Wegener and Evidence for Continental Drift

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"And I say again - a Phd. in a particular area of geophysics is NOT the same as a degree in the very basics of geology."

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--Then you have no idea what courses you have to take to become a geophysicist. Too bad Joseph Meert isn't here to slap you around for your thoughts on geophysicists. Is anyone else reading this?

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I have little doubt that Joe would agree: geophysics without a sound basis in fundamental geology and familiarity known geological ground truth is pretty much worthless. In fact, I know several geophysicists who would say the same thing. They would all consider Baumgardner to be WAY off base.

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I could possibly grant you my recognition of your credibility when you comment on mainstream geology. But from what I have read of your posts, you don't have much of an idea as to what the current paradigms of young earth geodynamics and the currently prevailing geological models thereof are.

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Are you sure you're not trying to be insulting? I did read Dr. Baumgardner's work. I understand 'the current paradigms of young earth geodynamics', such as they are - and my conclusion, as a professional geologist, is that CPT is wholly inadequate in comparison to normal plate tectonics. And let's be honest here - Dr. Baumgardner did not develop CPT as an alternative; he states as much that he did it to explain the Bible and nothing more.

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I don't think it is difficult to explain in a CPT framework. While they didn't have to occur 'several times a day' as you say, it was often. Given that CPT requires that the current oceanic lithosphere all be originating during the flood event, the recoreded reversals in magnetic polarity must have also occured during that time. Also, given that the tectonic event also incorperates accelerated decay and there would therefore be a corresponding increase in temperature in various seismic localities, I would think that outer-core convection would not also be effected. The convection of the outer-core is the current explanation for the earths magnetism.

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I agree that the rate of one a day is more accurate than my estimate. I possibly over-calculated the number of reversals, and I apologise for my error. However the rate is still too high - this means that the convection currents in the outer core would have to change completely once a day and produce a new reversal. This is not possible, TC - the energy required to do this is beyond the capacity of the Earth. Even if Baumgardner's model could accomplish this, it is based on faulty assuptions. I refer you to Joseph Meert's essay on ocean depths:THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEANSThis refutes Baumgardner's work using simple equations for ocean floor topography. He states:"Baumgardner's model relies on unrealistic viscosity values and extreme values for other parameters in order to generate runaway subduction."Notice that Joesph Meert is the associate Professor of Geology at the University of Florida. This is the same Joseph Meert who apparently will slap me around for my opinion of Dr. Baumgardner.

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"I did consider the possibility. Any new geological theory is very interesting to me - and having examined Dr. Baumgardner's work, I have come to the conclusion that his basis for developing CPT is not scientific, and there is no solid evidence or foundation for CPT other than his belief in a literalist interpretation of the Bible."
--So, have you examined Baumgardners work or have you examined his motive for doing the work? This sounds more like the latter.

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Do you have nothing better to do than insult me for having a professional opinion? The motive for his work is as important as the work itself - because he is obviously biased by it and has admitted as such! If I decided to do research because a 2000 year old book told me that all blue-eyed people were idiots, and admitted it in an interview, no scientist would dream of taking me seriously no matter what I found.

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"I'm sorry to tell you this, but in this case the Bible has failed the test. "
--No, if it has failed, it is that interpretation of the Bible, not the Bible itself.

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And it never ceases to amaze me that no creationist can possibly consider that the Bible is wrong, as if it's some kind of insult to God or whatever. It's document that's thousands of years old, written by men (who may have been guided by a higher being), and translated across three different languages at least of which there are numerous versions today - and you mean to tell me that there are no errors or mistakes? That the original writers, or the translators, didn't add their own colouring to events described? That it was never changed, not once, by the Church? Who the hell do you think you're fooling?

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Also, this is one of my problems I have with many of my opposing views such as yourself in this instance. You have little patience, taking a look at the current condition of our young earth framework, finding it has flaws, and even highly detrimental flaws and conclude it false. I think this is fallicious and future advancement will show this to be true.

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You don't think that a model with highly detrimental flaws should be discarded in favour of one that has none? That's what scientists have been doing for years. If I had no patience, TC, I'd post my actual opinion of Dr. Baumgardner and you on this thread and start a flame war - but that is against the rules, would serve no good purpose, and I believe firmly in the free and open exchange of ideas rather than name-calling.

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"There is nothing 'assumed' about the rates of geological processes."
--lol, you sure? I thought you were a geologist?

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"Modern day evidence gives us data to this effect. Why should the past rates be so radically different?"
--That isn't my question, my question is, why do the past rates have to be so radically uniform.

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Modern geological rates are measured directly. These are assumed to be the same as prehistoric rates because a fundamental principle of geology is that of Uniformatarianism - that the modern processes are similar or identical to the prehistoric ones. This works in every other area of geology very well, so much so that geologists take it more or less for granted - so fine, nit-pick if you will. The fact remains that the difference in rates that is required for CPT makes no sense (see Joseph Meert's essay), whereas it fits perfectly with PT.

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"Because CPT demands it, and the Bible supports it. Make no mistake about this - there are far more differences in the two theories other than the difference in rates"
--I havent made this mistake. Sure there are different processes, but it seems that 99% of it has to do with the rate of known processes(eg. cooling, subduction, orogenesis, lithification, etc).

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You don't seem to understand here - such an extreme difference in rates produces an extreme difference in the processes involved, especially in geology. Under a fast rate of strain, rock behaves completely differently in comparison to a slow rate of strain. It's similar to some one slowly extending their arm, and some one throwing a punch - the effects of the two actions on the arm are very different.The rock records the nature of the strain it experienced, and recently geologists have begun to make great advances in strain analysis. I'm suprised that Dr. Baumgardner hasn't thought of performing such an analysis, which could concieveably prove or disprove his theory once and for all.

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--Funny, I have yet to see anything which you have presented which isn't compatible with CPT.

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That's because, unlike creationists, I don't feel the need to bash away at theories I don't like. I could present evidence that I feel would refute it - but I doubt you'd listen. Anyway, this is your thread; you have to support your own assertations.Oh and for the record - Joseph's essay isn't compatible with CPT.The Rock Hound------------------
"Science constantly poses questions, where religion can only shout about answers."

Hi TC, welcome back! You write much more, but this is sufficient to indicate that you've misunderstood how evident and distinct the discontinuity would be. It wouldn't be subtle but prominently obvious. It couldn't possibly be missed. If it were there it would have been seen long ago. The discontinuity would be particular clear on sonar depth soundings. It doesn't show up because it isn't there.Here's why the discontinuity would be so large. Mid-ocean sedimentation rates are about 1 cm per thousand years. That means that only 5 cm of present ocean sediment can be have occurred in the 5000 years since the flood. The remainder of the great depths of ocean sediment, at least a hundred feet in much of the ocean away from ridges and in many places nearly a thousand feet, must have originated during the flood. The sediment is deepest nearest the continents where the sea floor is oldest and received sedimentation for the entire flood year, but it should be recognized that runoff from the continents could only have occurred during a short period of the flood year between when it began to rain and the later submergence of the continents shortly thereafter. Once submerged, runoff from the continents would have ceased.Sedimentation rates during the flood year would have had to have been enormous in order to deposit such great depths of sediment. For a sedimentation depth of 100 feet, a fairly small depth, sedimentation rates would have to have been a few inches a day. Water would have had to have been in vigorous movement to transport sediment at that rate, and the sediment would have had to have been very large grained to fall out of such turbulent water. Because the sediment is largely due to large tectonic movements and large basaltic production at oceanic ridges, the sediment would have only a small organic component. Sedimentation depths should be largest near the areas of greatest disturbance, which would be at oceanic ridges and subduction zones.Once rapid tectonic movement ceased the remaining large grained particles would rapidly fall out of the oceans as sediment. This includes near oceanic ridges, one area of maximum disturbance. Sedimentation rates would suddenly decline from inches per day to centimeters per millennium.The above discussion leads to these conclusions:

1. At a point a couple hundred meters from oceanic ridges the discontinuity between feet of sediment to an inch or so of sediment should stand out prominently, but no one has ever reported such a discontinuity. The transition between the flood and post-flood period would not be gradual because the transition was not gradual. The sudden halt of rapid tectonic movement would bring a sudden end to rapid large-grained sedimentation.
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2. Across much of the ocean floor there should be another discontinuity between the top few centimeters of fine-grained sediments containing a fair amount of organic material and the remaining many feet of sediment which should be large grained and largely absent of organic matter. We instead find no discontinuity, and the sediment is for the most part fine-grained with a large organic component.

Moving on: There is no evidence for the flood. I know that you advocate rapid tectonic movement, rapid cooling, rapid decay and rapid magnetic reversals, but not only is there no evidence for any of these, there is no evidence for the flood, and so no need for you to speculate about them.Since Wegener's evidence is a topic of this thread, it is appropriate here to point out here the dramatic difference in evidence between Wegener and your scenario. Wegener had the following evidence showing that the continents had once been joined (this comes from Upheaval from the Abyss: Ocean Floor Mapping and the Earth Science Revolution):

1. Similar animal and plant species, such as marsupials in both South America and Australia.
2. Similar fossils, such as found in South America and Africa.
3. Similar geologic layers, such as an extension of the Appalachian mountains in Scotland
4. Fossils found where similar organisms can't exist today, such as tropical plants found in Antarctica and on Arctic islands.

Based upon this evidence Wegener was able to argue that, as implausible as it sounded, the continents had moved over time. Given the strong evidence, it made sense to seek a mechanism which could move continents.Now, if you had any kind of evidence for the flood at all then you could reasonably argue for your other claims of accelerated physical processes. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that the evidence for the flood was strong. For example, let's say that the ocean floor sediment was predominantly large grained, largely absent of organic matter and with a sediment depth discontinuity about 200 meters from ocean ridges, but that all our other evidence was the same. In other words, the radiometric dates of geologic layers, the magnetic reversal data, the distribution of fossils, and so forth were all the same, but that the ocean sediments were strongly indicative of a recent global flood. We would have to try to reconcile this conflicting data, and in this case it would make sense to explore the possibility of accelerated processes.But the ocean sediments are not large grained, and you have no evidence for a recent global flood, and you therefore have no justification for exploring or advocating accelerated physical processes, nor any evidence of them anyway. This is the same type of argument that you made earlier, which I didn't quote, that you don't see why sediments should appear differently depending upon whether they were deposited rapidly or slowly. We've been over this ground before. Things which happen rapidly leave different evidence from those which happen slowly. As I once argued, if you extend your fist to someone's nose at the rate of 1 inch/second, and then do it again at the rate of 1000 inches/second, the outcomes will be dramatically different. Fine grained particles stay suspended in turbulent water, so fine grained sediments indicate still water. Large grained sediments indicate turbulent waters, larger particles like pebbles, rocks and boulders indicate very rapidly moving water such as might occur with a flood in a narrow channel.The same is true of fossil distributions. The fossil distribution in sediments deposited over hundreds of millions of years would look dramatically different from the distribution in sediments set down over the course of only a single year. What we find is that fossils differ increasingly from modern forms with increasing depth. A corollary would be that the greater the distance in time between layers the greater the difference in fossils. You can only make a statement like, "Alot of what we see in the cambrian we still see hundreds of millions of years later," if you are ignorant of the fossil record. Even other Creationists realize how different the lifeforms in different eras are. Probably no species survived the Cambrian by hundreds of millions of years, and very few genuses, possibly none. Even more important, each era subsequent to the Cambrian produced new species not found in the Cambrian. You won't find any dinosaurs or reptiles or mammals in the Cambrian. You won't find any dinosaurs or mammals in the Devonian. You won't find any but the tiniest of mammals in the Jurassic. And the reason you don't find them is because these creatures did not exist when the sediments were formed.Think about it, TC. It would only take finding mammals in the Cambrian to prove evolution (and much of geology) wrong. Nothing like this has ever been found. Mammals dominate the globe, yet not a single mammal appears in the lowest layers. Not a single mammal anywhere around the globe just happened to die or been sick just before the flood and so been unable to escape to higher levels. For the flood to have happened you would you need the fossil distribution to look much different than it does. It isn't possible for a flood to produce the organized fossil distributions that we actually find.Different processes produce different evidence. You can't sidestep this very obvious truth. The way science chooses between two points of view is to figure out what evidence would be different if one view held and not the other, then search for that evidence. We've all already given you many, many ways in which the evidence would be different than what we find had there been a global flood, and in each case the evidence indicates there was no flood. Uh, because you said "exponential" again? I try to avoid becoming personal, but if you're going to ask why I brought this up then I have no choice. Face it, TC, you are not a model of consistency, nor do you have a photographic memory. You often repeat mistakes and forget what you once seemed to understand (just look at your statement about the Cambrian above). Don't expect other people to read your mind and figure out where you merely misspoke and where you have fallen back into an old and erroneous understanding.I'm just going to pass by the "you said"/"did not" parts about continental sediment appearing far from continents. Suffice it to say that several people thought you were saying this. Is this the anonymous data referred to earlier in your message? Please make it easy on people and provide a link to messages. No one paid any attention to your data in Message 74 because you never provided any context. All you said about it was, "From the data that I had presented earlier," which isn't any information at all. So I went back through the thread, TC, and guess what? Those images don't appear in any message earlier in the thread. When you said you presented this information earlier, did you mean in another thread? Do you think we're mind readers, TC? Are you beginning to see the advantage of focusing your efforts onto fewer messages? More quality, less quantity?Anyway, there are two reasons why I can't completely address the point that I finally understand you've been making about the randomness of sedimentation depths. First, you provided no context for your images. Second, your images have the wrong scale for 200 meters from the ridge. They provide no information whatsoever for sedimentary depths that small or that close to the ridge. About the smallest depth that can be represented on your charts is a meter, about 20 times too large, and the smallest distance from the ridge is maybe a half kilometer, about two and a half times too large.But anyway, the discontinuity you're claiming wouldn't be there because of local variation would most certainly be there despite any local variation. It's appearance will vary according to local conditions like depth, currents, latitude, local flora/faunal populations, but the discontinuity will be there. Except that it's not, because there was no flood.I feel it important to note that you are once again arguing along the lines of, "Aw, shucks, we sure wish there was some kind of evidence that would help us distinguish between modern geology and flood theory, but by-dang-it we keep getting confounded in every direction we turn." You don't make a real compelling case that you're interested in finding evidence. Well now you're just being obscurantist. Do you want to have a reasonable discussion or are you just determined to be difficult? Organisms which die in catastrophes are not experiencing environmental stress. People who drown or are crushed in avalanches do not die from environmental stress. The sediments off many coast lines are very deep and very old. For example, the sediments off the Atlantic coast of the United States go back to the Jurassic era at the bottom of the sediment column. As I said earlier, near continents where there's copious life on the sea floor we find progressions in the layers of the same animal type changing modestly from layer to layer. Perhaps you misunderstood this last part. The changes accumulate over time, remember, even though the change between consecutive layers is small. And the changes are sufficiently small that a flood could not possibly differentiate. Plus different layers far apart contain creatures that are the same in size, shape and weight but are nonetheless different creatures. And we see this progression through all the millions of years of layers in a manner consistent with evolution and inconsistent with the randomness of a sudden catastrophe.About your Venusian evidence, sorry, TC. It reads like science fiction hash to me. I'm not going to give it the dignity of a reply, and I've spent more than enough time on your unsupported assertions already. Plus , it's just a lengthy multi-paragraph cut-n-paste from your webpage. If you want to try to summarize clearly and distinctly in just a few sentences in a message here then I'll be glad to respond to that. So tell us the evidence that indicates to you, hints to you in some way that there are deeper mysteries out there? Please don't repeat your, "Well I have evidence, its vague and alluring to the highest degree, explained in section 3.2 of my article." Tell us your evidence, TC, straight out, right here. Yes, TC, it probably would be a waste - w-a-s-t-e! --Percy[Edited to fix typos and a couple poorly expressed phrases. --Percy][This message has been edited by Percipient, 06-24-2003]

Hey Percy - I've been wondering about the question of strain analyses in the Triassic crust at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. In theory this crust should be badly strained if CPT holds any truth. Ireland has little or no Mesozoic sediment because of glacial erosion, so I can't really say anything for definite about it - but I was wondering if you had any opinion?I ask this because you obviously have an extensive scientific background.The Rock Hound

After reading this and many other threads, it seems painfully obvious that YECs KNOW they can never prove a young Earth. Why? Because, as Percy pointed out in his post above, there are no mammals in the Cambrian. If Creationists really did believe they could prove a young Earth and disprove evolution, they would all be out in the field digging through every Cambrian/Precambrian outcrop looking for those pesky mammals, or the Jurassic looking for humans. Instead, they waste their time trying to prove CPT when much easier ways exist to prove their theory.At this point, there is absolutely no reason at all to support CPT. As Rockhound stated, Dr. Baumgardner did not develop CPT as an alternative to PT. There was no need since PT explains the available physical evidence extrememly well. Baumgardner's entire motivation for developing CPT was to support the Bible ONLY. He has absolutely no supporting evidence whatsoever!! Nor is he, or anyone, ever likely to find any.TC, if you really want to prove YEC, go out to the field and find a human (or a fish or dinosaur or mammal or flower etc. etc. etc.) in the Cambrian. That's all! It's very simple.And if Creationist organizations were serious about proving once and for all that Creation is true, they would ALL be out there conducting those types of studies or paying others to do it. As complex as the geologic record and evolutionary theory are, they would come tumbling down quickly and easily with just a few anomalous fossil finds.

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Hey Percy - I've been wondering about the question of strain analyses in the Triassic crust at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. In theory this crust should be badly strained if CPT holds any truth. Ireland has little or no Mesozoic sediment because of glacial erosion, so I can't really say anything for definite about it - but I was wondering if you had any opinion?

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What kind of strain are you looking for? There is certainly abundant structural evidence of extension in supracrustal rocks during the Triassic along the Atlantic seaboard.

Typed this up yesterday:I'm going to take Percy's word for it and in a thread like this, post comprehensive replies instead of replies to individual ones. This will help me concentrate on substance and lower the possibility of carrying on flame wars. As much as many(even myself a lot of the time) would like to flame on, this isn't how science is done and isn't what gets published in science journals--this isn't how points are supported.To clear up some issues. IrishRockHound brought his thoughts on geophysicists and how(at least as I have inferred from his comments) they do not require a thorough understanding of (at least macro-scale) geologic processes. Most particularily, as he has exemplified studies on geomagnetism. I have stated in response that Joe Meert would slap him around for saying such a thing (Joe Meert can think whatever he likes about Baumgardner himself, but your comment was general to geophysicists). See posts 108, 126. Edge seemed to agree with IRH to some extent in his post 151. IRH's post 152 has said in reply to my analog to Joe Meert: "Notice that Joesph[sic] Meert is the associate Professor of Geology at the University of Florida. This is the same Joseph Meert who apparently will slap me around for my opinion of Dr. Baumgardner." But Meert is not a Professor of 'Geology', but of Geodynamics. Which is in very close relationship to Geophysics. Those familiar with texts written on Geophysics and Geodynamics know they go thorough explanation of the dynamics and physics of geological phenomena. Sure they(geophysicists) may not be as well versed in the diverse topics of study in general geology such as sedimentology or paleontology, but they certainly have thorough understanding of geomagnetism and other such geological phenomena.To further clarify my assertions about the dismissal of authigenic sedimentary precipitates in the ocean as relevant in the search for a sedimentary thickness discontinuity. Edge, the deep-sea authigenic sedimentation is local, especially the most relevant hydrothermal precipitates for obvious reasons. None of my 4 references did it say that 'the pacific plate' is a source of authigenic sedimentation. In all cases when referring to the pacific ocean they were talking of hydrothermal precipitation. The plate itself is not a source of this form of sediment. One of the sources says that 40-50% of the pacific floor is where abundant hydrothermal systems can be found. But of course one of the reasons for this is because sediments blanket the ocean floor on most of the remaining ocean floor (near the continents) where hydrothermal sediments are irrelevant to our inquiry. Technically that 'all of the oceanic crust originated in areas from terrigenous sources' isn't right, take the southern ocean floor from Iceland. Anyways, the reason for my classifying such deep-sea authigenic sedimentation as 'local' is because it is dependent on the quantity of available precipitation, energy, and concentration of hydrothermal systems in any one particular sea-floor locus.John, et al. I have stated that we need to just consider mid-ocean ridge vicinities for sedimentary thickness analysis which are the most isolated and only incorperating pelagic sedimentation. And no John, as I have explained, the turbidite sediments don't travel to the mid-ocean vicinity in the major percentage of the Atlantic ridge so please stop asserting that "The sediment DOES travel these distances." [post #147]. You have stated that you apparently know this and as collateral evidence, that I have said it is so. You are wrong on the former account. The latter account was an inconsistency in my word-usage and explanation(I explained my misuse of describing them as 'immeasurable in post #135)John says: "Right. There isn't one. Look at a sea floor map. There is no discontinuity anywhere that supports the idea that the sea floor spread at a phenomenal rate 6000 years ago."
--There isn't one? I'm glad you are making such a confident assertion, please show me this data, because as me and Percy have both clarified, it has not been presented. All I have is the data from post #74:Please show us your data on a much smaller scale of cm for

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but it should be recognized that runoff from the continents could only have occurred during a short period of the flood year between when it began to rain and the later submergence of the continents shortly thereafter. Once submerged, runoff from the continents would have ceased.

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--But this isn't entirely true, turbidities being caused by seismic activity would have originated in a submarine environment around the continental shelf, so whenever there was movement, there goes the turbidities. You also say: "Water would have had to have been in vigorous movement to transport sediment at that rate, and the sediment would have had to have been very large grained to fall out of such turbulent water." This isn't entirely true either. It isn't that it would have fallen out of the turbulent water, its that as the turibidity continued down slope the sediments left behind in a more tranquil environment, they would be deposited. Also the turbidities wouldn't be super massive. Of course some of them probably were in various areas, though the character of the successive layered graded bedding they produce suggests that they were mostly regular sized, but successive. Successive turbidities would only make that cloud of sediments(assuming they could not have been deposited before a subsequent turbidity) denser and would deposit faster. Sediments wouldn't be thicker near ocean ridges just because it would have been a place of 'greater disturbance'. Thicker sediments merely indicate that its place of deposition is closer to the source(continental margins) and/or that that column of ocean floor has been extant for a longer period of time.The sedimentary thickness discontinuity would not be as apparent as you say "many feet to cm", simply because those sediments originating from the continents would not get there in order for there to be such a discontinuity. Your trying to look for a discontinuity which would look like ~5.5cm for flood sediments nearest the ridge to ~5cm for post-flood sedimentation farthest from the ridge. And this assumes the deceleration from rapid plate motion to current rates was immediate which I don't think is possible. You assume it is, but it wouldn't be possible because the driving force wouldn't just halt. The rate of deceleration will correspond with heat-transfer and the exhaustion of viscosity values in the mantle. If you think that would be immediate, I don't know what to tell you.Percy says: "Across much of the ocean floor there should be another discontinuity between the top few centimeters of fine-grained sediments containing a fair amount of organic material and the remaining many feet of sediment which should be large grained and largely absent of organic matter. We instead find no discontinuity, and the sediment is for the most part fine-grained with a large organic component." I don't know about the distribution of organic material in the sediments but I know that your first grain size argument wouldn't be like you say. This is because the sediments aren't just being deposited directly out of some air-fall mechanism. It is being deposited by turbidity currents which deposit linearly away from continental margins larger grains closer to the continents and finer particles further down-slope.Everything Percy cites in post #153 as evidence Wegener had to support continental drift is equally compatible with CPT.Edge says:

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--The cooling rate indeed must be 'fantastic'.

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Good! Then you have evidence! Let's see it!

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--Well I didn't say that I had evidence. I said that if spreading rates were that high they must have been fantastic because of the observed ocean floor topography. In my article here I briefly extrapolate on this point: http://www.promisoft.100megsdns.com/...aft/heattransfer2.htm :

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It has been suggested that a viable model for rapid cooling of the ocean floor may be discovered in the fields of gas and fluid dynamics5,9,10,12. These fields are most particularly difficult to comprehend and a solid understanding of the relevant dynamics of high speed flow and shock hydrodynamics is something that few scientists have obtained. Though it can be noted that it does seem to be a promising area for thorough and long-term research. If we can understand exactly how the newly formed hot oceanic crust would have reacted to direct and near immediate contact with the superposing ocean we may discover a phenomena by which heat can be transferred rapidly.

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--Apparently, the way the underlying hot mantle rock would react with water is much different than warm solid igneous rock when it comes to the rate of cooling. As explained, however, I will leave the details of that research up to others."Oh... So we still have to wait? In the meantime, you are convinced that this mystery mechanism is preferable to known mechanisms and observed events. Incredible!"
--Yes, unfortunately we have to be patient. Also, no I am not convinced of this. This is why I am agnostic when it comes to the age of the earth and the rest of the package that comes with it. In fact, I am convinced of the complete opposite. But because of the lack of research in the area, I don't dismiss the possibility that there could be major advancement in young earth geodynamics.For all I know about the heat-transfer issues involved with Young Earth geodynamics and CPT, yes the planet would have been a magma ocean. But there are many factors to that which I am unable to consider because of my lack of understanding in them all. This is another reason why I believe further research is promising.IRH concludes "as a professional geologist", "that CPT is wholly inadequate in comparison to normal plate tectonics". What you might think is odd is that, I totally agree!IRH also states: "...However the rate is still too high - this means that the convection currents in the outer core would have to change completely once a day and produce a new reversal. This is not possible, TC - the energy required to do this is beyond the capacity of the Earth."
--This is a topic of little understanding in the geophysical community--the "unknown mechanisms" that affect the fluid motions in the outer core. But you can round up what information you have showing that your assertion is feasible.BTW - While were on the subject of geomagnetic reversals, I have an interesting hypothesis for CPT which would likely be expected in the midst of the event. Geomagnetic reversals, if somewhat random in timing as is generally thought should indicate to some flexible extent the rate of sea-floor spreading, depending on the linear extent on the sea-floor of the polarity chron. I would think that the rate of sea-floor spreading would vary throughout the extent of the event(eg. acceleration and deceleration of the rate of divergence due to heat). This may also be connected with the rate of cooling of the accreting newly formed oceanic lithosphere. So what could be expected is that the more geomagnetic reversals in a given span of time, the slower plate divergence and with less reversals this would indicate faster plate divergence. If rate of ocean floor plate divergence has been relatively constant, I would expect that the average time for polarity chrons to be relatively equal throughout the total time for sea-floor spreading given a generous error-bar. I think I only have data available for a couple million years back or so with my sources so I'll do some research and get back to you on this. If the data is like it is seen for the past couple million years all through the history of the observed oceanic lithosphere then my prediction would be wrong.IRH cites Joe Meerts essay on ocean floor bathymetry. You may also like to see my article on the exact same issue. Much more elaboration on the geophysical processes involved and it also explains what is needed to reconcile the data with CPT(unlike Meerts immediate conclusion that CPT is by his analysis, false to the highest degree). As cited earlier in this post: http://www.promisoft.100megsdns.com/...aft/heattransfer2.htmNote to IRH, et al. I don't know anything on linguistics or the evolution of language, but I do know that how you interpret such a document as the Bible is a very big factor. Also note that I don't have a problem with being an old earther, or OEC. I am agnostic in that I don't know how old the earth is, or that a global flood ever occurred. But I am greatly interested in delving into the question of whether it is feasible that the earth could be Young and that the faith of my parents and a good portion of the world in the veracity of the story given in Genesis could ever hold water. I agree though, it doesn't hold much water at all right now, but I have plans and plentiful proposals for further research which could potentially decide whether it will or wont hold water in the future.IRH says: "Under a fast rate of strain, rock behaves completely differently in comparison to a slow rate of strain. It's similar to some one slowly extending their arm, and some one throwing a punch - the effects of the two actions on the arm are very different."
--Please expound.. and expound greatly. I have read a bit on elasticity, flexure, stress, and strain, and haven't come to the same conclusion. But then again, it hasn't been my favourite geophysical topic of inquiry. You might also want to consider the fact that this is not the case in all scenarios. Using the ocean floor bathymetry argument given in Joe Meerts article, your analog of the slowly extending arm and throwing the punch will produce the same results, depending on the rate of plate cooling. This is explained in my article.I think I do have reason to consider accelerated decay in a young earth not only for the geochemical reasons explained before but because of the evidence I gave on Venus. I have looked at the crustal evolution of Venus and have noted that its surface is all of relatively uniform age (500 Mya) by the impact retention age. I take this as significant because this is about the same time period that the beginnings of supposed flood sediments were laid down on earth (Cambrian+) marking the onset of the event. I also note that the global resurfacing event was very short lived and therefore, powerful. I also note that little tectonic action has occurred since then. This is consistent with a pulse of accelerated decay in the past. An acceleration in radioisotopic decay would indeed do something of this nature to the Venusian crust without some way to cool it down(probably water).It looks like if I consider explaining away the smaller problems of biogeography I'm going to have to do the same with the larger problems, so I will simply leave it at we have a great problem in that field and don't have the understanding to argue it further than I have. I really have no clue as to why we don't find a small handful of anomalies to the original biogeographic pattern such as a mammal in the Cambrian.Percy says: "Uh, because you said "exponential" again?"
--hm.. ok you caught me, I guess it was another subconscious mistake.The data tables I gave for sedimentary thickness in post #74 were from an online document I found and supplied in post #48: http://www.ocean.cf.ac.uk/people/neil/seds/seds.html I'm sorry if you didn't recall that, no worries. My fault anyways, I should have said 'from the link that I presented earlier' instead of data.All of what you say here is right and some of it is what I have been saying about these tables: "Second, your images have the wrong scale for 200 meters from the ridge. They provide no information whatsoever for sedimentary depths that small or that close to the ridge. About the smallest depth that can be represented on your charts is a meter, about 20 times too large, and the smallest distance from the ridge is maybe a half kilometer, about two and a half times too large."Percy says, "but the discontinuity will be there. Except that it's not..." So, where's the data that shows this? I certainly don't have it."Yes, TC, it probably would be a waste - w-a-s-t-e!" Busted again IRH, I don't understand why you would inquiry on percy's scientific wisdom because he has "an extensive scientific background" when you claim to be a "professional geologist". The reason the Atlantic coasts of the Americas and Africa do not exhibit great compressible deformation from strain(from the breakup of pangea) is the same as mainstream PT will give you. Also, about the Iceland bit, I don't understand what your trying to get at. But surely you know the origin of Iceland and why it doesn't experience stress and strain like the larger continents.If I found a mammal in Cambrian sediments, none of my geological problems would be solved, all that would do is place serious question on the ToE. This isn't what I am trying to do.[Edit] - Edited to correct URL's to the two data plots above.-------------------[This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 06-26-2003][This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 06-26-2003]

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To further clarify my assertions about the dismissal of authigenic sedimentary precipitates in the ocean as relevant in the search for a sedimentary thickness discontinuity. Edge, the deep-sea authigenic sedimentation is local, especially the most relevant hydrothermal precipitates for obvious reasons.

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The distribution of manganese nodules is not local.

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None of my 4 references did it say that 'the pacific plate' is a source of authigenic sedimentation.

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No, one of them said the Pacific Plate is the LOCATION of authigenic sediments.

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In all cases when referring to the pacific ocean they were talking of hydrothermal precipitation. The plate itself is not a source of this form of sediment.

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That could be debated, but the point is irrelevant. Various chemical sediments are widespread across large tracts of the sea floor. The fact that all oceanic crust has formed at the ridges further suggests that hydrothermal precipitates at the ridge are also distributed across the oceanic plates.

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One of the sources says that 40-50% of the pacific floor is where abundant hydrothermal systems can be found.

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And you call this LOCAL??? Maybe you need to define you terms here. I suppose you could say that each molecule is deposited locally, so all deposits are therefor local... I do not get your point.

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But of course one of the reasons for this is because sediments blanket the ocean floor on most of the remaining ocean floor (near the continents) where hydrothermal sediments are irrelevant to our inquiry. Technically that 'all of the oceanic crust originated in areas from terrigenous sources' isn't right, take the southern ocean floor from Iceland. Anyways, the reason for my classifying such deep-sea authigenic sedimentation as 'local' is because it is dependent on the quantity of available precipitation, energy, and concentration of hydrothermal systems in any one particular sea-floor locus.

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So, if there were little terrigenous sediment the chemical sediments would occur everywhere on the sea floor. Now, let me get this straight... you call this local?Evidently, you have redifined 'local' without telling anyone. Please give us the new definition.

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--The cooling rate indeed must be 'fantastic'.

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Good! Then you have evidence! Let's see it!

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--Well I didn't say that I had evidence. I said that if spreading rates were that high they must have been fantastic because of the observed ocean floor topography. In my article here I briefly extrapolate on this point: http://www.promisoft.100megsdns.com/...aft/heattransfer2.htm :

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In other words, cooling rates must have been fantastic because you need them to be fantastic and there is absolutely no evidence that they were.

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It has been suggested that a viable model for rapid cooling of the ocean floor may be discovered in the fields of gas and fluid dynamics5,9,10,12. These fields are most particularly difficult to comprehend and a solid understanding of the relevant dynamics of high speed flow and shock hydrodynamics is something that few scientists have obtained. Though it can be noted that it does seem to be a promising area for thorough and long-term research. If we can understand exactly how the newly formed hot oceanic crust would have reacted to direct and near immediate contact with the superposing ocean we may discover a phenomena by which heat can be transferred rapidly.

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Utter nonsense. Do you have any idea how to place a significant amount of the mantle in contact with seawater? Do you have any idea what the products of such a reaction would be?

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--Apparently, the way the underlying hot mantle rock would react with water is much different than warm solid igneous rock when it comes to the rate of cooling. As explained, however, I will leave the details of that research up to others.

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Hmm, that's convenient. In other words you have absolutely nothing and yet your model is preferrable to mainstream plate tectonics?!

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"Oh... So we still have to wait? In the meantime, you are convinced that this mystery mechanism is preferable to known mechanisms and observed events. Incredible!"

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--Yes, unfortunately we have to be patient. Also, no I am not convinced of this. This is why I am agnostic when it comes to the age of the earth and the rest of the package that comes with it. In fact, I am convinced of the complete opposite. But because of the lack of research in the area, I don't dismiss the possibility that there could be major advancement in young earth geodynamics.

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Are you certain that we can attain heavier-than-air-flight? I think a little more research should be carried out because there may be other explanations for airliners and missiles.I don't know about you, TC, but it would seem to me that valuable research time and money could be better spent than this. Especially when a perfectly viable explanation is available and has survived decades of testing. Good luck funding your project.

Still never satisfied with the right words when the wrong words are available, huh, TC? You meant to say that you're following my advice, not taking my word.I think you're understanding of what IrishRockHound and John have been saying is becoming more and more confused, and after staring at what you said for ten minutes I still despaired of ever sorting it out.While replying to John you said: This is incorrect. Please do not attach my name to your positions. What is it about Creationists that they keep claiming support from people who disagree with them?Regarding your diagrams, we have already established they don't contain relevant data. There was no need to include them in a message yet again. You're not responding to what I said, which was that the discontinuity would be between feet on the one hand and centimeters on the other. In fact, my Message 53 begins with a lengthy explanation for why the discontinuity would be so large. Allow me to summarize. With continents moving at miles per day and sea floor being produced at the same rate the seas would have been very turbulent and held huge amounts of sediment throughout, including near oceanic ridges. In such turbulent waters only large grained particles would fall out as sediment to the sea floor. Once continental movement slowed to its current rate and the seas settled the large grained sediment would have quickly fallen to the sea floor, including at the oceanic ridges. It would be feet deep. New sea floor produced after the flood would accumulate sediment at the current rate of 1 cm per thousand years. Hence, if the flood actually happened we would observe the following:

• A discontinuity in sediment depth of feet on one side and a few centimeters on the other closer to the ridge.
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• A thin veneer of fine grained sediment atop deep large grained sediment throughout almost all sea floor around the world.

But this is not what we find. We instead find that fine grained sediment, in essence muck, extends for hundreds of feet, depth dependent upon distance from oceanic ridges. This isn't a rebuttal but merely a description of your hypothetical scenario for which you've as yet produced no evidence. However, if you wish to insist on this scenario then it implies this sedimentary evidence would be present close to continents:

1. The deepest sedimentary layers should contain the detritus from runoff from the continents prior to their submergence. There should never be any evidence of sea floor life like clams and crabs and so forth because there was no time for them to inhabit the newly created sea floor. Organic content, other than that flowing off the continent, should be low since the new sea would be largely uninhabited. It should not be surprising to find the remains of many land animals washed off the continent.
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2. The next higher sedimentary layer should be the result of turbulent water caused by accelerated continental drift and the seismic activity you insist happened. Organic content should be low.
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3. The next higher sedimentary layer should contain the drainage from continents as they reemerge from the waters.
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4. The highest sedimentary layer would be a thin layer formed during the past 5000 years since the flood, depth dependent upon local conditions but averaging around 5 cm, and having high organic content.

But the sedimentary layers near continents bear no resemblance to this. How many times does this have to be explained to you, TC? We've gone over this before. The point I made was an old one we already spent too many messages explaining to you. The point was about the amount of evidence Wegener had for his theory versus the amount of evidence you have for yours. He had plenty, you have none.Your claim is that the Wegener evidence I cited is completely compatible with your theory, and if this is true then it fully explains why you have no evidence. You have to find evidence *for* your theory that is *not* evidence for current theory, and this means you have to figure out what evidence would be present were your theory true and current theory false, and then you have to go forth and find that evidence. You have to figure out the ways in which the world would be different if your theory were true. Your lack of evidence combined with your inability to even postulate what such evidence would be tells us that you adhere to your theory for non-evidential, ie, non-scientific, reasons.About your geomagnetic reversal speculations, you have two independent variables (time dependent rate of continental movement and time dependent rate of magnetic reversals), so unless you can find a dependent variable or two no data will help you. I don't know what you're missing here, but this is simple logic. Mammals in the Cambrian would be evidence that mammals lived at the same time as Cambrian creatures, which is just what you believe but have no evidence for.--Percy

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But Meert is not a Professor of 'Geology', but of Geodynamics.

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Where did you get this from? I found his webpage here:http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jmeert/index2.htmlIt says quite clearly "Assistant Professor of Geology". Of course, the University of Florida could be lying. Look, I never meant to make a dig at geophysicists in general - and if that's the way I sounded, they all have my sincerest apologies. I probably shouldn't have brought it up in the first place. But can you at least admit that Dr. Baumgardner might be just a little biased here?

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IRH also states: "...However the rate is still too high - this means that the convection currents in the outer core would have to change completely once a day and produce a new reversal. This is not possible, TC - the energy required to do this is beyond the capacity of the Earth."
--This is a topic of little understanding in the geophysical community--the "unknown mechanisms" that affect the fluid motions in the outer core. But you can round up what information you have showing that your assertion is feasible.

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I would say that this subject is better understood than you think. See this link:GeodynamoIt's an excellent page on explaining reversals - I invite anyone to go read it, it's very interesting. (The scientists here built a model of the Earth's geodynamo, and found that the magnetic field reversed itself after a certain time period.) This especially caught my eye:

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Our solution shows how convection in the fluid outer core is continually trying to reverse the field but that the solid inner core inhibits magnetic reversals because the field in the inner core can only change on the much longer time scale of diffusion [2]. Only once in many attempts is a reversal successful, which is probably the reason why the times between reversals of the Earth's field are long and randomly distributed.

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I have no direct evidence that a super-fast rate of reversals is not possible. (The first reason that came to mind that it is not possble is the sheer amount of energy required.) So, in the interests of fair debate, I will support my assertation by other means.I think we may agree that if CPT is wrong, then the idea of a fast rate of reversals is meaningless. In this case, what would we logically expect to see as a result of CPT? Let's go back to basics - it requires a vastly increased rate of tectonic movement, something on a scale never encountered before in human experience. Slow plate tectonics (SPT) needs centimetres per year; CPT needs kilometres per day - say 5cm per year versus 10km per day.This makes 5cm per year versus 3650km per year - consistent, as the Atlantic is on average 3,500km across, and CPT requires that it opened over a single year. So, from 5cm to 3650km is an increase in the rate of 73,000,000%.This is not just a rate increase. The same increase in energy is needed, with a corresponding increase in the effects of tectonic movement compared to what we see today. This means that volcanic activity was literally off the chart during CPT - catastrophic, even. What I would expect to see across the entire Atlantic basin is giant sequences of volcanic material consistant with an explosive, high energy regime.The entire Earth must have been affected by this, as it is inconcieveable that only the Atlantic opened this fast while all other plate margins remained moving at 5cm per year. So the entire Earth experienced this phase of volcanic activity for one year at least. From this I would also expect to see a mass extinction of life at this time recorded in the fossil record.Even one year of this kind of extreme volcanic activity would have a phenomenal impact on the Earth's climate, further reinforcing the mass extinction. This abrupt alteration of climate would be recorded in the rock - see for example, the Snowball Earth Hypothesis, which indicates a severe climate change from evidence such as this.As Dr. Baumgardner hasn't said when he thinks CPT happened, the last two points here are not verifiable. However the first can be tested - are there thick volcanic sequences in the Atlantic?By the way, your link to that article isn't working.

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IRH says: "Under a fast rate of strain, rock behaves completely differently in comparison to a slow rate of strain. It's similar to some one slowly extending their arm, and some one throwing a punch - the effects of the two actions on the arm are very different."
--Please expound.. and expound greatly. I have read a bit on elasticity, flexure, stress, and strain, and haven't come to the same conclusion. But then again, it hasn't been my favourite geophysical topic of inquiry. You might also want to consider the fact that this is not the case in all scenarios. Using the ocean floor bathymetry argument given in Joe Meerts article, your analog of the slowly extending arm and throwing the punch will produce the same results, depending on the rate of plate cooling. This is explained in my article.

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Perhaps that wasn't the best analogy... I'm simply using logic here. If CPT happened then the rock would experience an unheard of degree of strain in comparison to SPT because it's, well, catastrophic. This strain must be recorded in the rock. I was curious to know if it was or not.

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IRH, I don't understand why you would inquiry on percy's scientific wisdom because he has "an extensive scientific background" when you claim to be a "professional geologist". The reason the Atlantic coasts of the Americas and Africa do not exhibit great compressible deformation from strain(from the breakup of pangea) is the same as mainstream PT will give you. Also, about the Iceland bit, I don't understand what your trying to get at. But surely you know the origin of Iceland and why it doesn't experience stress and strain like the larger continents.

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Eh? I never said anything about Iceland. I mentioned Ireland, i.e. where I live. The reason I asked Percy is that he lives in New Hampshire - which is the East Coast as far as I know. If the rock was strained, we wouldn't see it in Ireland because Ireland lost most of its Mesozoic rock in the last Ice Age, and I'm only really familiar with the specifics of Irish geology. I did not consider myself to be familiar enough with American geology to answer this question for definite, so I asked Percy.Do you doubt that I am who I claim to be? If you want I can mail you a copy of my degree.And that's my hideously long response... enjoy...The Rock Hound------------------
"Science constantly poses questions, where religion can only shout about answers."

Well just think about it. If the Atlantic opened over the course of a single year, can you imagine the kind of strain the rock would experience? At current rates strain can be pretty high, but CPT conditions are literally off the scale.There must be something in the rocks to show this if that were the case.The Rock Hound------------------
"Science constantly poses questions, where religion can only shout about answers."

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Well just think about it. If the Atlantic opened over the course of a single year, can you imagine the kind of strain the rock would experience? At current rates strain can be pretty high, but CPT conditions are literally off the scale.
There must be something in the rocks to show this if that were the case.

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Absolutely. There should be structural, textural, compositional, morpologic and lithological effects that are both diagnostic of CPT and yet not explainable by mainstream PT. That is to say, there should be EVIDENCE. Neither TC nor Baumgardner have come up with anything yet.

Earlier I had presented a potential falsification for what would be expected in a quickly spread oceanic lithosphere:

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While were on the subject of geomagnetic reversals, I have an interesting hypothesis for CPT which would likely be expected in the midst of the event. Geomagnetic reversals, if somewhat random in timing as is generally thought should indicate to some flexible extent the rate of sea-floor spreading, depending on the linear extent on the sea-floor of the polarity chron. I would think that the rate of sea-floor spreading would vary throughout the extent of the event(eg. acceleration and deceleration of the rate of divergence due to heat). This may also be connected with the rate of cooling of the accreting newly formed oceanic lithosphere. So what could be expected is that the more geomagnetic reversals in a given span of time, the slower plate divergence and with less reversals this would indicate faster plate divergence. If rate of ocean floor plate divergence has been relatively constant, I would expect that the average time for polarity chrons to be relatively equal throughout the total time for sea-floor spreading given a generous error-bar. I think I only have data available for a couple million years back or so with my sources so I'll do some research and get back to you on this. If the data is like it is seen for the past couple million years all through the history of the observed oceanic lithosphere then my prediction would be wrong.

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Percy says in response to my proposal:

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About your geomagnetic reversal speculations, you have two independent variables (time dependent rate of continental movement and time dependent rate of magnetic reversals), so unless you can find a dependent variable or two no data will help you.

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--I will expound on my reasoning for differentiating between rate of sea-floor spreading and rate of geomagnetic reversals later in this post.I read through the sections on paleomagnetism and geomagnetism in a couple of my books and found sufficient data in Turcotte & Schubert (2002) and Lowrie (1997). In fact, in the latter source, some analysis on this same question was done. I have found that the data is considerably compelling as far as I have briefly researched. The data seem to be diagnostic evidence in favour of a young oceanic lithosphere as is required by CPT.If we look at the data which has been plotted by Lowrie, based upon the polarity timescale of Cande and Kent (1992) in Figure 1 we find that the general trend is an increase from 0 My to about 13.5 My followed by a rapid decline up till the 80 My for which there is data in this graph.Figure 1Figure 2 is where I have taken data from Harland et al. (1990), reproduced in Turcotte & Schubert(2002). The dots are the actual data. Each dot exhibits the quantity of normal polarity chrons as a function of time averaged over successive intervals of 10, 5, and 3 My respectively. The further analysis seen in 2.c will be discussed later. The trend is about the same as is given in Figure 1 though is extended to 170 My. What I have found interesting is that, according to my initial predictions, my proposed method for analyzing the data, and inferring the rate of sea-floor spreading, we see a surprising trend. The red line is the estimated rate of sea-floor spreading by this method of analysis. We see that there, generally speaking, is an acceleration for older sea-floor, a peak for mid-aged sea-floor, and a decline until we reach the most recent sea-floor. This is in great agreement with my earlier predictions for acceleration and deceleration of plate divergence.Figure 2.aFigure 2.bFigure 2.cAfter seeing this I was interested in seeing if there could be any correlation between the geomagnetic data and the observed bathymetric profile of the sea-floor as has been discussed in my article (http://www.promisoft.100megsdns.com/...aft/heattransfer2.htm). I was interested in seeing if any deviations in the data(Fig 3) could be reflected in the geomagnetic data(Fig 1, 2) and found that there were notable correlations for almost every measured point of deviating bathymetric data for both negative deviations and positive deviations from the estimated norm(PM 95). I have marked these with ovals in figure 3 and also marked the span of time in which the deviations occur in the background. Nearly all deviations in Figure 3 can be correlated with the geomagnetic data (Fig 2.c). In Figure 1 when plotting the deviations seen in Figure 3 with bars, we see that they generally overlap slight deviations from the general sloping trends. They also complement each other with whether they are negative or positive deviations.I have marked with arrows whether the deviations in the bathymetric data are positive or negative. The most prominent inconsistency is with that seen with purple at about 75 My - 105 My which does not agree with the geomagnetic data by this interpretation. What may be the cause of this may be that they correlate inversely--or instead of with the geomagnetic rate, the rate of sea-floor spreading. If we do this, nearly all data could successfully complement each other if shifted to the right 5-10 My. This also isn't just something that could be done as a "convenience", since the rate of sea-floor spreading is much faster, it would be expected that the curie temperature not be reached until a certain time. The 5-10 My value may be that point where geomagnetic data is "locked" into the ocean floor.Figure 3The geomagnetic data from Cande and Kent (1992) also agree with the bathymetric data in Fig 3 as is shown in Fig 4:You may want to see the original source to verify the graph, seeing as it is a dot plot instead of a line plot in Lowrie (pg. 305) the deviations are more prominent.I have found this correlation considerably compelling which seems to be indicative of varying sea-floor spreading rates which would not be predicted for plate tectonics with the uniformitarian assumption. The reason that this seems to be more indicative of a young, quickly spreading sea-floor is for a couple of reasons.1. The geomagnetic and bathymetric data can only fully correlate with each other by shifting the bathymetric anomalies on the geomagnetic plot by 5-10 My. The shifting of the data is explained by the increased time required for the MORB to reach the curie temperature.2. In order to make this successful correlation, the red line in Fig 2.c has to be the rate of sea-floor spreading. If it was the rate of geomagnetic reversals, it would not correlate with bathymetry.3. The general trend of geomagnetic reversals tends to resemble a bell curve which is considering the entire ocean floor. This seems more indicative for a young earth because it resembles an acceleration and deceleration in the rate of plate divergence--agreeing with the runaway subduction mechanism. This probably would not exist if this was to resemble the rate of geomagnetic reversals because the mechanism for their occurrence is random.4. Regarding point #3, uniformitarian plate tectonics is not going to be able to cooperate with the interpretation of sea-floor spreading because this would imply that spreading values during its peak(where for about 35 My no reversals took place) would be ridiculously high. This is probably the reason why the mainstream community will not consider the possibility that it is proportional to sea-floor spreading. Even though this analysis suggests that sea-floor spreading is more compatible with the data and hence, young earth geodynamics.I will be happy to debate any point in the above.-------------------[This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 06-28-2003][This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 06-28-2003]

"In other words, cooling rates must have been fantastic because you need them to be fantastic^[1] and there is absolutely no evidence that they were^[2]."--[1] - Not because "I" need them to be fantastic, but CPT needs them to have been so.--[2] - I didn't say anything about this but what would you expect to see if cooling rates were high?"Utter nonsense. Do you have any idea how to place a significant amount of the mantle in contact with seawater?^[1] Do you have any idea what the products of such a reaction would be?^[2]"--[1] - Yes I have an idea - Rapid plate divergence.--[2] - Not really. Do you?"Hmm, that's convenient. In other words you have absolutely nothing and yet your model is preferrable to mainstream plate tectonics?!"--And yet my model is preferable to mainstream PT???? Have you been listening at all!? I'm not going to reply to this nonsense again."Are you certain that we can attain heavier-than-air-flight? I think a little more research should be carried out because there may be other explanations for airliners and missiles.--An untenable analogy.-------------------[This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 06-28-2003]