That being said, the timescale can make the problem worse in a better approximation. Snelling and Baumgardner propose a 150-day period of tectonic movement at the beginning of the flood, during which the plates would have to move an average of 2000 miles each, a speed of 25 cm/sec. In contrast, the Tohoku earthquake moved Honshu eight feet to the east in about six minutes, a speed of 0.7 cm/sec. The required energy would be orders of magnitude higher. Even if you allow the entire year-long duration of the flood, that’s still 10 cm/sec.