Solving the Mystery of the Biblical Flood

EdgeI was planning on just doing another combined post for the two of you again, but it appears I first need to give you some remedial instruction first. Now Edge, I have not been trying to prove a global flood in my recent posts, I have lately been discussing non isostatic elevation changes. Just as I stated to you in Post-365 "Now I have not been trying to prove a global flood with our little digression here, at least not directly, all I have been trying to do here is show that not all changes in sea level have direct isostatic explanations in terms of weight on or in the lithosphere." I am explaining a theory on the effects of sea volume changes on ocean island elevation. These shifts have occurred with the glacial cycles a number of times and is not limited to just the sudden end of the last stage of the ice age and the resulting flood. This is something I found in examining the details of how the deluge occurred, and how the earth was able to recover. My contribution to island theory solves the mystery of the raised shorelines. I wanted to clear this up for you, (again) before I go into more detail on this in my next post to the two of you. Later, we can return to our main topic, the deluge.

John & EdgeThe 'bubble' I was referring to in my last post is the hypothetical magma chamber located in the upper crust just beneath the island from which the erupted material comes. I my last post I was focusing on changes in the profile of the magma chamber caused by large changes in sea level which in turn would affect the resulting island elevation. Think of it this way, if an island was sitting on top of a large shallow magma chamber, a major reduction in local sea level will result in the island becoming comparatively heavier, as the surrounding weight of water is reduced. This results in the island appearing to be heavier, then there is the effect of more of the island rising above the falling sea level which means this part of the island mass is no longer submerged and is no longer supported by the sea, rocks weigh less under water. ( rock - weight of displaced water = less weight.) This can cause the weight of the island to depress the top of the magma chamber resulting in the island subsiding. In the case of a large rise in local sea level, the reverse effects come into play. The uplift do to this type of action is more dependent on the chamber and island factors than on the size of sea level change, which is why the uplift or depression can be far larger than isostactic forces can account for.Another mechanism to explain large scale island uplift in the face of rising sea levels is the effects large ocean volume increases can have on hot spots. Ocean islands owe their existence to the hot spot that created them. Located deep beneath the islands magma chamber and feeding it by means of a long connecting thread. A large and possible sudden increase in ocean volumes would result in a direct pressure increase on the hot spot magma. This results in some of the hot spot's rising magma being sucked up (by the comparatively lower pressures) the thread into the magma chamber, filling it like a balloon. This swelling of the magma chamber lifts the island. The magma was rising anyway, the increased pressure merely speeds it on it's way. The location from which the increased water pressure forces up the magma from, is anywhere from just beneath the chamber, somewhere along the thread (a rising mass of magma), down to possibly the top of the hot spot itself. The isostact pressure increase caused by increased depth of the ocean water can act as a trigger that releases a upward surge of rising magma that lifts the island far more than direct isostact adjustment of the island would predict.We all agree that the uplifted shorelines found in the islands are caused by uplift, there is no other explanation. My argument is that changes in sea level can act as the trigger for that uplift. Uplift caused by ocean volume increase is the only reasonable explanation considering just how wide spread island uplift is. Here is a link to a partial listing of raised coral islands.http://www.unep.ch/islands/Tityper.htmThese islands are far too wide spread and common for any explanation that is not ocean wide in its effect. Some of the islands in the listing have elevations listed as well. Checking a few sources I come up with my own list on the elevations of uplifted coral reefs on islands.Arakii 237m
Guam 850ft
Naura 210ft
Banaba 265ft
Johnston 44ft
Kirwina 100ft
Caroline 20ft
Tongatary 270ft
Rennell 500ft
Muyua 1,200ft
New Caledona 330ft
Niue 208ft
Papua New Guinea 400mSuch wide spread uplift must have a common cause.On raised shorelines, Britannica noted "Each Greater Antillean island has an encircling coastal plain, backed on the north coast of Cuba, Jamaica, and Hispaniola by Pleistocene-raised shorelines that reach heights of 1,000 feet." The plains are raised coral which seems to be the rule on islands. Clearly considering the nearly universal raised coral found on nearly all islands, we are dealing with an effect that is ocean wide. The raised shoreline shows the size of the recent uplift that has occurred in some areas. In other areas we have the guyots which are sea mounts that have been planed off by wave action and now are found thousands of feet beneath sea. We live in an inter glacial, a time of high sea levels, we should expect to find lots of guyots submerged to a depth equal to the estimated sea level rise associated with the ending of the ice age plus normal subsidence due to island age. But instead guyots are typically submerged to much greater depths of 6,000 ft. The amount of subsidence that has occurred with guyots, some having coral dating from the end of the ice age, shows a massive amount of ocean floor subsidence has occurred since then. The subsidence also occurred so rapidly that the coral died, there is no coral reef reaching up towards the surface. The guyots were submerged suddenly to a depth below which coral can live at a rate faster than coral can grow at. We are looking at a post ice age combination of large sea floor depression combined with large and wide spread uplift of islands.The book "Sea Level Change" stated "We do not know if this is evidence of accelerated Holocene tectonic movement or an artifact of the short sampling interval . . . If the rapid uplift of the last 5500yr had continued for as long as the last 28,000yr the interstadial terrace of that age would be far above the Holocene terrace [it is not] . . . Much of the total movement was concentrated in brief interval of 5,500yr or less. . . . we cannot disprove that those average rates consisted of shorter intervals of alternatively fast and slow vertical movements." Here a detailed examination of the ages of raised coral reefs reveals that there has been a sudden surge of wide spread uplift in the last "5,500yr or less". First this uplift was all over the oceans and it was a sudden and brief event that has occurred since the end of the last ice age. Frankly if just a bit more was known about this uplift event, I would not even be able to lay a claim to discovering it.To sum up, I am saying that at the retreat of each glacial advance there was a large increase in ocean volume and depth which resulted in sea floor depression and resulting uplifting of the islands. Then as the next glacial staged advanced and sea levels and ocean volumes dropped, many of the islands sagged into the crust due to their weight and the reduced pressure on the surrounding ocean floor. Some islands may not have subsided as much due to being smaller and hence lighter, this resulted in a progressive uplift with each glacial cycle creating a 'staircase' of raised coral reefs with the oldest on top and the youngest on the bottom. (found in a number of areas) The difference between conventional uplift and what I am saying, is the periodness and the cycles of uplift. Normal uplift due to tectonic movement or increased hot spot activity is slow and progressive, while the factors I am citing will produce sudden uplift with periods of little or no uplift in-between. This will create distinct raised reef series with no reefs in-between. Which is exactly what we find. The conventional uplift would produce a continuous series of one reef leading into another, but in nearly all areas, this is not what is found. The evidence of island uplift and subsidence indicates that much of the movement has occurred in a stop and go pattern.

John & EdgeI am just amazed by your total lack of counter arguments. You need to cite specific problems with my theory and offer a better explanation for the evidence. Failure to offer a better explanation is a tactic admission of defeat. Judging from the quality of your posts, I have totally blown you guys away. Maybe you just need to get your thoughts together, because I know you want to make a better showing than you did in your last posts. Otherwise as it stands, I have demonstrated my theory on island elevation as being a very workable theory that it's detractors are unable to find specific fault with. The only part of either of your posts that came close to counter argument was a brief reference to increased hot spot activity. The problem with that is that is what I am saying happen, only that it was caused by an increase in ocean volume. If you wish to argue against my theory, you need to come up with another explanation for what caused the surge in activity that raised ocean islands at the end of the ice age and explains the periodness seen in the uplift.

JohnYou don't have to be amazed at my total lack of ability to understand your multiple counter-arguments, the reason is simple, you haven't posted them. I am not clairvoyant, what ever your great counter-arguments are, you have to post them if you want to bring them into the discussion. I was hoping my last post would get you or somebody else to post some good counter arguments. But all you have posted, once again, is hot air.Arguing that increased hot spot activity caused the uplift is not an argument since we both accept this part of the cause. I am saying that the increase in ocean volume triggered or controlled the uplift. Just as the pressure of your foot on the gas petal controls the speed of your car, your foot doesn't supply the energy to push the car down the road.This is how the islands were lifted above the waters at the end of the ice age. In areas where on going glacial rebound has occurred we find a continuous progression of raised beaches leading down to the water's edge. In the islands (and some other areas) we find greatly raised beaches with large gaps in-between. This indicates that the uplift was sudden and occurred in cycles. What I am saying is that uplift occurring a cross wide areas occurring in this pattern is obviously connected with the cycles of changes that occurred in ocean volume in connection with the ice ages. The two patterns are too similar and too closely related not to be connected.Come up, you guys are such push overs! You have the whole weight of orthodox mainstream science behind you and here I am pushing a theory supposedly totally disproved over two hundred years ago, and you can't even give me a good counter argument to my island uplift theory!

EdgeI am not ignoring your alternatives, how can I ignore something you haven't posted. Your post, like your pervious one, fails to offer an alternative. Come on, what is your great alternative explanation for the cause of the surge of island uplift?As for me being disrespectful to anyone disagreeing with me. I would suggest you take some of your own posts and read them as if they were addressed to you. If you want more respect, you should show it to others and then perhaps you will receive more of it in return. But if you don't show it to others, isn't it hypocritical to expect it?My theory is also not 'ad hoc' since it is based on an interpretation of the evidence, even if you don't agree with it. As for evidence, I have been citing evidence such as the raised shorelines, just because you disagree with my interpretation doesn't make it disappear. You need to over come my theories by providing a better explanation of the evidence, then you can dismiss it, not before. As for having no experience in the field, writing a book on the geology of the flood must count for something, not to mention the on going success of this thread.As for the example of stepping on a tile in cement having exactly the opposite effect, of course it does if you change the model as you did in your argument. The purpose of any model or example is to illustrate a point so the student can understand it and grasp the concept. If the student has problems with the illustration it is generally best to drop it and use another that he hopefully will be able to grasp. Since you do not want to understand and try very hard to reject what I am trying to say, this requires that any illustration I use with you be extremely simple. The point I was trying to get across was that a rising sea level results in the mass above the island displacing water which reduces the island's weight at the same time an increasing ocean depth increases pressure on the surrounding ocean floor which also results in island uplift, due to the island's pressure is in comparison to the surrounding sea floor is now less. (pressure on sea floor has increased due increased ocean depth, while the portion of island beneath the part that sticks above water does not increase.) I wish I could show this to you with a nice little animation with moving arrows. The possible uplift due to these two factors is also only part of the total that I am looking for. Don't look at it as if I were saying that one effect all by its self explains everything, this kind of misconception will only make it harder for you understand.

John;Could you please post the numerous examples and counterexamples that I am supposedly ignoring?The 'engine under the hood' is the heat of the earth which is the driving force behind plate tectonics and hot spot uplift. I have been suggesting that changes in ocean volume can act as a throttle on the rate that uplift occurs at.The 'minuscule water level changes' we are discussing here are possibly on the order of several thousand feet.

EdgeNo I can't guess (at least with any high degree of accuracy) what your counter argument is, nor can I read your mind. So, could you please post it so we can make it a part of this discussion? I honestly don't know if you are referring to a real counter argument, or if you just don't have an answer, but are too proud to admit it.On my finding diatoms at an elevation of 600 feet, it was 1,000 feet, and I am saying that it was due to a rise in sea level related to melting glacial waters. Now if there was a 1,000 ft meltwater flood at the end of the ice age, who is to say it wasn't deeper. I am hoping to be able to examine high elevation locations for marine traces. Now positive findings from such locations would put this discussion on a different footing.If a long lived thread is not necessarily a testimony to quality of the thread, then why do they keep posting? A number of people have dropped out because they couldn't hold their own. No one has yet to post evidence that would be fatal to my theory on how the flood happened. That is why I keeping posting, I want to see what the best arguments against my theory are, so I can find out what needs to be corrected or discarded. Thank you very much for the complement on my "unrelenting bull-headedness." I count it as a virtue to be stubborn for the right reasons. It would be foolish to change my understanding on something just because it disagrees with yours, you have to convince me with solid evidence. Which I believe is also your position as well, and is that of any experienced person with any wisdom. Am I really lecturing to a university professor? If you really want people to look up to you when you announce this, perhaps you should try standing on a chair when you do it. I am not impressed by decrees nearly as much a good argument based on even better evidence.On the model, you changed the model by moving where the person was standing, which of course changes the weight distribution."What you are saying is that the weight of water will displace basaltic material upward thousands of feet. Why don't we see mantle diapirs penetrating the earth's crust due to simple loading? Why is it always a light material, like salt, that has risen under the influence of gravity?" No that is not what I am saying, no wonder you don't think this will work. The weight of the water accounts for perhaps one third of the movement due to water having roughly a third the weight of rock. Then we have other effects such as changing the profile of the magma chamber the island sits on. The main uplift comes from the action of the hot spot activity, the weight of water pushing the ocean floor down into the earth causes a surge of hot magma to move up the connecting thread to the chamber beneath the island that feeds the island's volcanoes, which is why there was a post ice surge in volcanic activity on the islands, particularly resurgent volcanic activity. The cycles of glacial activity results in a modulation effect of the on going uplift due to hot spot activity. The shifts in ocean depth cause what would otherwise would have been a slow steady uplift, to turn into a stepwise pattern as seen in the pattern the uplifted shorelines are found in.I do have one confession to make about 'my theory' on changes in ocean volume affecting island elevations due to isostatic adjustments, it isn't my theory. "During each Glacial stage, a weight of water scores of meters deep was removed from a wide area of the crust around each island. That lowering of water pressure removed some support for the volcanic mass. Hence, the island tended to sink" (The Changing World of the Ice Age by Reginald Aldworth Daly 1934, p.155) This is part of what Daly called his theory Glacial Control theory. Basically that changes in sea level effected island subsidence and reemergence and was a factor in the creation of coral islands. Since you guys attack everything I post, I though I would let you chew on a somewhat obscure mainstream geological theory for a while before I revealed its source. I have merely used an existing theory as part of my overall theory. Poor Daly, you guys have really given him a rough time. But, since you have yet to post a better explanation for the periodness seen in island uplift and depression, Daly's theory seems to have stood the test of time.

John;

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Well, there is post 384 and 387 for example.

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Very good, I am glad you finally responded. Now I have already responded to posts 384 & 387 in posts 386 & 390, I had thought that I had answered all the points you had raised. So I will attempt to explain things more clearly this time. If I fail to answer a specific point, or if you see a new flaw, let me know and I can try to answer any specific questions you may still have.I don't know if you have been following my recent exchanges with Edge, in which I posted the following quote. "During each Glacial stage, a weight of water scores of meters deep was removed from a wide area of the crust around each island. That lowering of water pressure removed some support for the volcanic mass. Hence, the island tended to sink" (The Changing World of the Ice Age by Reginald Aldworth Daly 1934, p.155) This is part of what Daly called his theory Glacial Control theory. Glacial Control theory is a mainstream theory that is still referred to today. This is just the basic isostatic shifts volcanic islands experience in connection with glacial induced changes in ocean volume. The trick to see how this works, is you have to remember that the heavy mass of the volcanic island is in isostatic equilibrium, it's weight is supported by the buoyancy of the hot material beneath the island which is lighter than the comparatively colder material beneath the surrounding ocean floor. The island is floating in a delicate balance, any shifts will alter the balance and change the island's elevation. Now as Daly pointed out, lowering the ocean level reduces the pressure on the ocean floor, the island rises above the water so that portion of the island's foot print doesn't experience any reduction in pressure at all. In fact, as the water level drops the pressure on the center of the island's footprint increases as more of the island is now above water and is no longer supported by the buoyancy of the water. This combination of more pressure on the island due to loss of buoyancy combined with less pressure on the surrounding ocean floor due to reduction in ocean depth, results in the island sinking down into the crust as the surrounding ocean floor rebounds. Then as the glaciers melt and water returns to the sea, the effects are reversed. The ocean floors are pushed down under the increasing water depth and the island rises a bit as buoyancy helps lift it as the part of the island remaining above water does not experience a pressure increase due to the rising water and so is now uplifted as a result.This pattern of uplift and subsidence is simple isostatic shifts, and are less than the shifts in the ocean level and are thus only part of the movement that I am saying occurred. But the fact that these movements have occurred in connection with the ice ages, does open up a way to explain how larger uplifting has happened. As the sea floor is depressed and pushed down into the earth, the material beneath the sea floor is pushed down as well, while the area beneath the island in comparison is actually rising. Remember the density difference of the hot magma is what supports the weight of the island compared to colder denser magma beneath the rest of the ocean floor. There is a natural tendency for a lighter fluid to rise to the top, especially when the colder fluid is being pushed down. This shift results in some of the hot rising magma rising above the surrounding colder magma, creating a local uplift in the midst of a general subsidence.Now if we look at this in connection with the recent glacial history of the earth, what I am saying happened is that when each advance of the ice sheets retreated and ocean volumes increased, the isostatic depression of the ocean floor caused a surge in uplift as rising hot magma was given a upward push. The glacial induced pressure swings on the ocean floor, thus modulated the rate that on going uplift has occurred at, and is what has produced the elevation spaced raised shorelines on the islands. Without the ice age, any island uplift would have been more of a slow steady uplift as we find in other settings such as glacial rebounding.At the start of the Pleistocene, the oceanic volcanic islands were in isostatic equilibrium and had grown steadily. Then as the first advance of the Pleistocene ice age started, water was withdrawn from the oceans and sea level dropped. As Daly pointed out this resulted in some island subsidence in respect to the level of the sea floor. Then as the glacial advance retreated and earth entered a inter glacial period, ocean volumes increased and sea levels rose, this resulted in the islands being uplifted t nearly their old position due to isostaticasy and some being uplifted to new higher elevation due to the upward movement in the hotter magma beneath the respective island. Then as time passed during the inter glacial, due to normal cooling of the magma beneath the island, the island slowly sank. Then the next glacial advance pulls water out of the ocean causing more subsidence. Then as that stage ends, the returning water causes another cycle of island uplift. This series of events results in the island following a saw tooth pattern of subsidence and uplift caused by glacial changes in ocean volume. This explains the otherwise mysterious greatly uplifted and submerged shorelines found on a number of island around the world. On this pattern of uplift, one book stated. "It is possible that . . . much of the total movement was concentrated in brief intervals of 5500 yr or less. . . . we cannot disprove that those average rates consisted of shorter intervals of alternately fast and slow vertical movements." Sea-Level Change by the National Research Council, page 109. The same book on page 111, shows the type of sawtooth pattern the pattern of uplift I am talking about would produce. at Not Found |The National Academies Press In connection with Noah's flood, towards the end of the last glacial advance, the islands would have been at a low elevation due to subsidence during the long period of low water. Then a sudden return of water would have raised sea level above them, the sudden shift then caused island uplift just as it had with the ending of each pervious glacial advance and lifted the islands to the elevations they now have. (allowing for the normal rate of subsidence that has occurred since then.)

Edge

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I don't hold up very well against a brick wall either, but I refuse to admit that it is more clever than I.

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LOL, very good Edge!

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you have never posted any evidence

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Incorrect.

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So, the glaciers reached Hawaii?

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Actually two mountain peaks on the big island had glaciers in the last ice age, but what Daly is referring to is the removal of water surrounding the islands caused by the reduction in ocean volume due to the formation of large continental ice sheets. Here read it a second time. "During each Glacial stage, a weight of water scores of meters deep was removed from a wide area of the crust around each island. That lowering of water pressure removed some support for the volcanic mass. Hence, the island tended to sink" (The Changing World of the Ice Age by Reginald Aldworth Daly 1934, p.155) Notice he referred to a reduction in 'water pressure' that would cause volcanic islands to sink down into the crust. Part of Daly's Glacial Control Theory was that changing ocean volumes affected the elevations of volcanic islands through changing pressure on the surrounding sea floor and changing the amount of buoyancy uplift supporting the islands. Daly's Glacial Control Theory is still referred to today, so it is still current and most definitely mainstream. The periodness of island uplift is shown by the greatly raised and deeply submerged shorelines that are found in many locations, the suddenness of these movements is shown by the lack of continuous shorelines in-between. Post 390 had a list of number of examples and a link to a site with more.

Edge

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I reiterate that you have not posted any evidence for a global flood that is diagnostic of your mechanism.

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You may have to explain what you mean by including the phrase 'diagnostic of your mechanism,' does that mean that you accept the fact that I have posted evidence for a global flood, but I have only failed to provide evidence that shows that the flooding occurred in the manner that I theorize? So are you now saying that you accept the flood, but think it happened differently than I theorize? Edge this doesn't sound at all like you. If you are still rejecting any occurrence of a recent global flood, then any evidence I have posted in support of such, would be evidence in favor of what I am saying. Only if we had moved beyond proving the occurrence of the flood and now are limiting our discussion to various flood mechanisms, would our main concern be evidence that is 'diagnostic' of my flood 'mechanism'. So far I have mainly been discussing whether or not it happened, a discussion with someone who already accepts the flood takes entirely different form, since there is a different basis for discussion.On Daly's Glacial Control Theory, the reference cited referred to it by name, they only talked about part of the mechanisms for his theory, it was only a brief reference. So what part don't you believe? Do you think there is more than one glacial control theory and they were referring to a different one? If so, just post a reference on the other theory with the same name by a different person. Otherwise in the context of the reference, it is still a current theory.

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I don't really want to get bogged down in minutia that really has no implications for a global flood. So, I'm wondering, just what is the point?

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Just arguing in generalities proves nothing, it ends up sounding like a 'yes it did' 'no it didn't' argument repeated endlessly. Only by going into the details can you prove or disprove anything. Now the point of island elevation in connect with the flood is this, in nearly all flood models the flood covers all the land including the islands and then the flood recedes by the oceans getting deeper, so the question is, how is it that we have islands today if that happened? Any flood theory that can't answer that question is dead at the starting line. I have noticed that people arguing against the flood always miss this the most obvious of points. Forget the Himalayans, the ocean islands have far greater relief and today stand above all the water that was in the flood. So how were they once under the flood waters? According to most YEC flood theories there shouldn't be any ocean islands. Say 'Aloha' to those theories. So that is the point, even though most people don't recognize it, explaining ocean island elevation is key to any plausible global flood theory.UBB code of first quote fixed by Adminnemooseus on 9/11

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[This message has been edited by minnemooseus, 09-11-2002]

John;

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With an island, there is no water below it, it therefore cannot be buoyed by the water.

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You are right, and you are wrong. Take a plastic cup and turn it up side down and push it down against the bottom of a sink or tub filled with water, if you release it, the buoyancy of the trapped air inside the glass will cause it to rise to the surface. Now if you position the cup over the drain and open the drain, the cup will stay on the bottom. Opening the drain vents the pressure or the lifting force of buoyancy from beneath the glass just like you pointed out. But now close the drain and wait, if the drain is completely closed, as water leaks in under the edge of the cup, it will break the seal by repressurizing the space beneath the cup, which causes the cup to be buoyant again. Buoyancy is caused by pressure beneath the object as you pointed out, but to have pressure, all you need is the infiltration of water to pressurize the area beneath the object. To eliminate the effect of buoyancy on the submerged rock mass of an island, you would have to keep all water from entering. Ever hear of wells? Ground water moves through even solid rock, and the lava/ash base of a volcanic ocean island is very permeable. On islands the fresh groundwater sits on top of saltwater that has intruded from the sea. Due to the passage of water through rock, the island mass as a whole is 'in' the water rather than just 'under' it, and is affected by buoyancy. Think of a volcanic island as a pile of gravel sitting on the sea floor with it's top rising above the water.Since buoyancy is still in the game, my pervious post still applies on a changing sea level causing a difference in loading on the sea floor in connection with ocean islands. Maybe you are just hung up on a viewpoint difference here. The passage of a heavy ship doesn't put any weight on the ocean floor beneath it as it passes over, yet the ship is certainly not weightless and has to be included in the total weight of the body of water, in that the ship displaces water and raises the water level by a small amount. The ship's weight doesn't disappear, it is just spread out over the whole body of water by the increase in water level, the water is a little bit deeper so each part of the bottom feels a small increase. It is the same with the submerged part of the island, the volume of water that the rock displaces, raises the sea level by a small amount which spreads that part of the weight out over the whole body of water. And that is buoyancy.On the rigidness of the sea floor preventing independent movement of the island, the figure you cited of "150+ km" is for a continental crust with a thickness of 35-60 km verus 5 km for oceanic crust. Plus the oceanic crust beneath the island has had a hole melted through it which has thinned the surrounding crust. The hotter material in the rise or magma chamber that the island rests on, is also hotter and more flexible. All of these effects, cause the oceanic crust around an oceanic volcanic island to be much more flexible than the thick continental crust beneath an ice sheet. Plus if the oceanic crust was so rigid as you would like to think, how could old islands sink to form sea mounds?Thank you for mentioning the glacial forebulge, despite many attempts I have never been able to convince Edge, he thinks it is something I made up.

Edge;

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evidence that precludes the prevailing theory

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Huh? What prevailing flood theory would that be? What are you talking about? Are you referring to YEC flood models like the rapid subduction Plate theory? You have to be kidding! I have already disproved that dead duck theory, and more than once. Or are you referring to the current geological viewpoint that there was no flood? That would make more sense then YEC, but then all of the evidence that I have posted in support of the flood would be in support of my 'mechanism.' I am beginning to think that you just tripped over your tongue earlier, but are now unable to admit it. Since the evidence that I have been posting for a flood, would be by default, be evidence for what I have been saying.

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You seem to have a mechanims that could give us a minute amount of uplift,

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All I am after up to this point has been that you see the mechanism for the uplift, that it works, now we can go on to argue about the amount of uplift.Now when we first go started on this, I had posted a list of greatly elevated shorelines in post 390. The relative elevations will reveal the amount of movement that has occurred.Arakii 237m
Guam 850ft
Naura 210ft
Banaba 265ft
Johnston 44ft
Kirwina 100ft
Caroline 20ft
Tongatary 270ft
Rennell 500ft
Muyua 1,200ft
New Caledona 330ft
Niue 208ft
Papua New Guinea 400mAnd then deep beneath the waves are the drowned islands called seamounts. Many of these seamounts are over 5,900 feet under water and are called guyots because they have flat tops which were once cut by waves. On some of these guyots coral remains have been found.With elevation shifts of such magnitudes, it would take even greater swings in sea level to have produced them. These large changes in sealevel point towards large removals of water as having taken place in the Pleistocene ice age. The sudden return of much of this volume to the oceans in a short period of time, and you have a global flood on your hands.

John;Pressure is pressure, whether the source is through an tiny pore or a open sea, it is felt all the same. If you drop your basket ball down an island well, it floats just as well as if you had dropped in the swells. The important question is, are the islands displacing water? Since they are, and water does enter the island mass, then buoyancy is a factor. Whether the rocks are touching each other or not, has no effect, since a greatly reduced pressure zone would have to exist at the contact points for it to have any possible effect on buoyancy.

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1) I don't see you getting enough saturation to get a significant effect.

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If there was incomplete saturation, the islands would have a greatly lowered level of ground water. If the island mass was only half saturated with water, the water table would be found at a level of half way down to the ocean floor. This is of course not the case, on most islands the water table is so high, that freshwater springs occur in the shallows around the islands from the over flow, the cold pocket of water you sometimes find when you are swimming. Since I am looking for a increase in weight to depress the island when the sea level falls, the sponge analogy works in my favor, the water would be extra weight. As the sea level dropped in the Wisconsin ice age, the newly exposed part of the island is no longer displacing water and represents a weight increase at the same time the surrounding sea floor is seeing a pressure decrease as the sea level drops. This combination of factors results in islands losing elevation in times of low sea levels. Then when the water rises again, the same forces run in reverse, with the upward movement being increased by the buoyancy of rising magma, which the movement causes to rise in a surge that otherwise on it's own would have occurred later in time if at all.I think the key difference between our two positions, is that I tend to focus on the center of the island, while you seem to focus on the part of the island which is not exposed by the drop in sea level. Now if the island is of any real size in terms of square miles, the center will dominate. In the case of smaller islands the center land area is proportionately smaller compared to the size of the island foot print, and will have less of an effect. Perhaps we have been unintentionally comparing apples to oranges? So please remember that this is not a one size fits all explanation, different variables will result in different out comes, or different rates of uplift or even depression.

Dear Edge;

quote:

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Hmm, nothing global yet, so what's the point?

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We have been discussing islands showing signs of having been raised in recent history. In my original post on this I posted the following link to a site with a list of raised coral islands. Their list includes islands from around the world. The majority are found in the Pacific, which is to be expected since it covers half the globe.
http://www.unep.ch/islands/Tityper.htm
Their listing is incomplete in that it doesn't include volcanic islands with raised shorelines. So even as extensive as their list is, it covers only part of the evidence of raised islands.On the flat topped sea mounts called guyots, if they had slowly subsided due to lithospheric cooling, the coral would have easily kept up with the slow rate of descent and we would have a coral island today instead of a deeply submerged sea mount. Only if they had been rapidly submerged far faster than coral can grow, would we find guyots on the ocean floors. Most guyots and sea mounts are found in the Pacific, but there some in the Atlantic ocean as well. There are a group of sea mounts that are know 1 km underwater off New England that were recently and suddenly submerged. Here is a link on this. New England Seamounts Once Near Surface The information on the site is from Heirtzler, J.R., et al; "A Visit to the New England Seamounts," American Scientist, 65:466, 1977.Since the above evidence is found through out the oceans of the world, and since islands only occur in water, I don't know how you can get more global than this.On expected sea mount elevations, I am invoking the normal theories of sea floor spreading and cooling, with the addition of large swings in ocean volume due to ice sheet formation. The sea mounts and particularly the guyots, are too old and cold to have been significantly affected by elevation changes due to changes in local pressure on the lithosphere. In most cases these former islands were beneath the waves even at the height of the last glacial advance and hence did not experience a pressure differential due to a change in sea level, only a even increase in pressure that resulted in an even depression. Which is why these areas were pushed down along with the surrounding sea floor with little or no uplift. Which is why I would not expect the find the pattern you suggest. As for a 70-year old theory, relativity is older, do you have a problem with it as well? Old theories that are still cited have stood the test of time and form the foundation of modern science. To challenge a theory just because it is old, would be to challenge the very progression of scientific advancement of building on the past.On islands (and seamounts) being attached to a relatively rigid oceanic crust, under Darwin's reef or atoll theory, over time the island sinks. This sinking is due to local cooling, which results in local sinking, it doesn't pull the whole ocean floor down with it. So the rigidness of the oceanic crust is very 'relative' since the crust around a volcanic oceanic island is the most flexible part of the crust of the earth.Since you keep making the claim that I have not posted any evidence of a global deluge, I thought I would post some evidence I recently read in a book I got from the library that is old enough that the copy right has expired. The book is called "Scientific Confirmations of Old Testament History" by G. Frederick Wright D.D.,LL.D.,F.G.S.A. 1907 2ed. pages 241-248. At the time this book was written, there was some interest in what they called "Rubble Drift" which would today be called a turbidite; a sediment deposited from a turbidity current. The author way back in 1907 correctly surmised that it was a sudden end of the ice age combined with shifts in relative land and sea elevations caused by the transfer of the weight of water in the ice age on the crust of the earth, resulted in a global flood. I particularly like his statement on page 367 about how the deluge occurred. "We judge from these conditions that the submergence took place slowly and continuously."I. The Rubble Drift, or Head.-At numerous
places over the southern counties of England and on
the south side of Dover Strait at Sangatte, near Calais,
in France, there are deposits of angular gravel bearing
no relation to the present drainage systems of the coun-
try, and containing palreolithic implements and the
bones of extinct animals associated with prehistoric
man. This drift is found as far inland as the vicinity
of Oxford, and at an elevation on the Cotteswold Hills
of about nine hundred feet.
A typical illustration of this deposit is to be found
at East Brighton, the great watering-place of Southern
England, where it can be still studied to an excellent
advantage. The deposit is here eighty feet thick, and
the surface forms a continuous slope with the chalk
cliffs, rising into the interior. Formerly the deposit
extended a considerable distance into the sea, but the
larger part of it has been eroded by the waves. The
accompanying illustrations will aid in conveying the
important facts. At the base of the rubble drift there
is an old sea-beach, now elevated fifteen or twenty
feet above the reach of tide. This can be seen alongthe coast for a distance of a mile or more, resting upon
a rocky foundation.
The superincumbent mass of the deposit must have
accumulated in very peculiar circumstances. It has no
regular stratification. An unstratified mass of sharp
angular flints and chalk fragments constitutes the sur-
face. Below this there is a series of irregular lenticulaT
masses, of the same character, containing fragments df
the Tertiary rock which surmounts the hills in the near
vicinity. Projecting from the face of the cliff of this
material as it is exposed are large blocks of this Ter-
tiary sandstone, either angular or with angles but
slightly worn. One of these measured by Professor
Prestwich was 8X2X2 feet. The deposit shows clear
marks in some places of rapid and tumultuous accumu-
.lation, while in others there is seen the fine lamination
produced by tranquil water action and deposition. " But
there is an entire absence of any of the effeets produced
by continuously running water, nor is the angle of
bedding of the mass such as would be formed under
~ subaerial conditions by rubble falling over the top of
the cliff, which would lie at a much greater and more
uniform angle; " In this deposit are found numerous
mammalian remains characteristic of post- Tertiary
times. Among them were those of species of elephant,
rhinoceros, reindeer, hippopotamus, horse, hog; and oxThe elephants' teeth and the bones in general are in
such a perfect state as to show that they could not
have been transported for a long distance. They
showed signs of fracture, but not of wear.
The rubble drift at Brighton is only one instance out
of more than twenty in Southern England carefully
described by Professor Prestwich. Prominent among
the places are Dover and Folkstone, Eastbourne, Bir-
ling Gap, New Haven, Port'Slade Station, the Sussex
Coast Plain, Hayling Island, the Isle of Wight, Isle of
Purbeck, the Isle of Portland, the South Devon and
Cornish coasts, the north coast of Cornwall and Devon,
the Somersetshire coast, the lower Severn, Swansea,
.Gower, and Pembrokeshire.
An important observation relates to the blown sand,
.or old dunes, which in various places occur between the
rubble drift and the raised beach, especially on the
north coast of Cornwall and Devon. These indicate
that, after the old beach had been elevated, there was
a considerable pause in the earth movements, sufficient
to allow the accumulation of extensive dunes. Then
followed the depression during which the rubble drift
,accumulated upon the top of the dunes. The existence
-of these dunes between the raised beach and the rubble
.drift indicates that the subsidence of the land preceding
:the accumulation of the rubble drift was rapid. Other-wise the waves of the ocean would have leveled and
obliterated the dunes.
The rubble drift differs in important respects from
all ordinary gravel, such as is found along river courses
or on the beaches of oceans and lakes, in
( I) The angularity" and sharpness of the harder
constituent debris. Evidently the material has been
moved but a short distance; since both the fragments
of stone and the fractured bones retain their sharp
angles.
( 2) A second peculiar characteristic is that the
material is all of local origin, and is derived from the
higher grounds of the immediate vicinity. A signifi-
cant fact, also, in connection with this, is that the drift
is arranged around the base of the higher land, as if
it had been swept in all directions from it, yet so far
from the base that the agency of distribution could not
have been running water. In some cases, as on the
South Downs, at Port Slade, west of Brighton, this
extends from two to five miles over a comparatively
level surface. The material, however, is not collected
in deltas, as would be the case if it were transported by
small streams, but is pretty equally distributed around
the base; nor does it have any regular stratification, as
would be the case if it had been transported by ordi":
nary water action.( 3) There is a total absence in these deposits of
marine and fluviatile shells. This has ordinarily been
taken as conclusive evidence against the origin of these
deposits during a period of submergence. In the opin-
ion of Professor Prestwich, however, it is simply evi-
dence of the brevity of the submergence, the time of its
continuance having been too short to permit the estab-
lishment of colonies of shell-fish of any description.

Dear John;Instead of arguing endlessly, let's look at the math. A shield volcano has gently sloping sides in the range of about 5 to 15. I will take a slope of 10 degrees for an average. Using a simple cone shape of 10,000 meters tall standing in 5,000 meters of water, and the water level drops 2,000 meters. This results in a two kilometer 'slice' of the cone that is no longer supported by the water. This also results in the removal of the weight of two kilometers of water from the area above the circular footprint of the island that is not occupied by the cone. The 2 Km 'slice' of the cone displaces a volume of 1,621,998.5 cukm. This is subtracted from the 2 km thick volume of the cylinder of water that is removed from above the round footprint if the cone wasn't there. Cylinder has a volume of 4,459,844 cukm, minus 1,621,998.5 cukm, is 2,837,845 cukm. The 2,837,845 cukm is divided over the area of the footprint of 2,229,922 sqkm, which results in a reduction in the pressure equivalent to the removal of 1.2 km depth of water verus the 2 km for the surrounding ocean floor. So in effect, the difference is if nothing was removed from the surrounding ocean floor area, the weight of the equivalent of 0.8 km depth of water was added to the area of the footprint in comparison. Now if we remember that the weight of the water that the 'slice' was displacing is still there that had been supported by buoyancy due to the water it was displacing and now has to added, that adds an another 0.8 km equivalent of water depth pressure over the entire island foot print. This results in the island only seeing a weight reduction of 0.4 km compared to the surrounding reduction of 2 km. In the local view, it is now if in comparison to the pressure on the surrounding ocean floor, the island footprint has had 1.6 km of water added on top of it. This causes the island to be depressed by 0.53 km, and this causes a real increase in depth pressure which causes more subsidence in the range of about 0.2. (diminishing returns, one unit of depression results in an additional 1/3, and so on due to the increasing depth.) Relative to the ocean floor, the island is now 0.73 km lower. As the island sinks into the crust, it pulls the nearby ocean floor with it, this results in a broad shallow bowl shaped depression. The displaced material beneath the crust below the island footprint is forced down and out to the sides, where it forms a ring like rise around the outside of the bowl shaped depression, similar to a glacial fore bulge.Additional subsidence may occur due to the movement of material below the island affecting the location and profile of the hot magma chamber that supports the cold weight of oceanic crust material that makes up the island. As magma is shoved down and outwards from beneath the island, some of the hot buoyant magma may be pushed outwards as well, flattening the top of the magma chamber and lowering the island above. The upward movement of magma in the surrounding island forebulge may also pull up and away more of the lifting magma, which of course results in more island depression. The sum of all of these various effects can add up to raised island shorelines forming in times of extreme low sea levels.The volumes used in the above calculations are of course dependent on the volume of the slice verus the area of the foot print. This ratio varies with the percentage of the cone that is above water at the start. A steeper cone in the form of a near cylinder, has zero reduction in effective sea level over the footprint and 100% coverage by the area now heavier due to the loss of buoyancy. While a cone flattened to a near disk on the ocean floor that doesn't rise above the reduced sea level, feels no difference in weight loading in comparison with the surrounding ocean floor and thus doesn't for the most part move independently of the oceanic crust. The depression of the ocean floor as a whole could possibly cause some movement of rising magma up connecting threats to magma chambers, but we will ignore that possibility for now.I know you are still arguing against buoyancy being a factor, but let me see if I can explain it in a way that you can see how it works. Now if I take a stone column and place it in a tub of water on a scale, the weigh is simply added to the reading on the scale. Now if I take a second scale that is inside the tub beneath the column, it only reads the weight of the column minus the weight of water it is displacing. Now if we raise level of the second scale, as the column rises above the water, the part that is above the water is no longer supported by the water, so as the column rises above the water the scale shows a increase in weight. While the scale beneath the tub shows no change in weight. As the column rises up out of the water, the level in the tub is reduced. What is happening is as the column rises out of the water, the volume of water that it had displaced, is being moved or concentrated in the spot the column is. When the column is 1/3 of the way above water, 1/3 of it's displaced water volume is above water, the other 2/3 is spread over the tub in the form of the raised water level. If the column is then raised completely out of the water, the level in the tub will drop back down to the original level, and the scale beneath the column will read the full weight of the column. Now the flexible metal bottom of the tub is depressed slightly by the weight of the water, and the weight of the column shows as a small dent. As the scale beneath the column is adjusted to raise the column above water, the dent increases in size as more of the weight that had been spread out over the whole tub in the form of the raised water level, becomes concentrated in one place as the column is raised above water.Now if I know where you are coming from, you agree with everything in the above paragraph, but disagree about the water underneath the column. You probably feel that an ocean island is only like the column if the water was unable to enter the area beneath the column where we have our second scale. Now if we were to somehow place the column scale below a flexible section of the tub bottom, and the column was caulked to the bottom, perhaps you feel that would be a closer analogy? That would prevent the column from being lifted by buoyancy from below. But if I were to break the column just above the bottom and set it back together, the part above the break would be buoyant. The water inside the crack would be lifting the top part up. Let's say that I decide to caulk the crack, but I am too lazy to take the column out of the water to do it and instead caulk it while it is in the water. Now the crack area is sealed off from the tub water, what has happened to the pressure? Of course it is the same and is still pushing up against the top part of the column. In fact the pressure remains inside the crack pushing out against all surfaces even if I remove the column from the water. In fact the pressure is trapped until I cut a hole in the caulk and release some of the water pressure. In like manner, volcanic islands are built up progressively from the ocean floor and have many pockets of trapped water in the overlapping lava throws and layers of hydroclastic ash and stone that make up the island. Due to the way they are built, it is impossible to exclude water pressure from within the base of a volcanic island, since they are built under water pressure out of water porous material.Groundwater above sea level is still water and can be a source of local buoyancy. Adding water to the ground of a land area, is like pouring water into the tub on the scale. The weigh is added to the land area just as if rock was added. Ground water does cause local buoyancy in that anything below the water table is underwater and hence has part of it's weight supported by the water it is displacing. In sites that have high water tables, empty underground tanks can 'bob' or rise to the surface. Now if I take a floating tank and tow it to Hawaii and enter a harbor and float it into a canal and then fill the canal over the tank, when does the tank stop being buoyant? If I take the tank and submerge it and place it inside a underwater cave in the side of the island, is it still buoyant? What if I seal off the entrance of the cave? Will the tank suddenly stop being buoyant and drop to the bottom of the cave when the last brick is put in the wall?