I have run into many problems whilst debating the flooood. Namely:


Is there any scientific research done and documented that supplies an explanation for the different layers? Evo's always bring up the fact that there is "no' evidence for a world wide flood because there would a layer of mixed sediment; also the sediment wouldn't form layers.

What about those paleosols? Any scientific research or field observations to discredit these?

What about polystrata fossils? Stigmaria is automatically brought up along with the "fact" that the tree's roots are in the same soil they were when layers were deposited over. Also, I have seen pics of a telephone pole buried in multiple layers.


Where is the scientific evidence? Where is the model? How could it have happened?

There is, but they won't accept the evidence. So to what point would you want to present what won't be accepted?



Naturalistic science, and creation science are separated for a reason. One hates God, the other does not. Neither will accept the other's view on the interpretation of evidence found. Paleosols is just one of the many excuses evolutionist use.




God's word never promised that we would come to know everything about the creation. Nor would we ever completely understand the word of God. This is where faith comes in, and why creation is part of it. If you want a naturalistc answer for everything in the creation, you are not going to find it. If you want to go off on a creation theory search for naturalistic answers. There are many to choose from. Each are different and claim they are all true. And most do not give any Glory to God for His creation.

And many are stepping stones to converting to the evolution theory. The question is: Do you have enough faith to allow God to create, and flood the earth? Evolutionist like to get you to have a "God did it" phobia. In this way, you deny God did anything. Because each time you use that comment, they will make sure you look stupid for invoking a supernatural power they cannot argue with. But to change from what takes faith to believe, to what requires site. Denies the main reason why we believe in God in the first place. So if you cannot have faith in the creation, the flood, etc... Because you listen to those who will never conceed (bible scoffers) to it. Then soon you will start doubting that even God exists.

Now if you can get past this, I will explain the flood. But I can tell you that no evolutionist-bible scoffer is going to accept what you say because it invokes the power of God.

I made a long post, but I lost it, my computer conked out or something, i hate that.

2 things.

1) who was the guy that proved sediment always settles in layers, anyone have a link?
2) we have seen pictures of trees standing up in multiple layers of sediment, coal, and even pertified. This goes along with flood theory just fine, but hasn't really been answered by evolution reasonably.

sorry that is a much shorter version =þ

Really? Can you explain to me how flood theory predicts this please?

These trees appear to be growing upright in place when they were buried. But there are often thousands of feet of sediment below them. So what does flood theory say? Was there one flood, followed by tree growth then another flood?

By the middle of the 19th century it was known that trees appeared to be growing at multiple levels of the geologic column.


Someone here suggested that they floated into place? Does that sound rational given the size of these trees?



http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...d-trees_big.jpg
How do we explain the layers of coal, sediment, lava below them?

Flood theory was popular in the early part of the 19th century. However, even though most geologists at the time were Christian, they couldn't get a flood theory to explain all the different layers of salt water sediment, fresh water sediment, salt, lava, sand, coal, swamp layers, limestone layers, coral layer, etc.


I would be very interested to see a new flood theory that could explain huge coral growths, salt layers and vast lava layers - some of these 1000s of feet thick.

jamesf:

Yep, just like I can dig up stuff along the same lines evolutionists cannot explain. But would that make you consider that evolution might be wrong? Nope. Why? You have already accepted evolution as truth, and rejected everything else.

National Geographic got their heads bit off for questioning evolution in this print of their magazine:
http://www.yecheadquarters.org/shame.43.html

But even though everyone has debunked this bird. Another one was found:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,281833,00.html

So what does that say about the first one? Was it a cover up by Darwin fundies to protect their beloved theory?

What this proves is that Darwin's theory cannot even be questioned within the circle of it's own peers. That within itself shows corruption in science for wanted truth, and not allowing evidence to guide them to truth.

I can't wait for the explanation for the latest find, and how they are going to do damage control as people tie in the other bird find with this one and ask for the other bird to do independent testing to see if their conclusion was based a cover up.

This must be why no more details about the bird are being released. They probably are having a think quest on how to cover this one up. And still be able to answer all questions. Problem is, canned answers are very telling and easy to spot.

One way they could do it is lose the first bird. After all, NASA lost the movie clips to the first man walk. That way they can claim: Because it was a hoax, we threw it in the trash. But, they would have a hard time explaining how they threw it away after paying a big amount of money just to get it. Or, maybe that was the plan. Paying money makes the claim that it is fake more viable. Because after all, money corrupts, so it would not be hard to say that the bird was corrupt because the bird finder got money for it.



If you post while server is doing maintenance, your post won't go through. When I do a long post, I always highlight it then right click to copy. Then I click to post what I said. If post does not go through. My pc has it in memory. So I click to post again and paste what I just copied.

Sure I'll be happy to.

The earth is created 6500* years ago
Normal earthly activities happen for 2500* Years (Over a Third of the Earths Life)
The Flood Happens 2500* Years after Creation
Normal earthly activities happen for another 4000* years
Here we are today Waving good bye to the Man on the Mountain.

*all numbers are very rough estimates,


There isn't really much more to it. The flood didn't happen two seconds after creation. There was plenty of time for earthquakes, volcanos, local floods, landslides.

If you stick with the assumption that these layers take millions of years to form, of course you are going to think, "wow, layers under the trees, no way the flood could of been before those layers" But if you actually look at the creationist timeline, the earth was around and active for over 1/3 of it's total life before the flood. And look how much it's changed in just our lifetime.

The question we need to debate is, CAN those layers form in 100's of years, 10's of years, or do they need Millions of years.

Ok, you have an hypothesis or a proposal. To make it into a theory, you need to show how this proposal can account for all the different lines of evidence that are out there. I would argue that creationists do not have a theory yet. They made valient attempts in the 19th century but couldn't make it work.



Great! I agree. This is an important part of the debate. Can you show that this proposal is consistent with the evidence. From what I know, I would say that you can't do it. But I would certainly respect seeing someone make the effort.

If you go here, you will see a geologic map of Europe.
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/jpg/eurogy.jpg

This represents the modern geologic theory of the age of the different rocks. However, long before dating techniques were developed scientists noticed many things that were not consistent with a worldwide flood. I could probably list 100 or so such findings. But here are a handful.

1. Large coral reefs are found at many different layers, but are not found below the Cambrian layers (the lowest layers)

2. No complex lifeforms are found below the Cambrian - no pollen, branches, bones, shells, teeth etc - only algae (accept those odd Edicaria in the very late precambrian).

3. No modern mammal bones have ever been found in layers below the KT boundary (layers below the Tertiary).

4. No dinosaur bones, footprints etc have ever been found above the Cretaceous (tertiary or higher)

5. Most of the layers show evidence of events that appear to take a very long time to lay down such as.
a. dry salt lakes,
b. tremendously large volcanic deposits,
c. thick chalk layers like the white hills of dover
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/...ffs-history.htm

d. large glacial deposits

6. Many of the layers were layed down in conditions when it was dry and they are often interspersed with layers that were layed down when there was sea. We might find evidence of a swamp on one layer, marine deposits on the next, and then dinosaur nests and tree growth on the next, dry volcanic dust on the next, etc.



So there is a start. No global flood theory has been able to explain these findings - as far as I know. But hey, I am willing to learn.

Well I'm not a geologist but I'll give it a shot.

First I have to state that it is my understanding that the "Modern geologic theory" with the layers was conceived in error. Meaning it was conceived with the assumption of the earth being billions of years old.

If you remove the assumption of the earth being billions of years old you no longer have layers that represent large time frames. Everything really has to be viewed much more locally.



I don't really see these as too much of a problem for creationist, they all kinda fall into common sense pretty well.

Coral reefs should be found on many different layers, they live, prosper then die like anything else. The lowest layers with signs of life would basically represent when the earth was created.



Well like I said I'm not a geologist, but I know enough to know that those "layers" aren't found consistently all over the earth, some places have extra layers and some places are missing layers, some places the layers are completely out of order. So when you say No complex lifeforms are found below the Cambrian, you really have to talk more locally. My first guess is that if you found a large area with nothing but algae in it, I would say it was probably under water in a prime environment for algea. If I knew more about it, we could speculate why it wasn't a good environment for fish.




For these two I'm going to refer to H*vind's material. He references a scientist who studied the way matter would settle in an extreme flood event and found it to be pretty consistent with fossil records. i.e. birds being found on the highest layers, etc.



Once again it's assumed these events take a long time. Although I don't know how volcanic deposits made that list, I think we all pretty much know it doesn't take very long to receive a large volcanic deposits.

If you view the earth as having 1/3 of it's total life before the flood, it doesn't take long for those events to occur.



I think this is a non-issue, once again creationist aren't saying the earth didn't go through various changes and have local events.




I dunno, I just don't see how all that is conclusive evidence that the earth is old.

If you are looking for some good articles written by creation scientists here is a good website:

http://www.icr.org/topic/12/

This site also contains many other articles on a variety of subjects.

Enjoy

Bob Barclay

There's been some solid research done on these topics. The best explanation for the placement of polystrtate fossils is rapid deposition. Often times the claims you run into are not supported by evidence from the specific sites in question. The fact that the trees are petrified and a geologist says you're wrong is all it takes.

As far as polystrate fossils, living trees were cut to pieces, tops and bottoms were sheared off. Polystrate trees have been found extending into coal beds. No tree exposed to the elements would have survived slow deposition of soil. I found a waterlogged tree section many years ago. It was easily 12 inches across. I struck it with a solid (non-waterlogged) stick and saw part of the bark come off. I struck it repeatedly and was able to cut it in half in about 30 minutes.

As has been pointed out, the evolutionists have circled the wagons around Darwin. They have a means to try to convince believers that their interpretation of the "evidence" is the way and the truth because the goal is NOT scientific knowledge but to transfer control of believers from God and the Church into their hands.

In reference to dinosaur birds, I want to point out the problem of fake fossils being made in China. Those people are smart and they are giving the unwary "what they want" which, in too many cases, is fake.

http://paleodirect.com/fakechinesefossils1.htm



God bless,
Al

Over time, the floating trees become waterlogged and sink to the lake bottom. The surprising discovery was the way in which many of the logs sank. At first, all the logs were floating in the expected prone position. However, as they became saturated, some absorbed water more quickly into the root portion making it heavier such that they rotated into an upright floating position. Then, with further saturation, these trees would sink to the bottom and “plant” themselves into the soft lake sediment. New sediments washing in with each rain would bury the upright trees ever more deeply into the lake bottom. Trees that would sink at a later time would be buried higher in the sediment as though comprising a later forest. Though occurring on a much smaller scale, these observations are suggestive of what is observed at Specimen Ridge. Sonar readings and other data gathered by scuba divers revealed that 20 to 40 thousand upright trunks were planted at the bottom of Spirit Lake by 1985. Scientists estimate that at least ten percent of the tree trunks at the bottom of Spirit Lake have been deposited in the upright position.

reference

I do find this fascinating. As you are probably aware, Yellowstone is a geologically active area and has been for quite some time. Yellowstone is part of a 'supervolcano' with mega-eruptions occuring several times in the past separated by times where sediment was layed down and things could grow. The geologic column in the area shows layers of vast lava flows interspersed with limestone, ashflows, sediment, hot spring deposits, etc.

So within all these alternating deposits of sediments and lava where was the flood?

Do you really want the petrified trees of the Specimen Ridge layed down in the flood? Then what do we do about the large lava flows below them and the sediment below that alternating for 1000s of feet? I see no way you can make a flood theory explain this.

Would you like to try?

If you go to this link, and load the PDF at the bottom, you will get a very nice chart of the alternating layers in the Yellowstone area.
http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~cfrbj/parks/yell/yellstrat.htm


This certainly doesn't look like anything a flood would lay down. However, I am certainly be willing to be educated. Please show me how flood theory explains these alternations. Thanks

Why would your alternating deposits of sediments and lava create a problem for the flood?
You seem to act as if the flood should have produced only one layer around the entire earth which looks like some sort of conglomerate.

Spirit lake is reproducing exactly what we see at Specimen Ridge. Scientist have actually witnesed the depositing of trees in an "in-situ" like position. I don't understand why you would continue with your argument.

I don't know if I am communicating the notion of what is required of a "theory". You must take all the pieces of the puzzle (the evidence) and show that they go together to make a "big picture".

Pointing at the pile of pieces and saying that you "believe" they go together just fine, is simply a belief. It is not a theory. The geologists of the early 19th century (mostly Christian) tried to get a flood theory to work and they failed.

One of the problems they encountered is that there was no evidence of a single world wide flood. Any given region showed many different kinds of layers - only a portion of them were flood like.

The Yellowstone area is a wonderful example. There are huge volcanic layers interspersed with sedimentary layers. These sedimentary layers can be quite thick as well - sometimes with large petrified forests. The standard geologic theory is that the sedimentary layers were layed down over long periods - sometimes millions of years - interspersed with very large volcanic eruptions.

The Yellowstone Supervolcano has erupted fairly regularly over the last 3 million years - about every 600,000 years. And is currently due to erupt. The evidence of these different eruptions is pretty clear to geologists.

So I don't see how you can make a flood theory work - I don't see how the pieces fit together. But I love hearing new theories. So go for it.


Here's a nice photo of what happened in the last two big blasts - compared to Mt St. Helens.

http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/images/volano_lg.jpg

That's simply not true. While Uniformitarianism is still the prevailing principle in modern geology, much of what the 19th Century catastrophists advocated has been confirmed today. The formation of the channeled scabland in eastern Washington was one such event that contributed to this.


I think this comment illustrates a very important fact about this debate. Much of what is claimed as observable science is really just interpretation of the facts with a Uniformitarian paradigm in mind. In the scenario cited above, and in other cases catastrophic flooding was responsible for the geologic features that were once credited to uniformitarianism. With that in mind what are you using for a criteria of "flood like" layers?


Rapid deposition of these petrified forests creates a serious problem in your timeline. The explanation already offered to you, which you seem to misunderstand, centers around these trees being dropped into the strata vertically. A global flood would have created this effect as the rising water level displaced the vegetation. The condition the trees were in supports this idea that they were deposited rapidly. They lacked root systems, bark, and branches, "in-situ" trees would have retained many of these features. It's also interesting to note that many of these petrified forests extend into the next level of forest above. That is problematic if these layers of sediment are laid down over long periods.

Polystrate trees passing through many layers that supposedly took thousands of years, if not much longer to form, raises issues about current geological dating methods.

Also, a large body of water has recently been discovered underground in China:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...ocean-asia.html

I also would like to refer you to this page:
http://amazingdiscoveries.org/evidence-of-the-flood.html


If your intent is to find alternate information, then you've come to the right place. Part of the goal is to look into information that most would find anomalous. However, there is the obvious acknowledgement that God moved throughout history. I believe that fact needs to be part of the discussion as well.


God bless,
Al

I don't understand what you think is "not true". At the beginning of the 19th century, probably the majority of scientists believed in some sort of flood theory. By the time of Darwin, most scientists had moved away from young earth notions. Today, the fraction believing a young earth is tiny. Do you think that it is growing?

Do you really want to use the Scabland's of eastern Washington as evidence of a young earth? Your own link describes the standard geological theory. Yes, it is accepted that there was a pretty large flood when the glaciers retreated that drained a large lake fairly quickly. However, underneath the scabland is several thousand feet of alternating lava flows and sediment. The top of the scabland geologic column is a truely massive flood basalt (a lava flow) that covered most of Washington and Oregon. Given the types of lava and the size of the flow, it is estimated that it took 10 to 15 million years to lay that down.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Plateau

"During late Miocene and early Pliocene times, one of the largest flood basalts ever to appear on the earth's surface engulfed about 63,000 square miles (160,000 km²) of the Pacific Northwest, forming a large igneous province (the Columbia River Basalt Group). Over a period of perhaps 10 to 15 million years lava flow after lava flow poured out, eventually accumulating to a thickness of more than 6,000 feet (1.8 km). As the molten rock came to the surface, the earth's crust gradually sank into the space left by the rising lava.

The subsidence of the crust produced a large, slightly depressed lava plain now known as the Columbia Basin or Plateau. The ancient Columbia River was forced into its present course by the northwesterly advancing lava. The lava, as it flowed over the area, first filled the stream valleys, forming dams that in turn caused impoundments or lakes. Entities that have been found in these lake beds are fossil leaf impressions, petrified wood, fossil insects, and bones of vertebrate animals."

So you want all these lava flows with alternating sedimentary layers to be layed down before the flood that caused the Scabland?

Can you explain how flood theory accounts for these tremendous lava flows? When were they layed down? Remember, these are underneath the scablands.



Lava flows are pretty easy to identify. And the word "flood basalts" does not imply water was involved. We can go into the details of other layers that are not "flood like" - Salt layers, Coral reefs etc, but lava flows are the most obvious.



I understand the point they are trying to make about how these trees were layed down. My point is that it does not matter. Whether they were buried quickly or slowly or floated there or grew there, Flood theory fails to explain the alternating lava and sediment beneath these trees.

Do you understand that?

Lava flow
Sediment
Lava flow
Sediment with petrified trees
Sediment
lava flow
sediment
sediment
lava flow
lava flow
sediment with fossils
lava flow
sediment
sediment

These alternations continue for thousands of feet below the layer with the petrified trees.

We could do the same with the scablands. The thousands of feet below do not show evidence of a worldwide flood. But if you think your theory can explain these layers - then go for it. Show me your theory.

What is the size of flow? 3 cfs? lol
There is no way to know how much lava flowed during an eruption that happened thousands of years ago.


If I showed you a 5 gallon bucket of water, you would say it took 5 hours to fill that bucket. (assumed 1 gallon per minute)

I might say it took 5 MINUTES to fill that bucket (assumed 1 gallon per Minute)

Either way we are both staring at the bucket with no way to prove how long it took to fill it.




Like I already said, there was PLENTY of time for geological activity both before and after the flood.

Do you understand that?



Another Example.

You are making Blue Oil / clear Water Layers in a clear glass.
You turn the nozzle of the Blue oil on just dripping out, 1 cc per hour, you hold the glass under it for a couple days to get a nice layer of Blue Oil, then you turn the water onto a drip, hold the glass there for a couple days and then repeat the process, to get nice layers.

Then you hold that up and the air as definitive proof that it takes YEARS to accomplish those layers.

I call shenanigans!!!

There were many many lava flows. It depends on which one you want to mention. The largest flood basalts covered 62,000 square miles as mentioned in the link. The lava flows are 10,000 feet deep in some places. The different lava layers have different amounts of sediment between them (e.g., some with fossilized trees etc).


Here is a cross section showing a sequence of 20 of the flows. Each of these flows is 20 to 30 meters thick




The lava is still there. It is not that hard to calculate the amount.


This is a flood basalt - not an explosive eruption. Lava has a known viscosity. It hardens as it cools. If you told me you poured all the syrup out of your maple syrup bottle in 1 second, I would argue that it was highly unlikely. Geologists really do work very hard on these problems, with hundreds of papers but if you want to generate a new mathematical / geologic model suggesting it can happen quickly, I would love to see it.



Wow, sounds like you are very confident in the math behind your model. I would love to see how you did those calculations. What layer represents the flood? What is your calculation of viscosity? I am happy if you give me some references if you are relying on calculations that you have read.

I am especially interested in the layer that represents the Flood.
Thanks

Any comments vashgun?

There are still a TON of different variables that are being ASSUMED. Those Assumptions are always based on Old Earth Theology.

Let's use your syrup example. It's a very good one, kudos to you!

You hand me a bottle of syrup and tell me I can't pour it all out in one second.
So we make a bet for a dollar that I can't do it.
You're ASSUMPTION (based on common sense) Is that I'm going to tip the bottle upside down and hope it all comes out of the little 1cm^2 nozzle quickly.
In reality, I'm going to take a razor knife cut the bottle in half down the center and dump each side, All of a sudden that little opening turns into a very large one.

Actually I think you would still win, cuase I couldnt' do all that in one second, and then some is going to stick to the side. But if you gave me 10 seconds to get 95% of the syrup out, then that dollar would be mine!!!




Sorry I am otherwise gainfully employeed. Just like the geologist I work very hard on other stuff, and all my clients believe everything I tell them is true



Umm... Thanks



Well I did draw a little sketch of the syrup bottle, I used Hungray man syrup, it comes in a microwavable bottle that is shorter.


**Ikester, I know that comment was a one liner, but I really can't help myself, everyone knows I didn't need to do any mathematical modeling**



Does it matter? All I'm trying to do is make it known that the Idea Of those layers taking billions of years to form, is not necessarily true. I don't even need a flood for that.




Me re-writing a 100page report on Lava Layers is not necessary. The point is, that in that 100page report, assumptions are made. Those assumptions are based on, what they can see today, and what they predict conditions were in the past.

The problems is they are assuming the past was billions of years ago and they make no assumption on thousands of years ago.



If you are really interested in Mathmatic modeling and you want to dig up one of the reports, I could make some time to flip through it and point out where some of those time restricted assumptions are.

I think it is worth considering the history. In the middle of the 18th century, I think it is fair to say that the majority of scientists and thinking people assumed a young earth model but no real theories had been created. However, as geologists started looking close at the earth and the reports around the earth accumulated, more and more scientists started acceptiing that the earth had to be much older. By the middle of the 19th century, most geologists accepted that the earth was at least a few million years old.

So let's go back to our syrup example. You accept that a 1 second theory of syrup pouring is unlikely for a standard bottle. If you want to argue that the conditions were different, that is fine, but you need to show evidence. Just saying it was a miracle won't do.

So now let us consider some lava flows. When Mount St. Helens blew up, 1 cubic kilometer of pumice and ash were blown out of the mountain and covered much of eastern Washington.



Krakatoa was 9 cubic kilometers.

Compare that to the last explosion of Yellowstone which was 1000 cubic kilometers and buried parts of Kansas in ash to a depth of 9 feet (you can still find this ash if you dig down).

However, we have barely begun. Flood basalts are the big ones across the world. The most recent flood basalt was in Iceland in 1783 which opened up a 25 kilometer crack and poured out 12 cubic kilometers of basalt over an 8 month period. I saw it in August and it is very impressive. It poisoned the west half of Iceland killing much of everything and is believed it may have resulted in the deaths of 30,000 Britains.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn41...14/ai_n17127791

A 12 cubic kilometer flow is impressive I can assure you, but now let's get serious.

Consider the Deccan Traps
"The present volume of directly observable lava flows is estimated to be around 512,000 km³."
The original flows were probably twice that or a million cubic kilometers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps

The Siberian Traps represent about 2 million cubic kilometers but may have been 4 million cubic kilometers. These are flows the size of Texas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Traps

Currently, the calculation is that these flows lasted a brief 200,000 years in the Permain and raised the temperature of the planet by 5 degrees. If the flow lasted just 100,000 years, then the temperature would be closer to 10 degrees. It also contributed to a poisoning of the planet. When this flow occured, 96% of all marine species (like trilobites) disappear from the fossil record. Never to be seen in higher levels again.

But there is much more! The Greenland lava fields, partly under the Greenland ice sheet are now estimated to be 10 million cubic kilometers! Yes, that is equivalent to a Mt. St Helens blowing up every day for 10 million days.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/316/5824/527

We put all these flows together from Krakatoa to New Mexico to the Hawaiin Islands, and we are reaching towards 100 million cubic kilometers of lava.

That is 100 Mt. St Helens every day for a million days in a row.

Now, you want to pour all of this out of your bottle in 1000 years or so? If all this came out in just 1 million years, life could not survive on the planet. I say, you can't do it. Your theory doesn't work. These are the ideas that convinced the scientists of the 19th century that a young earth theory could not work.

No one since has shown that such a young earth theory can work. But if you think you can do it, you are welcome to show your math. But you can't just make a claim that it can be done. You must show it.

I don't understand the "must" part. God is making all the truthful claims. I am not a follower of "must" but a follower of the truth. Causing a sense of "you must believe this now or prove it wrong now" does not discredit God in any way, shape or form. I am in no hurry for science of any sort. No sense of urgency needs to attached to this issue

The Flood happened and the dates are way off as others have repeatedly shown.





God bless,
Al

Well that an interesting view point. I can't say I really agree with it too much. Most major advances in Geology are pretty young. And we all know how I feel about people accepting evolution versus having it shoved down thier throats.



I am not making any claims for miracles. I'm saying it's impossible to know any of the conditions to a certain extent. When filling in those conditions geologist naturally use old earth variables. This is very true, all your examples show this.




All your examples are very nice and very well thought out. I think the one thing that needs to be pointed out, is that just like studying the weather this stuff is completely unpredictable. It all happens in irrational ways that we don't understand. Trying to predict the past lava flows is the same as trying to predict the future ones. We can't do it. We have sensors all over the earths crusts and we still have trouble giving any warning about earth quakes. Although great advancements have been made.




Seriously just stop with the math report requests. As I told you before, you pull out on of those reports and I'll point out all the old earth variables. They are plenty in there.

My goal is not to write a 200 page report to prove to you that it can be done. As I stated it is Impossible for me or for any geologist to know exactly how all the layers got there, there are too many variables, a lot of assumptions have to be made. You keep pretending that it is essential for me to provide some mathematical equations for me to have any crediability.

My goal in this thread is to show to the people who may be reading it, that other possibilities certainly exist and could be explored.



No I don't have to show it by providing a 200 page geological report. A well written two paragraph explaination is perfectly acceptable for the purposes of this forum.

............


Okay, so putting that aside and addressing the real issue.

We were talking about the flows of lava versus time
You suggest Low flow Long time.
I suggest High Flow Short time.

And quickly browsing all your well listed sources on lava flows, I see one really good objection to my theory. The mention of large amounts of Lava increasing the temperature and having an adverse effect on life.

That certainly is true. A couple million cubic kilometers of lava dumped on the earth would increase the temperature.

We are getting well out of my comfort zone here, but do you have links or anything to temperature dissapation formulas?

My initial thinking is that it's not going to have anywhere near a global effect. Certainly a few mile radius around the site, but this kind of thing can be calculated.

Also, we can calculate how long it will take for all that heat to dissapate. Once again I really don't think it's going to be years, certainly a couple of weeks. But we can calculate this.

So the question is. If two million cubic kilometers of lava get dumped overnight, what size area will be effected significantly by temperature, and for how long. We also have to consider a different atmosphere. Most creationist believe it was a denser atmosphere richer in oyxgen.

I remember studying that very breifly in one of my material classes or something, but it's definitely out of my comfort zones. But if you have the equations, I'm curious enough to go through them.

I would be happy to reccommend some books for you. The history of geology and evolutionary theory in the century before Darwin is quite interesting. "The Map that Changed the World" by Winchester is quite good. Larson's books are quite good as well. Dragon Seekers by McGowan is also an interesting story of how the first dinosaur bones were interpreted and how this inpacted geology and biology before Darwin.

Here is a good link as well. I will take one quote
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p82.htm

" Naturalists of the early nineteenth century accumulated a great deal of information that led to changes in their view of earth's history and the role of the Noachic deluge in it. They all paid scrupulous attention to the full spectrum of available geological information and adjusted their ideas in response to that information. Many of them were orthodox Christians, and yet they felt no need to distort the evidence they encountered in order to sustain their belief in the biblical deluge. One finds no appeal to miracle on the part of even the most ardent advocate of the deluge, William Buckland. The premier geologists were persuaded that existing geological evidence supported the notion of a global or at least continental deluge. Every one of them rejected the old diluvialism which attributed the deposition of fossiliferous secondary and tertiary strata to the flood, however. They identified only surface deposits as the effects of the deluge.

Even that view collapsed, however, because of the importance that these men placed on extrabiblical evidence. Buckland, Sedgwick, and others ultimately abandoned nineteenth-century diluvialism when it became clear that gravels, valleys, polished rocks, cave deposits, and the like could no longer be satisfactorily understood as the result of a giant deluge. Because the Christian naturalists of the era were unafraid of God-given evidence, they recognized that extrabiblical information provided a splendid opportunity for closer investigation of the biblical text in order to clear up earlier mistakes in interpretation. "




The nice thing about Lava, is that most of it sticks around. You can get a yard stick and measure it. Drill a hole and find how far it extends. I do not understand why you think this is so hard.




As I mentioned earlier, science is like a huge jigsaw puzzle. Current science has put thousands upon thousands of pieces tightly together. I realize that non-scientists may not see that many of the pieces but really there are many.

Creationists stand over the shoulder of the scientists and make the claim that all the pieces could go together a different way. I honestly do not believe that is possible, but I challenge anyone to try. Simply pointing at a few pieces and arguing that a piece could go somewhere else (doubting an assumption) really means little. The real science is in putting those pieces together into a coherent whole.

If creationists want to make progress, they need to do the hard work and try and attempt a theory that puts the pieces together. Saying you don't like one of the assumptions of the current theory really means very little to scientists and will never have much impact.

I honestly do not believe you you can put all the lava evidence together and make a theory work with anything less than 100 million years. I think you could win a Nobel prize if you could show a set of consistent assumptions that would allow you to make it work in under 1 million years. But you want to go for 10,000 years? Not even close to possible, but I really want to see someone try. These really are devasting world wide events.

It is really worth thinking about the size of a 4 million cubic kilmoter eruption. Or the Lake Superior lava flows that are 10,000 meters thick (more than 20 empire state buildings stacked up).

Yes, the effects of lava flows are complex. The flows themselves can create a lot of heat, while the sulferous gaseous and dust that spreads around the planet can both poison and cool. To put a 1,000,000 cubic kilmoters eruption in perspective, consider the only known flood basalt in the last 1000 years - the 12 to 15 cubic kilometer flow in Iceland in 1783.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakagigar
The consequences for Iceland were catastrophic. Around 21% of the population[4] died in the famine of 1783 to 1784 after the fissure eruptions ceased. Around 80% of sheep, 50% of cattle and 50% of horses died because of dental and skeletal fluorosis from the 8 million tons of fluorine that were released

An estimated 122 Tg (120 Million tons) of sulphur dioxide were emitted into the atmosphere: approximately equivalent to three times the total annual European industrial output in 2006, and also equivalent to a Mount Pinatubo-1991 eruption every three days.[8] This outpouring of sulphur dioxide during unusual weather conditions caused a thick sulphurous haze to spread across western Europe, resulting in many thousands of deaths throughout 1783 and the winter of 1784.

The summer of 1783 was the hottest on record and a rare high pressure zone over Iceland caused the winds to blow to the south-east. The poisonous cloud drifted to Bergen in Denmark–Norway, then spread to Prague in the Province of Bohemia by 17 June, Berlin by 18 June, Paris by 20 June, Le Havre by 22 June, and to the Kingdom of Great Britain by 23 June. The fog was so thick that boats stayed in port, unable to navigate, and the sun was described as "blood coloured".

Consequences in North America

In North America, the winter of 1784 was the longest and one of the coldest on record. It was the longest period of below-zero temperature in New England, the largest accumulation of snow in New Jersey, and the longest freezing over of Chesapeake Bay. There was ice skating in Charleston Harbor, a huge snowstorm hit the south, the Mississippi River froze at New Orleans, and there was ice in the Gulf of Mexico.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lakagig..._2004-07-01.jpg

I have just read an article entitled "The Rapid Ascent of Basalt Magmas." by Dr. Andrew Snelling Http://www.icr.org.

In this article Dr. Snelling talks about magmas typically ascend from depths of 35-50 miles down. This depth was supported by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) measurements done on xenoliths and the water distribution in pyroxene grains.

Then they calculated of the basalt (they list the calculation used if you want to see it please read the article) and found it ascended at 6 meters per hour making it possible for magmas to reach the earths surface in 2-8 hours. The article claims that timescale problems for the flood be be dismissed. Two additional ideas presented I and I will quote the first one verbatim here:

"Furthermore, the volume and scale of the basalt lavas found in the geologic record, such as the so-called flood basalts of the Deccan and Siberian Traps, testify to the global catastrophism operating in the Flood year, in contrast to today's occasional, small, and relatively insignificant basalt eruptions."

The article then concluded that it could be possible that the ocean floor ruptured into plates and through runaway subduction cause large mantle plumes and fast melting of rock beneath the mid-ocean rift zones. This "catastrophic plate tectonics" during the Flood could be a practical answer to th basalt flows of the earth's rock record.

Bob Barclay

Your example here shows just how much one volcanic eruption can spew out. Now since evolutionists believe that the eruptions of volcanoes created our atmosphere. How many would you say it would take to do that? Several thousands? maybe a million?

The point I'm trying to make is that the geologic column should support a volcanic age with layers of just volcanic ash. Where are those layers? The sea floor itself may recycle it, but the land does not. So where is the proof of this atmosphere creation from volcanic eruptions?

Because to make a 7 mile high atmosphere to surround this whole planet. That would translate into a lot of volcanic eruptions.



I have yet to see evolution shown to where I could "see" it.
I have yet to see the evidence for atmosphere creation through volcanic eruption.
I have yet to see matter and liquid get compressed to the size of a dot on a page. Just compress the oceans into a dot on this page and you will convince me. But you cannot.
I have yet to have answered which came first: Water, oxygen, or plants? Each one requires the other in order to exist or be made. But only one can be first.
I have yet to see which fish "we" evolved from since the gill slit theory is making a come back. And also why not take a human fetus at the gill slit stage and prove that it is gill slits? It is because it is not true.

Etc....

You cannot answer one of these questions to an extent in which you require us to answer your's. So what we have is a double standard. Because you want what you cannot even supply from what you believe. And if you can supply it, I'm all ears.

I found your 1 page article (Here is a link that works http://www.icr.org/article/3394/). As you are probably aware, there are 1000s of papers and 100s of researchers trying to put this puzzle together. I don't know of any scientist, that would presume that they could put the puzzle together any a completely different way by making one calculation.

Imagine you were putting a 10,000 piece puzzle together and got 9000 pieces together and could see it was going to be a beautiful sunset picture. Now someone else comes in and tells you your picture is all wrong. They claim it is a picture of a poodle on a couch. The evidence is that they have found a piece that could go in a different place.

Wouldn't you require that they show that they can put the pieces together? Is one ambiguous piece enough to argue that the puzzle can make a completely new picture?

For example, the article doesn't discuss the world wide impact of 20 million cubic kilometers of eruption in a single year (Deccan, Siberian and Greenland basalts) when there is evidence that just 15 cubic kilometers can poison a significant portion of the earth and have an effect on the climate. It does not explain the sedimentary layers between the flows (full of evidence that plant life had a chance to grow for many years).

And the simplest test of all is that when lava hits water it creates a very characteristic type of flow called a pillow lava. Where the edges of the flow hit the seas, you do see this type of lava, but the vast majority does not show this form, arguing that these large flows were not underwater when they erupted.

So you are disregarding this piece of the puzzle because it does not fit your beliefs that is convenient. You ask us to provide a plausible answer but then discard it because many other papers have been written and we have to sort out the issue. Then we are told your data it does fit our beliefs so it is not acceptable.

As far as scientists not making claims of solving a situation I agree; however, evolution do it all the time. Just read some of the material Dawkins writes.

It is hard to imagine the cataclysmic destruction the Flood produced. What I read I fit and I believe it to be plausible answer.

By the way the ICR website has many other papers on this subject.

Bob Barclay

Quite the opposite. All pieces of the puzzle are important. All data is relevant unless it can be demonstrated that there was an error in collection. The speed of the lava is relevant, the type of lava, the amount of lava, the effects of the lava, the biochemical effects, the magnetic fields of the lava, etc etc. Graduate students across the country are constantly looking for anything that does not fit the current theory. Faculty get tenure at major universities by changing ideas - developing new theories. Many creationists seem to think promotion is given to those that support old ideas, but that is very far from accurate. This is why science advances: because reward goes to those that can upset the current theory. But it is very hard work to show that a new theory is consistent with all of the known evidence.

If one piece of the puzzle is found to be in error, or is ambiguous, then one may need to re-evaluate that part of the puzzle. But to make a conclusion that the whole picture is utterly different, is unwarranted without serious efforts at building a new theory (a new picture) that is consistent with the known data.

So can I ask you an honest question? Did you read that paper and see how his conclusions followed? Did it demonstrate to you that all the basalts of the world could be layed down in a year? Do you think any geologist would be persuaded by the logic of that paper? I really am interested how a young earth creationist evaluates papers like that one.

Thanks,
James

james,

I might check out that book, it seems like an interesting subject.

I think your analogy of a "jig saw" puzzle is really inaccurate. Certainly it's a puzzle, but nothing close to a jigsaw puzzle. A jigsaw puzzle has little pieces that fit perfectly to only 2-4 other specific pieces. This puzzle has Millions of little pieces that must all fit together. And by "fit together" isn't similiar to the way a jig saw puzzle fits together. One piece of evidence or one discovered fact, can fit several different theories.

Also there is no real picture to compare to a puppy sitting on a couch. The pictures that we generate by looking at these facts is a very vague and inacurate description of what really occured in history.

If anything the picture more resembles an ink blot.

Well, there were many many many eruptions over hundreds of millions of years with sedimentary layers between them. Most geologic columns show evidence of these world wide effects and many resulted in world-wide extinctions. Such eruptions release a great deal of poisonous gases. When the Siberian traps were layed down, 96% of all species across the planet vanished (the great Permian extinction). All those trilobites, for example, were never seen in higher layers ever again.





Not sure where you heard this. Most every planet that is large enough has an atmosphere. Gases are lighter thatn earth so they usually go up, but if they are not too light, they can be maintained by gravity. You don't need a volcano. Most planets larger than mercury have an atmosphere. Now there is evidence of planets with atmospheres outside our solar system. Here is a good link to see the current theory of the formation and history of earth's atmosphere.
http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~cfjps/1400/atmos_origin.html



It is found all over the earth. Most places you dig down you will find it. Here are some pictures of the flows around the Columbia River in Washington.

This one-kilometer-thick section of the Columbia River Flood basalts is well-exposed in the Snake River Canyon near the Washington-Oregon-Idaho tri-state area. The prominent bench about halfway up the section marks the boundary between the Imnaha basalts and the overlying Grande Ronde basalts. The voluminous CRB sequence erupted from fissures in northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington from 17 to 6 million years ago. However, about 90% of the total basalt volume erupted between 17 and 14 million years ago.



I have numbered your questions to make them easier to answer. I hope you don't mind. I am willing to discuss any of these answers in more detail.

1. Evolutionary theory suggests that it can take from several thousand years to several million years for there to be enough microevolutionary changes to add up to create a species change. So yes, you are not likely to "see it" in your lifetime if you are looking for species changes. However, there are a number of things you are not likely to "see" in your lifetime. Seems odd to make this a restriction. You seem to accept the Ark without any evidence at all for that.

2. You might want to read that link I have on the 'evolution' of the early atmosphere to see what scientists propose. We can discuss the evidence for that theory if you would like.

3. There is lots of evidence not for black holes. Again, do you need to get up close and personal before you would accept they exist? That would be rather dangerous. Do creationists doubt black holes exist?

4. The order was water, then plants (which generate oxygen), then oxygen. Read that link I gave and we discuss the evidence if you like.

5. There are several theories regarding which "fish" we evolved from. If you want to go to the Cambrian, probably the most popular theory is Phikaia which is one of the earliest animals in the vertebrate line (there were no vertebrates yet in these layers - in fact, no bones have ever been found in Cambrian or lower layers). Phikaia looked something like this.



You can read about this here if you like
http://www.marinereef.org/reports.php?reportid=5

The other possibility is the conondont line which is the other pre-vertebrate found in these very deep layers.

Hope that helps you understand what scientists currently believe.

James

Your initial comment was something to the effect of, '19th Century Geologists attempted to make a young earth model work, and they failed...' That was what I disagreed with. All throughout the 19th Century,1874 was the latest I could find, there were Biblical geologists publishing material defending a young earth interpretation of the geologic record. To claim that they couldn't produce a coherent theory is inaccurate. Although I dispute why the paradigm shift occurred and what it means, I never disputed that Uniformitarianism became the predominant theory.


Yes, for two reasons. It gives us an analogue for some of the processes that may have been active during the Genesis flood. And it vindicated what Biblical Geologists had been saying for 150 years. Mainly that catastrophic events can rearrange the geology in a powerful way. Before J. Harlen Bretz' work was accepted this idea was very much scoffed at.

Most likely, and it's not as unrealistic as you make it sound. There are many features of the CRBG that you are either ignoring, or are unaware of. For example, there is evidence of subaqueous extrusion from the existence of pillow lava complexes.

Source
I know you're aware of these structures but what I find most interesting is their occurrence is so common, particularly in the formations we're concerned with.
"Pillow lava-palagonite complexes are widespread along the margins of the Columbia River basalt … . Such foreset bedded breccias and associated pillow lava complexes are found at hundreds of localities along the margins of the Columbia River basalt … "
-Waters, A.C., Determining direction of flow in basalts, American J. Science 258-A:361–362, 1960

Even Wikipedia's entry on pillow lava complexes says they're common for many volcanically active spots all around the world. Your major issue with a flood scenario has been that many layers don't appear to be "flood like". Yet a major indicator of underwater extrusion is ever present in those layers. This seems entirely consistent with a flood.

The same is true of Palagonite, which is the product of a reaction between water and lava.

It's found in exact same outcrops as pillow lava, which would indicate the presence of water during extrusion.

What does a catastrophic explanation look like? There have been several papers presented that lay out a detailed scenario for the CRBG being emplaced very rapidly during the concluding stages of the flood. I'll try to find some of these on the internet in the next few days to better explain it. For starters have a look as Dr. Tas Walker's model. All the articles I've found use that model as the time their time scale.