> The chemistry problem forwarded by Allen Roy is almost amusing. All you
> dieters out there don't be disheartened at the following.
>
> I can easily eat 3,000 Calories* at a meal (some have seen me do it).
> The body's surface area is approx. 16,000 sq. cm.
> The weight of skin on the average body is ~2.5 kg.
> If all the energy of the food eaten is released at once, or in a short
> time period, each sq. cm. of skin would be raised to the temperature of
> 1,200 degrees C. YES YES - 1,200 degrees C. My skin would burn up,
> and take a good portion of my body with it. (Maybe that's what's behind
> spontaneous human combustion :-) )
>
> * Remember some elementary school chemistry. One food Calorie
> (large Calorie or 1,000 small calories - that's why the upper
> case) will raise a kg of water 1 deg. C.
>
> This demonstrates how nonsensical the proposed problem is. The author is
> assuming that all the CaCO3 found in the earth was precipitated directly
> from water in the Flood and releases vast amounts of energy in a short
> duration. This, of course, as has been pointed out, is a ludicrous idea.
> Most carbonate sediments are that - sediments; in other words, were a
> deposit of carbonate particles and grains. The subsequent cementation
> process, although not directly comparable to the setting up of concrete,
> must impact a much larger volume of rock than just the cement itself. The
> particles and grains would have originally been derived from substrate
> rock and precipitation processes with a resultant suspension in the
> oceanic bodies. The heating could have been enormous. (We'll see more on
> this at the 98 ICC from Dr. Larry Vardiman.)
>
> In addition, this does not take into account the fact that meteoric waters
> can transport large amounts of energy (heat) in short periods of time.
> Such capacity seems to be the case according to one paper I have (secular,
> by the way).
>
> I don't have my CRC Handbook to check the author's figures, some of which
> raise some questions in my mind, and may not take into account other
> endothermic processes accompanying the CaCO3 precipitation process in a
> complex rock system. You cannot simply isolate a single process, and say,
> "That's the way it was!" Whatever happened to one of their favorite
> words, interdependence?
>
> The author has set up another straw man. Too bad it's so full of holes.
Allen Roy