Lake Varve Sediments and the Great Flood

Hi Jar,This thread picked up a lot of posts in a short time, and I'm working my way through the thread, but thought I'd respond to this now. I'm not really replying to you but reacting to what you said for the general audience: I agree that this isn't a scientific model, but it certainly gives the impression of being much more explicit than what we usually see, so I'd thought I'd explain why it isn't a scientific model, or at least why I think it's not. Here's the link again: The Biblical Geologic ModelThe model is presented in tabular form divided into categories of the geological history of the world. Assuming the terminology is explained somewhere (e.g., the phases with names like residual, dispersive, abative, etc., which gives only a rough impression) it seems like a fine model, except for one thing: it's not based upon real-world evidence. As the model itself states in the box in the left hand side, "The timescale is from Ussher's chronology which is based on internal evidence from the bible itself."That the model is based upon revelation and not real-world evidence explains why creationists have such difficulty presenting their views in scientific venues. They could submit a paper based upon this nicely rendered table to a journal, and it would be rejected outright because it isn't derived from evidence from the real world.While it's nice when creationists become explicit about their model, that's only one of the necessary requirements for a scientific model. J. R. R. Tolkein was also very explicit, as was Stephen R. Donaldson, as was J. K. Rowling, but doesn't make Bilbo Baggins, Thomas Covenant or Harry Potter real. What gives a model reality is a foundation of real world evidence.And this creationist model, like all other flood models, has no supporting evidence drawn from the natural world. There's no world-wide flood layer, and there are rafts of evidence for an ancient earth, such as the lake varve layers that are the subject of this thread.When creationists look at their models, if they're truly interested in making them scientific then they have to start asking themselves the fundamental question of science: what evidence from the natural world leads me to conclude this? Right now the answer to that question is that there is no evidence, so step 2 is to go out and seek that evidence.But creationists don't really care about the evidence. They instead just short circuit the whole part of the process of becoming accepted science and instead make special pleadings to school boards, text book publishers and state legislatures. A point that I hope has been made when creationism has gone on trial is that there is no science anywhere that has joined the canon through legislative fiat. Passing a law making knitting part of automotive engineering would make just as much sense.As this thread continues to discuss how lake varve sediments could be consistent with a great flood, such creationist models as this one serve as a reminder of the importance of keeping the focus on the evidence.--Percy

I have no answers for how to make the light bulb go on for Creationist. It seems obvious that water must be completely still for long periods for fine silt to settle out, and that the number of distinct layers means that at a minimum hundreds of thousands of years are involved, and why this shouldn't be obvious to everyone is a mystery to me.The only reason we're talking about this particular varve environment is because creationists don't accept that varves are annual layers, claiming that during the flood many hundreds of varve layers were deposited in very short time spans, despite that that would require varves deposited extremely quickly to appear identical in form and structure and composition to those deposited very slowly as we see happening today.I don't see how claiming that things with a normal appearance instead happened impossibly quickly is much different from just saying that God created varves in just the form we find them today.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Your webpage describes a simple experiment using 1-quart mayonnaise jars where the depth of water is maybe 6 inches, but even more important, the amount of time it takes a water column to empty itself of sedimentary material is not the same as the amount of time it takes for a varve layer to form. Usually a varve layer contains far more material than the overlying water column could contain at any one time, and this means that the sedimentary material in the overlying column must be continually replenished. Rapidly moving water can move sedimentary material very quickly, but of course the water's motion prevents fine material from settling out, so the water must be still.So where is the additional material to come from? It can drift in at extremely low rates so that the energy of the water is low enough to still permit fine-grained sedimentary material to settle out, or material can settle on the surface from the air, and the environment cannot be too windy or it will disturb the quiet water and prevent fine-grained material from settling, though of course this is a function of water depth which must be taken into account. But in either case this often takes a considerable time.In many cases the annual nature of varves is obvious because of seasonal qualities. Many pollens appear at specific fixed points every season, and the pollen grains found at fixed levels in varve layers have a periodicity that matches the seasons. Same for many types of seeds. And there are other apparent differences due to seasons.--Percy

So using that webpage as your reference, how does liquefaction explain varve layers being deposited in very short time periods?--Percy

Everything you and Walt say about liquefaction sounds like nonsense to me. Energetic water is going to carry much heavier particulate matter than just silt and clay, and the heavier particles will settle out first. Varve layers do possess seasonal variations, but nothing that would indicate energetic water.You have to keep in mind that these are Walt's personal ideas, not science. He hasn't participated in the process of scientific investigation by seeking review, replication and successful predictions. About whether rapid varve deposition is possible, it's interesting that Walt thinks so, but new ideas only become accepted as science when many other scientists think so, too, through a process of the aforementioned process of review, replication and successful predictions.Much more significant than the question of the validity of Walt Brown's liquefaction ideas are what we don't see in lake varves. You are not claiming that lake varves are evidence of a great flood 4500 years ago, but that lake varves in existence at the time should not contain any evidence of the flood, that layers laid down during the flood should precisely resemble those laid down before and after. No one in science is going to find such a position credible.Another impossible problem for the flood view is carbon dating, which agrees that varves are almost always laid down annually, both now and for as far into the past as we can measure.Creationists like you and Walt Brown are essentially arguing that the lack of evidence for a world wide flood should not be interpreted as evidence that it never happened, and I agree in principle. But it must also be agreed that if it did actually happen that the evidence for it must be extremely subtle and difficult to detect. Given that archeology has no problem detecting ancient local floods in places like Ur in roughly 2750 BC, the absence of any evidence of an immensely larger flood on a world-wide scale just 1800 years before seems rather conclusive that no such flood ever happened.--Percy

Varves are annual sedimentary layers. You're proposing that a world wide flood could quickly deposit many sedimentary layers identical in all respects to varves we see deposited annually today, including ¹⁴C signatures (average increasing age of one year per layer). While I won't rule anything out as impossible, nothing you or Walt Brown have said makes this seem even remotely possible.You don't seem to be thinking in any common sense way about what you're claiming. As I said earlier, archeologists have had no trouble at all identifying large local floods in Ur thousands of years ago. What leads you to believe that a flood of unimaginable scale would leave the world looking just the same as if it had never happened.--Percy

The relevant point that you need to address is how a world wide flood could quickly deposit many sedimentary layers identical in all respects to varves we see deposited annually today, including 14C signatures (average increasing age of one year per layer).You also need to address how a world wide flood could leave no evidence at all, while archeologists have no trouble identifying evidence of comparatively tiny ancient floods, such as those at Ur, some predating Noah's flood.Nothing you've said is relevant to these issues, or to varves, either, the topic of this thread. The varve layers we see being deposited today occur in exceptionally quiet water, and the older varve layers are identical in character. Varves form under oxygen deprived conditions that result when water in lower levels is very still and doesn't mix with water in higher levels, a factor missing from your active-water scenarios.--Percy

Actually, this is geology, not evolution. You're in the geology forum now.To question the scientific consensus, something scientists do all the time, you must do it the same way scientists do it, by gathering evidence for your position. Your position has no positive evidence, and it is contradicted by existing evidence. Specifically:

1. For the most part, floods do not deposit material into repeated layers. Rather, they sort by particle size, with the largest, heaviest particles settling out first, and then as the energy of the flood waters declines smaller and smaller particles settle out. You need to explain how a world-wide flood could lay down repeated layers identical in every respect to the annual varves we see being deposited today, including seasonal contents such as pollen and seeds.
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2. If flood waters over a basin cause varves, then the world should be covered with basins filled with varves, but it isn't. You need to explain this.
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3. Natural physical processes like floods and springs cannot sort carbon-based materials that have different atomic weights. You need to provide a physical mechanism that can sort materials made up of different isotopes of carbon.
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4. This is off-topic, but I'll just mention that if a world-wide flood had wiped out all human settlements 4500 years ago, then archeology would be finding large numbers of human settlements whose habitation ended at about the same time. You have to explain why this isn't happening.
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5. This, too, is off-topic, more archeology, but why isn't there any evidence of a world-wide flood at human settlements that were continuously occupied through the flood period, such as Ur.

Your proposal is being rejected by people here not because it differs from current scientific views, but because current views have lots of evidence while your proposal has no evidence in its favor and much evidence against it.Just to mention one more thing, you've mentioned several times that science should be researching varves, which is odd because there's a vast amount of scientific varve research. If you're having trouble finding it then just ask - there are people here who can provide references. You can also go to scholar.google.com and type in varves, it returns over 5000 references.--Percy

The definition of a varve is an annual sedimentary layer, so by definition all varves are annual varves. I think what you probably mean to say is that you believe some sedimentary layers have been interpreted as annual when they are not.There are two prime indicators that mark a series of sedimentary layers as annual:

• The same pattern of sub-layers in each layer. One very common pattern is of larger particles (indicating more active water, such as the runoff from glacial melt) beneath smaller particles (indicating very still water, possibly under a cover of ice). Another very common pattern is a sub-layer of spring pollen and seeds beneath a sub-layer of summer pollen and seeds beneath a sub-layer of fall pollen and organic detritus. Many varve layers possess both patterns.
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• Increasing radiocarbon age with increasing depth at a rate very, very close to one year per varve.

Sedimentary layers which don't fit the above criteria (except for fossil varves, which cannot be radiocarbon dated) are not considered varves. That list is, of course, not a complete list of criteria, but I think they are by far the primary ones.In order for a flood scenario to work you have to explain how a flood could perform these steps in order:

1. First lay down a spring sub-layer of spring pollen and seeds with organic material along with particles of a larger size than the top of the underlying winter layer and of a slightly younger radiocarbon age.
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2. Then lay down on top of the spring sub-layer a summer sub-layer consisting of summer pollen and seeds with the largest particle size of the varve layer and with a very slightly younger radiocarbon age.
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3. Then lay down a sub-layer of fall pollen and detritus and smaller particle size and again a very slightly younger radiocarbon age.
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4. Then lay down the thinnest sub-layer consisting of almost no organic material (no pollen or seeds) and very small particulate size and a yet again very slightly younger radiocarbon age.

Then, after the flood has deposited these sub-layers to create a single varve layer, it has to repeat these 4 steps some thousands of times to create the rest of the varve layers.It feels to everyone here that such a thing is impossible, and all your arguments are beside this one major point that dooms your idea.--Percy

This is wrong according to your own creationist sources. Says Creation Wiki, "According to the Biblical chronology the global flood occurred approximately 4500 years ago." The ¹⁴C points on the graph form as nearly perfect a straight line as one could ever expect from real world data. Your answer to a detailed explanation of why a flood can't deposit varves is a simple, "Could too"? Breathtaking!By the way, you've made a garbled reading of what I wrote. I certainly never said that not all varves are annual varves. I said that by definition a varve is annual, because a varve is an annual sedimentary layer. As I suggested earlier, if these questions truly interest you then look them up. They have nothing to do with your key point that a flood could create thousands of varve layers that look identical in every respect to the varve layers we see forming annually today, including the radiocarbon signature.Perhaps Ned will reconsider the suspension. You're not being disruptive, just trying to hold off the inevitable by tenaciously avoiding the central issue. But the strength of a position is measured by the supporting evidence and arguments, not by personal tenacity.If a great flood truly created many of the varve layers, then the way to convince people that that's what happened is to explain how it happened, forthrightly and with evidence, and if you can't explain it, then to seek evidence until you can. Arguing without evidence has only one possible outcome, as you've proven a number of times here.--Percy

Without Reversespin's presence this discussion is at an end, but I thought I'd add a short note about something that just struck me.The thermodynamic argument is one of the most effective in the creationist repertoire because it just makes so much sense. The universe is running down and order cannot spring from disorder, therefore life could not have originated on its own and complexity cannot evolve from simplicity.The task for the science side once this argument enters the discussion? Explain thermodynamics to someone who has no apparent science background and probably can't find Korea on an unmarked map.But it occurs to me that a flood producing repeated ordered layers with strict sorting of lifeforms and radiometrically datable material is precisely the kind of order springing from disorder that the creationist thermodynamic argument says is impossible. So when creationists argue that evolution could never have happened because order can never spring from disorder, we no longer have to deliver a mini-course on thermodynamics that will never be understood anyway. All we have to do is point out the inherent contradiction in their view of thermodynamics, that if it were really true that order could never spring from disorder, then the ordered layers in the Grand Canyon and in varves and so forth could never spring from a chaotic flood, so obviously they don't understand how thermodynamics really works.Once they realize that there's something wrong with the creationist thermodynamic argument, then instead of actually explaining thermodynamics all we have to do is explain what is really possible while still following thermodynamic laws. And that doesn't prevent us from actually going on to explain thermodynamics to any creationists who are really interested.--Percy