’s Flood drain off the continents?
• ​Massive erosion of continents demonstrates Flood runoff
• Inselbergs: Evidence for rapid Flood runoff
• Long-distance boulder deposits reveal Noah’s Flood
• Flood transported quartzites: Part 1—east of the Rocky Mountains
• Flood transported quartzites: Part 2—west of the Rocky Mountains
• Flood transported quartzites: Part 3—failure of uniformitarian interpretations
• Flood transported quartzites: Part 4—diluvial interpretations
• The uniformitarian puzzle of mountaintop planation surfaces
• Testimony to the Flood: A remarkable planation surface in Canada
• Coastal great escarpments caused by Flood runoff
• Retreating Stage formation of gravel sheets in south-central Asia
• The puzzle of large natural bridges and freestanding arches
• Devils Tower can be explained by floodwater runoff
• Colorado Plateau sandstones derived from the Appalachians?
• How old is Grand Canyon?
• Megaflood origin of Box Canyon, Idaho, and implications for sapping erosion
• Many arches and natural bridges likely from the Flood

Flood boundary

• Uniformitarian scientists claim ‘snowball Earth’ caused the Great Unconformity
• More than a billion years missing from the Great Unconformity at Grand Canyon?
• The Flood/post-Flood boundary along the Arctic coast of North America
• The meaning of the Great Unconformity and Sauk Megasequence
• ​Surficial continental erosion places the Flood/post-Flood boundary in the late Cenozoic
• Is the K/T the Post-Flood boundary?—part 1: introduction and the scale of sedimentary rocks
• Is the K/T the post-Flood boundary?—part 2: paleoclimates and fossils
• Is the K/T the post-Flood boundary?—part 3: volcanism and plate tectonics
• Raindrop imprints and the location of the pre-Flood/Flood boundary
• How did the earth recover after the flood?
• Defining the Flood/post-Flood boundary in sedimentary rocks

Rapid geology, challenges to uniformitarianism

• Several types of sandstones challenge uniformitarianism
• Quartzarenites violate the uniformitarian principle
• Have scientists solved the dolomite problem?
• How accurate are marine microfossil transfer functions?
• A more likely origin of massive dolomite deposits
• Ooids grew rapidly in the Flood
• Many flawed papers in sedimentology
• Metamorphic rocks can form at shallow depths
• Rapid growth of caves and speleothems: part 1—the excavation of the cave
• Rapid growth of caves and speleothems: part 2—growth rate variables
• Rapid growth of caves and speleothems: part 3—Flood and Ice Age variables
• Little erosion beneath Antarctica and Greenland Ice Sheets
• Glacial-like striations formed in less than 90 seconds
• A case for rapid formation of calcareous concretions
• Long-distance transport of sediments
• Tunnel valleys can be formed in one ice age by catastrophic flow
• Planation surfaces formed by river piracy?
• How does andesite lava originate in the earth?
• The stress/heat flow paradox of the San Andreas Fault, California
• Desert varnish grows much faster than geologists admit
• Evolutionary professor encourages critical thinking
• The uniformitarian challenge of ultrahigh-pressure minerals
• The uniformitarian mystery of radiolarian chert
• Can welded tuffs form underwater?

Fossil Record and Geological Column

• An ape fossil found in South America
• The fossil record is complete enough
• Fossil time ranges continue to be increased
• The origin of flightless birds
• Are all fossil stromatolites biological?
• Revisiting the problem of very old landforms
• Much supposed geological time missing from strata
• ‘Earliest’ fossil ‘forest’ surprisingly complex
• The geological column is a general Flood order with many exceptions
• The geological column is a general Flood order with many exceptions
• Further expansion of evolutionary fossil time ranges
• Taxonomic manipulations likely common
• Paleoenvironments and the Bible
• Are fossils ever found in the wrong place?
• Fossil time ranges continue to expand up and down
• Beware of paleoenvironmental deductions
• Did the early Earth’s atmosphere contain oxygen?
• ​Fossil range extensions continue
• 320-million-year-old amber has flowering plant chemistry
• The paradox of warm-climate vegetation in Antarctica
• What is the meaning of dropstones in the rock record?

Dinosaurs

• Unusual accumulation of dinosaurs in Italy better explained by Noah’s Flood​
• A BEDS origin for coal
• ​Dinosaur tracks and eggs
• ​Italian dinosaur graveyard
• ​Dinosaur eggs point to the global Genesis Flood
• Dinosaur and mammal tracks found together
• Argentina egg site supports BEDS model
• Is Archaeopteryx a feathered dinosaur?
• The meaning of porous dinosaur eggs laid on flat bedding planes
• ​A stampede of swimming dinosaurs
• Evolutionary troubles with the origin and demise of dinosaurs
• Did birds evolve from dinosaurs?
• Dinosaur demise did not jump start mammal evolution
• Watery catastrophe deduced from huge Ceratopsian dinosaur graveyard
• Dancing Dinosaurs?
• Polar dinosaur conundrum

Radiometric dating

• Radiometric dating and old ages in disarray
• Can the relative timing of radioisotope dates be applied to biblical geology?

Astronomy

• The mysterious rings around a trans-Neptunian dwarf planet
• Confusion over moon origins—Naturalistic origin of the moon comes under hard times
• Is the faint young sun paradox solved?
• The naturalistic formation of planets exceedingly difficult
• No dark matter found in the Milky Way Galaxy
• Galaxies near the edge of the universe may be mature
• The big bang problem of early maturity

Human origins

• Neanderthals could hear like modern man
• New footprints from Ileret, Kenya, supposed to be from human evolutionary ancestor
• Neandertal Man—the changing picture
• Did Lucy walk upright?
• More evidence Australopithecus was an extinct ape

Book reviews

• Excellent summary of scientific evidence for Creation and the Flood, but controversial in some areas (review of Earth’s Catastrophic Past: Geology, Creation & the Flood, volumes 1 and 2 by Andrew Snelling)
• Roman Catholicism and Genesis (A review of The Doctrinesof Genesis 1–11: A Compendium and Defense of Traditional Catholic Theology on Origins by Fr Victor P. Warkulwiz)
• Poor scholarship and self-deception (A review of The Bible, Rocks and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth by Davis A. Young and Ralph F. Stearley)
• Documenting fake history against the Catholic Church (A review of Bearing False Witness: Debunking centuries of anti-Catholic history by Rodney Stark)