RE: Evidence For Noah's Flood?

A rise in water level over decades or a century would not be evidence of
Noah's flood. Most people wouldn't notice the rise and if they did,
they could walk out of the way of the rising waters.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Josh Bembenek
> Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 11:24 AM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Evidence For Noah's Flood?
>
>
> This article just came out in Current Biology. What seems
> quite interesting
> is the date of the mangrove forest found beneath the great
> barrier reef.
> Any comments from geologists? What do you make of this and
> could it have
> anything to do with Noah's flood?
>
>
> Josh
>
>
>
> Feature
>
>
>
> New studies raise global warming fears
>
>
> Nigel Williams
>
> Available online 28 March 2005.
>
>
>
>
> Gradual increases in global temperature may not lead to
> gradual changes in
> climate. Nigel Williams reports on new studies that suggest
> previous climate
> changes could have been more dramatic and polar environments may be
> particularly at risk.
>
>
>
>
> While researchers are developing increasingly sophisticated models of
> potential climate change, few are predicting dramatic and
> sudden changes.
> But researchers at the Australian Institute of Marine Science
> (AIMS) have
> opened a window into the past that suggests dramatic change.
>
> Scientists from the institute have uncovered ancient mangrove
> forests buried
> beneath the Great Barrier Reef while carrying out research
> into a quite
> different issue.
>
>
> (259K)
>
> Hidden secrets: Parts of the Great Barrier Reef off Australia
> appear to have
> developed over rapidly submerged mangrove swamps after the
> last Ice Age,
> raising fears that climate change may occur more rapidly than
> some current
> models of contemporary global warming suggest. (Picture:
> Oxford Scientific
> Films.)
>
>
>
> One of the team, Dan Alongi, said that the expedition was
> surveying the
> impact of nutrients on coastal inshore areas when scientists
> unearthed
> mangrove forests in old river channels they believe may have run for
> 30kilometres to the edge of the continental shelf.
>
> Researchers have long theorised that the sea level rose very
> gradually over
> several thousand years, but these remnant mangrove forests
> tell another
> story. While it was previously known that relic river beds
> exist beneath the
> Great Barrier Reef, formed 9,000 years ago when the sea level
> was lower than
> the continental shelf, their significance was never studied.
>
> “When we took the first samples it was difficult to
> believe... we stood
> amazed wondering what exactly we were dealing with. We thought it was
> cyclone debris, but it was far too deep to be a modern
> event,” said Alongi.
>
> The researchers took core samples from one to two metres of
> sediment and
> found remnant mangrove 70 centimetres below the surface of
> the present
> seafloor.
>
> These core samples of mud are an evolutionary time frame. The
> evidence will
> help to establish the state of the reef and nutrient sediment
> information as
> it existed prior to human activity.
>
> Alongi said the mangroves were incredibly well preserved, a
> fact most likely
> attributed to the antibiotic properties in the concentrated
> tannins. “The
> cores still have the characteristic smell of tannins, that’s
> why we thought
> they were young.
>
> “Within the cores were intact root systems and parts of trees
> including
> twigs and branches that radiocarbon dating put between 8,550
> and 8,740 years
> of age.
>
> “There’s such an abrupt change in core composition from
> mud-like substance
> to intact mangrove branches… from the modern to the ancient, that it
> suggests a large climate change happened,” said Alongi.
>
> “This sharp boundary between these ancient mangroves and the
> overlying
> modern mud can tell us something fundamental about how
> quickly the water
> rose over time.”
>
> Alongi estimates that the shift in sea level occurred over a
> geologically
> short time-span, from a few centuries or even decades.
> Research now planned
> with fellow AIMS scientists will help to paint a more
> accurate picture of
> this timeframe, and investigate the concentration of background
> radionuclides in the top layers of sediment. These
> measurements will help
> pinpoint the period over which the sea level rose.
>
> “Knowing how rapidly the seascape changed in the past helps
> us predict
> future changes with global warming,” said Alongi.
>
> The source of the deluge is not clear but there are growing
> suspicions that
> Antarctica may have had a key role. Only five years ago the
> scientists on
> the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were
> confident that
> Antarctica was a ‘slumbering giant’and its vast ice sheets so
> cold that they
> would not begin to melt for centuries, even if the climate changed
> elsewhere. But a conference held in London last month was
> told ‘the giant is
> awakening’, and areas of the ice-bound continent are melting,
> causing faster
> sea-level rise than expected.
>
> But for western Europe and North America, the most worrying
> finding revealed
> at the conference was the potential collapse of the sea
> current known as the
> Gulf Stream, called the Atlantic thermohaline circulation.
> The melting of
> Greenland and Arctic ice and additional freshwater from rainfall is
> threatening to shut down the current. Mike Schlesinger, from
> the climate
> research group at the University of Illinois, said a 3°C rise
> in temperature
> this century, which is within current models, would lead to a
> 45per cent
> chance of the current halting by the end of the century and a
> 70per cent
> chance by 2200.
>
> The current, which carries billions of watts of heat from the
> tropics to the
> north Atlantic is known to be weakening, but the chance of it
> being switched
> off completely by climate change was previously considered remote.
>
> And the first evidence of human-produced global warming in
> the oceans has
> been found, thanks to a computer analysis of seven million
> temperature
> readings taken over 40 years to a depth of 700 metres. Tim
> Barnett, of the
> Scripps Institute in San Diego, told the American Association for the
> Advancement of Science meeting in Washington last month that “the
> statistical significance of these results is far too strong
> to be merely
> dismissed and should wipe out much uncertainty about the
> reality of global
> warming”.
>
> The warming of the Arctic could have a big impact on seals,
> polar bears and
> walruses, which depend on winter ice for hunting. In 1997,
> thousands of
> short-tailed shearwaters died because of a bloom of plankton
> which obscured
> the bird’s food supply.
>
>
> (96K)
>
> Caught adrift: A new survey suggests part of the polar bear
> population is
> smaller than previous estimates. The animals are increasingly
> vulnerable to
> global warming but future prospects are unpredictable.
> (Picture: Oxford
> Scientific Films.)
>
>
>
> A new study, funded by the Norwegian ministry of the
> environment, suggests
> that polar bear numbers may be lower than previously
> estimated. Scientists
> at St Andrew’s University in Scotland together with
> scientists from the
> Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) and the University of Oslo
> carried out a
> survey of the Barents Sea region over five weeks using two
> helicopters and
> bears with satellite tags. The team believe that there are
> 3,000 polar bears
> living in the region compared with previous estimates of 5,000.
>
> The region is home to 12 per cent of the world’s polar bears.
> Though the
> large number means safety in the short term, the NPI says
> that climate
> change and organic pollutants may affect the population in
> the long run.
>
> Norway’s environment minister, Knut Arid Hareide said: “The
> count gives us a
> good basis for the future management of this animal.”
>
> With conflicting evidence about how Arctic regions might fare
> under global
> warming, the fate of polar bears and other inhabitants of the
> region faces a
> particularly difficult future.
>
>
Received on Wed Mar 30 22:27:39 2005