From: Michael Roberts (michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk)
Date: Tue Sep 23 2003 - 08:35:07 EDT
Glenn, you forget that the Flood was a miracle and all these things are
possible. This is further proof that you lost your faith!
Oops, I am being flippant, but how do you deal in a reasonable way with
nonsense?
More seriously thew Coal Measures consist of a large number of cyclothems
with alternate thick bands of sand and a band of coal from a few inches to
yards.
In the 70s Fred Broadhurst of Manchester tried to work out a time span for
them and concluded that the coal took about 80.000 years and the sand could
be deposited in a few short mini-floods each lasting a weekend.
Keep at it Glenn, even if you are wrong over the Mediterranean flood.
Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Glenn Morton" <glennmorton@entouch.net>
To: "Asa" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 12:29 PM
Subject: RE: Subject: RE: Report on the YEC seminar in Durango, 9-2003
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
> >Behalf Of bpayne15@juno.com
> >Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 5:35 AM
>
> >I responded on Sep 15 with an explanation for two of your objections
(coal
> >and oil). I was suspicious that you might ignore any response since you
> >furnished an excuse in advance: "Due to several personal situations,
don't
> >expect much of a reply. I simply couldn't let this nonsense go by
> >unchallenged." It is apparent that your "several personal situations"
have
> >not interfered with your ability to respond to other subjects.
>
> The personal situations included being at my father-in-laws for my
> mother-in-laws funeral and other issues which haven't yet interferred as
> much as I thought they might. I was merely trying to let people know that
I
> might not respond at that time. and I didn't respond to Paul Greaves
> publically. You have no reason to be mad at me for not responding when you
> weren't the addressee on my note.
>
>
> >
> >I have no problem with you ignoring rational empirical data which
conflict
> >with your OEC model, but, in light of your eschewing data, I do have a
> >problem with statements like those above where you refer to my
> >interpretations as "nonsense", and claim "They simply have everything of
> >importance wrong! I am highly
> >confident of that fact."
> >
> >I presented four lines of evidence which cannot be rationally interpreted
> >within the swamp model for the origin of coal. You have ignored those
> >statements, made by people who believe as you do, that coal was a swamp
> >deposit.
>
> Bill, I won't discuss coal with you. It is a total waste of my time. You
> have never listened to the counter arguments and I see no reason why you
> should now. To repeat that discussion wastes both our times.
>
>
> >
> >Here is another observation from a technical journal. Since you are so
> >confident that what I say is nonsense, let's see if you can make sense of
> >this:
> =[snip]
> and
> >
> >So let's hear it Glenn. Tell us how nonsensical it is to postulate a
flood
> >model which agrees with the observations of over 400 man years, and how
> >rational it is to say that although "The established notion of a forest
> >setting is therefore not supported by observation, and contrasts
> >with both a
> >lack of tree preservation in intraseam tonsteins and only sparse tree
> >preservation in interseam tuffs. It should, however, be recognised that
> >this is a negative argument, and that a lack of preserved trees is not
> >direct evidence for a lack of trees." And "Such an absence of topographic
> >relief is not only difficult to envisage in a forest setting, but is also
> >inconsistent with other irregular peat surfaces such as raised bogs."
> >
> >The spotlight is on you - long, tall Texan; here is your chance to
vanquish
> >this dumb old Alabama redneck hillbilly geologist. Tell me how your
faith
> >is built on those negative arguments. Talk to me, Glenn.
>
> You haven't dealt with the quantity of coal. You assume an impossible rate
> of growth for trees in a pre-flood world (in you post of the 15th. Then
you
> say, voila the problem is solved. Coal isn't the only biological matter
> which needs explanation in the flood model as you are well aware. You
can't
> deal with the problem by only looking at coal in isolation. Remember there
> is a bigger world out there than merely coal. I will not defend the number
> of animals Morris claims for the Karroo, but if it is true, then here are
> the consequences.
>
> Bill, you can't solve each of these problems with no thought for the other
> problems. Your claim to solve the coal quantity problem rings very, very
> hollow in light of the other evidences of pre-flood life forms. Thus,
until
> you face this issue, it is a waste of our time to discuss it.
>
> The following is from Foundation, Fall and Flood
>
> ****start***
>
> Too Many Animals
>
> Advocates of the global flood claim that all the fossils are the remains
of
> animals that died in the flood. Morris states,
>
> "Still further, the creationist suspects that the fossil record and the
> sedimentary rocks, instead of speaking of a long succession of geologic
> ages, may tell rather of just one former age, destroyed in a single great
> worldwide aqueous cataclysm."37
>
> If this claim is true, that the fossil record represents the remains of a
> single prediluvial world, then there should not be enough fossils to
> overcrowd the world. Most animals would be destroyed in the Flood, not
> preserved. Thus if the geologic column consists of one single biosphere
> which was destroyed in one year, there should be very few fossils and
> certainly not enough of them to fill up today's earth. But this isn't
what
> we see. What we see are too many animals, which means that we have buried
in
> the geologic column more than one biosphere.
> Whitcomb and Morris cite with approval a paleontologist who estimates that
> the Karroo Formation of southern Africa is believed to contain 800 billion
> fossil vertebrates with an average size of the fox.38 There are 126
billion
> acres on the surface of the earth. Only 30 percent of this area is land,
> giving a land area of 38 billion acres. If 800 billion animals were
spread
> over the 38 billion available acres, there would be 21 animals with an
> average size of a fox, per acre, from this deposit alone. This does not
> include all the vertebrate fossil deposits throughout the rest of the
world.
> Assuming that the Karroo beds are only 1% of the fossil vertebrates in the
> world (the Karroo beds occupy much less than 1% of the sedimentary column)
> means that 2100 animals per acre occupied the preflood world. Since an
acre
> is 4840 square yards, each animal would have only 2 square yards, or 18
> square feet, of territory. That is an area only 4.2 wide by 4.2 feet long.
> This can be put in a setting that most Americans can understand. The
> average house lot is about a quarter acre. Can you imagine every house in
> your neighborhood surrounded by 525 hungry animals the size of a fox? I,
for
> one, would not venture out of doors. Obviously this is far too many
animals.
>
> Too Many Plants
>
> If we further consider the quantity of plant matter which must have
> occupied the single preflood world envisioned by young-earth creationists,
> these results pale in comparison. There are an estimated 15 x 10^18 grams
> of carbon contained in the coal reserves of the world.39 An acre of
> tropical forest contains 525 kilograms of plant matter per square meter.40
> Assuming an 18% carbon content of plant matter41 we have 94.5 kilograms
of
> carbon per square meter. Multiplying this by the number of square meters
on
> land, we have approximately the quantity of carbon contained in coal, 15 x
> 10^18 grams. One can account for all the carbon in coal only by
> postulating a tropical rain forest over the entire world.
> But this is impossible, because many of the animals in the fossil record
> require low productivity regions to survive. Grazing animals that live on
> grass can not live in tropical rain forests, because carpeting grasses do
> not live there. Now we have too many animals on each acre and almost too
> much plant matter. But we are not through.
> Whitcomb and Morris believe that oil and natural gas are the result of the
> decay of plants and animals that lived before the flood. These authors
> state,
>
> "The exact nature of the organic material has been as yet quite unsettled,
> but there seems little doubt that the vast reservoirs of organic remains,
> both plant and animal, in the sedimentary rocks constitute a more than
> adequate source."
> "Although the details are not clear, the Deluge once again appears to
> offer a satisfactory explanation for the origin of oil, as well as the
other
> stratigraphic phenomena. The great sedimentary basins being filled
rapidly
> and more or less continuously during the Flood would provide a prolific
> source of organic material, together with whatever heat and pressure might
> have been needed to initiate the chemical reactions necessary to begin the
> transformation into petroleum hydrocarbons. Of course, not all organic
> debris deposited during the Flood was converted into oil; apparently
certain
> catalysts or other chemicals were also necessary, and where these were
> present, it was possible for oil to form."42
>
> If all the oil were the result of the decay of organic matter, then there
is
> far too much oil and natural gas in the world. There are 201 x 10^18
grams
> of carbon in the hydrocarbons of the earth. In all of the world's living
> things, there are only 0.3 x 10^18 grams of carbon. There is 670 times
more
> carbon in petroleum than there is in every living plant and animal on
earth.
> Surely the world was not 670 times more crowded at the time of the Flood
> than it is today!
>
> Too Many Plankton
>
> There are also too many microscopic animals. Most limestone is deposited
by
> bacteria and invertebrate animals. The Austin Chalk, which underlies
> Dallas, is a 400-foot thick limestone bed made of the remains of
microscopic
> animals, called coccolithophores or coccoliths. It is about 70%
coccoliths.
> The coccolithophore is a small spherical animal, between 5 and 60
> micrometers in diameter, each having about 16 coccoliths that separate
upon
> the death. According to Stokes Law these animals would fall through the
> water at a rate of .1 millimeter per second. To fall through a 100 foot
(33
> meter) depth of water would take 4 days.
> The time required to form the Austin Chalk is far longer than one year.
> The coccolith skeleton, when pressed flat, is about 1 micron or one
> millionth of a meter thick. A deposit of coccoliths 400 feet thick must
> represent many thousands of years of deposits. One hundred twenty-one
> million coccoliths could be stacked up like coins across the four hundred
> feet. The length of time necessary to deposit these 121 million
coccoliths
> can be calculated by assuming the maximum density of living
coccolithophores
> in the waters above. Such measurements can be made during an event known
as
> a red tide.
> Occasionally, growth conditions become so favorable that they grow beyond
> all reason. As many as 60 million creatures per liter of water grow and
> quickly use up all of the oxygen and nutrients in the water and then die.
> Their decay continues to use any oxygen entering the water and also gives
> off poisons. Fish who swim into one of these areas often die from lack of
> oxygen and the absorption of toxins emitted by the dead microorganism.
> These water blooms last only a few weeks as the microorganisms deplete the
> water's nutrients rapidly and die. However, even at their most dense, 60
> million microorganisms per liter, only 39 layers of organisms are stacked
in
> a single cubic centimeter. Thus, to stack 121 million coccoliths would
> require the death of nearly 8 million organisms. A 100 foot water depth,
> filled to the maximum with coccospheres, would only generate a thickness
of
> six feet of chalk! The four hundred feet of chalk of the Austin formation
> would require 66 such blooms. If it required two weeks between each bloom
to
> recharge the nutrients and one week for the bloom to occur, it would take
4
> years to deposit the chalk. And these values are wildly optimistic for the
> deposition of chalk. This size bloom is not possible.
> The coccolithophores remove calcium carbonate from the water to make their
> skeletons. In water depth of 100 feet there is not nearly enough calcium
to
> deposit such a volume of chalk. One hundred feet of seawater contains
only
> enough carbonate to deposit a little over 1-millimeter of carbonate.
Thus,
> no bloom of the size mentioned above can even occur. Using the two-week
> recharge and one-week bloom mentioned above, it would take 7,000 years to
> deposit the chalk. Obviously, the chalk under Dallas would require much
> more time to deposit than merely one year. In southern Louisiana, the
chalk
> is 2100 feet (640 meters) thick. I have drilled it. This would take
> considerably more time than seven thousand years.
> Additionally, the quantity of chalk seen in the world is far too great to
> have been contained in the preflood world hypothesized by young-earth
> creationists. The Austin Chalk is a chalk deposit that stretches from
> Mexico along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico into Louisiana, a distance in
> excess of 800 km. In Mexico, the Austin Chalk is named the San Felipe
> Formation. A glance at the geologic data shows that the band is about 160
km
> wide and appears to average 120 meters in thickness.43 In the chalk in
Texas
> alone there are enough dead coccolithophores to cover the earth to a depth
> of 3 centimeters. But Texas is not the only place on earth that has
deposits
> of chalk. In Alabama and Mississippi, the chalk is known as the Selma.
The
> Niobrara chalk - 5,000 km long, 1,400 km. wide and 6 meters thick - runs
> through much of the western part of the Great Plains of the United
States.44
> The Niobrara would add another 7 centimeters of cover to the earth.
> Throughout Europe Upper Cretaceous chalks cover large areas. The White
> Cliffs of Dover are made of chalk that is as much as 215 meters thick in
> parts of England. This chalk sweeps across southern Scandinavia, Poland
and
> into south Russia where it attains an amazing thickness of up to 1000
> meters. It is stopped by the Ural Mountains. The chalks of western
Europe
> are enough to cover the entire earth to a depth of 83 centimeters.45 West
of
> the Urals, in the Central Asian Tuar-Kyr mountain range, a deposit of
chalk
> 20 meters thick is found. In Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Saudi
Arabia,
> an Upper Cretaceous chalk is around 180 meters thick. If all the fossil
> record was the record of the destruction of one preflood biosphere, as
> Morris suggests, it must have been a crowded place. The worldwide quantity
> of dead coccoliths would cover the earth to a depth of one meter.
>
> Too Many Diatoms
>
> A deposit that is similar to chalk is diatomaceous chert. These siliceous
> deposits are made of little more than dead diatoms. A diatom is a small
> single-celled animal that lives in the sea. As diatoms collect on the
ocean
> floor and are buried deeper and deeper, they are compressed and changed
from
> a form known as diatomite, which is used in swimming pool filters, to
opal.
> Upon further burial, with increased temperature and pressure, the opal is
> changed into chert. The Monterey formation of California is such a
deposit.
> It is the light-colored rock that forms much of the landscape of southern
> California. The deposit is 1,200 kilometers long, 250 kilometers wide and
> averages half a kilometer in thickness. This single deposit of dead
diatoms
> is large enough to cover the earth to a depth of nearly 1 foot, or 0.28
> meters.
> But this is not all. There are over 300 such siliceous deposits around
the
> world. If each one of them is only one-fourth the size of the Monterey,
then
> there are enough dead diatoms to cover the earth uniformly to a depth of
21
> meters, or 70 feet! So we now have a preflood world which contains 2,100
> terrestrial animals per acre (none of which are human), a tropical rain
> forest everywhere, 20 meters of dead diatoms over the entire globe and 1
> meter of dead coccoliths. Where is everyone going to live? And we are not
> through.
>
> Too Many Crinoids
>
> The Mission Canyon formation in the northwestern United States is part of
a
> truly remarkable deposit. It is largely made of the remains of dead
> crinoids, which are deep-sea creatures called sea lilies. Clark and
Stearn
> report,
>
> "Much of the massive limestone formation is composed of sand-sized
> particles of calcium carbonate, fragments of crinoid plates, and shells
> broken by the waves. Such a sedimentary rock qualifies for the name
> sandstone because it is composed of particles of sand size cemented
> together; because the term sandstone is commonly understood to refer to a
> quartz-rich rock, however, these limestone sandstones are better called
> calcarenites. The Madison sea must have been shallow, and the waves and
> currents strong, to break the shells and plates of the animals when they
> died. The sorting of the calcite grains and the cross-bedding that is
> common in this formation are additional evidence of waves and currents at
> work. Even in Mississippian rocks, where whole crinoids are rare fossils,
> and as a result, it is easy to underestimate the population of these
animals
> during the Paleozoic era. Crinoidal limestones, such as the Mission
> Canyon-Livingstone unit, provide an estimate, even though it be of
necessity
> a rough one, of their abundance in the clear shallow seas they loved. In
> the Canadian Rockies the Livingstone limestone was deposited to a
thickness
> of 2,000 feet on the margin of the Cordilleran geosyncline, but it thins
> rapidly eastward to a thickness of about 1,000 feet in the Front Ranges
and
> to about 500 feet in the Williston Basin. Even though its crinoidal
content
> decreases eastward, it may be calculated to represent at least 10,000
cubic
> miles of broken crinoid plates. How many millions, billions, trillions of
> crinoids would be required to provide such a deposit? The number staggers
> the imagination."46
>
> In just this one deposit, there are enough crinoids to cover every square
> inch of the earth to a depth of 1/4 inch. Where would the vertebrate
> animals (in the Karroo Beds mentioned earlier) live if the whole world
were
> covered with crinoids? But this deposit is not the only crinoidal
deposit.
> Rocks of the lower Mississippian age are largely composed of crinoidal
> calcarenites - translation: dead crinoids. Further north in Canada, the
> deposit of crinoidal limestones is called the Rundle, and it is called the
> Lisburne limestone in Alaska. Both of these beds contain vast quantities
of
> dead crinoids. Farther south, the crinoidal limestone is called the
> Leadville Limestone in Colorado, the Redwall in Arizona, and the Chappell
in
> Texas, the Burlington and Keokuk limestones in the Mid-Continent region.
> The Burlington alone contains another 719 cubic miles of dead crinoids.47
It
> is called the Edwardsville Formation in Indiana. This Mississippian
> crinoidal rock unit is called the Ft. Payne in Tennessee, Kentucky and
> Georgia. But this is not the extent of this crinoidal limestone.
> In Australia there is a deposit of crinoidal limestones called the Namoi
> and Bingleburra Formations.48 In Libya near the Timenocaline Wells, there
is
> a 6 foot bed of crinoidal limestone.49 White crinoidal limestones are
found
> along the banks of the Zilim River in the south part of the Ural
> Mountains.50 Belgium boasts a crinoidal limestone that reaches 2,100 feet
> thick.51 Without further documentation, which could have been provided,
> these crinoidal limestones are found in Egypt, Central Asia, and China. A
> Mississippian crinoidal limestone even tops Mt. Everest! With crinoids
all
> over the Northern Hemisphere, where did land animals live? Where did the
> tropical rain forest live? Where did the diatoms come from? Where did the
> coal come from?
> When it is realized that almost all of the limestone deposits in the world
> are biologic in origin, a problem quickly arises. There are 6.42 x 1022
> grams of carbon in the limestones of the earth and only 3 x 10^17 grams of
> carbon in the biosphere of the earth. The flood must have buried 214,000
> times more living matter in limestone alone than is currently on the
earth.
> There are far too many dead animals to have fit on the preflood earth as
> envisioned by the global flood advocates. The fossil record can not even
> begin to be considered the remains of one preflood biosphere. It would
have
> been too crowded! Glenn Morton, Foundation, Fall and Flood, (DMD
Publishers,
> Spring TX, 1999), p. 83-86
>
>
>
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