RE: AIG comment on the Ice Age

See the article by Paul Seely:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Seely.pdf

From: PHSEELY@aol.com [SMTP:PHSEELY@aol.com]
To: rjduff@uakron.edu
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
                                
Subject: Re: Ice caps and YEC
Sent: 7/6/2001 11:33 AM

Joel wrote:
<< Paul,
 If you could spare a few moments could you give us a few highlights as
it
 relates to to the following article posted on the AiG website this
morning:
 "Do Greenland ice cores show over one hundred thousand years of annual
 layers?"
 http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/0704icecores.asp >>
Oard has added some new arguments to the creationist response to ice
cores,
and I want to do some more research before making a final answer; but, I
can
make a preliminary answer that will probably stand up.
His statement that all of the methods of dating ice cores are dependent
upon
an assumption about the thickness of the annual layers is false.
Although
average annual thicknesses are estimated, these are preliminary
judgements
which are later corrected if the annual layer count shows otherwise.
The methods measuring hoar frost layers, electrical conductivity, and
dust
content are independent of each other and of any assumptions as to the
thickness of the annual layers. In addition they have been shown
empirically
to be annual.
His second argument that the climate would have been warmer in the past
and
therefore melt layers (not hoar frost layers which he confuses with melt

layers) would have been produced and these melt layers would be counted
as
annual layers is a half truth. Warmer weather, i.e, temperatures above
freezing, would have produced melt layers; but, melt layers have a
different
structure and appearance than hoar frost layers and though like weeds in
a
flower garden are pests, they are relatively easy to spot and sort out.
Incidentally, although melt layers are more common at lower elevations,
melt
layers only show up in GISP2 about once/century.
His third argument that storms have warm and cold oscillations that can
produce layers is, I believe another half-truth. Ordinary storms do not
produce hoar frost layers nor significant differences in electrical
conductivity or dust content. If they did, they would show up as
countable
layers over the last 2000 years, which even Oard admits has not
happened.
Snow dunes and large deposits of snow from very large storms can confuse
the
visual counting of the annual hoar frost layers; but, these are rare
events;
and I believe they do not effect the electrical conductivity or dust
content
methods of counting the annual layers; so, they would be discovered and
discounted. I might add that in the top 40,000 layers (back to c. 38,000

B.C.) there is a very high agreement between these three independent
methods
of counting the annual layers.
Oard's final argument that there are cycles of weather which can
interfere
with the annual layers is again a half-truth. Where one method is
confused by
such a change, one or more of the other methods exposes the error.
In the end Oard's arguments rest solely on his hypothesized "model"
which
readily accepts the possibility of added layers per year, but does not
take
into account the equal possibility of missing layers. The whole thing is
as
usual special pleading.
The quickest overview of the GISP2 ice core (the main one) can be found
in
Richard B. Alley and Michael Bender, "Greenland Ice Cores: Frozen in
Time,"
Scientific American, February, 1998, 81 ff. A more thorough but still
easy to
read and relatively short description is found in Richard B. Alley, _The
Two
Mile Time Machine_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). Some
good
photographs of ice cores are in Kendrick Taylor, "Rapid Climate Change,"

American Scientist, 87 (July-Aug, 1999) 320-322. The articles by Meese
et al
and by Alley cited by Oard are good sources if you are even more
interested.
Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Don Nield
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 6:49 PM
To: Fivefree@aol.com
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: AIG comment on the Ice Age

I have not seen an explanation, but one seems obvious to me. The planes
slipped into a crevise and then were transported by the glacier.
Don

Fivefree@aol.com wrote:

> Has anyone seen an explanation for the P-38 fighters that crash landed

> in Greenland in 1943 and were found about 150 feet under the surface
> and several miles from their crash point?
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Jack Jackson
>
> In a message dated 5/4/2006 3:13:02 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time,
> dickfischer@verizon.net writes:
>
> Gordon wrote:
>
> For example, ice cores from Greenland and
>
> Antarctica reveal hundreds of thousands of annual layers, not just
> the few
>
> thousand that YEC would imply. The explanation that I have seen
> them give
>
> is that there were huge temperature swings several times in a
> year. This
>
> would contradict God's promise that there would be no disruption
> of the
>
> seasons (Gen. 8:22).
>
>
>
Received on Fri May 5 11:20:09 2006