Jay Willingham wrote on Wednesday, July 17, 2002 11:18 AM
>The problem I have encountered with many scientists is their complete
>refusal to admit that their theories or hypothesis are not facts. They
>cling to them with great faith but seem to be unable to deal with genuine
>challenges to numerous assumptions. They also demean those who cling to
the
>Bible in simple faith. Perhaps a history of scientific facts proved
fiction
>should be required of all BS candidates.
Jay, I became a Christian in college and was taught that the Bible required
a beleif in a young earth. I held this belief for the next 20 years. The
thing which eroded my belief was not a return to the idea that science was
infallible. It was the fact that absolutely NOTHING ICR told me about
geology was correct. And when I would point out things to them, show them
pictures, my creationist friends, instead of explaining the data I was
showing them, would either deny it existed or warn me not to be
brainwashed. I showed a picture of duck footprints in the Green River
formation and the nibbling marks along either side of the track. This would
be hard to occur in the middle of a raging flood. The dang duck was leaving
tracks just like you can find on a modern shallow water bottom. My friend
just denied they were duck prints. He denied they were foot prints at all.
Another friend when I showed him some data told me, instead of dealing with
the data, that I only was holding those views in order to be promoted at my
job! If that is what people have to hold in order to avoid the geologic
data, it is truly sad.
Below are several things which ICR can't explain, if you have the guts to
look at it and explain how these things can occur in the raging flood. Take
a look at http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/appalach1.jpg. If you say you don't
have time, I will say two things: take all the time you want and if you
won't, then you don't care about seeing somethings that go against your
viewpoint.
Here is my explanation of the above picture.
The line was one shot by Texaco along the Alabama/Mississippi border just NE
of Meridian, Mississippi. The reference is A. W. Bally, _Seismic Expression
of Structural Styles, Vol. 3, AAPG Studies in Geology Series, #15,, p.
3.4.1-82. It shows a wonderful example of why slow sedimentation must be the
rule and presents a big problem for the global flood. I apologize for the
size (418 kb) but it was necessary in order to show the detail I wanted to
show. A word about seismic. The black peaks and grey troughs are the
reflections of sound off of various rock layers which are in the earth. By
reflecting the sound, we can produce a picture, like this, of what the earth
looks like under one's feet. The picture is about 20 km of seismic data. It
can be seen that the valley in the unconformity is about 3 km wide. The
thrust block is about 16 km or 9 miles long.
>
At the top of the section are the sediments of the Atlantic coastal plains.
They are flatish-lying dipping slightly to the SE. They are about 3500 feet
thick and consist mostly of sands and shales. They lie on top of a major
unconformity which separates the Paleozoic Appalachian sediments from the
Atlantic Coastal plain sediments. Below the unconformity is the Paleozoic
sediments which consist not only of sands and shales but also very thick
piles of carbonate and dolomite. dolomite. They are around 18,500 feet
thick. This is determined by the velocity of sound in those sediments. Rocks
in the Paleozoic are almost always faster than rocks in the younger Mesozoic
and Mesozoic rocks in general are even faster than those from the Tertiary.
>
If you look below the unconformity you will find a thrust fault having
thrusted the paleozoic sediments over on top of themselves Bed a is marked
on both sides of the thrust fault and one can clearly see that it is over
thrusted on top of itself. The friction of the thrust plane against the
upper part of the thrust caused the sediments to be folded. The fold was
then eroded. Since bed A to the right is buried by 1.3 seconds of Paleozoic
sediment (approximately 10,000 feet), yet it intersects the unconformity
where it is covered by NO Paleozoic sediment, this means that 10,000 feet of
sediment was eroded from the point marked 'hill'. If you look at the
sediments just under the unconformity on the right and move to the left you
will see layer after layer erosionally truncated by the unconformity until
you get to hill where bed A is at the surface of the unconformity.
>
Where I marked a hill, If you look at the unconformity, you will see that it
drops down at that point. the flat reflectors above are clearly onlapping
the unconformable surface against the hill. The valley was eroded into the
underlying Paleozoic sediments PRIOR to the deposition of the Mesozoic
sediment. If you look just to the right of the hill, under the word valley,
above the unconformity you will see a black reflector which runs into the
hill to the left and then into the unconformity on the right. The
relationship between this reflector and the unconformity shows that the
valley to the right of the hill was infilled in a rather gentle way
otherwise the sediments would be chaotic. This valley was probably an arm of
the ocean at one point because the sediments that fill it are marine as are
all the Atlantic Coastal Plain sediments.
>
After the Mesozoic sediments were deposited, the entire area was slightly
tilted to the SE.
>
The sequence of events cause great problems for the concept of a global
flood. Global flood advocates always say that fossilization can only occur
during catastrophic events such as the flood. Well there are fossiliferous
Paleozoic sediments below the unconformity as well as above. Thus the flood
advocate must hold that all the sediment in this picture is from the flood.
This means that during the flood 18,500 feet of Paleozoic sediment must have
been deposited. It must then have hardened. Why? Because of the way the
thrusting deformed the rocks. This is not a soft-sediment type of
deformation. The upper thrust block moved as a solid block. If the sediments
had been soft, this couldn't have happened. Soft ooze and mush won't
transmit forces for 9 miles. Assuming that the Paleozoic constituted half of
the flood's time, then in 6 months we must deposit 18,500 feet of sediment.
This is a rate of 102 feet per day. There are slow-moving invertebrate
fossils at the bottom of the Appalachian Paleozoic as well as at the top.
All sorts of stationary shell-fish are found throughout the Paleozoic
strata. Why everything wasn't at the bottom of the pile, after deposition of
the first 102 feet on the first day, I can't comprehend. A further problem
is the burrows which are found throughout the entire 18,500 feet of
sediment. One must have exceptionally rapid burrowers in order to thoroughly
burrow 102 feet of strata a day. That is enough sediment to cover a 10 story
building each day. Next time you drive down the road, look at a ten story
building and imagine it covered in sediment in one day and thoroughly
burrowed by thousands of animals. Burrowed in such a fashion where the
excavated sediments make a pile around the burrow which are then covered by
the next layer which is a different lithology.
>
After the deposition of 18,500 feet of strata, and it's hardening (it takes
lots of time for shales to de-water, yet we see no mega water escape
structures in this sedimentary pile either), we must then have the time to
thrust the paleozoic section creating huge mountains (the Appalachians).
After this, we must have time for the erosion of 10,000 feet of HARDENED
sediment, which then becomes the unconformity surface. Then we must cover,
in a gentle way, the entire area with 3,500 feet of Mesozoic sediment. This
is a rate of 19 feet a day assuming that the Mesozoic here represented 180
days of flood deposition. One could hardly say that 19 feet a day of
sedimentation is 'gentle'. 19 feet of sediment where I live would nearly
cover my 2 story house.
I don't see how to explain this in a global flood/young-earth scenario.
I can tell you that Henry Morris has not
been correct about the facts of geology whenever I have checked them
out. And I have checked out almost everything. Remember my
professional job is in the geosciences. Give me an example of
something you think he is correct about on geology. If he is
correct, I will freely and gladly admit it. If not, I will give you
references to the scientific literature to back up my assertion.
But as it is, Henry says:
There are no desert deposits in the geologic column.( Henry M. Morris
and John D. Morris, Science, Scripture, and the Young Earth, (El
Cajon: Institute for Creation Research, 1989), P. 37)
There is not only desert deposits they are everywhere. The Navajo-
Aztec-Nugget sandstones of the Western U.S. is 700 x 400 miles of
sand dunes like what we see today in the Sahara. It is occasionally
buried quite deeply.[William L. Bilodeau and Stanley B. Keith, ""Lower
Jurassic Navajo-Aztec-Equivalent Sandstones in Southern Arizona and
Their Paleogeographic Significance,"" Bulletin of the American
Association of Petroleum Geologists, 70(1986):6:690-701]
Creationists say that the geologic column was deposited in a single year.
Take a look at: http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/roots.gif These are
yearly plant roots found at 7,000 feet in a well in SW colorado. There are
over 10 layers in a 3 inch piece of core from this well. The entire core was
around 9 feet of this. Layer after layer of proof that more than 1 year was
required for the deposition of this layer.
There is more than this out there. Consider the Haymond formation. It is
Mississippian so it is low down in the geologic column. It is found in the
Marathon fold belt of west Texas. Structurally it eventually is covered by
the 50-75000 feet of Gulf coast tertiary. See
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/xsect.jpg
The Haymond beds are in the dark purple just under the green layer. The
Green and yellow colored layers are Mesozoic and Cretaceous rocks.
Now for the problem.
""Two thirds of the Haymond is composed of a repititious alternation of
fine- and very fine-grained olive brown sandstone and black shale in beds
from a millimeter to 5 cm thick. The formation is estimated to have more
than 15,000 sandstone beds greater than 5 mm thick."" p. 87.
""Tool-mark casts (chiefly groove casts), flute casts and
flute-lineation
casts are common current-formed sole marks. Trace fossils in the form of
sand-filled burrows are present on every sandstone sole, but nearly absent
within sandstone beds. ~ Earle F. McBride,""Stratigraphy and Sedimentology
of the Haymond Formation,"" in Earle F. McBride, Stratigraphy, Sedimentary
Structures and Origin of Flysch and Pre-Flysch Rocks, Marathon Basin, Texas
(Dallas: Dallas Geological Society, 1969), p. 87-88
What this means is that when shale (which is deposited very slowly) covered
the sand beds, burrowing animals burrowed into the shale, but not the sand.
When another sand layer was deposited, sand fell into the burrows making
fingers of sand that stick off the bottom of each sand body. Then the
process repeated over and over again.
Give each layer 1 day for recolonization of burrowers the debosit would
require 41 years. Haymond bed 1300 m thick entire column 5000 m thick.
Deposit by Noah flood 1300/5000*326=95 days this means 157 couplets / day.
with burrows. Animals can't burrow that rapidly. and there are no escape
burrows so the animals were buried with each sandstone deposition.
But burrowing worms don't recolonize a devastated landscape in a single day.
If it took 100 days (3 months), they you are talking about 4100 years for
this deposit.
By the way, shale is made up of very small particles which can take up to
100 years to fall from the ocean surface to the 15000 foot ocean bottom. If
there was a global flood we should see boulders at the bottom, gravel above
that, sand above that and shale at the very last. This is known as Stokes
law--a physical law governing particles falling in a viscous medium. This
means that the shale in which the animals burrowed can't really be deposited
rapidly. It takes lots of time. The global flood is not supported by the
data here.
The reason I made sure that you understood that the Haymond beds are
overlain by the Tertiary is that if these beds are part of the flood then
one must explain how the middle of the flood could last 41 years when the
Bible says it lasted only 1 in toto. And if one puts the covering sediment
into a post flood environment as some do, the post flood world which would
take much time and push the flood back several million years. If the Haymond
beds are preFlood, then all the rocks below are preflood and that means that
the Cambrian, where the fish appear can't be flood deposits. Indeed, the
first amphibians in the fossil record must be pre-flood. YOu won't pay any
attention to this than anything else I say as you know better than anywone
who has studied an area professionally for over 30 years.
Henry says:
""Salt is not an evaporitic formation or a derivative from volcanic
rock; it is a product of degassification of the earth's interior. The
salt precipitated from juvenile hot water which emerged along deep
faults into a basin as a result of change in thermodynamic
conditions."" p. 2544. ~V. B. Porfir'ev, Bulletin AAPG, 58(1974), p.
2543-2544, cited in Henry M. Morris and John D. Morris, Science,
Scripture, and the Young Earth, P. 31.
Let me point out that salt has pollen and spores as well as
micrometeorites (in the quantities which are appropriate to deposits
that take a long time to form. [Ulrich Jux, The Palynologic Age of
Diapiric and Bedded Salt, Department of Conservation, Louisiana
Geological Survey, Geological Bulletin 38, October, 1961, p. 1; James
Matthew Barnett, Sedimentation Rate of Salt Determined by
Micrometeorite Analysis, M. S. Thesis, Western Michigan University,
1983] Salt is also found sandwiched between strata, which YEC theory says
were deposited during the Flood. How can soluble salt be deposited during a
global flood? That makes no sense whatsoever.
Why do they claim that the geologic column exists no where on earth, yet I
document 25 or so places where it exists entirely all stacked up in proper
order? See http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/geo.htm. There are
over 80 wells in North Dakota which have drilled through the entire geologic
column all in proper order. THey are not telling you the truth.
Deal with some data rather than the mutterings of people who can't even tell
you the truth about their college degrees.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>Behalf Of
>To: michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk; ASA
>Subject: Rennie's Rant
>
>
>Michael Roberts wrote:
>
>Despite having received stuff from ICR for over 25 years I have yet to see
>anything of any competence coming from that stable.
>
>I can understand the frustration of many scientists over creationism and
>consider the over the top responses to be largely the fault of
>creationists,
>who make it very difficult to have a reasoned discussion on
>Christianity and
>Science. Creationsits do the cause of the Gospel incredible damage.
>
>Jay responds:
>
>
>We believe our modern science is infallible. So to did Victorians believe
>man had reached his pinnacle of scientific and societal achievement
>
>I, like you, do not have time to deal with Rennie's rant item by item, but
>on first gloss, I certainly did not find it to be any less stable
>waste than
>Hoesch's. I would have no less difficulty defending either's postulates.
>
>My job is proof of facts and debate. Rare is the client that sees the
>weaknesses in his own case or the strengths in his opponent's.
>
>I do not place the blame on either camp but on that attitude scripture
>repeatedly says God hates most in man, pride.
>
>Best Regards,
>
>Jay
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 18 2002 - 01:36:36 EDT
