Walt Brown's super-tectonics

Magnetism is locked into the rocks at the point they cool through a certain temperature. For pure magnetite the temperature is 575 C, for impure magnetite (i.e. with titanium in the lattice) the blocking temperature decreases with increasing titanium content. Since it takes time for these rocks to cool, reversals are related to time. Since it takes time for these rocks to be erupted, reversals are related to time. It's a rather silly comment you've made. PS: The correct spelling is tectonics (not techtonics)CheersJoe Meert[This message has been edited by Joe Meert, 12-30-2003]

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Chiroptera, Just because the mid-ocean ridges in Iceland are cracking filling with lava, etc...doesn't necessarily mean the techtonic plates are not floating, it would be interesting if they have evidence of like value that the trenches are subducting, don't see how solid basalt rock can bend, to make the turn, to subduct into the trenches, however, if the techtonic plates are floating, might explain how the mid-ocean ridges appear to be expanding, etc...

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JM: Technically speaking, they are 'floating' in a sense. They are less dense than the asthenosphere and therefore stay positively buoyant with respect to the asthenosphere. The evidence of subduction at the trenches is multifacted. Benioff zones trace the subduction of the plate. Seismic tomography provides images of the subducting plate. While you may profess disbelief that solid rock can bend, your disbelief does not make it impossible. High pressure combined with high temperature can transform solid rock into plastic rock. The oceanic crust near the trench actually is breaking on the way down (hence the earthquakes). Here is a pictorial of a Benioff zone: CheersJoe Meert

His book "the Age of the Earth" contains a more detailed discussion of the evidence for an old earth. It's quite a readable book even for those with little training in geology and radiometric dating.CheersJoe Meert

I find it fascinating how people are drawn into Walt Brown's ideas on the basis of religious beliefs when Walt tries to claim that his ideas are independent of religion. This is patently false. If there was no global flood in Genesis, there would be no hydroplate 'theory'. Strictly speaking, Walt's idea is not a theory, it's closer to a hypothesis but the best description is 'wild speculation'. Suppose, for example, that the bible described destruction of the earth via a global fire. The 'hydroplate theory' would not exist and would be replaced by some conjecture regarding catastrophic volcanism. Walt has refused to publish his ideas in scientific journals (see Walt Brown ). He has also refused to honor his debate challenge (see same page). Walt's out to make money in the name of Jesus. Nothing more, nothing less.CheersJoe Meert

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Deal with the dating assumptions, and we'll talk about the dating game.

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JM: Ok, I'll bite. What dating assumptions do you find particularly troubling and why?

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magnetism, ..again, these so called magnetic reversals p t people speak of are not at all necassarily that. Mechanism to change speeds? Walt certainly has one!

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JM: Ok, I'll bite on this one too. Most creationists (such as those at Answers in Genesis and Institute for creation Research) accept that magnetic reversals have happened. So far as I know, the main creationists who deny them are Walt (I won't REALLY debate) Brown and Kent (I don't really have 250K) Hovind. However, from a purely scientific perspective I'm interested in your thoughts why magnetic reversals are not real.CheersJoe Meert

LOL, STU. Stu and I go way back to his post-doc days at Michigan. Stu and I chased down a pigeon that got loose in the building and set it free. His memory seems to be failing him a bit though since he knows full well I was at Indiana State before Florida. I'll have to drop him an e-mail.As far as Walt's claims he is basically arguing that the magnetic stripes on the floor are not actual reversals but intensity fluctuations which is true. The key is that the intensity variations occur due to the fact that the rocks being measured (when reversely magnetized) subtract from the total intensity of the field whereas those that are normally magnetized add to the intensity. Thus, these stripes are really measuring reversals. Walt also fails to mention that for several decades now, we've been drilling into these 'stripes' and the ocean floor and found a correlative reversal pattern in the rocks. These reversal patterns have also been observed in sedimentary and igneour rocks on land. The magnetostratigraphic time scale is one of the most reliable and oft-used methods for correlations between sections and dating of rock sequences now in use.CheersJoe Meert

It took just over 550 million years to form Niagara falls according to conventional geology. It took a little longer to form the Grand Canyon. Why?CheersJoe Meert

I think I look good in "Walt"CheersJoe Meert

Because you are thinking solely of the falls rather than the rocks that had to be there for the falls to form in the first place! No rocks, no falls at the end of the Cenozoic ice ages. Technically, we could say that each took 4.5 billion years to form.

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I find any assumption that rules out the flood questionable.

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JM: Why? Radiometric dating cannot rule out a flood.

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Assuming things have always happened as they do now.

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JM: Please clarify, I'm afraid if you don't clarify we may get confused.

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Assuming no worldwide violent upheaval affected the order of things.

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JM: Where did you get the idea that geology rules this out?

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Or assuming things made themselves, so as that, for example, if a rate of decay is observed now, we try to say that, at that rate, it would take millions of years.

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JM: Do you have evidence that decay rates change? If so, could it also be possible that rates in the past were slower and therefore our age estimates are too young?

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When did it start to decay, what affected it that could alter results (water etc).

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JM: Do you have specifics or just tossing out general words you heard somewhere?

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And why recent lava flows were dated old etc.

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JM: COuld you give me the specifics? Describe the assumptions made by the researchers in the particular examples you give and discuss the problems that might be inherent in that research.

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From what I said "so called magnetic reversals p t people speak of are not at all necassarily that" you assume I think all reversals are not real.

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JM: SO which ones are real and how did you reach your conclusions? What sort of evidence did you compile to distinguish between the real ones and the 'not real' ones?

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There was a lot happening that must have affected these things.

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JM: Such as? Talking in vagaries does not increase understanding on either side. What 'lot' was happening that affects reversals?

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But to take everything, such as near the mid A ridge, that people would like to consider an old age event of magnetic reversal is something else.

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JM: MOst geologists consider rocks at the ridge to be very young. What is the something else? What evidence do you have for this something else?

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Most of what we will find is actuallt evidence of a recent violent worldwide event that is misinterpreted.

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JM: On what basis is it misinterpreted? What evidence do you bring to the table for your conclusions? It's one thing to criticize science and quite another to think that by criticizing science your default view is correct. Frankly, I've yet to figure out what you think happened in terms of dating and reversals and what evidence you used to reach your conclusions. Are you willing to go into some detail in the arguments?CheersJoe Meert

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Do you have evidence it does not?

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JM: Yes, indeed there is evidence that decay rates are constant. We have now observed, quite literally, trillions upon trillions of decay events and found no variation in rates. There have been a number of studies indicating that:The radioactive decay rates of nucleotides used in radiometric dating have not been observed to vary since their rates were directly measurable, at least within limits of accuracy. This is despite experiments which attempt to change decay rates [Emery, 1972]. Extreme pressure can cause electron capture decay rates to increase slightly (less than 0.2%), but the change is small enough that it has no detectable effect on dates.Supernovae produce a large, and calculable, quantity of radioactive isotopes [Nomoto et al, 1997; Theilemann et al, 1998]. The decay of these isotopes produces a fading rate and characteristic gamma ray frequencies which are predictable if decay rates are constant. Both of these have been observed for SN1987A, which is 169,000 light years away [Knudlseder, 1998]. Therefore, radioactive decay rates were not significantly different 169,000 years ago. Furthermore, the fading rate and gamma rays have been observed for supernova SN1991T, which is 60 million light years away [Prantzos, 1999]. The fading rate is also consistent with observations of supernovae billions of light years away [Perlmutter et al, 1997].The Oklo reactor was the site of a natural nuclear reaction 1800 million years ago. The fine structure constant affects neutron capture rates, which can be measured from the reactor's products. These measurements show no detectable change in the fine structure constant and neutron capture for almost 2 billion years. [Shlyakhter, 1976; Fujii et al, 2000].

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As far as coming up with an evidenceless fantasy as to whether it might be older or younger, it don't much matter, as both would be nothingness without knowing!

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JM: Ok, I will accept your position that science can know nothing about the earth. It seems a rather defeatist position to take since it also must be true that we can know nothing about the past and then we are all wasting our time on here anyway (even you).

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To determine something fairly accurate, it seems to me, you would need to know the conditions that existed pre flood, as well as in flood, not just the part of the equation called 'post flood' otherwise our answer will be skewed.

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JM: Yes, you would also need to provide evidence that the flood occurred. Sadly, as you note above, we can never solve that problem since it is unknowable.

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Such as the amount of water covering the earth, the amount of carbon, salt, etc in the air, and water.

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JM: How, according to you, do these things affect magnetic reversals?

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Such as a 'beginning' in other words if certain processes began, when exactly did they start, and what affected them along the way?

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JM: How do these questions apply to the existence, or non-existence of magnetic reversals? After all, that's what my question was about.

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To simply measure how something erodes, or decays etc now, without a good understanding is not acceptable.

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JM: What does this have to do with reversals? Are you changing the subject?

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I could take someone to Canada's Trans Canada Hwy (for example)which goes from Atlantic to Pacific, take them to Nova Scotia near where it begins somewhere, at a place where the road happens to be heading North for several miles, and have them speculate whicere it will come out. They could assume that they have been going north for miles, observably, therefore they would be maybe in Moscow in a few days! Unless they have other factors in the equation, their answer is bound to be wrong!

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JM: I don't see the relevance of this to the existence/non-existence of magnetic reversals.

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Here's something from Walt "..The public was told that parralleling the Mid Oceanic Ridge are bands of ocean floor with reversed magnetic orientation...This suggested periodic reversals of the earth's magnetic poles,

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JM: The public was accurately informed. As I said, even Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research no longer play the 'There are no magnetic reversals' argument.

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...This explanation is wrong. There are no magnetic reversals on the ocean floor, and no compass would reverse direction if brought near...Someone merely drew a line through these fluctuations and labeled everything below this average intensity as a "reversal".. "

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JM: That's not the full picture though is it? On what page does Walt discuss the Ocean Drilling Program and the many holes that have penetrated the ocean floor and found exactly what Walt says isn't there? For example, I suggest you read the textbooks by Opdyke and Channell (Magnetic Stratigraphy, Academic Press, 1996) and J.A. Jacobs book "Reversals of the Earth's Magnetic Field, Cambridge University Press, 1994). Why did Walt not mention the following: (from Jacobs book)
"Reversals of the geomagnetic field were originally found in lava flows (on land). Later, Opdyke et al. (1966) found a polarity record in deep sea sediments going back 3.6 million years in which the pattern of reversals was identical to the igneous rocks on land"and from the Opdyke and Channell book:
"These papers demonstrated that (1) the magnetic anomaly pattern was symmetric on both sides of a spreading ridge and (2) the anomaly pattern emanating from the ridges reproduces in detail the reversal sequence obtained from lava flows on land"Thus the reversals seen on the ocean floor are confirmed by drilling into the ocean floor itself and also correlation to rocks on land. As I said, Walt and Hovind are about the only two creationists who deny reversals.

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I may not know what it is, but I darn sure know what it ain't!

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JM: Perhaps, but you've not convinced anyone on here that you know what science is or isn't.CheersJoe MeertReferences:Emery, G.T., 1972. Perturbation of nuclear decay rates. Annual Review Nuclear Science 22: 165-202.
Fujii, Yasunori et al., 2000. The nuclear interaction at Oklo 2 billion years ago. Nucl. Phys. B 573: 377-401.
Greenlees, Paul, 2000. Theory of Alpha Decay. http://www.phys.jyu.fi/...publications/ptgthesis/node26.html
Knudlseder, J., 1999. Constraints on stellar yields and Sne from gamma-ray line observations, System Unavailable
Krane, Kenneth S., 1987. Introductory Nuclear Physics. John Wiley & Sons.

I'm saying Walt's out to lunch for the reasons given above. Answers in Genesis is saying Walt's out to lunch as is the Institute for Creation Research. What evidence do you have that Walt is correct?CheersJoe Meert

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but do you think it might be useful to post the Hawaiin Island Chain as an example corroborated dating? It would seem to fit in well with the current discussion. Geology isn't my strong point and I don't feel a cut and paste is appropriate with you here. Just a thought.
PS- love the avatar.

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JM: By all means. I don't think anyone objects to accurate cut-and-paste material.CheersJoe Meert

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As in the early p t interpetations Walt hit on. In other words, they did not, in many cases, seem to know a reversal from an anomaly, let alone an ancient world multi magnetic reversal from a rubarb pie

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JM: That's patently false. The people doing magnetic measurements were well aware of how the machinery worked and that they were measuring field intensities over the oceanic crust. I refer you to any of the many publications on marine magnetic anomalies. LAter, the pioneers like Vine and Mathews and Opdyke put two and two together and realized that these magnetic stripes actually represented reversal signatures on the ocean floor. It's ok to disagree with the science if you have good evidence, but it is positively ludicrous to lie about the history of the field and invent stories that are not true.Here's an image of an anomaly (note the axis is written in terms of intensity of the field). This is how marine magnetic anomalies were presented. The interpretation of what they represented came from correlation to land and marine sectionsCHeersJoe Meert[This message has been edited by Joe Meert, 02-03-2004] [Fixed size of image to fit. --Admin][This message has been edited by Percy, 02-03-2004]

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Apparently Walt doesn't agree! Could it be two plus four that they thought was 2 + 2? I think Walt believes there were reversals, but that they happened quickly in the flood period. So, if this data you brought up would lead one to accept millions of years in age I would say it need a new look. If not, I don't much care!

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JM: I know Walt does not agree, but that's because Walt does not understand. Can you show me specifically where Walt claims that reversals do happen? All I could find was a misrepresentation of two studies by Coe and colleagues. You are quite flippant in your dismissal of modern science, yet you've not backed many (if any) of your claims with scientific data. I'm quite happy to concede that you prefer dogma to discovery; however, if you decide engage in something more than a handwave I'd be happy to discuss further. For example, perhaps you'd like to explain the evidence for rapid reversals? Perhaps you'd like to explain how decay rates sped up many fold without melting the earth many times over? Are you willing to defend your ideas with scientific data or are you just here to make pretend arguments?CheersJoe Meert[This message has been edited by Joe Meert, 02-03-2004]