From: bivalve (bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com)
Date: Wed Mar 26 2003 - 13:52:31 EST
>What I don't know, and maybe you do, is what fraction of the total horizontal force on the plates comes from pressure generated by upwelling rock. Perhaps it's negligible to begin with, or perhaps no one knows: You can deal with this kind of thing only through modeling, not measuring. <
Actually, molten rock does emerge at some spreading centers. As far as I know, no one knows how much of the horizontal force on plates is exerted by what component.
>Points well taken. However, if you're in the ad hoc ballgame, as Creation Research people seem to be, it seems you can almost always get a desired result. What if God had laced the asthenosphere and upper mantle with lots of radioactive isotopes that just happened to build up their heating effect to a maximum about the time of the Flood, triggering instability? <
Although one can keep assembling ad hoc explanations, this scenario would tend to produce nuclear reactions, distinctive chemical results, and enormous quantities of heat. Noah would have been steamed and baked, in addition to the negative effects of runaway nuclear reactions, and geochemists sampling seafloor basalts would notice unusual isotopic ratios (cf. the isotopic paterns in uranium deposits near Oklo in west Africa, where the ore was rich enough in the distant geological past to form a natural nuclear power plant).
>But I don't see how YECs can in any way explain the Devonian reefs in Alberta in a young-Earth frame.<
>If anyone can explain these in a young-Earth framework, I'd like to hear it. <
In a debate, Duane Gish claimed that ICR folks had examined the Permian reefs of west Texas and determined that they were not really reefs. I imagine you do not consider denial to be an explanation, however.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
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