This is for David O. and Bill Hamilton.
David O. wrote:
>>>Glenn: Your link includes the following:
To completely erode flood sediments takes more than 20,000 years.
There are no widespread sediments dating from less than 20,000 years ago.
Even accepting the general accuracy of these statements, this leaves the possibility of older sediments that have been completely or partially eroded. I can't find it now, but in some post of yours to this list from a few years ago that I stumbled across you gave an earlier time frame for the erosion of flood sediments. <<<<
There is a bit of quote-mining and yanking things out of context on your part going on here. At a place that something happened to my web page. HEre is what it says now:
###
I have searched and cant find what was suposed to be in the original and I will fix this page. I would say this.
"In support of the original syllogism people claim that the flood sediments are very thin and easily eroded. But this ignores the fact due to the way sediments deposit thicker layers in the topographic lows, a widespread flood could only deposit thin layers on the edges of the actual flooded zone. Along the river and for some extent away from the river (above the usual floodplain) one should see flood sediments thickening towards the river channel. But, the problem is that the riverine sediments don't even leave the normal river flood plain. And that means that no extraordinary flood ever occurred.
3. Lack of sediment from a widespread Mesopotamian Flood. A syllogism can be constructed.
All floods leave sediments covering what they flooded.
Noah's Deluge was a flood.
Therefore Noah's deluge must have left sediment.
From this one can go further,
All uneroded flood sediments can be detected by geology.
To completely erode flood sediments takes more than 20,000 years.
There are no widespread sediments dating from less than 20,000 years ago.
In support of the above syllogisms, [ <-------]
In northern Iraq the surficial sediments are Miocene in age. Except along the rivers themselves, the surficial rocks of northern Iraq are Miocene in age, much older than any proposed flood. (see M. H. Metwalli et al, Petroleum Bearing Formations in Syria and Iraq, AAPG Bulletin, Sept 1974, see cross section on page 1791.) ***If there was a flood in the Holocene, there should be some Holocene rocks away from the river valleys still left. ***
There is no evidence of a former high water level in the Mesopotamian basin. As one drives into Salt Lake City from the north along I15 one can see along the mountains on the east a set of perfectly horizontal ledges which extend for mile after mile. these "ledges" mark the former water level for the glacial Lake Bonneville. The waves on the water eroded the land at the beach. These features last for a very long time. There is no reported evidence of raised beaches along the edges of the Mesopotamian valley. If it had ever been flooded, there would be some evidence of this.
###
Note the bolded sentence and note the next paragraph arguing that such features will last a long time.
Note where I have arrowed. There is a hanging paragraph. A whole paragraph or two has disappeared. I recall saying something like in support of the above syllogisms, YECs say .... And then I had something like but here is why it doesn't work. and the northern Iraq part is part of that.
I have searched and cant find what was suposed to be in the original and I will fix this page with the following:
"In support of the original syllogism people claim that the flood sediments are very thin and easily eroded. But this ignores the fact due to the way sediments deposit thicker layers in the topographic lows, a widespread flood could only deposit thin layers on the edges of the actual flooded zone. Along the river and for some extent away from the river (above the usual floodplain) one should see flood sediments thickening towards the river channel. But, the problem is that the riverine sediments don't even leave the normal river flood plain. And that means that no extraordinary flood ever occurred.
Normal flood sediments lying within the normal flood plain have been preserved so it is not at all reasonable for people to say that there is no way that flood sediment could be preserved that long. "
I will also add to the web page the age of the Lake Bonneville bench cuts (where the flood over Utah 15,000 years ago occured). And the Lake Missoula floods were 15,000 years ago and we still see the marks of that flood. Thanks for pointing out an error on my web page that has been there for quite some time.
>>>The comparison to a couple of glacial dam floods seems wrong to me. Honestly, it seems like a bit of slieght of hand. I'm no geologist, but I'm not so naive to think that a glacial dam flood in the Rocky Mountains would leave the same geological traces as even a huge river flood in the Mesopotamian basin. <<<
And that is because you are no geologist. It always fascinates me how people like to do apologetics without ever actually having studied the areas they hypothecate upon. It makes for great fun in debates and easy targets.
>>>>I found that article in about 30 minutes of Google searching, having no clue whatsoever to look for. A bit more Googling tonight turned up numerous articles about the marshlands of southern Iraq, the Holocene marine deposits showing that the Gulf has receded, etc. In short, it appears to me that the data you're citing in support of your theory is extremely selective. Whether or not Noah's flood was as long ago as you say, or was a big but ordinary river flood a few thousand years ago, or was a bigger river flood longer ago, or was something else even longer ago, or was in the North of Iraq, or the South, or somewhere else, I don't know. I know there's strong textural evidence in the Bible and in the Gilgamesh epic for a highly significant flood event somewhere in Mesopotamia, and that there are reasonable textural questions about where the ark landed, and that's about it. I don't want this to sound snippy or something, but I don't fully trust what you're saying when you seemingly ignore lots of relevant stuff and make inapposite comparisons to rocky mountain glacier dam floods. For now I'll reserve judgment and I guess if this continues to interest me I'll study it some more. <<<<
First off, if you look in this thread, I have repeatedly acknowledged that there are holocene fluvial sediments in southern Iraq on the Tigris-Euphrates delta. Thus, maybe because you are not a geologist, you don't realize that when the article you cite says:
"Abstract: The Quaternary, mainly freshwater sediments of the Lower Mesopotamian plain include a thin transgressive marine unit which extends inland some 250 km from the present coastline, the Hammar Formation. The identity and respective areal extent of continental and transgressive units are based mainly on their molluscan faunas. Those faunas reflect the several environments of the Middle Eastern biogeographic province: fluviatile, lacustrine, estuarine and lagoonal. The ecological requirements of the more common subfossil and living species of the malacofauna were studied during a month of field reconnaissance. "
they are actually speaking of the Tigris Euphrates delta. Maybe you don't even understand the word fluvial. Thus, I have NOT been selective because I already told you about this. What is your problem? Don't want to deal with the data which contradicts your theology? All I can say to this article is: Big deal of big deals. All deltas spew sediments over areas of several hundred square kilometers. That is what deltas do. And the delta of the Tigris-Euphrates begins not much south of Bagdad.
Now as to a matter of trust. You are going to reject the opinion of a person who has spent 35 years doing geology in the oil business and trust, what? Your own uneducated opinion and uneducated evaluation of the articles you google around on but don't really understand? That is not a really smart thing to do. If I recall correctly, you are in the law. It would be like me telling you that you don't know diddly about the law. It would be dumb and stupid for me to do that because I have never been to law school and never been in a court room save as a juror. And then it would be even dumber to then act as if my knowledge of the law were superior to yours. But, it is your perogative to not trust what I say, but you illustrate very well how evidence and data have little to do with apologetical beliefs. But maybe this is a congenital defect of lawyers. Phil Johnson, also without any scientific study or work, thinks he knows more than all the scientists combined.
I want to make one more comment about the Hammar formation, which you take as indicating the Gulf is 'receding'. The Gulf is not receding. The delta is building out on top of the marine muds and sands. That is what the Hammar formation is. It has been many years since I got into a debate about the Hammar formation with a guy who was about as abysmal in geology as you are. But here is a nice piece of data for you to chew on.
"The type section of the Hammar Formation is in BPC well
Zubair No. 31 (lat 30[deg] 31'00" N., Long 47[deg] 36' 34"
E.; alt 20.3 ft, completed Oct 24, 1953) between 20 and 31 feet of
drilled depth. The formation is 21 feet thick. This Recent marine
formation occurs in the subsurface sections on the southern
limits of Hawr al Hammar in thenorthern sector of the Zubair
oil field, where the type seciton is located.
"Eastward across the Shaat al Arab, north of Bandar
Shapur, Thomas (in Lees and Falcon, 1952) reported a succession of
marine shelly silts **overlain by fresh- or brackish-water** silts
containing ostracodes. The brackish-water silts total at
least 20 feet in thickness, and the lower marine silts are
possibly 60 feet thick. On the northeast side of Hawr Al Hammar, this
formation was found in the Nahr Umr wells, close to the
Shatt al Arab, where it consists of 32 feet of shell marl containing
lamellibranchs, gastropods, bryozoans, and other forms in a
fauna almost identical with that of the other forms in a fauna
almost identical with that of the Hammar Formation in the type
section. According to Hudson and others (1957), this formation
extends as far south as Al Faw (FA0), in the extreme south of Iraq,
where a number of water wells were drilled in soft silts to a depth
of 30 feet. They stated that 'the general succession was one of a
lower marine silt with abundant shells and an upper silt
with ostracodes and occasional crab debris, probably estuarine.
There was a slight difference between the succession in the
various wells, the greatest thickness of the estuarine silt being 20
feet (well No. 3) and that of the marine silts being 30 feet
(well No. 2).' The fauna of the marine silts is that of the Hammar
Formation." K. M. Al Naqib, Geology of the
Arabian Peninsula, Southwestern Iraq, (Washington: United
States Government Printing Office, 1967), p. G47
Now, the succession spoken of above has marine at the bottom, estuarine above and fresh water sediments above that. With one exception all the Hammar points are west of the Euphrates river, meaning that this was probably a small arm of the sea (the article you cite shows that but you clearly don't understand it. That is a case of a delta building out over a marine platform. But you wouldn't recognize that because you aren't a geologist, but play one on the ASA. Or maybe you slept in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
Sorry, but you ticked me off with your comment about trust. I have put together deals worth up to $50 million dollars based upon my geologic knowledge. I have been geophysical manager and exploration director for areas as diverse as the East Coast of the US, the Gulf Coast of Texas, Louisiana, The western US Offshore and Alaska, China, The United Kingdom and the Gulf of Mexico. I have managed yearly budgets as high as $24 million dollars for investment into geological endeavors. I have been involved in finding over 700 million barrels of oil. My company thinks I know a thing or two about geology. But you, without any geological education, are arrogant enough to think that without any study at all, you can know that someone is wrong in their professional field by merely googling around the internet. You can't even understand a simple geological article. As I said the other day, there are enough geologists who watch this list that if I were saying something that was false, they would jump on me. But you paid no attention even to that statement.
This attitude is what is absolutely wrong about Christians and Christian apologetics. They are arrogant and they act as if they are really knowledgeable when they aren't. It is this inability to actually deal with the world as it is, rather than as you want it to be that makes me think Christianity just might be a total sham.
****
To Bill Hamilton who wrote:
>>>>
WEH: Are you taking into account that according to the paper the Persian Gulf extended to the north of its present extent as late as 325 BC? If that were true, the place where the meteor hit would have been deeper than 10 ft. But I concede that it's not going to cause a year-long flood.<<<
YOu are absolutely correct. The Shoreline for the Persian Gulf was about 150 miles further north--which means that the Gulf hasn't subsided so much as it has filled in as the Delta has dumped sediment upon the old ocean floor. But, the near shore of the Gulf rarely has more than 35 feet of water. If the amplitude falls off by 1/r^2 then the supposed tsunami would not be very great. Might kill a few local villagers but not Bagdad. Nor, as you say, would it last a year.
BTW Bill, I think the first time I acknowledged that my thinking had been wrong on where the ark landed which I had in the original Foundation, Fall and Flood, was a note by you criticising me for that position. I just happened to run into it tonight searching for my original flood page.. It was way back in 1997.
Sorry about the tirade above, but I am really weary of people who think they can think deep thoughts without any real study in the area, replacing hard work with googling.