Re: Flood Deposits in Mesopotamia [Was: Special Creation]

I just came across this today (sorry, folks -- I can only read so many posts a
day). It occurred to me that the ark would not have had to be blown upstream
for a year. Suppose the flood washed it into the Persiaqn Gulf, where it
remained for most of a year. At the end of a year the wind God sent, and
perhaps tides, brought it back up the Tigris or the Euphrates until it ran
aground. If that was nowhere near Ararat, remember Phil's caution that the
Hebrew is just RRT, which could be some place other than Ararat.

--- glennmorton@entouch.net wrote:

---------------------------------

I have collected the sayings of Phil into one reply. However, I am going to
have to cut it in half, I guess. It didn't go through to the list yesterday.
Part 1

  Phil wrote:
>>>You've given me a lot of things to reply to, and I'll take them separately.
Apparently I pushed your hot button. :-) I won't tell you where my hot button
is so you can't push it!<<<<

GRM: not a hot button, just a data dump.
 
>>>>Of course the Ark would go downstream to the Persian gulf, and as your web
page of the physics states, neither a human nor the waters would move it up
hill. But don't you see that it is wrong to say that only two things could
move the ark? The Bible specifically mentions a third thing that could do it:
wind.<<<<<

GRM: The easiest answer to this is that not only do river channels meander,
flood plains also meander. Looking at a map of Iraq, you need a strong wind
from the SE to push the ark to the north. But that really won't do it. If he
goes up the Tigris, then from Ali al Gharbl to Al Kut, the floodplain tends to
be east-west. A strong SE wind would blow the ark north onto the north bank of
the Tigris at that point.North of Al Mawsil there is a section of the
floodplain which goes NE-SW, perpendicular to the generally required wind
direction. Once again, the ark would be pushed to the north Shore of the
floodplain. If he goes up the Euphrates, then the same thing happens from Anah
to Al Qaim, with the river flood plain actually heading south at that point.
Only by the most ad hoc confabulation of winds could you possibly push the ark
from southern Mesopotamia to Turkey.
 I would love to see the velocity of the wind required to push the ark, which
would have had to have been more than 50% submerged, or it would be unstable to
rolling over (especially in that strong wind.)

>>>When I first gave attention to how the ark could go uphill, about 3 years
ago, I immediately remembered that the Bible says how God remembered Noah and
sent a wind. Only a wind could rescue the ark from floating around in the
persian gulf forever. So that is the working hypothesis I've held for the past
three years. I've always wanted to do the numerical modeling of the flood to
see if this would work. I do numerical modeling of other fluid flows moving
sediments around, so I know I could do this. But I just don't have time.<<<

GRM:Well, the only thing the wind would ensure is that the ark ended up
stranded along one of the northerly shores of a meandering floodplain. The only
way out of this is to vastly deepen the flood so that there are no meanders,
and if you do that, then you have a problem with having a global flood.
 
>>>>But can a wind actually move the ark uphill that many feet to match the
Biblical description? Well, I'm sure it could! The Bible says it was God who
was sending the wind, and as I've heard you ask others on similar matters, how
capable is God at doing what he sets out to do? <<<

GRM: ONly theoretically under the most ideal, non-natural conditions can the
wind move the ark. The way I calculate it, it would require a 60 km/hr wind to
counter a 2 km/hr water velocity. Is that close to what you calculate?
 
>>>Constant winds blowing over a long reaches of water creates waves, of
course, which are circular rotations that in deep water represent no net motion
of the water. But in Mesopotamia we would have to assume the waters in the
flood immediately retreated to an area very close to the rivers, only flowing
over the wider regions for a very short time (for many of the reasons you
describe). I'd never expect the entire basin to stay full for a year! If only
it is wide enough that Noah could see no mountains or hills off to either
side,<<<<

GRM: This would be almost impossible. The equation for how far one can see or
be seen is aproximately 1.224 x square root (height in feet)
for a person 5 feet tall, the horizon is 2.7 miles away. The Zagros mountains
are over 4000 m tall (13000 ft). Thus, they can be seen from a distance of 140
miles, well within the purview of the Tigris River. Noah would never have been
out of sight of the mountains on a clear day.
This is why I reject most of the local flood theories, like Mesopotamia.
THere were huge mountains to the east, the Zagros mtns. which would never have
been covered and could clearly be seen from the Tigris/Euphrates river. It is
also for this reason that I reject the Caspian and Black Sea locales.

>>>> then that would be enough. So in the shallow flood waters the viscosity
of the water propagates shear stresses from the earth beneath the water up into
the layers of water above it. This drag on the earth creates an asymmetry
between the upper and lower limbs of the surface waves. This results in net
water flow in the direction the waves are going. You can see this anytime you
watch shallow waters under a sustained wind. The waters have an uphill slope
in the direction of the wind, and currents on and beneath the surface maintain
that slope ad infinitum. Thus, a sufficiently strong, long-sustained,
northward-blowing wind over mesopotamia would actually create uphill water flow
in the upper surface of the waters, while the water was still flowing downhill
in the deeper layers. If the ark has a shallow enough draft, it would be
carried uphill by the waters themselves. Plus the wind would be pushing it.
Even if the waves were insufficient to totally check the downhill flow within
the ark's draft, they would be sufficient to retard it. And the wind acting on
the ark would push the ark slowly uphill against that retarded down-hill flow.
Either way I don't see any problem.<<<

GRM:I used to be in charge of reservoir modeling for my company. It is fluid
flow through rocks. One can solve the problem as you have with numerical
analysis or one can get a ball park number from a simple force analysis. I have
no problem with wind blowing water uphill, but winds don't last a year at such
stiff velocities, blowing precisely in the same direction. (or changing
direction with the same velocity just as a boat miraculously turns a corner on
a river flood plain.
 
>>>If you doubt whether this is really feasible, why not let's wait to discuss
it after the next PSCF comes out? As I mentioned, Alan Hill has a paper on the
quantitative physics of the flood and it will probably shape the discussion
significantly.<<<

GRM:We can discuss it now and then later as well. I see nothing wrong in
laying out my objections. Lets see if the author anticipated the change in
floodplain direction. I will be interested to see what mechanism maintains
strong winds in a generally NW flow for a year. That must be some doozie of
something never before seen on earth.

Bill Hamilton
William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
586.986.1474 (work) 248.652.4148 (home) 248.303.8651 (mobile)
"...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31

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Received on Sun Mar 12 19:01:56 2006