When the flood waters receded, where did they go ?

EdgeCoral reefs pronouncements have been reversed my mainstreamers. Ditto eolian. A complete data analysis stil points to flood IMO. I have conceeded the flowering plant issue a dozen times. I ahve also explained the implications of surges as well.Lyell is fine for studies of the last 4500 years - just not for the flood deposits.I will add bits of new info as they come to hand but if you don't currently think that the YEC flood is plausible that's fine with me. I'm not going to force it on you.

JohnOur marine innundations come in surges (presumably becasue of plate slipping events). In between we have non-marine deposition due tothe 40 days of rain (due to tectonically heated steam). There is not much more to it than that if you want to explain alternting marine and non-marine layers is there? It really is near identical to the mainstream explanation of the alternating beds.Your trees etc are not going to effect layering. We are talking thousands of feet of sediment so hills are not going to effect it later on either. During rapid currents there will be layering of conglmerates and sandstones. During inbetween calms there will be silts and shales. Mt St Helen's is the closest model system for this we have so far and demonstrates rapid layering, rapid canyon formation and floating mats of vegetation.

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 07-10-2002]

JohnWhat's really happening is that we're chatting on the web and you can't go on the record as stating that what we are saying is a good starting point for trying to justify the Biblical flood. Of course it's a good starting point! I refuse to talk details when people can't agree on gross issues. That is the first point at which there is no point.You haven't agreed with our empirical, qualitative starting point so let's not bother with the details. You already proved me wrong in your eyes. No point going on.When I do talk details with numerous people here we simply have to agree to disagree. Some points favour gradualism, some points favour flood. Some points we can't talk details becasue we don't have all of the data sitting in front of us.Tryin to paint me as ignoring your and others comments here is not helpful. It is simply not true - I have modified my synthesis on the basis of comments here on numerous occasions. I have conceeded numerous point here too. I've learned a lot here. In the end we have to base what we are say on total data.

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 07-11-2002]

We've had this discussion Edge and you know my answer.

EdgeSome phenomena will just never have perfect model systems. The global flood kind of fits this scenario.

JohnGood, let's talk gross issues of our starting point.Here it is.Everyone laughs at the idea of a recent Noahic global flood. But it is rather interesting for believers in the Bible that the geological column does record major marine transgression on land sufficient to cover all land below say 1000 feet. If such a transgression happened today about 50% of the earth's land surface would be covered.So if we look at the geological data and ask - what if the Bible is accurate - what if the marine innundations recorded in the geological column are recent events of the Genesis flood?The marine transgressions make up the majority of the geolgoical reocrd on land - they are not a side-issue. In between the main global innundations we have smaller (but 1000s of feet) of fresh water formations. These marine innundations go back until the time that there was a single continent Pangea.Piecing this all together we are forced to conclude that if the Bible is correct then the tectonics of mainstream scinece simply occurred very quickly and the 1000s of feet of sediment were rapidly dumped by surges of marine innundaitons and fresh water flooding. The continetnal drift also occurred during this time and the associated sea-floor spreading would have caused the sea-level changes.The tectonic events also generated the modern mountain chains and it is conceivable that the earth was flatter and that even the entire globe could have been covered at the peak of the Genesis flood.Well that's quite some story. Next we need to look at the details and predictions made as well as potential mechanisms. The point is that there is nothing wrong with this gross level of arguement and it may actually document the truth!

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 07-14-2002]

JohnThe basic evidence of tectonics does not particularly argue for rapid or slow. It is slow now but that is the way every catastrophic event ends too. The actual data itself - lava flows, cross-matching biogeography, sea-floor magnetic anomolies do not argue for slow except if we do not accept accelerated radiodecay. I will grant that without acclerated decay then it all took millions of years. No arguement from me on that. But the mechanism that we propose drove it all rapidly is radiogenic heat - crustal and deep. All of the non-radioisopotic data is consistent with both fast or slow. It is not as if simply looking at the ancient sea-floor can tell us whether it was fast or slow. A computer simualtion might ultimately help distinguish these issues.There is good evidence of incredibly intense periods of vulcanism - that would cover the enitre earth in X feet of magma - the Siberian traps. This is the sort of thing we expect in our model. Your framework interperates the geological column as the story of hyndreds of millions of years of serenity broken by the occasional catastrophe. We see it as creation and then the mother of all catastrophes.In our model the fresh water flood was happening all of the time (at least for the first 40 days obviously). So it was a fresh water flood with tectonically induced marine inuundations. (The 40 days of rain were also tectonically hgerneated - condensed steam from vast trenches of hot magma). So you get alternating marine/non-marine beds. The rain during a marine innundation does not stop it from being marine. So the alterations must be due to the flood occurring as multiple marine surges. Tidal waves is one possibility although with the sea-floor spreading occurring during the flood there would have been genuine changes in ocean basin sizes with plate subduction slippages generating regressions.The order of fossils we put down to biogeography, differential mobility and hydrodynamic sorting. The ark survived by providential positioning (eg on an ocean edge) and the surges don't have to necessarily be tidal waves. The ark was big.Our energy source as explained is acclerated radiodecay. If the decay constants changed as we require then the energy is there in the rocks. Our scenario for generating all of this is the same as your scenario. If we could play it out on a computer screen we would agree with the sequence of events. We just would disagree with the timing and the crustal and mantle temperatures. But neither would violate any physics - both timings would be due to the amount of crustal an mantle heating.I actually love mainstream science and do not mock it.

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 07-15-2002]

JohnHow can you say so confidently that 'The mechanisms of plate tectonics are moving massive lumps of rock around the planet. Accelerate them quickly, as you would have to do, and those big lumps will be pulverized. We do not observe this.'In our scenario we are probably talking about a much hotter, and therefore less viscous, mantle as well as perhaps a more pliable crust.I wont try to pretend fro a second that anyone has proven this but neither can we pretend it has been ruled out. We can't even pretend that the data doesn't even tell this story! Do you really think geologists can always look at rocks and tell how they formed? It's done by fitting to a framework, it's not 'ab initio' or 'first principles'.The continents would of course automatically gradually slow down by friction once the cooling began winning over the heating.The pre-flood sediments were sitting on top of the continents - they just took a ride - and yes they did get folded, twisted and rifted. Take a look at any geology textbook.There is no way I could make such pronouncements in my field about someone else’s model that is so different. Any paradigm fro complex phenomena is essentially a fitted model. Half of what you say about it is because you fitted the data and taught yourself to associate X with Y.And the continents did sink! It is known by mainstream science that vast areas of continents sank at the same time (leading to horizontal drops across vast areas) by 1000s and 1000s of feet! I fully agree with you about the continent elevations being dictated by relative density differences and this is what partially accounts for the elevation changes as well as the sea-floor spreading.Without performing any detailed calculations passive cooling may have been sufficient.What do you mean by 'accelerated radio-decay is otherwise known as a thermonuclear explosion'. The universe has certain parameters, some of which are constant some are not. The decay constants are linked to parameters that are known to be changing at the ppm level. If certain combinations of such universal constants changed in the correct way one could easily get accelerated decay. The only conneciton to thermonuclear explosions would be to check the extent to which their spontaneous occurance would be effected. Neutrons decay into protons, electrons and neutrinos. The rate is dictated by these 'constants'. Similarly for the spitting out of helium by the strong nuclear force.I looked at Joe's web page and I just don't have the time yet to do the maths. In any case I don't think he takes accelerated decay into account there because Baumgardner's model of runaway subduction is a pre-acc-decay idea.Your full grown forests have in some cases been shown to be explainable by burial of log debris. Such floating log mats automatically insert vertically into sludge. You have all ignored that fact.The Siberian trap volcanism occurred during the flood and is found exactly where it is now! We explain everything exactly as you do except it happened in a short time. Lava flows are interspersed with sedimentation. It's only mainstream bias that translates these data automatically into long ages!The air quality would have been pretty ordinary during the flood.If catastrophic rains deposit a 100o feet of non-marine sediments from the highlands into a basin in between marine surges then why would a marine surge wash it all away?A global band of salty sediment? We see about five near global bands of salty sediment! The majority of the geological column on land is salty sediment! We don't see one entirely global layer only because of erosion.The surges were probably tectonically driven causing ocean basin size changes just as you yourselves believe. We go by the same model as you. I'm not kidding. So the water goes back into the ocean because of a tectonic event that made the ocean bigger again - probably a plate subduction slippage. I am very happy to tell you about how your scenario works but the point is why pretend the question is unique to us - it is an issue for both of us equally.The fossils are something that would ultimately need to be explained in detail. I am personally satisfied that our 3-point explanation could achieve the known ordering and that the gross ordering is already consistent with qualitative expectations.Most of your argument is based on claiming that you can estimate whether the event could have occurred quickly and yielded the same data. Since this is a such a different paradigm your statements primarily amount to 'I don't think it would work'. I simply myself prefer to say 'it is possible and a lot of data suggests rapidity'. Your other main argument is based on whether the conditions would have killed the occupants of the ark in which case we would agree that the conditions would have made it difficult but we would say not impossible. Lastly you rightly bring up the very good point of fossils for which we only have a hand-wavy answer.

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 07-15-2002]

EdgeYou are just doing the usual Edge - 'there is no evidence for a global flood' even though we use the same evidence that you use to pronounce marine innundations! You have misunderstood a fitted framework as data itself.

JohnThank-you for taking this series of posts seriously. I will treat yours with that same respect.I agree we are proposing something bizaree. But the Bible does claim something bizaree. And the data IMO does look like something bizaree happened.So, yes we do have to acclerate huge plates. If I ever get the time I'll get into the maths and compare Joe vs Baumgardner etc (as TC has asked me too).Yes, we can assume Pangea was at rest initially. Pangea then broke up, new combinations formed and byt the end we got today's continents. The energy required could probably be calcaulted. Since much of the heat comes from radiodecay we of course provide the mainstream amount of energy in a short timeframe.You raise a very valid point about the forces required to do this over a few years/decades vs the pulverisation threshold. On the other hand the forces are distibuted. This would have to be calculated/simulated. I don't think these calculations can be 'pronounced' in advance.The cooling could have taken decades and millenia. It was probably an exponential drop after some point.I didn't say you can't comment on the model but I didn't think your pronouncements were justifable.The data fit to gradualism is fine - but if it was the flood then it will be wrong. The point is that both are fits to a framework.By 'same time' as sinking I meant that the drops were neat vertical drops maintainng horizontality.Sure, cooling calculations would have to be done.De Young is working on the combination of constants required. Preliminary results are in the RATE book. One hint that we are on the right track is the ppm level change in alpha.The forest stuff is well documented by creationists. But both sides argue a lot about it. It comes down to the extent of rooting. But it is indispuitable that the mechanism exists! Have you seen the floating log piles from Mt St Helens? I have an underwater video showing those logs sinking vertically into sludge. Filmed by Austin, from ICR.Yes the volcanism would have geenrated very bad air.Surges would mess up the top of a previous bed sure - but via hydrodynamic sorting it would deposit as new layers.The 40 days of rain doesn't need to be in the air simulataneously. Steam would have risen until oceanic rifts were cooled. This represents a continuous source of water for the atmosphere to continuously take in and condense out as rain.Yes whole maountains were washe away. Ever seen the Mt St Helen's mud slide?I simply do not expect the sediments all to mix with each new surge. The surges don't have to be a tidal waves.You've challenged me to exlaio he 'moving chunks'. The lcosest is probably Baumgardner. I could not do better than him but if I get around to it I'll translate his writing from professional geologese into English. I agree that fundamentally the timeframe should be distinguishable from the data. I don't think that has been done and it is not easy.Woodmorape is the closest to modelling the flood fossil record.OK - you said more than 'I don't think it would work' but all you have argued is that a detailed analysis may falsify a rapid geo-column flood. I agree.If the flood is true it was the most incredible phenomenon on this planet ever.

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 07-15-2002]