From: Glenn Morton (glennmorton@entouch.net)
Date: Tue Sep 23 2003 - 21:23:12 EDT
thanks for the kind words. I will keep at it even if my views are wrong. I
can't prove them and know I can't. But they don't violate data. Other
concordistic views do.
You ought to see what I wrote of our historical disagreement in my
response to Josh tonight. I don't think you will mind terribly what I said.
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael Roberts [mailto:michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk]
>Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 7:35 AM
>To: Glenn Morton; Asa
>Subject: Re: Subject: RE: Report on the YEC seminar in Durango, 9-2003
>
>
>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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