Valles Marineris - How do young earthers explain ancient geology on other planets?

Hi all,A common ploy taken by Young Earthers is to postulate some catastrophic event in the (recent) past that caused those planetary features which seem to have required long periods of time to form.The Grand Canyon for instance, is often argued to have been formed by the great flood. Same goes for most ancient fossils and the sediments they are buried in.Ignoring, for a moment, the inadequacy of a recent catastrophy to explain geological features like the Grand Canyon, let's turn our gaze to space to consider the features of other planets. Mars, for instance, is home to the valles marineris. A vast system of canyons spanning 4000km in length, 200km in width, and up to 7 or 8km in depth (wikipedia). This makes it the largest known canyon in the solar system.My limited research on Valles Marineris (mostly wikipedia) has not provided me with a definite answer to how it formed. If we have any experts on martian geology (areology) here, I'd be interested to hear their suggestions. The theories wikipedia mentions include erosion by thermokarst, wind, and tectonic activity.But surely, it would take some pretty massive catastrophe to produce a canyon of this scale on a timespan of 6000 years, on a planet where tectonic activity has stopped, and liquid water does not exist (at least not on a large scale). If YECs who believe the Grand Canyon was formed in one flood event want to stay consistent in their avoidance of omphalism, should they not try to explain the existence of Valles Marineris in a similar fashion?Are there any young-earth hypotheses to explain the seemingly ancient geological features of Mars?Respectfully,-MeldinoorABE: We can discuss more examples of Martian geology if need be (there are plenty that could not possibly have formed within the last 6000yrs). Think it may be a good idea to start with one example though.Edited by Meldinoor, : See ABE

Thread copied here from the Valles Marineris - How do young earthers explain ancient geology on other planets? thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

While these answers aren't helpful, it's a possible answer I'd give if I were a creationist."The bible doesn't mention other planets geology! God could've made them as they are now!"And for the really looney answer: "God used the waters that flooded mars and created it's features to flood the earth and create the earth's features. Then he took it all to Europa to store it for use on a later date!"

Hi Huntard, Yes, I suspect omphalism will be the only card up their sleeve on this one. But seriously though, I think some of the more science-minded YECs on evc (slevesque and arphy for example) would be unimpressed by this argument. I'd be interested to hear a YEC argument for the very weathered appearance of other planets, and particularly Mars.I did spend a short time googling for YEC opinions, and I came across the following madness on creationwiki.org.

quote:

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One oddity of Mars is that it contains the largest of three major geologic features in the Solar System. The largest impact basin, the largest volcanoes and the largest canyon are all found on Mars and in a clear relationship to each other. This relationship provides the key to understanding Martian geology.

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Mars' global topography, and the relationship between the Hellas impact basin and the Tharsis volcanoes.Mars’ largest impact basin is called Hellas. As shown in the topography map, on exactly the other side of Mars from Hellas is Mount Alba Patera, the largest volcano by surface area. This juxtaposition suggests that the Hellas impact caused the eruptions of Alba Patera and the volcanoes of the Tharsis plateau to the south and southwest. To the east is found the gigantic rift valley called Valles Marineris or the Mariner Valley.
These relationships indicate a major geologic catastrophe on Mars resulting in massive volcanic activity. The dating of this event from craters places it at about the time of Noah’s Flood on Earth. This volcanic activity would have increased Mars’s atmospheric pressure to allow liquid water to flow on the surface and thus allow the flooding of the Meridiani Planum region.

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So a meteor caused a volcano to erupt, which caused water to flow on the surface of Mars, which caused the erosion and the canyons we see today? Over a few years?! Within the last few thousand?! The reference links were broken, so I couldn't find out if this was referring to any actual YEC papers or if it was the author's own opinion.Hopefully the YECs on this forum will do better than that.Respectfully,-Meldinoor

I don't know a lot about martian geology, but I don't see how the Valles Marineris ''require'' long periods of time. Or how it is ''seemingly ancient''. Maybe there is something I am missing about it that requires it to take a long time to form.Anyways, of the little I know about mars, I once stumbled upon the subject of a giant flood on mars. Link of the CNN article (2001) about it:http://archives.cnn.com/...ce/08/03/mars.channels/index.htmlThey talk about possibly multiple events of catastrophic floods on the planet. It becomes difficult to date such events or even establish for sure if they ever happened. With still a lot of question marks about mars, it becomes difficult to rule out a recent formation for the Valles Marineris I suppose.But as I said, I know very little about the subject.

I'll be coming back to this, but I've got to be heading to work in a few minutes, so I'll make this initial reply brief. Considering that the planet does not have an atmosphere allowing liquid water, and does not have significant tectonic or volcanic activity, one would be hard pressed to suppose that cataclysmic events on Mars could have caused so much planetary scarring in such short time, with the evidence of this event conveniently evaporating by the time we've got rovers on it. In fact, Mars has always been the "Red Planet", which is why, in antiquity, its namesake was the Roman god of war (war is bloody, hence war is associated with redness). Even earlier, Babylonians associated the planet with their god, Nergal, another god of war.If it had a denser atmosphere and an ocean at that time, I doubt if it would appear red enough to give the impression of fire and blood. So the flooding and the atmosphere that caused the massive scarring and erosion on the planet must have disappeared very quickly, within a few thousand years of creation at most. This should be a problem for the YEC worldview.However, I shall return to this topic after work with more specifics and more refined arguments than what I'm hastily typing out now.Respectfully,-Meldinoor

Want me to respond to that or are you still at work

Sorry, by all means respond. I'm a bit slow getting back to my topics these days since I'm taking my finals this week and I've got a crapload of last minute work to get in (this + my job serve to reduce my available time quite a lot).
And then I got into my other little discussion involving oppression in college, which distracted me a little. I tend to take longer time adding to science threads as I'm more concerned about being properly informed.
I'll see if I can add to this argument tonight (no promises) but by all means respond. After all, I started this thread to find out how YECs explain extra-terrestrial geology.Respectfully,-Meldinoor

First of all, we have to agree that there is evidence pointing to 'cataclysmic events' as you call them, as per the link I gave earlier. In other words, the causes you will attribute to the geologic formation you point out will probably be the same as I do . The issue then is how long ago did this occur.This becomes difficult to analyse since mars is far and so limited testing has been done. But as you said, for liquid water to be we need an atmosphere. And of course this brings two questions:1- What is the minimal atmospheric pressure required for liquid water to exist.2- Since there is little atmosphere left around mars, how much time would it take for this atmosphere to go off into space ?I know 6000 years doesn't seem like a lot when we are used with millions and billions, but it still is a shitload of time and before saying it isn't long enough for the atmosphere of to go away, we would have to do the calculations.I have looked for the equations for this but haven't found them. Unfortunetely, from what I understand of the problem, it requires some knowledge of statistics and thermodynamics, two subjects which I have yet to encounter at university (hopefully next year).------------------------------------------------------------------------------------And finally, I have to ask what is the difference between a valley and a plain for example that makes the valley become a sign of long ages ? For all I know, a plain is formed by gigantic ice sheets which also take a rather long time to form and melt.What I'm saying is that every geological feature in a naturalistic point of view is sign of great age. Heck, the planet is sign of a load of time since by natural means, it probably takes more then a couple millions years to form.In other words, how is a canyon different from a valley, a plain, a planet, a sun in terms of being a sign of long age ? If I say God created the sun, does it become omphalism because it takes a billion years for a hydrogen cloud to collapse and become a sun ?Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Well, there are some things that God would have been obliged to do if he wanted a universe that worked from day one. Obviously creating the sun would have been one of those things, because life on earth would be impossible without it. Similarly he'd have needed to make the sea salt, or he'd have nowhere to keep all the salt-water fish; and he'd have needed to make soil without waiting for sub-aerial weathering to take place, or the plants would have had nowhere to grow.So much we can grant. But you slip into omphalism when you start supposing that he could have gratuitously made the universe look old for no apparent reason except to screw with scientists.

So so Herr Dr.! Sie gehen auf Deautsch ja? For those of you less well versed in the languages:"Refined is the Lord God, but malevolent he is not"

It's more usually translated as "God is subtle, but he is not malicious".

That could work as well. As usual, there are more ways to translate a sentence from one language to the other.Mine was divinely inspired though, so mine is more right then yours!

So is there any clear line to be drawn ? I mean, you are the ones who are gonna tag such and such a statement as either omphalism or not, and so you should have at least some criteria's as to why some thing would be or not be.How is a canyon sign of great age and not a planet ? Or a mountain ?

Through the study of geology, a physical science that uses a combination of physics and chemistry, along with common sense (ex. light things float heavy things sink, younger on top older on bottom).Perhaps you should consider learning about geology and its many subfields from actual geologists and experts in the subfields instead of a few fame-seeking contrarians.Otherwise, your objectiveness in the pursuit of knowledge may come under some question.

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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman RushdieThis rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen