Potential Evidence for a Global Flood

The scablands flood is quite interesting from several perspectives.
For one thing it shows the damage that creationism did to geology as a subject. Since geologists were at the sharp end, even before Darwin, they became very sensitive about catastrophe-type theories. Overly sensitive, with hindsight. Hence the 'ice-dam followed by massive 'scouring' when the dam broke' hypothesis was seen by many as unacceptible. Of course one can see why uniformatarianism took hold and became so dogmatically embedded when you see the sort of nonsense that creationists still spout today, but it was a shame that Bretz had to wait until his 90s to get the recognition and respect he deserved. This doesn't absolve his colleagues from blame, of course. Alden and Bryan behaved in a disgraceful manner, IMHO, and what Pardee was playing at I can only guess (that guess being that he was 'lent on' to keep silent) because he had data that would have lent great support to Bretz's hypothesis.

Well, if you are a creationist then I presume you can put a date on the flood? I'll settle for a rough figure give or take a few centuries. Surely that must be possible, since creationists claim to be able to date the earth from the bible....In fact AiG boffins have done it and find that the date is 2304 BC +/- 11 years. *
Timeline for the Flood | Answers in Genesis So now we know where to look in the geological record and we can also calculate the population dynamics needed to repopulate the world & the animal migration patterns needed to get marsupials over to Australia.
The only thing missing is the date of the miracle needed to 'vanish' all the water, the miracles needed to reprogram the periodic table to give false datings to the host of archaelogical evidence for other cultures at that date, the miracles needed to construct and replace the DNA of the 8 people so that they could produce the currently observed genetic evidence and hide the genetic convergence at that date, and about another couple of thousand assorted miracles to cover climate, axial tilt, orbital peturbation and other little details.Sounds promising....*We really should congratulate the team for that astounding level of accuracy. Cynics might say they pulled a figure from their ass and took away the number they first thought of, but credit where credit is due.....

But surely the article I referenced must be correct? It is written by someone with Dr in front of their name and they know how to express error bars and statistical certainty measures. Thus:

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I believe it does this so clearly that no doubt should remain either about the timing or the nature of this judgment by God upon this earth.

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What more could one ask?
He also knows how to produce cumulative error calculations:

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If we add up the figures mentioned between Shem’s 100th year (Gen. 11:10) and Abraham (Gen. 11:26) we get 350 years. Since 9 names are mentioned it is 350 years +/- 9 (9 margins of error of up to 1 year each).

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Impeccable. Any suggestion that this is not the correct methodology must surely fall in light of this master-class? I mean to say, why bother using hard maths with square roots and square powers when it can be done like this without such fuss?Surely the good Doctor has finally nailed it??Edited by Bikerman, : No reason given.Edited by Bikerman, : No reason given.

I guess that was saying get back on point Bikerman?
Sorry to stray, but it is hard to resist.
The trouble is that the OP is so wide - so many questions in one.
OK, taking it sequentially, I'll do the first.

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I'd like to discuss ancient flood legends worldwide

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Global Flood Myths:
(dates are the dates of the record containing the myth, not the proposed date of the flood)
earliest recorded is the Sumerian Eridu Genesis myth (17th century BCE)Next in order of date would be The Gilgamesh Sumerian myth (7th century BCE)Next would be the Jewish/Hebrew Genesis myth (5th-6th century BCE)Next would be the Chinese Book of history flood myth (circa 500 BCE)Then the Indian Matsya myth (circa 300 CE)Those are the main ones, I think, though there are quite a few more recorded.Edited by Bikerman, : Added sources/citations

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recent scientific discoveries showing that mass extinctions of marine life occurred at a global level

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There are 5 according to the research:1. Cretaceous—Tertiary extinction event - 70 to 65 Mill yrs ago. Probable causes - Asteroid Impact/Volcanic activity
This is the one that did for the dinosaurs. Marine extinction varied quite a lot by species and location. Roughly 10% of bony fish and 20% of cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays, and skates) went extinct, but all the ammonites went and a good proportion of the planktons.2. Triassic—Jurassic extinction event - 205 Mill yrs ago. Probable cause unknown
This is a toughie. There was a lack of speciation underway in the seas rather than an increase in extinctions. Not much known about this one.3. Permian—Triassic extinction event - 251 Mill yrs ago. Probable causes - Impact event/Increased volcanism/Global warming
This is the real Biggie! 95% of marine species go extinct here4. Late Devonian extinction - 360-375 Mill yrs ago. Probable causes - increased volcanism, Global cooling, possible impact event.
This was probably several events over several million years.
Brachiopods, reef building organisms and Trilobytes went almost completely extinct.5. Ordovician—Silurian extinction event - 440-450 Mill yrs ago. Probable causes - continental drift into South Pole causing global drop in temp, increased glaciation and reduction in sea level.
This is the 2nd biggest extinction known. About 65% of marine life went extinct.Sources :
Extinction event - Wikipedia
Just a moment...Edited by Bikerman, : Addition of sources/citationsEdited by Bikerman, : No reason given.Edited by Bikerman, : Correction of bad linkEdited by Bikerman, : No reason given.Edited by Bikerman, : Spelling mistake

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the process of fossilization as possible support for a global catastrophe

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Depends what you mean. If you mean as support for global exitinction events millions of years ago then yes - much of the evidence does indeed come from fossils. If you mean evidence for some imaginary flood a few thousand years ago then no - there is no evidence for such a global flood and not enough time for fossils to form in any case (unless particular and very rare circumstances prevail).
I suggest the following links might be the most suitable explanations for someone of your apparent level of science knowledge.
Fossil Formation: A Pictorial Tour of Premineralization
What is a fossil and how do they form? | Discovering Fossils
Fossilization, How Do Fossils FormIf you want some possible origins for the Genesis (and other) flood myth then I have taken the trouble to reformat and quickly typeset an excellent paper by a Hungarian academic - Vlas Gyrgy
It is a scientific paper, so you will need to concentrate when reading it, but the language used is not overly technical and it should be within reach of anyone with reasonable english.
http://bikerman.co.uk/flood.htmlFinally, there is another possible souce for the Genesis story :
National Geographic - 404 PS - sorry Adminnemooseus, I replied to you instead of the OP. I don't know if you can change the link? Otherwise it should be obvious I hope...Edited by Bikerman, : To add PS after replying to wrong person.

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and that there is indeed more water in the earth's core than has been historically believed.

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Ermm...well first you need to understand the terms. The core is the bit in the middle of the earth. It is in two parts - a solid metal core and a liquid metal surround (the inner and outer core). There is no water at all here - the pressure and temperature are way too extreme. Next is the mantle. Here it gets interesting. The short answer is that we don't know exactly how much water there is in the mantle since it is way too deep to get to. But we do know there is a lot and it is possible that there could be about 5-10 times as much water as there is in all the seas and rivers on the surface.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...7_0307_waterworld.htmlWe can actually see some water in the mantle using seismograph data. This shows a region of water about the size of the Arctic ocean.
http://www.physorg.com/news90171847.htmlNow, before you get too exited, there are a few things to remember.a) This is a 'could be' not an 'is' - what we call an hypothesis, not a solid theory. The fact that there is a fair amount of water (at least the volume of the Arctic ocean) can be said to be theory since we have some good evidence for that, but the Japanese paper is more speculative and is hypothesis.b) If there is a great volume of water in the mantle much of it will have been carried there by subduction (ie when one of the earth's techtonic plates goes under another and is forced down). This does not happen quickly - it takes hundreds, even thousands of millions of years.c) This was predicted some time ago but it is only recently that we have got some fairly solid data to back-up the predictions.
http://ldolphin.org/deepwaters.htmlSo in summary -

• There is more water in the mantle that was believed early last century.
• So far we know that there is as much water, at least, as scientists predicted in the mid-late 1900s.
• Currently scientists are predicting that there may be much more to come - up to 10 times the total surface water.

Now I know fine well that many creationists will take this as evidence for the Noah Flood (they already have)*, despite my explanation that this was carried down by subduction over billions of years. I want you to think about the fact that you asked a proper scientific question and got an honest scientically accurate answer, with no shilly-shallying or deception. Now examine your fellow believers with the same lense and see if they measure up.* Where did all the water come from? - creation.com

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Other subjects might include the mixing of fossil deposits by strata

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This should be the most fertile area for creationists to attack. Evolutionary theory can be falsified/refuted by finding one single fossil in the wrong geological layer - that is how science works - and creationists have sought, over the years, to claim that they have found such examples. They haven't. Not a one.What they have found, and this is no news to geologists, are many examples of upright fossils, which they call polystrate fossils. These are trees which have been rapidly covered with one or more layers of sediment, normally from a volcanic eruption but also possibly from rapid subsidence (particularly on coastal plains) causing a rapid build-up of sediment, or a river changing course and depositing large amounts of silt/sediment.So what you get is a tree, or a number of trees which are partially buried in sediment. Normally this kills them, though there are some examples where the tree has survived the initial burying and has put on fresh growth. The tree is held upright by the sediment and is then either gradually buried in new layers of sediment over the next hundreds or even thousands of years, or buried by another eruption quite quickly. Then, much later, erosion may reveal the tree(s) and they poke through several strata, depending on the rate of the original sedimentation and the subsequent events before the tree was completely buried.This is fairly rare but there are many good examples around the world. Yellowstone park, Bear Valley in Pennsylvania, Mount St Helens in Washington State and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines all contain excellent examples of volcanic 'polystrate' fossils.
Louisianna contains some examples of deltaic 'polystrate' fossil trees that were buried when the Mississippi was diverted into the Atchafalaya River in the 1800s.There is nothing new here, of course, and the reason behind this type of fossil was worked out in the 1800s by geologists such as John William Dawson (1868).
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/trees.htmlFinally, are there other (non tree) examples of fossils which appear to be in the wrong stratum? No, and if creationists ever find one then I'll seriously consider becoming a creationist.Evolution predicts that fossils will be found in distinct layers (strata) and that such strata will date to the same period for the same fossil nomatter where it is found (they are and they do). It predicts that there will be temporal progression of fossils in lineages (there is). It predicts that we should see both examples of punctuated evolution - rapid change from one species to another, and examples of phyletic gradualism - slow and gradual change from one to another (we do). It also predicts that we should be able to trace existing creatures back, through the fossil record and showing links to older, different animals (we can).Creationism (flood hypothesis) predicts that fossils should all appear in a similar stratum formed during the 40 days of the deluge (they don't). It predicts that sorting will be by some force, such as the rate of sinking according to mass/density (it isn't). It predicts that any such sorting must be imperfect since a mixing period of only 40 days globally makes this a certainty (it isn't - it is perfect). It also predicts that there will be no correlation between fossil age and surrounding rock - clearly if fossils were created by Noah's flood, there is no reason that lower layers of fossils should consistently end up sandwiched between rocks with old dates (there is a clear and absolutely consistent correlation).Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ: Part 1AEdited by Bikerman, : No reason given.

Finally, to finish covering all the points:

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evidence of instantaneous fossilization (such as large numbers of fish preserved with flesh outlines or starfish that died hovering over clams en masse).

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Firstly you have to be clear about what fossilisation means and the simple fact is that it is used in a variety of ways which all mean different things.
Now, to the meat of the point. A quick trawl reveals all sorts of creationist claims about instant fossils - all very silly indeed. I couldn't find a starfish hovering over clams 'en masse' or the dish preserved with flesh outlines. Perhaps you can cite a source for these stories?
Natural mummification is real and has happened, rarely. We have some good examples, like Otzi the Iceman and the Tarim mummies
Obviously each requires special conditions - sometimes salinity, sometimes dessication, sometimes lack of ambient oxygen. This is all well documented. So what, exactly, is your point?

Yes this is true.
Just to develop it a little.......
We already do have evidence for mitochondrial eve. It is very likelty that everyone on the planet descends from a woman in Egypt from 180,000 - 220,000 years ago.Interestingly the male equivalent - Y Chromosome Adam - dates back much more recently to between 60,000 and 90,000 years ago in Africa.For creationsist I had better explain that neither M-Eve nor Y-Adam were the 'first'. There may have been millions of other humans (more likely tens of thousands) but the fact is that they, for reasons of chance mainly, are the ancestors that we all happened to descend from. It isn't too difficult to get your head round if you think about it.For Y-Adam, we all have to date back to an original, but that original doesn't have to be the first, or anything like the first, just the only one with an unbroken line of descent to all of us (men). So every man alive is his descendant through the male only line (paternal line).For M-Eve many of her contemporaries would have descendants alive today, but all of them had at least 1 male in the link (males don't pass-on mitochondrial DNA) so M-Eve is the only one with an unbroken line of women between her and all of us.Note that neither is our most recent ancestor - that was someone who lived probably much more recently than you might guess - as little as 5,000 years ago.5,000 years - the flood? Noah?
It is such a shame that the creationists are all scientific half-wits because little snippets like this are much better ammunition for them than the crap about the fossil layers. Here am I, on the science side, admitting that we all have an ancestor who lived at the time of the flood (if they ever decide when it was for sure :-) )I'm going to leave that in the air for the creationists to ponder and consider. Will they accept that genetics is a useful dating tool if it shows them something that they might find useful, rather than something that constantly knocks them back....? I wonder.......PS Mr Mod...I did deliberately detour a little, but only so I could arrive at this destination which I hope you agree is on-topic....?Edited by Bikerman, : Appeal to mod about being on or off-topicEdited by Bikerman, : No reason given.

But you know the normal tactic - they will say that 'kinds' are not the same as 'species' and therefore the DNA inheritance is different because the chromosomes contain different gene sequences than if we were evolved.
In fact that is a paraphrase of what the last creationist told me, and I think I have put it rather better and more coherently than she did (she claimed to be a graduate biologist).That argument doesn't work because it is complete gibberish, but it doesn't apply to us because we are, by the creationists insistence, a single species. :-)So all the creationists have to do is prove they understood what I posted and use it to make a case...talk about loading the gun before handing it to the opponent....

But you are arguing rationaly using the scientific method. Do you honestly thing that a creationist would concede much of that? Let me change mode
Woodmorappe clearly shows how the ark was built so we know how many types there were. Obviously the genetics are wrong because they show species where non existed. We know what species existed because they were the 'kinds' mentioned in the bible.
The scientist Jason D Browning. using Woodmarappe's research shows that the evidence for the flood is overwhelming: TurnPike Web Hosting Services and E-Commerce Solutions by Crystal Lust
The notion that we can trust the genetic predictions made by people who don't even know how many species there were is silly. We know what we need to know from the bible...

Ahh back.....now, isn't that more what you really expect to get, only probably less well argued? :-)

Yes I know you say you are not a YEC that's why the word 'if' appeared. In fact I've said what I think you are in another thread - a dispensationalist.
Believe in endtime prophecies, emphasis on Revelation, hidden meanings about Israel - classic dispensationalist.

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As for the Noaic Flood, 4350 years ago is likely close. It has long been my contention that due to unknowns such as earth's position, earth's atmosphere, earth's topology, earth's chemical properties, etc relative to a pre-flood planet, the factors which determine modern dating data likely render it impossible to date anything near flood or pre-flood.

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LOL have you any idea how ridiculous that is?
1. I believe in the flood
2. I believe it was at 4350BCE
3. The evidence says otherwise
4. Therefore there must be some hidden variable solution which accounts for it all.Dude. The way to reconcile the accounts is simple. Yours is imaginary.
Erath's topology? hehehehe
Chemical properties? don't...please...you are killing me...this is classic....
earth's position? ...WHHAAAHHH...you've peaked....I could give you some basic lessons in fallacies like begging the question, appeal to ignorance, assertion from ignorance etc but it's better if I don't and have the occasional giggle instead. This one is definitely going into my collection on my site...congrats...

I thought that at least one apologist would try to use the information about the NCA 5000 years ago - apparently not. Shame, that would have been entertaining...:-)

Nor can any such difference be very great, since we know that there were many flourishing civilisations at the time of the proposed flood and there is no major (certainly no global) hiatus at that time in the historical record. The can trace the egyptians right through the supposed period of flood. No evidence of them building rafts for the pyramids. No possibility of them being killed-off since the lineages can actually be traced..
Bonkers notions deserve ridicule and contempt.