Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
3 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 0/13 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Solving the Mystery of the Biblical Flood
edge
Member (Idle past 1706 days)
Posts: 4696
From: Colorado, USA
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 31 of 460 (2604)
01-21-2002 12:57 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by wmscott
01-21-2002 12:14 PM


quote:
Originally posted by wmscott:
On the lakes having shorelines and the flood having none, where would the shoreline be of a total global flood?

So shorelines are irrelevant. Why did you bring them up?
quote:
The flood was brief enough that few shorelines would have formed, for it takes time to create a shoreline. In areas where the conditions were suitable, we do find high level shorelines.
What are these conditions? Why did they not occur at higher elevations?
quote:
It appears from what we have found, that only towards the end of the deluge when the draining into the deepening seas slowed, was there time enough for shore lines to form. These raised shore lines are found on coasts in many parts of the earth and are due to a former higher sea level combined with local uplift caused in part by the depression of the ocean floors.
Again why are they all at low elevations? Why were the ocean floors being depressed? Why were they higher at one time? Why weren't the continents depressed by the weight of the water, also?
quote:
...
On the Pleistocene extinction, I have posted more above in this post already, but flooding is a better explanation of the pattern seen, especially when you consider how poorly current explanations fit with what is known about this extinction event. I find that flooding being the cause of the Pleistocene extinction event answers many questions in animal population distributions that have been without reasonable answers.

Where is your data for this? You keep making assertions about this and that but never back them up. You think this and you find that, but never why...
quote:
Like why did so many animals survive in Europe when they died in America?
Hmm, doesn't sound like a global flood then, does it?
quote:
For Edge; The collapse of an ice sheet or glacier is called a Jokulhlaup, what happens is a large amount of trapped water beneath the ice is released at the edge.
The problem with this is that the source of your water is the encroaching sea. Also do you know how much water it would take to lift an ice cap? Can you show where an entire Icelandic ice field has catastrophically broken up and moved into the sea?
quote:
This water release reduces the ground friction to about zero and the ice surges forward in a huge release of ice and water. These events have been observed on a small scale in Iceland. Similar events are believed to have happened on a larger scale with the ice sheets. If a large ice sheet suffered a large Jokulhlaup, the resulting release of ice and meltwater surging into the sea could have been large enough to raise global sea levels enough that the rising water destabilized other ice sheet edges resulting in a chain reaction of surging and flooding.
So, you have evidence that this actually happened and that the effects are what you assert? I think you misunderstand Jokhalaups as well. I'll look into it.
quote:
some of the marine shorelines are found at great heights such as in the Andes mountains, ...
Are you saying that the Andes were not uplifted? Did you ever hear of plate tectonics? Perhaps you should define how you use the word "marine." Does that include saline lakes?
quote:
...but for the most part the flood was to brief to have created extensive shorelines at high elevations, or we would still be waiting for the water to drain. Yes you are right in that flooding is not considered as a possible cause of the Pleistocene extinction. It is specially excluded from consideration since the people involved do not accept the possibility of a global flood.
It seems that some of your own information denies a global flood, if European animals did not suffer the same extinctions as North American animals.
quote:
For this reason they are blind to any evidence that may point in that direction. As you can see in reading the responses I get here and on other boards, everyone automatically rejects the flood regardless of any evidence I may present.
Your evidence is weak and contradictory. How can you expect to be taken seriously?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by wmscott, posted 01-21-2002 12:14 PM wmscott has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 45 by Joe T, posted 01-24-2002 4:38 PM edge has not replied

Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 32 of 460 (2651)
01-22-2002 6:32 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by wmscott
01-21-2002 12:14 PM


Wmscott: Thanks for your response.
quote:
For Quetzal, good questions. I deal with the Pleistocene extinction dates in my book. A number of Ice Age animals appear to have died off before the end of the Ice Age, but we see the same apparent pattern with the extinction of the dinosaurs. Now we know that there was a major sudden extinction event associated with the demise of the dinosaurs, some of them may have died off before or it may just appear that way in the fossil record. It was similar with the Pleistocene extinctions, some of the animals may have or may not have died off before hand.
This is a fundamental problem. There is no question from the fossil record that numerous genera went extinct before the end of the last ice age. In fact, it is somewhat erroneous to consider the Pleistocene die-offs as representing a single extinction event, as the major species losses took place widely separated spatially and temporally. For example, the end of the Australian die-off has been dated to around 20,000 years ago (ya), whereas the North American extinctions took place between 12,000-10,000 ya. A global flood, unless you are suggesting that it lasted for 20,000 years, is not consistent with the pattern of extinction. For instance, the Australian extinctions would have occurred at the height of the Last Glacial Maximum (21,000-17,500 ya).
quote:
Finding fossils is a rare event, there are many gaps in representation. It is very possible that a number of animals believed to have died off before the extinction event actually lived up to it.
On the contrary, there is strong fossil evidence that Mylodon and company went extinct around 5,000 years ago in South America, whereas almost all Australian megafauna such as Diprotodon ceased to exist around 20,000 ya.
quote:
The cause of these extinctions is unknown, there are three theories in science that attempt to explain this extinction event, but none of them is very good which is why there are three of them.
True, there are three current theories. None, IMO, are overly compelling taken in isolation. However, a combination of factors appears most likely (see below).
quote:
The pattern of extinction at the end of the ice age is consistent with a sudden rise in global sea level. Small animals would stand a much better chance of surviving a flood by rafting than would large animals. Small animals are more numerous giving better odds of having a surviving viable population. Areas with lower elevations such as Australia had higher extinction rates. The area where larger animals did survive is in harmony with the biblical story of an ark. The area where the ark was has the lowest level of extinction.
That is not entirely accurate. Europe lost 13 genera (from 10,000-recent), Australia 21 (40,000-20,000), North America 43 (12,000-10,000) and South America 46 (8000-recent). As you can see, the pattern of extinction has little to do with elevation, or the timeline of a hypothetical global flood. Again, unless you are supposing a 30,000-year-long flood, in which case your hypothetical small animals are amazing survivors, there is no evidence for a global catastrophic flood as you postulate.
quote:
In fact the patterns are just the opposite of what is expected from the currently believed causes of over hunting and climate change. The super virus theory is too far fetched and is basically impossible to prove or disprove, not doesn't fit the pattern of survival ether, why should smaller animals be more immune when they have a denser population more suited for disease transmission than the larger animals.
There was likely a combination of all three (or even more) theories. There are strong indications of major climatic fluctuations, which caused severe pressure on the paleoecology. I tend to doubt the human blitzkrieg hypothesis as a stand alone, as there is little archeological evidence outside of a few Clovis kill sites. Finally, a disease hypothesis (as a contributing factor) is not as far-fetched as you seem to think. Several modern diseases show a similar (although not as virulent) selectivity. One example is rinderpest. My hypothesis would be climatic change reducing food sources and applying pressure on primarily sympatric species populations, making them more vulnerable to both human and animal overpredation, and disease. In an extreme case of coevolutioanary disequillibrium, once the large herbivores began to become scarce there were severe impacts on the co-evolved ecosystems (similar to what has occurred in parts of Africa with desertification of savannah biomes due to loss of megafauna). The resulting loss of biome hastened the extinction of the remaining megafauna populations, including the carnivores who had evolved to prey on these large herbivores. Smaller animals and the surviving large fauna (such as bears in North America) who were not exquisitely adapted to effected biomes survived.
quote:
A flood event is not that damaging to plants, plant extinctions are not to be expected. A major disturbance in marine organisms is not to be expected ether, since the change was not that great for them.
Actually, we have a fair trace of changes in forest type over the last 20,000 years. Here’s one successional example:
quote:
Vegetation history of Pacific Northwest
Puget Sound Area
0-5000 years ago Western hemlock, cedar, Douglas-fir: Establishment of modern conditions
5000-10,000 yr ago Douglas-fir, alder, bracken fern, oak: Warmer and drier than today; more fires
10,000-12,000 yr ago Lodgepole pine, spruce, hemlock: Cool and moist
12,000-15,000 yr ago Tundra: Cool and dry
15,000 yr ago Puget Sound was glaciated as far south as Olympia, Washington
Oregon Coast Range (not glaciated)
0-5000 yr ago Douglas-fir, western hemlock, cedar, alder: Establishment of modern conditions
5000-10,000 yr ago Douglas-fir, alder: Warmer and drier than today; more fires
10,000-13,000 yr ago Mixed conifer forest: Cool and moist
13,000-25,000 yr ago Engelmann spruce, mountain hemlock, fir: Cold and dry
25,000-40,000 yr ago W. white pine, western hemlock, fir: Cooler than today

(from this site) Again, there is no evidence that these forests were effected by any flooding. This is a normal transitional sequence motivated by changing climates. For additional evidence of climate change during the Pleistocene, see Sudden Climate Changes During the Quaternary.
quote:
There has found to be a freshwater spike in gulf sediments, and the drop stones found on the Atlantic floor point towards a sudden movement of glacial melt water and ice into the sea which would have greatly raised sea levels.
Please provide a reference for this data. I have been unable to locate anything concerning either a freshwater spike (whatever that is) or drop stones in the Atlantic.
Thanks again for your response.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by wmscott, posted 01-21-2002 12:14 PM wmscott has not replied

Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 33 of 460 (2652)
01-22-2002 6:47 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by wmscott
01-21-2002 12:14 PM


wmscott: With reference to diatoms...
quote:
On the marine diatoms found here in Wisconsin. They are not found in "rocks" but in top soil in a thin layer. They are dated by species type, they are recent species which were found in our oceans at the end of the ice age and are still living in the seas today. Some of the marine species I have found include, Asterolampra Marylandica, Pseudoguinardia recta, Grammatophora Marina, Thalassionema Nitzhioldes, Asterionella Japponica and others.
I find this a fascinating topic. I would appreciate it if you could elaborate a bit:
1. How were the diatoms identified? Did you do it yourself (i.e., using a taxonomic key - if so, which one?) or did a lab (which one?)?
2. Finding diatoms in topsoil is not uncommon (although I haven't found a reference yet for marine diatoms in topsoil, except as eroded fossils). However, could you clarify whether these were modern (living/alive) diatoms, diatomaceous shells, or actual diatom microfossils?
3. Do you have evidence that the topsoil deposition where you found the samples dates from ~10,000 ya? Generally, topsoil is fairly recent composition. It's only after digging down a bit that you run in to 10,000-year-old paleosols, most of which would be well on the way to lithification.
(BTW: you need to be careful about dating samples via diatoms. As an example, A. marylandica has been found in Oligocene deposits and A. japonica is common in Miocene cores. Both, of course are also still living. They've been around for a while.)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by wmscott, posted 01-21-2002 12:14 PM wmscott has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 38 by Quetzal, posted 01-23-2002 8:47 AM Quetzal has not replied

wmscott
Member (Idle past 6248 days)
Posts: 580
From: Sussex, WI USA
Joined: 12-19-2001


Message 34 of 460 (2664)
01-22-2002 2:24 PM


Quetzal, on the dates for the Pleistocene extinction, if the cause was a major change in climate or a global flood, it is be expected that the extinctions occurred at the same time even if dating seems to indicate otherwise. I particularly have to question the Australian dates considering how much earlier they are then the other dates, and the Australian dates are based on small amount of evidence. Even before developing my theory, I have always been suspicious of the earlyness of Australian dates for the extinction of ice age animals and other things. As for the extinct there occurring earlier due to other causes, the population is considered to have been far to small to have over hunted the animals, which is why some invoke human started wild fires to explain this problem, still hard to believe for a whole continent. That leaves the super virus, which is pretty much impossible to find evidence for or against. While some animals may have died off earlier, it seems probable that many lived up to the extinction event and we are just lacking the fossils to prove it at this point. As I was saying about the dinosaurs, many of them appear to have died off before the comet impact, many believe it is due to a lack of fossils that this appears to be the case and not that they were not in decline as some believe. The point is dating of this type is not a stop watch, there is a lot of play in when exactly these events happened. Considering the globalness and similarities of the extinctions, it seems highly probable that they had a common global cause which would indicate a common time as well. The elevation effect I pointed out earlier, that lower continents had higher extinction rates, is seen in Australia which has the lowest average elevation and had the highest extinction rates. I did not apply this ratio to the other continents because of their proximity to each other, other factors over power this effect.
On the forest record, you should have referred to the Bristlecone pine tree ring record which extends back 10,000 years without any gaps. In fact the oldest living Bristlecone tree predates the biblical date for the flood by three hundred years. Any reasonable flood theory would have to account how these trees and many others were able to survive a global flood. What it appears to have happened is the flood started in late fall, and occurred in winter time in the northern hemisphere when the trees were dormant and ended before the spring. Thus it is very possible for a global flood to have occurred and to have left no gap in the tree ring record, if it was brief enough. It is only if you start theorizing a longer flood or like the creationist flood, one that rips up the surface of the earth, that you run into serious problems with the record of plants.
On the reference on the fresh water spike in the gulf, here is one reference. "Evidence for the surge comes from two sediment cores extracted from the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. Oxygen isotope ratios in the fossil plankton suggested that the surface water there became notably fresh around 11,600 years ago-creating a so-called 'meltwater spike' in the fossil record. After this time, the relative abundance of warm-loving forams increased." (The Coevolution of Climate and Life by Stephen H. Schneider and Randi Londer 1984, pages 85-86)
On the reference on drop stones in the Atlantic, I was reading "Riddle of the Ice; A Scientific Adventure into the Arctic" by Myron Arms, on pages 160-165 he discusses the finding of drop stone layers in cores taken from the Atlantic ocean floor. The cores were the 'GRIP' cores and were used to support the "Bond-Heinrich cycles" theory. I had just been reading this and thought it interesting and included it in the post. Most of the references to drop stones I have in my book refer to areas closer to where the edges of the ice sheets were located. The layer in the GRIP cores apparently cover most of the North Atlantic and indicate that a number of ice ages or stages, have had huge sudden releases of ice and water into the sea.
On the Marine diatoms found here in Wisconsin. My favorite reference for identification is "Diatoms of North America" by William C. Vinyard, which I found more usable than Round's book "Diatoms". I also referred to several other books, but I found these two the most relevant. On your second question, diatoms have a silicon outer case than is very durable and is sometimes referred to as a diatom micro fossil, but due to its make up, no fossilization is required which is why they are so frequently found. The condition of the ones I found were quite dead, just outer shells which tended to be stained a bit brown from tannic acid. The diatoms also showed signs of age in that the finer edges were frequently rounded apparently by water slowly dissolving the silicon over time. The soil here is glacial till, so it all technically dates from the end of the ice age. The samples were extracted from cores taken of the top 16 inches of the soil. Only the surface cores and surface cores beneath drop stones were found to contain diatoms. I have outlined the steps on how to find these diatoms in my book. If would like, private message me your e-mail and I will send you as an attachment the part of the book dealing with this and you can try it out for yourself. I am hoping that interested people will extend the field work of finding this diatom trace left by the flood world wide.
.
Edge- On shorelines, my point was that at its peak, a global flood would have no shore on which to create a shoreline. Then as the water receded, it was to steady in its withdrawing to leave extensive shorelines for the simple reason it takes time to create a shoreline. Only where the water and land maintained a stable level in respect to each other long enough for wave action to erode a shoreline, will one be found. Many brief floods fail to create shorelines, if they also fail to leave a strand line or a sediment deposits, they disappear with out a trace. The reason for greater occurrence of raised shorelines at lower elevations is the slowing of the draining of the waters as the flood ended. The draining at first apparently lowered the water level too fast to allow time for the creation of extensive shorelines or the greater grade and erosion found at higher elevations resulted in their erasure.
On the depression of ocean floors and land. Yes the land was depressed by water, in the form of ice. The depression of the earth's surface by the weight of glaciers is well known. The same effect is also known to occur with the ocean floor when the depth of water increases which increases the amount of pressure on the ocean crust. The reason the ocean floors and warped upward in the ice age was that the formation of the ice caps pulled large amounts of water from the oceans reducing the amount of weight pressing down on the ocean crust. then when the flood occurred, the ocean floors are denser and much thinner than the continental crust, this greater flexibility combined with their lower elevation which put them under greater pressure than the land, resulted in the ocean floors sinking while land areas tended to rise. The removal of the weight of some of the glaciers from the land and putting them into the seas also helped to tip the weight balance. This process of the earth's crust shifting in elevation due to weight put on it is called isostatic compensation.
On data on the rates of Pleistocene animal extinctions, see any good book on the extinction of ice age animals, for example the book "Mammoths" by Adrian Lister and Paul Bahn on pages 124-125 has a nice depiction of the extinction rates and how they varied from continent to continent. The point I was making about these extinction rates is they are lowest in the area where Noah is believed to have built the ark, and are progressively higher farther away. Which is why it is not mysterious that some animals survived in Europe and not in America, call it the ark effect.
The water to move the ice sheet comes from underneath, the geothermal heat melts an ice sheet from the bottom up at the end of an ice age. The thinner edges remain frozen to the bedrock acting as a ice dam. If the dam breaks, a huge amount of ice and water will surge into the sea. Enough to raise the sea level high enough destabilize other ice sheets which were on the verge of surging on their own due to the warming conditions. This theory is called the "domino Theory" in glaciology. There is evidence that there were massive sudden releases of ice and water at the end of the last ice age, evidence of super floods and huge surging events shown by disrupted and plowed sediments and many drop stones found on the ocean floors.
On Andes mountains uplift, yes of course, that is why they have such highly uplifted shorelines. As the Pacific ocean floors was pushed down, the Andes were pushed up. This happened in stages or steps which is how the shorelines had time to form. The word marine implies marine life and conditions where salt lakes just have the salt at varying concentrations and lack ocean life forms. Yes I know all about plate tectonics, and I have already talked about the 'ark effect' on the different rates of animal survival. As for weak and conflicting evidence, you have a very limited knowledge of the details of my flood theory, hence it is to be expected that you will have some trouble understanding some of it. I have only been dealing with outlines and small parts of it in these posts, it would take a book to explain it all in detail, which is why I wrote one. You can have what ever opinion you want, but doesn't mean much if you have never read my book. Now if you read someone's book, then your opinion has some weight behind it.

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by mark24, posted 01-22-2002 4:39 PM wmscott has not replied
 Message 36 by edge, posted 01-22-2002 5:02 PM wmscott has not replied
 Message 37 by Quetzal, posted 01-23-2002 5:46 AM wmscott has not replied

mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 35 of 460 (2671)
01-22-2002 4:39 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by wmscott
01-22-2002 2:24 PM


quote:
Originally posted by wmscott:

On the forest record, you should have referred to the Bristlecone pine tree ring record which extends back 10,000 years without any gaps. In fact the oldest living Bristlecone tree predates the biblical date for the flood by three hundred years. Any reasonable flood theory would have to account how these trees and many others were able to survive a global flood. What it appears to have happened is the flood started in late fall, and occurred in winter time in the northern hemisphere when the trees were dormant and ended before the spring. Thus it is very possible for a global flood to have occurred and to have left no gap in the tree ring record, if it was brief enough. It is only if you start theorizing a longer flood or like the creationist flood, one that rips up the surface of the earth, that you run into serious problems with the record of plants.

quote:
Originally posted by wmscott:

The ice age pulled enough water out of the oceans long enough that the ocean basins flexed upward to make up for the missing pressure, this is called hydrostatic pressure. The sudden return of the previously removed water occurred faster than the sea floor could be pushed back down. Since the oceans were in effect too small to hold all the water, the earth was flooded for a time.

How can oceanic lithosphere flexing occur fast enough for this to happen, in the space of a couple of days/weeks/months? More/less?
You have stated in an earlier post that the water of the flood is back in the ocean, this must have involved very fast downflexing of the oceanic crust to affect just one season.
Mark
------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.
[This message has been edited by mark24, 01-22-2002]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by wmscott, posted 01-22-2002 2:24 PM wmscott has not replied

edge
Member (Idle past 1706 days)
Posts: 4696
From: Colorado, USA
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 36 of 460 (2672)
01-22-2002 5:02 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by wmscott
01-22-2002 2:24 PM


quote:
Originally posted by wmscott:
Edge- On shorelines, my point was that at its peak, a global flood would have no shore on which to create a shoreline. Then as the water receded, it was to steady in its withdrawing to leave extensive shorelines for the simple reason it takes time to create a shoreline. Only where the water and land maintained a stable level in respect to each other long enough for wave action to erode a shoreline, will one be found. Many brief floods fail to create shorelines, if they also fail to leave a strand line or a sediment deposits, they disappear with out a trace. The reason for greater occurrence of raised shorelines at lower elevations is the slowing of the draining of the waters as the flood ended. The draining at first apparently lowered the water level too fast to allow time for the creation of extensive shorelines or the greater grade and erosion found at higher elevations resulted in their erasure.

And they are all at lower elevations... Hmm, that is pretty solid evidence then that the water was actually deeper.
quote:
On the depression of ocean floors and land. Yes the land was depressed by water, in the form of ice. The depression of the earth's surface by the weight of glaciers is well known. The same effect is also known to occur with the ocean floor when the depth of water increases which increases the amount of pressure on the ocean crust.
I get it. The deeper the water is the lower the crust!
quote:
The reason the ocean floors and warped upward in the ice age was that the formation of the ice caps pulled large amounts of water from the oceans reducing the amount of weight pressing down on the ocean crust.
Just a question here, wmscott. Why is Death Valley so low in elevation? Was there water pushing down on it?
quote:
then when the flood occurred, the ocean floors are denser and much thinner than the continental crust, this greater flexibility combined with their lower elevation which put them under greater pressure than the land, resulted in the ocean floors sinking while land areas tended to rise.
If the land areas were rising, why was there a flood? Seems like the situation we have now.
quote:
The removal of the weight of some of the glaciers from the land and putting them into the seas also helped to tip the weight balance. This process of the earth's crust shifting in elevation due to weight put on it is called isostatic compensation.
I thought you said that the Greenland and Antarctive ice caps weren't affected. Why is that and do you know what percentage of the ice was in them?
quote:
The water to move the ice sheet comes from underneath, the geothermal heat melts an ice sheet from the bottom up at the end of an ice age. The thinner edges remain frozen to the bedrock acting as a ice dam. If the dam breaks, a huge amount of ice and water will surge into the sea.
And then the ice cap sets back down right were it was. Do I have this right? Is there an example of complete ice fields doing this in Iceland? Seems like Iceland would be denuded of glaciers pretty frequently with all of the geothermal energy.
quote:
Enough to raise the sea level high enough destabilize other ice sheets which were on the verge of surging on their own due to the warming conditions. This theory is called the "domino Theory" in glaciology. There is evidence that there were massive sudden releases of ice and water at the end of the last ice age, evidence of super floods and huge surging events shown by disrupted and plowed sediments and many drop stones found on the ocean floors.
And this was a worldwide event, but you can't even show us that it is an island-wide event in Iceland.
quote:
On Andes mountains uplift, yes of course, that is why they have such highly uplifted shorelines. As the Pacific ocean floors was pushed down, the Andes were pushed up. This happened in stages or steps which is how the shorelines had time to form.
But then it had nothing to do with receding floodwaters, right? If the uplift was caused by convergent tectonics, which we can see happening today, by the way; why call upon a flood that has never been observed?
quote:
The word marine implies marine life and conditions where salt lakes just have the salt at varying concentrations and lack ocean life forms.
Then you know that there were/are some saline lakes in various mountain ranges today. They could leave shorelines at high elevations. So, if we found some we might consider this as a possibility for their formation. Or would you automatically assume a worldwide flood?
quote:
Yes I know all about plate tectonics, ...[quote] All? Very good. There are very few degreed geologists that know ALL about plate tectonics.
[quote]...I have only been dealing with outlines and small parts of it in these posts, it would take a book to explain it all in detail, which is why I wrote one. You can have what ever opinion you want, but doesn't mean much if you have never read my book. Now if you read someone's book, then your opinion has some weight behind it.[/B]

You and TC should get together. He/she never has time to cover such miniscule details like the Paleozoic and Mesozoic. What was your textbook in college geology. Did you read it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by wmscott, posted 01-22-2002 2:24 PM wmscott has not replied

Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 37 of 460 (2679)
01-23-2002 5:46 AM
Reply to: Message 34 by wmscott
01-22-2002 2:24 PM


wmscott:
I appreciate your responses. I’m still having a hard time with your statements concerning the time compression of the Pleistocene extinction events to ~10,000 ya. There is substantial evidence for the dates of the megafaunal extinctions in Australia, for example, that is inconsistent with your claim.
The large flightless bird Genyornis newtoni has been shown to be continuously present in Australia between 120,000 and 46,000 years ago, at which time it ceased to exist. The 46,000 ya extinction date has been corroborated by multiple dating methods and multiple sites over three climatic zones (C14 (100 samples), 234U-230Th (5 samples), and AAR (700 samples) and 8 luminescence series). Diprotodon extinction has been dated at 33,000 ya. The dates are significant in that humans arrived in Australia approximately 55,000 ya. It is believed that a combination of human impacts and climate change were responsible. See this site for a general discussion of the Australian extinctions, and this site and this article for more information concerning possible coevolutionary disequilibrium as a causative factor in the extinctions. In all, every species of marsupial >100 kg (19 in all), 22 of 38 species 10-100 kg, two large reptiles, and our friend the 220 kg Genyornis died out between 46,000 ya and 18,000 ya. Since they didn't die out all at once, the evidence from the dates of the Australian extinctions indicates your chronology and in fact for the hypothetical global flood is inaccurate, at least in this area.
Re: Diatoms. Thanks for the information. I would also like to know the soil stratiography in the area (I’m not familiar with Wisconsin). Normally temperate soils, even over glacial till, have reasonably extensive A and B horizons. Marine diatoms present in either of these layers would more likely point to fairly recent eolian transport/deposition than salt-water flooding. This hypothesis is also consistent with the edge rounding you mentioned. Diatoms tend to get blown about quite a bit — witness the presence of marine diatoms in the Antarctic, Sahara, inland Greenland, etc. See Wind-Blown Diatoms in Antarctic Ice Cores: Provenance Indicators of former storm tracks or Glacial/interglacial variations in the flux of atmospherically transported diatoms in Taylor Dome ice core. Also, see bibliography for an extensive list of references concerning eolian transport of diatoms. (With many thanks to Patrick for the references).
On another (but related) subject: did you have the opportunity to conduct soil chemistry analyses at your sample sites? If the composition is similar to other ~10,000 year-old marine deposition sites, you could rule out eolian transport for the diatoms. Another possible piece of evidence would be the presence of remnants from other marine organisms. Were there any other indicators from your sample sites?
In other news:
quote:
Originally posted by wmscott:
if the cause was a major change in climate or a global flood, it is be expected that the extinctions occurred at the same time even if dating seems to indicate otherwise

On the contrary, the two hypothesis are not congruent. A global flood such as you postulate would be a temporally restricted "point" extinction event (otherwise we'd see significantly more evidence, including large scale marine sedimentation on the continental landmasses, etc, which is conspicuous by its absence). In addition, all the critters all over the world would have gone *poof* at roughly the same time.
A climate change effecting different regions at different points in time is more consistent with the evidence. Again, the temporal congruence with the arrival of humans in a particular region is an interesting coincidence, wouldn't you say? There is evidence, again from Australia, that humans were present almost 15,000 years before the extinctions began. Archeological studies have shown that the original inhabitants were primarily coastal dwellers. It isn't until somewhat later that the presence of humans in the interior began to show up - oddly enough, around the time Genyornis went belly-up and Diprotodon started getting scarce - at the same time (from pollen studies) the interior started to dry out. Hmmm. Possibly significant correlation there?
quote:
What it appears to have happened is the flood started in late fall, and occurred in winter time in the northern hemisphere when the trees were dormant and ended before the spring. Thus it is very possible for a global flood to have occurred and to have left no gap in the tree ring record, if it was brief enough.
I didn't discuss dendochronology. I pointed out there was a gradual change in forest type - indicating a slow change in climate, rather than a catalclysm. What evidence do you have for this scenario? I agree that the creationist view of a noachian flood would certainly "rip up the earth", though.
Thanks for the references on drop stones in the Atlantic. My question is how do they provide evidence for your global flood rather than a normal consequence of the extent of the Laurentide ice sheet, which covered a fair amount of that area? It certainly seems likely that the ice sheets themselves could have deposited them, although I haven't had a chance to get copies of the books you referenced.
With reference to the "ark effect" (neat turn of phrase), you said:
quote:
The point I was making about these extinction rates is they are lowest in the area where Noah is believed to have built the ark, and are progressively higher farther away. Which is why it is not mysterious that some animals survived in Europe and not in America, call it the ark effect.
Whoa! Up to now we were discussing the evidence for (or against) an actual geophysical event (a global flood at the end of the last ice age). Start dragging in Noah and the other Genesis fairy stories, you're now arguing biblical inerrancy. Worse, you're implying that your entire premise rests on the shaky foundation of a 2700-year-old myth that, by your own dating, could only have been written 7000+ years after the events depicted occurred!!!! I guess I have to ask: which is it? A biblical apologetic or a scientific hypothesis?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by wmscott, posted 01-22-2002 2:24 PM wmscott has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 39 by edge, posted 01-23-2002 1:54 PM Quetzal has not replied

Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 38 of 460 (2682)
01-23-2002 8:47 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by Quetzal
01-22-2002 6:47 AM


wmscott: I forgot to add:
Were you aware of the other explanation for the freshwater spike in the Gulf? Showers, W.J., and Bevis, M., 1988. "Amazon Cone isotopic stratigraphy: evidence for the source of the tropical freshwater spike" (Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol., ODP pub ref: 64:189199). Their interpretation is that it reflects an increased Amazon freshwater discharge into the Gulf, which probably resulted from increased rainfall activity rather than from tropical glacier melting (northern to central Andes) during deglaciation and the end of the ice age. This makes sense as the Amazon plume normally extends northwestward well into the Caribbean. Apparently this is the original source of the core samples you referenced.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by Quetzal, posted 01-22-2002 6:47 AM Quetzal has not replied

edge
Member (Idle past 1706 days)
Posts: 4696
From: Colorado, USA
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 39 of 460 (2692)
01-23-2002 1:54 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Quetzal
01-23-2002 5:46 AM


quote:
Originally posted by Quetzal:
Whoa! Up to now we were discussing the evidence for (or against) an actual geophysical event (a global flood at the end of the last ice age). Start dragging in Noah and the other Genesis fairy stories, you're now arguing biblical inerrancy. Worse, you're implying that your entire premise rests on the shaky foundation of a 2700-year-old myth that, by your own dating, could only have been written 7000+ years after the events depicted occurred!!!! I guess I have to ask: which is it? A biblical apologetic or a scientific hypothesis?[/B]

This kind of blew me away too. Wmscott has tried to be reasonable as possible, given the tenuousness of his arguments; but now we are faced with a dilemma. Are we dealing with a person who has marshalled scientific facts and come up with a conclusion, or a person who has selectively culled the facts to support an a priori dogma? Wmscott seems to espouse an old earth viewpoint with the modification of a post-ice age flood. However, if one accepts the literal, biblical account of the flood, as he has now revealed, then why not also accept the 6000 year old earth? To YEC or not to YEC. That is the question.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Quetzal, posted 01-23-2002 5:46 AM Quetzal has not replied

wmscott
Member (Idle past 6248 days)
Posts: 580
From: Sussex, WI USA
Joined: 12-19-2001


Message 40 of 460 (2697)
01-23-2002 5:34 PM


Mark24- very good observation, I am very surprised no one else has brought up this very obvious point until now, thank you for doing so. I deal at length with this issue in my book, but will give a brief review here. Movements of the magnitude implied by the rate flood waters apparently drained into the sea, are believed to be impossible to occur because the Asthenosphere (the soft part of the mantle) is not fluid enough to flow fast enough for this to occur. It is apparent that the movement that has occurred, was not sideways flow in the Asthenosphere as is generally the case, but in stead was vertical movement from deeper inside the earth. Using a theory I call Ice Age flexing, I theorize that this deep movement or flexing of the earth occurred in the outer core. Here the earth is fluid enough to flex rapidly enough to respond as the historical account indicates. If the pressure changes where great enough and over large enough areas, this flexing of the earth could occur. Considering the massive movements of ice and water shifting positions at the end of the ice age, it is very possible that this was how the earth was able to respond so quickly to the shift in pressures on the lithosphere. We have evidence in gravity anomalies that there was a major shift or flexing of the earth at the end of the last ice age that created many of these anomalies. We also have evidence in the rates of uplift in areas not believed to have been recently affected by plate tectonics that this has occurred. To sum it up, the flood waters pushed the ocean crust and the entire mantle below it, down toward the outer core, at the same time the huge release of ice and water from the ice sheets caused the continental crust and the mantle below them, to warp upward pulling the surface of the outer core upward in those areas. The earth is like a layer cake with each layer getting denser towards the bottom. over time gravity pulls the denser materials towards the center while the less dense or lighter materials tend to rise to the top. The shifting that occurred at the end of the ice age pushed down on these layers under the oceans and lifted them up under where the ice was removed, this was not evenly done and has resulted in gravity anomalies which are caused by differences in the local density of the earth which affects the strength of gravity measured. Gravity over time will cause a slow flow in the asthenosphere that will even out these differences. Under areas once burdened by ice sheets, their sudden vertical movement has resulted in the uplifted of the surface of the dense outer core, this material is denser than the mantle, so it will tend to sink back down. As this happens the Asthenosphere flows in form the sides to make up for this. The same process in reverse happens underneath the oceans. This is part of the reason we see a steady glacial rebounding going on and a steady on going uplift in many mountains ranges and other areas around oceans. I have most of a chapter and several illustrations on this in the book, I hope I have managed to get the idea across in this short post. but thank you again for bringing this up, I find it one of the more interesting parts of the geology of the flood.
Edge-On dead valley, I believe it is a dropped block fault valley. Britannica states "The geologic history of Death Valley is extremely complex and involves different types of fault activity at various periods, in addition to crustal sinking and even some volcanic activity. Essentially, Death Valley is a graben, or rift valley, formed by the sinking of a tremendous expanse of rock lying between parallel uplifted, tilted-block mountain ranges to the east and west. A type of fault activity called , in which the movement is dominantly vertical, began to form the valley in the middle Tertiary Period (about 30 million years ago). The sinking of crustal blocks to form the great trough of the valley and the uplift of other blocks to form the adjacent mountain ranges progressed gradually through the rest of the Cenozoic Era. As the valley sank, it was filled by sediments that were eroded from the surrounding hills; in the central part of the valley the bedrock floor is buried beneath as much as 9,000 feet (2,745 m) of sediment. Tilting and sinking of the valley floor have continued to the present time." The only fact I could add is that some of the sinking could have occurred as the depression of the Pacific ocean floor in turn has pushed the west coast upward. This uplift is uneven and results in some areas sinking while others rise. This movement has undoubtedly magnified some movements already taking place caused by other forces such as plate tectonics. It is important to remember that the up lift has happened in association with the comings and going of the ice stages over the last two million years of the ice ages, and during ice advances has operated basically in reverse. And the reason there was a flood despite the shifting going on, is that the sea level rose much faster than the crust of the earth could adjust to the shifting pressures.
On Greenland and Antarctica not being affected. Actually they were affected quite a bit by a global flood. They lost a lot of ice on their margins and were probably thinned by ice lost into the rising flood waters, but they largely remained intact. Some of the reasons for their survival could be the fact the Greenland glaciers are surrounded by a ring of mountains that keeps them in place, and may have kept them in from floating away in the flood. Antarctica has a surrounding ring of ocean currents that may have acted in the same manner. It has also been noted that today as the earth's climate warms, these two areas seem to be growing in the rate of ice growth, in stead of melting away like other glaciers are doing. If true, this may have meant that these two ice areas were much more stable at the end of the last ice age and did not contain huge bodies of trapped melt water that weakened the Pleistocene ice sheets. These local climate factors may have helped these two ice areas survive the flood even as they have survived to today. It is not possible to say what percent of ice age ice was contained in the two areas since the total amount of ice for the ice age is not known. Also if the ice in those areas floated, they displaced their weight in water and made their contribution to the depth of the flood waters with out ending up in the oceans after the flood.
On the Iceland glaciers reseating after a release of sub glacial water. Yes, what happens is the trapped water is released which carries away ice from the edge of the glacier where the release occurs. In areas away from the edge that lost water, the ice subsides as water is removed form underneath. I don't know if the glaciers are retreating or advancing on Iceland. Even an advancing glacier could experience a large release of water and ice. Yes there certainly is plenty of geothermal heat in Iceland, but remember it is pretty far north too. One of the causes of some of the recent releases in Iceland has been volcanic activity beneath glacial ice. Not a fun situation to have going on, yet Iceland still seems to have plenty of ice.
For evidence showing wide spread surging of glacial ice into the ocean I can quote by last post. "On the reference on drop stones in the Atlantic, I was reading "Riddle of the Ice; A Scientific Adventure into the Arctic" by Myron Arms, on pages 160-165 he discusses the finding of drop stone layers in cores taken from the Atlantic ocean floor. The cores were the 'GRIP' cores and were used to support the "Bond-Heinrich cycles" theory. I had just been reading this and thought it interesting and included it in the post. Most of the references to drop stones I have in my book refer to areas closer to where the edges of the ice sheets were located. The layer in the GRIP cores apparently cover most of the North Atlantic and indicate that a number of ice ages or stages, have had huge sudden releases of ice and water into the sea." Couldn't say it better myself. The ocean wide layer of drop stones is evidence of a very large surging of glacial ice into the ocean.
On the uplifting of the Andes you stated, "But then it had nothing to do with receding floodwaters, right? If the uplift was caused by convergent tectonics, which we can see happening today, by the way; why call upon a flood that has never been observed?" First off, this flood was observed and is recorded in a book called the Bible. You mite try reading it sometime, the flood part is near the beginning by the way. On the uplift, it has been caused by a combination of factors, convergent tectonics created the mountains, and Ice Age flexing has lifted them to their current elevation. The uplifting of some areas is in association with the down ward movement of oceans floors as shown by uplifting occurring in areas Plate Tectonics is unable to account for. Lake shorelines salt or otherwise are not the type of shoreline referred to. Shorelines in confined areas are evidence of local not global flooding and I don't refer to the for this reason. As for knowing ALL about plate tectonics, don't be a child, I used the word 'all' in the general sense and not in an all inclusive sense. On geology textbooks, I have read quite a few, my favorite is "The Earth's Dynamic Systems" by W. Kenneth hamblin, very nice book, I wrote a review on it at Amazon.
Quetzal-I am not arguing that all the extinct ice age animals died at the end of the ice age. I looked over the web sites and found one interesting note. "a recent paper in Science argued that the last megafauna died out almost 42,000 years ago, but dating of snail shells from the Burra site suggests the skeletons may be closer to 33,000 years old." That would change the date on this particular find by 9,000 years. As I have been saying there is a lot of play in these dates. We have no way of knowing if this find was the last of his species to die, or if in the future it will be found that our dating needs to be adjusted because of this newly discovered effect of this or that. And as I have been saying, the Australia having much earlier dating on the Pleistocene extinctions in general has always seemed strange to me, and I will question it until someone can come up with a very good reason for it. But what I am mainly concerned with here is the terminal phase of the extinctions, a sudden dropping of the curtain on these animals at the end of the ice age. The fact that some of them died off before hand, considering the length of the ice age and rates on normal extinctions, is not surprising.
On diatoms and soil. The soil here has a topsoil layer that varies but is usually composed of a mixture of clay/sand with organic material. The layer below that is clay, of a glacial loss type common to this part of Wisconsin, or a sand gravel glacial till mix of varying depths. This soil is laid on top a a general limestone bed rock base that may be exposed in some places or buried hundreds of feet below the surface. I would have to look up the chemical composition some where, but I would expect a high amount of silicon oxides from the Canada shield and ground up rock from everything else the glaciers rode over to get here, ground up limestone, etc. The loss soil here may have been deposited by wind or water. the diatoms however only are found on the original surface exposed at the end of the ice age. I have no problem with diatoms being carried by the wind. The one here that I have found were not deposited in that manner. If they had been they would be found throughout the soil or at least on the modern surface everywhere. Areas where the surface has been disturbed have no diatoms, which if the wind was the source, they would have had them. And no, the soil here is glacial till and loss, no marine clays. I have found at this point no other signs of marine life, but then diatoms is what I was focused on. But looking at the relative abundance of marine life, the odds of finding other larger traces are progressively much smaller as the size increases. Of course we do have the Michigan whale bones which I am sure we are tired of talking about.
On the flood as an extinction cause, you stated, "A global flood such as you postulate would be a temporally restricted "point" extinction event (otherwise we'd see significantly more evidence, including large scale marine sedimentation on the continental landmasses, etc, which is conspicuous by its absence). In addition, all the critters all over the world would have gone *poof* at roughly the same time." The flood was too short to deposit much sediment except for a thin dusting of diatoms and an occasional anomalous marine fossil, and where would it have washed from anyway in a global flood?
On gradual ice age climate change. there was a long warming period leading up the sudden end, and afterwards more gradual changes. The flooding was temporary and not a long term climate factor in its self, and the secondary effects would have a gradual influence over time. the earth has a huge climate system which responds slowly to even sudden changes.
On your question "shaky foundation of a 2700-year-old myth that, by your own dating, could only have been written 7000+ years after the events depicted occurred!!!! I guess I have to ask: which is it? A biblical apologetic or a scientific hypothesis?" If the flooding event at the end of the ice age is real, then that myth is real too. As I have stated I favor the biblical date for the flood and the bible book of Genesis was written using earlier records from the eye witnesses of the events handed down as written accounts or as oral family history. My book and theory are on the science side of the street, but I do deal with the religious side as well. With this event it would be almost impossible not to. Think of it as scientific findings confirming the biblical account of the flood, similar to biblical archeology findings showing the historical accuracy of the bible.
The Amazon water plume is a new one to me, increased meltwater run off in the Mississippi river due to increased melting of the ice sheet due to a sudden southern push resulting a much higher rate of melting is the standard accepted cause. to differentiate between these to possible sources it would be necessary to know the location of the respective cores and know the current flow pattern at the time the deposits were made. I assume the respective researchers did this and perhaps we are talking about two difference sets of cores. On the other hand, the Andes mountains had some extensive mountain glaciers which also disappeared into the sea at end of the ice age as well, so the source may not be as important as the effect.

Replies to this message:
 Message 41 by Quetzal, posted 01-24-2002 8:02 AM wmscott has not replied
 Message 42 by edge, posted 01-24-2002 11:30 AM wmscott has not replied

Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 41 of 460 (2707)
01-24-2002 8:02 AM
Reply to: Message 40 by wmscott
01-23-2002 5:34 PM


quote:
Quetzal-I am not arguing that all the extinct ice age animals died at the end of the ice age.
Actually, you did more or less. You've argued that the Pleistocene extinctions were the result of a global flood at the end of the last ice age. I'd be willing to concede this minor point except for the fact that the termination dates for various regions are almost (except NA and SA) exclusively BEFORE the actual Pleistocene/Holocene boundary.
quote:
I looked over the web sites and found one interesting note. "a recent paper in Science argued that the last megafauna died out almost 42,000 years ago, but dating of snail shells from the Burra site suggests the skeletons may be closer to 33,000 years old." That would change the date on this particular find by 9,000 years. As I have been saying there is a lot of play in these dates.
If you note carefully, the old date was based on older methodology. However, this is besides the point: at NO site in Australia are any of the extinct fauna found younger than 26,000 ya. BTW: The TIMS-U and AAR, not to mention modern (i.e., advances over the last 10 years) C14 methodology, figures are highly accurate.
quote:
We have no way of knowing if this find was the last of his species to die, or if in the future it will be found that our dating needs to be adjusted because of this newly discovered effect of this or that. And as I have been saying, the Australia having much earlier dating on the Pleistocene extinctions in general has always seemed strange to me, and I will question it until someone can come up with a very good reason for it.
I’m not going to continue quibbling over the dates. You can either accept cross-correlated dates using multiple methodologies plus archeological evidence, or not. Rejecting it simply means you are attempting to ignore data that refute one element of your hypothesis.
quote:
But what I am mainly concerned with here is the terminal phase of the extinctions, a sudden dropping of the curtain on these animals at the end of the ice age. The fact that some of them died off before hand, considering the length of the ice age and rates on normal extinctions, is not surprising.
Two things here:
1. What are you calling rates on normal extinctions?
2. Specific dating aside, what is important to realize is that the pattern of extinctions in the various regions is inconsistent with a point extinction event such as a global flood. In Eurasia we see a pattern that is moderate and staggered over time, in Australia we see a pattern that is over a relatively long time frame, and severe, in North and South America we see extremely short time frame and extremely severe. The average termination date is different in each region, from the oldest (Australia at around 35,000 ya) to the newest (South America around 8,000 ya), with Eurasia in the middle (and in fact the latter may have occurred in two or more waves, although there’s not huge amounts of evidence yet).
quote:
On diatoms and soil. The soil here has a topsoil layer that varies but is usually composed of a mixture of clay/sand with organic material. The layer below that is clay, of a glacial loss type common to this part of Wisconsin, or a sand gravel glacial till mix of varying depths. This soil is laid on top a a general limestone bed rock base that may be exposed in some places or buried hundreds of feet below the surface. I would have to look up the chemical composition some where, but I would expect a high amount of silicon oxides from the Canada shield and ground up rock from everything else the glaciers rode over to get here, ground up limestone, etc. The loss soil here may have been deposited by wind or water. the diatoms however only are found on the original surface exposed at the end of the ice age.
Do you mean the sample depths are at bedrock? Or do you mean found on moraines/gravel till? On the chemistry, I was looking more for non-soluble trace elements that could only have come from exposure to seawater.
quote:
I have no problem with diatoms being carried by the wind.
Good, I wasn’t sure you’d eliminated that possibility.
quote:
The one here that I have found were not deposited in that manner. If they had been they would be found throughout the soil or at least on the modern surface everywhere.
Not necessarily, although that would have been my first call, as well. A lot depends on storm tracks, wind patterns, etc if the glaciers didn’t deposit them. Quite a few marine diatoms have been found in inland glacier cores — which are indicative of eolian deposition.
quote:
Areas where the surface has been disturbed have no diatoms, which if the wind was the source, they would have had them.
Do you mean no diatoms or no marine diatoms? To quibble a bit, the sample depth doesn’t preclude eolian deposition.
quote:
And no, the soil here is glacial till and loss, no marine clays. I have found at this point no other signs of marine life, but then diatoms is what I was focused on.
Too bad, that would have been a really good piece of evidence for your theory.
quote:
But looking at the relative abundance of marine life, the odds of finding other larger traces are progressively much smaller as the size increases. traces Of course we do have the Michigan whale bones which I am sure we are tired of talking about.
quote:
On the flood as an extinction cause, you stated, "A global flood such as you postulate would be a temporally restricted "point" extinction event (otherwise we'd see significantly more evidence, including large scale marine sedimentation on the continental landmasses, etc, which is conspicuous by its absence). In addition, all the critters all over the world would have gone *poof* at roughly the same time." The flood was too short to deposit much sediment except for a thin dusting of diatoms and an occasional anomalous marine fossil, and where would it have washed from anyway in a global flood?
Why would this be so unless we’re dealing with eolian or glacial deposition? There should be at least some additional traces, even for a short-duration seawater flood as you hypothesize. I’m honestly not trying to force the data to fit eolian deposition. It’s just that without corroborating evidence to tie the diatoms into some other traces of a flood (sediments, marine fossils or traces, soil chemistry indicative of saltwater immersion, etc), it’s hard to see the diatoms you found as indicative of a flood. Even given that your samples were, in fact, obtained from strata contemporaneous with the end of the ice (and I’ll happily take your word for it), without corroboration eolian or glacial deposition remains the most likely explanation. Sorry.
BTW: I don’t have any problem with the Michigan whalebones (although I'd appreciate a reference since I hadn't read that one). Since it represents a single find from a single site, I would consider it an anomaly. If you found a number of such sites scattered across the northern US, then I would cheerfully re-examine the finds as pretty good evidence of some kind of seawater incursion.
quote:
On gradual ice age climate change. there was a long warming period leading up the sudden end, and afterwards more gradual changes. The flooding was temporary and not a long term climate factor in its self, and the secondary effects would have a gradual influence over time. the earth has a huge climate system which responds slowly to even sudden changes.
Okay, given a short duration flood, there would be little or no climatic impact. Still, you haven’t given a reasonable explanation of why flora weren’t impacted. Even a short (year? How long?) immersion will kill most trees.
quote:
On your question "shaky foundation of a 2700-year-old myth that, by your own dating, could only have been written 7000+ years after the events depicted occurred!!!! I guess I have to ask: which is it? A biblical apologetic or a scientific hypothesis?" If the flooding event at the end of the ice age is real, then that myth is real too. As I have stated I favor the biblical date for the flood and the bible book of Genesis was written using earlier records from the eye witnesses of the events handed down as written accounts or as oral family history. My book and theory are on the science side of the street, but I do deal with the religious side as well. With this event it would be almost impossible not to. Think of it as scientific findings confirming the biblical account of the flood, similar to biblical archeology findings showing the historical accuracy of the bible.
I don’t even think we should go down this road. Let’s stick to the science, which you at least have some chance of confirming or falsifying. The Bible is waaay out there past science.
quote:
The Amazon water plume is a new one to me, increased meltwater run off in the Mississippi river due to increased melting of the ice sheet due to a sudden southern push resulting a much higher rate of melting is the standard accepted cause. to differentiate between these to possible sources it would be necessary to know the location of the respective cores and know the current flow pattern at the time the deposits were made. I assume the respective researchers did this and perhaps we are talking about two difference sets of cores. On the other hand, the Andes mountains had some extensive mountain glaciers which also disappeared into the sea at end of the ice age as well, so the source may not be as important as the effect.
Yep. Actually, I don’t think it much matters one way or the other (except maybe to oceanographers). Which brings me back to my previous question: How does the spike, whether from the Mississippi — and there’s a fair amount of evidence that the river did flood severely at the end of the ice age — or the Amazon, provide evidence for a global flood?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by wmscott, posted 01-23-2002 5:34 PM wmscott has not replied

edge
Member (Idle past 1706 days)
Posts: 4696
From: Colorado, USA
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 42 of 460 (2711)
01-24-2002 11:30 AM
Reply to: Message 40 by wmscott
01-23-2002 5:34 PM


quote:
Originally posted by wmscott:
Edge-On dead valley, I believe it is a dropped block fault valley. Britannica states "The geologic history of Death Valley is extremely complex and involves different types of fault activity at various periods, in addition to crustal sinking and even some volcanic activity.
...
A type of fault activity called , in which the movement is dominantly vertical, began to form the valley in the middle Tertiary Period (about 30 million years ago).

So this tectonic activity occurred without any glacial surging and hydraulic loading of the crust.
Or did it?...
quote:
...
It is important to remember that the up lift has happened in association with the comings and going of the ice stages over the last two million years of the ice ages, and during ice advances has operated basically in reverse. And the reason there was a flood despite the shifting going on, is that the sea level rose much faster than the crust of the earth could adjust to the shifting pressures.

How can you say that the uplift occurred in association with the comings and goings of the ice ages when it started 30 Ma ago? Seems like uplift could happen without your mechanism. What is your evidence?
quote:
On Greenland and Antarctica not being affected. Actually they were affected quite a bit by a global flood. They lost a lot of ice on their margins and were probably thinned by ice lost into the rising flood waters, but they largely remained intact.
I was just going by something you had said earlier.
quote:
Some of the reasons for their survival could be the fact the Greenland glaciers are surrounded by a ring of mountains that keeps them in place, and may have kept them in from floating away in the flood. Antarctica has a surrounding ring of ocean currents that may have acted in the same manner.
Not sure how this works. Seems like plenty of icebergs get carried away by those currents.
And what are you saying, anyway? These are points against your model. If the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are held in place how does your model proceed? Why wouldn't the continental ice sheets be held back similarly? Moreover, how does the actic ocean ice participate. Seems to me like it can't because it should simply rise with the rising sea level. The amount of icemelt in your model is disappearing with each post, wmscott.
quote:
...
On the Iceland glaciers reseating after a release of sub glacial water. Yes, what happens is the trapped water is released which carries away ice from the edge of the glacier where the release occurs. In areas away from the edge that lost water, the ice subsides as water is removed form underneath.

So, your mechanism is not known to ever occur anywhere? You have taken a local phenomenon (a jokhulhlaup) and applied it to multiple continental ice sheets. Are you sure that this is valid?
quote:
I don't know if the glaciers are retreating or advancing on Iceland. Even an advancing glacier could experience a large release of water and ice. Yes there certainly is plenty of geothermal heat in Iceland, but remember it is pretty far north too.
Yes, and so were the continental icecaps of the ice ages.
quote:
For evidence showing wide spread surging of glacial ice into the ocean I can quote by last post. "On the reference on drop stones in the Atlantic, I was reading "Riddle of the Ice; A Scientific Adventure into the Arctic" by Myron Arms, on pages 160-165 he discusses the finding of drop stone layers in cores taken from the Atlantic ocean floor. The cores were the 'GRIP' cores and were used to support the "Bond-Heinrich cycles" theory. I had just been reading this and thought it interesting and included it in the post. Most of the references to drop stones I have in my book refer to areas closer to where the edges of the ice sheets were located. The layer in the GRIP cores apparently cover most of the North Atlantic and indicate that a number of ice ages or stages, have had huge sudden releases of ice and water into the sea." Couldn't say it better myself. The ocean wide layer of drop stones is evidence of a very large surging of glacial ice into the ocean.
Nonsense. The phenomenon is not "ocean-wide." You state that they are found in the North Atlantic. Can you give us the actual distribution? Neither have I seen a convincing argument that this event or events caused a worldwide flood. In fact, I am not convinced that the dropstone deposits actually indicate a surge of the type you propose.
quote:
On the uplifting of the Andes you stated, "But then it had nothing to do with receding floodwaters, right? If the uplift was caused by convergent tectonics, which we can see happening today, by the way; why call upon a flood that has never been observed?" First off, this flood was observed and is recorded in a book called the Bible.
So you admit that the bible is the actual basis of your belief. Okay. Do you know that there are lots of floods in recorded history? Could it be that you are selectively collecting facts to support a legend?
quote:
You mite try reading it sometime, the flood part is near the beginning by the way. On the uplift, it has been caused by a combination of factors, convergent tectonics created the mountains, and Ice Age flexing has lifted them to their current elevation.
Can you show me a map that tell us where the continental ice sheets were in South America during the ice ages?
quote:
...
As for knowing ALL about plate tectonics, don't be a child, I used the word 'all' in the general sense and not in an all inclusive sense. On geology textbooks, I have read quite a few, my favorite is "The Earth's Dynamic Systems" by W. Kenneth hamblin, very nice book, I wrote a review on it at Amazon.

So, was that your college geology textbook?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by wmscott, posted 01-23-2002 5:34 PM wmscott has not replied

wmscott
Member (Idle past 6248 days)
Posts: 580
From: Sussex, WI USA
Joined: 12-19-2001


Message 43 of 460 (2722)
01-24-2002 3:59 PM


Quetzal-On the Pleistocene extinctions were almost (except NA and SA) exclusively BEFORE the actual Pleistocene/Holocene boundary. As I have said before, I believe some of the dates on when some of the Ice age animals went extinct maybe to earlier, and the fact that some of them died off before hand is to be expected and is not contrary to what I am theorizing. On "rates on normal extinctions" on a planet as diverse as the earth is, a number of living species die off and others arise as a steady rate over time. What the 'normal' rate for this is no one really knows, it is argued that human intervention in our time is causing an above normal extinction rate. On Pleistocene extinction, I like your statement, "in North and South America we see extremely short time frame and extremely severe." it seems that for half of the world we are in agreement, the rest could be dating problems or maybe they did just die off earlier. The sample cores were taken of the surface soil, the top few inches down. What marine trace elements are you thinking of? Maybe I could check it out. Here is a link about the Michigan whale bones.
http://sentex.net/~tcc/michwls.html.
"immersion will kill most trees." Not if it is brief, particularly if it occurs when the tree is inactive as in winter time.
"How does the spike, whether from the Mississippi — and there's a fair amount of evidence that the river did flood severely at the end of the ice age — or the Amazon, provide evidence for a global flood?" It shows that the glaciers were releasing very large amounts of water back into the sea at this time and that a sudden huge release was very possible, and the peak of the spike may very well be the record of that release.
Edge-You asked "What is your evidence?" on uplift and subsidence being associated with the comings and goings of the ice sheets. We have evidence in that the recorded uplift and subsidence has occurred in stages and has been associated by some geologists with the coming and going of the ice sheets. "The margins of continents have afforded remarkable sites of cymatogenic tilting with repeated uplift upon the landward and depression upon the seaward side of axes trending closely parallel with present coasts. Corresponding with the polycyclic denudational history of the lands is therefore a polycyclic depositional record embodied in the offshore sediments." (The Morphology of the Earth; A study and Synthesis of World Scenery by Lester C. King 1962, p.223) By polycyclic King means that there occurred a number of distinct periods of rapid erosion of recently uplifted land followed by periods of little erosion. He also connected the uplift of the land with subsidence of the sea floors. A number of geologists have connected this pattern with the pattern of the ice ages. An extreme flooding event at the end of the last ice age would have repeated the earlier pattern and due to the suddenness and size of the shift in weight, the effects were more extreme and more sharply felt than the previous events.
"Why wouldn't the continental ice sheets be held back similarly? Moreover, how does the actic ocean ice participate. Seems to me like it can't because it should simply rise with the rising sea level. The amount of cement in your model is disappearing with each post" Whereas current studies seem to indicate that the Greenland and Antarctica Ice sheets remain intact during a warming climate, evidence such as the fresh water spike indicate that the other continental ice sheets were falling apart and very vulnerable to surging at the end of the ice age. This difference in response to changing climate conditions is why the ice sheets responded differently. And as I have stated before, it was not necessary for the ice to be in the sea to contribute to the flood waters since whether they were floating over land or ocean, would make no difference.
"You have taken a local phenomenon (a jokhulhlaup) and applied it to multiple continental ice sheets. Are you sure that this is valid?" Yes it is, I didn't come up with it, it is part of what is know about the behavior of the ice sheets. I have merely used it as part of my theory. Most of what I am saying is nothing unusual, I have just picked up the pieces and put them together.
On drop stones in the North Atlantic you replied "Nonsense. The phenomenon is not "ocean-wide."" The source I quoted stated "The layer in the GRIP cores apparently cover most of the North Atlantic"
"selectively collecting facts to support a legend" Some legends turn out to be true, and if it wasn't, then there wouldn't be any evidence for me to collect.
"Can you show me a map that tell us where the continental ice sheets were in South America during the ice ages?" See the map on page 64 in the book "Late Glacial and Postglacial Environmental Changes; Quaternary, Carboniferous-Permian, and Proterozoic" edited by I. Peter Martini.
"So, was that your college geology textbook?" I have read many geology textbooks, but I have never been to college as a student.

Replies to this message:
 Message 44 by joz, posted 01-24-2002 4:04 PM wmscott has not replied
 Message 48 by edge, posted 01-24-2002 5:58 PM wmscott has not replied
 Message 52 by Quetzal, posted 01-25-2002 9:31 AM wmscott has not replied

joz
Inactive Member


Message 44 of 460 (2724)
01-24-2002 4:04 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by wmscott
01-24-2002 3:59 PM


quote:
Originally posted by wmscott:
"So, was that your college geology textbook?" I have read many geology textbooks, but I have never been to college as a student.

Alarm bells are ringing.........

This message is a reply to:
 Message 43 by wmscott, posted 01-24-2002 3:59 PM wmscott has not replied

Joe T
Member (Idle past 2169 days)
Posts: 41
From: Virginia
Joined: 01-10-2002


Message 45 of 460 (2727)
01-24-2002 4:38 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by edge
01-21-2002 12:57 PM


On diatoms:
I do not know if this is relevant or not, but how does Mr. Scott eliminate the possibility of contamination as a source of the diatoms he finds in topsoil. There are many uses for diatoms and they are mined heavily. I have used diatomaceous earth for over 20 years as a natural control for soft-bodied insects in my garden. It is a well known and has been widely used by organic gardeners for decades. I buy it in 25 lb bags at my local garden supply center.
There are many other uses of diatoms (in swimming pool filters for one) and according to this site http://hjs.geol.uib.no/diatoms/Industry/index.html-ssi:
quote:
Diatomite or Kieselgur has been mined around the world for centuries; these deposits are either marine or freshwater and of an age between Miocene to Quaternary. The use of Kieselgur for industrial purposes relies on its extreme high porosity and low density: It is a natural adsorbent that is unparalleled.
Anyway, from my layman’s understanding, I would think that one would have to account for contamination before one could base any geological hypothesis on finding diatoms in topsoil.
Joe

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by edge, posted 01-21-2002 12:57 PM edge has not replied

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024