Re: Flood Model, batholiths, and science

Kevin O'Brien (Cuchulaine@worldnet.att.net)
Thu, 18 Feb 1999 19:06:58 -0700

>>>It's not a matter of being close-minded; it's a matter of recognizing
that
>>>your unknown "major factors" would violate the known laws of
>>>thermodynamics
>>>and physics, and so are going to be virtually non-existant.
>>
>>Isn't that what they were saying when Wegner and a few before him
suggested
>>continental movement? And in physics when they thought that they had the
>>laws described, and there was little to do but confirm them? They had no
>>idea that there could be any other way to look at things, and basically
>>denied the possibility.
>>
>>New data, unexpected experimental results, changed the picture. What that
>>teaches me is that we probably don't know everything right now, either,
and
>>perspectives may change still.
>
>Right. Just as unexpected observations in physics led to finding a whole
>new realm (QM), and in geophysics a whole new way of looking at the history
>of the lithosphere (plate tectonics), explaining the observed parallel
>coastlines with the addition of the mid-oceanic ridges, so new experimental
>results may come to light that explain the batholith problem in an
>unexpected way.
>

Not if you have to violate certain laws to do it, it won't.

>
>>
>>
>>Right, anything may change but wishful thinking is the last one to achieve
>>such a change. Especially if your "unknown factors" are in violation of
>>known laws.
>
>Wegner suggested continental movement without detailing a mechanism (and
>really today the proposed mechanisms are still debated and not very
>detailed). He was ridiculed and ignored. Same with Bretz, and many
>others. It's OK. Happens frequently in science.
>

See _The Mid-Oceanic Ridges_ by Adolphe Nicolas (1995) for a readable and
up-to-date source on plate tectonics, including the latest version of the
mechanism. The mechanism is in fact well detailed, and while some of these
details are debated, the basic mechanism has been largely verified.

By the way, no one was ridiculed because the mechanism they proposed
violated known laws.

>
>By the way, how did the oceans keep from filling in as they opened? If you
>calculate the speed at which the oceans, say the Atlantic, opened in the
>long-ages model, it is so slow that the crack would have filled with
>sediment each year.
>

It's not that slow. There are in fact several places in the world where
separating plates are creating rift valleys, places like the Great Rift
Valley in East Africa and the Jordan River valley in Israel. The plates
spread fast enough to be measureable, and as they spread the valley floors
sink. At present the valleys are sinking faster than sediment can fill them
up. In fact, the valleys are more likely to be filled up with basalt
emerging from the floor of the rift than by erosional sediment. Besides,
even if sediments did manage to fill in spreading rifts, as the rift spreads
the sediments would thin and spread as well. Eventually, the rift would
still sink low enough to admit in water from a nearby sea or ocean. By the
way, that's how the Atlantic formed. The rift simply dropped deep enough
that the existing ocean water could flow in and flood it. That's what's
happening in the Red Sea now.

Kevin L. O'Brien