Re: hypothetical question about Noah's flood

Jim,
There is a problem with your scenario. If the cavern (great deep)
supports remained, there would be no force to move the waters in those
remaining caverns to the surface. Those who hold the view of the great
deep have the entire underground system collapsing to force the water to
the surface. Thus there can be no return, and the question to be answered
is where all the water went in order to dry the land. However, an
estimate from /Van Nostrand Scientific Encyclopedia/ says that, spread
over a smooth globe, the water in the oceans would be 800 feet deep.
Positing a surface with virtually no relief broken up as it drops into
the deep would produce a highly irregular surface that could be covered
by 15 cubits in shallower spots. Rearrangement could produce the ocean
basis which are, on average, much deeper. However, instant tectonism
produces problems which I have not found considered in YEC literature.

With everything above the deep broken up, it seems that erosion is not an
insurmountable problem. However, I have seen some claims that the
Cambrian deposits are the obvious result of the ocean dwellers being
buried at the bottom, something not possible if the primeval strata were
totally broken up. But, as one of my profs loved to misquote Emerson,
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Additionally, for the
collapse of the deep theory, the temperature at depth and the heat of
friction, etc., moving virtually all the water, makes for a major
problem. Noah had to get cooked. Don's comment on the deposition of
sediments adds a further difficulty. But flood geologists do not have
little minds.
Dave

On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 08:27:08 -0700 "Jim Armstrong" <jarmstro@qwest.net>
writes:
Just to pursue this one more step, suppose that there were pillars which
continued to successfully support the cisterns from which the
subterranean water arose, when the water flowed back, it would carry
immense amounts of soil and such, reducing the cavity volume such that
the flood would not completely subside. Oh by the way, we should be able
to find that water, one would think. I also wonder about the Joule
heating temperature rise just from moving that much water around,
including the phenomenon which caused the water to emerge from the deeps
in the first place, turn into vapor and then rain. Scary!! JimA

Sheila Wilson wrote:

I had not heard the idea of a layer of mostly water just under the
surface. I am a geologist and teach hydrogeology at university.
Obviously, the theory is ridiculous. The theory implies that as the
water retreated, it went back to its original location because it had to
go somewhere. The one-time compaction event would destroy the space from
which it came, with limited similarity to the resurfacing of Venus (magma
vs. water, of course). As Jim said, even if it were possible, the
thermal energy release would definitely be mind boggling, completely
altering the atmosphere. As I said in an earlier email, I don't think
the laws of physics would allow something of that magnitude on earth. I
also agree that the chronologies don't mix - I've indirectly stated that
from the beginning.

With all that in mind, is there any realistic mechanism that would
release that amount of water? I can't think of any. If we grant the
flood geology a miracle mechanism and say it happened, how would that
affect the sediment? I think a global flood that lasted less than two
years would have limited effects in eroding existing rock. Obviously
some would occur but I don't know that it would be measurable.

Would a short term global flood of 1/4,500,000,000 cause any noticable
changes or leave any recognizable changes? What would they be? Surely a
thin layer of millions of bones of all recent animals would be noticable
but we don't see that anywhere. What other indications would we have?

Sometimes in science, it is important to look at what we would expect and
what we do or do not find. Obviously, I find this an interesting
exercise.

Sheila

Jim Armstrong <jarmstro@qwest.net> wrote:
Once again, one might start with the very real example of the recent
tsunami and the damage that resulted from that minor (in terms of Earth
dimensions) movement of a portion of the earth's shell. If that were
multiplied in any rational way to get some sense of what might happen
with surface layers of the Earth collapsing into the voids previously
occupied by "the waters of the deep", I think the whole idea of the
living biosphere surviving in any semblance of what it was before the
collapse would be pretty hard to justify, let along the survival of a
tiny ark. The thermal energy release alone would surely be mind-boggling.
    JimA

D. F. Siemens, Jr. wrote:

Sheila,
You're still talking about 1/4,500,000,000 instead of 1/6000. As for
tearing things up, one of the flood geologists has claimed that the great
deep was a layer of mostly water under the entire original earth. Its
collapse would reduce the diameter of the earth and therefore alter the
surface under the universal water. You can't mix the standard geological
chronology with flood geology/recent creation chronology and ask an
intelligent question of their interaction. There is TOTAL
incompatibility.
Dave

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 14:06:53 -0700 (PDT) Sheila Wilson
<sheila-wilson@sbcglobal.net> writes:
I agree with all the implications and ramifications that you have given.
Focusing on the hypothetical question, however, how much of the
primordial land (using your term) would have been torn up given an old
earth scenario. In other words, if we had a global flood today on our
4.5 billion year old earth, how much different would the topography look?
 In Genesis, the waters flooded for forty days. Would that have been
enough time and power to significantly erode existing rock? Or would the
waters rise so quickly that very little erosion would occur?

I believe these questions are important in understanding what a
geologically instantaneous global flood would do. Many of us agree that
a global flood never happened. Others believe that it did. If it did,
how much different would the earth's surface look before vs. after.
Could we have a global flood without cataclysmic plate shifting, as
suggested by Humphreys, Ham, and others? How could cataclysmic plate
shifting possibly cause a global flood. I don't believe that it can. I
don't think the laws of physics would allow that type of plate shifting,
nor do I think the earth has the potential energy to cause it. Even if
it could, I don't think the atmosphere, much less a boat of any size,
could possibly survive the turbulence created by plate shifting of that
magnitude.

Venus appears to undergo periodic resurfacing caused by global,
cataclysmic volcanic events. The resurfacing is probably a function of
cooling and the lack of plate tectonics. Even with that level of
deformation, the planet itself appears to remain stable in orbit,
rotation, and tilt. How could a flood possibly cause the earth's axis to
tilt? I don't think it can.

Also, given the geologically instantaneous event and the depth of the
water, would enough sediment be created to fill the basins of Wyoming?
The depth of sediment there can be measured in miles, not feet. I think
the speed at which the proposed global flood occurred would not generate
the sediment volume required. A global flood would probably just resort
existing sediment more than erode existing rock and a lot of the sediment
would end up in the ocean as the water receded.

Sheila

"D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> wrote:
Sheila,
I think you are not taking into account the broader requirements of a
global flood less than 6000 years ago. It has to be something that tore
up the primordial land and redeposited it in the strata now encountered.
That the Flood only lasted a year is, from the standpoint of geological
time, virtually nothing. But geological time is absolutely excluded from
consideration by all who hold to a global flood. The deluge was,
according to flood geology, catastrophic and cataclysmic. One thing
possibly suggested as a model is the length of time it took for the
atomic bombs to explode over Nagasaki and Hiroshima relative to the
extended existence of the cities. But it seems inadequate. Even
destruction times duration of the recent tsunami off the Indonesian coast
seems relatively close to zero compared to the destruction required and
yearlong duration of the Flood.

A major problem which we have in analysis is focusing on a single aspect
of a greater problem as if it were the crucial and major factor--tunnel
vision. There are always ramifications galore.
Dave

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 10:47:57 -0700 (PDT) Sheila Wilson
<sheila-wilson@sbcglobal.net> writes:
I understand your position but that wasn't my question. My question was,
if it did occur, what would we see. Purely hypothetical, no debate on
whether or not it happened.

These questions came after reading Chris Sharpe's essay on the age of the
universe and astromony. One significant point that he made was, if the
universe was only 6000 years old, we would not see most the stars because
they are too far away. The light didn't have time to get here. So what
would the earth look like if a global flood did occur? I don't think we
would see any geologic evidence of a global flood as described in
Genesis. In geologic time, it was instantaneous. Of course, volcanoes
are instantaneous and we can see lots of evidence of them. How deep of
sediment layer would we expect?

Any ideas?

Sheila

Sheila McGinty Wilson
sheila-wilson@sbcglobal.net

Sheila McGinty Wilson
sheila-wilson@sbcglobal.net
Received on Sat Jul 23 14:29:52 2005