The subject of the age of the earth and the age of the world ocean is a matter of extreme importance. If there is evidence for an old ocean, then this could be used to support the evolutionist's supposition that life arose from primitive, inorganic marine chemicals over a billion years ago.

In the early days of geology, especially during the 17^th and 18^th centuries, the dominant explanation for the sedimentary rocks and their fossilized contents was that they had been laid down in the great Flood of the days of Noah.

There is the theory that all living things have arisen through a naturalistic, mechanistic evolutionary process from a single source, which itself arose by a similar process from a dead, inorganic world. This general evolutionary hypothesis is usually presented as an established scientific fact in science textbooks.