Hey Buz,
I see the good Dr. has done an adequate job of fielding my question.
Just to be sure, have you not read through RAZD's post yet on age correlations of an old earth?
quote:
The other approach, radically different, involves the astronomical record. Astronomers seem to be generally agreed that while the period of the Earth's revolution around the Sun has been constant, its period of rotation on its polar axis, at present 24 h, has not been constant throughout Earth's history, and that there has been a deceleration attributable to the dissipation of rotational energy by tidal forces on the surface and in the interior, a slow-down of about 2 sec per 100,000 years according to the most recent estimates. It thus appears that the length of the day has been increasing throughout geological time and that the number of days in the year has been decreasing. At, the beginning of the Cambrian the length of the day would have been 21 h ...
The best of the limited fossil material I have examined so far is from the MiddleDevonian ... Diurnal and annual growth-rates vary in the same individual, adding to the complexity, but in every instance there are more than 365 growth -lines per annum. usually about 400, ranging between extremes of 385 and 410. It is probably too much, considering the crudity of these data, to expect a narrower range of values for the number of days in a year in the Middle Devonian; many more measurements will be necessary to refine them.
A few more data may be mentioned: Lophophllidium from the Pennsylvanian (Conemaugh) of western Pennsylvania gave 390 lines per annum, and Caninia from the Pennsylvanian of Texas, 385. These results imply that the number of days a year has decreased with the passage of time since the Devonian, as postulated by astronomers.
The calculations based on just the astrophysics gives a 400 day/year figure for the Devonian and a 390 day/year figure for the Pennsylvanian, so there is very close accord between the predicted number of days, the measured number of days and the measured age of the fossil corals. These corals will be useful in anchoring the database of annual layers as it builds up a picture of climate change with age and extending, eventually, back into the Devonian period (360 to 408.5 million years ago).
If this were a one time change, due to a one time flood, there would be a brake in the length of day from the period before the flood to that following the flood. Also why the coincidental agreement with our current understanding of geology based upon the geologic column and ages revealed through radiometric dating?
'Have to run, I'm missing Jessi Ventura's conspiracy theories..