YEC approaches to empirical investigation

This is on topic here because it is about Ben's proposal that data and not theory be discussed. He is right. You are wrong that you are only talking about facts. You are talking about theory and don't know it.See my unfortunately off topic Message 220 above for my reasoning about how the continents were pushed apart from the continental ridge. There is no pulling action happening, except perhaps in the Pacific trenches, but as I understand it, those are the result of the action that originates in the Atlantic ridge, the uprising magma there, and that PUSHES the earlier cooled magma away from the ridge, and that is what PUSHES the continents away from each other as it gets the whole plate system moving away from the continental ridge.I would say that you are simply insisting on the establishment position, but in this case I've googled the subject quite a bit and have not found ONE mention of a PULLING action on the continents. The source of the movement of all the plates is the uprising magma and that exerts a pushing action.You don't seem to be clear when you are talking about a fact versus an interpretation of a fact, and that is certainly the case with evolutionism and OE in general. It is just about impossible to find a fact in the morass of Evo and OE interpretations in the description of ANY phenomenon, geological or biological.Ben is going to need to give a lecture on the difference between fact and theory.

Well I am sorry but you are wrong. The volcanism at the mid atlantic ridge is caused by the rifting not a cause of the rifting. Since it is off topic for this thread I suggest you take further inquiries about this back to IRH's thread or a new thread about divergent boundaries. Well then either your googling has produced incorrect information or you have not correctly read it. Magma does not push plates. My usage of the word "pulling" is with regards to what is happening AT the boundary. Sorry for the mix up about that. Well what I am talking about here are fact and however much time you spent googling about tectonics does not change the fact that the mid atlantic ridge is a rift center and is not pushing anything. If you want to know why, start a topic and I will be glad to explain it. The only one here who has not been able to tell the difference between fact and theory has been you and Ben so far. Even this mildly amusing attempt of yours to counter the facts one again simply further shows that you don't understand them.{ABE}See Message 1 for more details.This message has been edited by Jazzns, 09-14-2005 04:34 PMThis message has been edited by Jazzns, 09-14-2005 06:37 PM

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Actually Jazzns I can see their point.
I don't see your "fact" about the plates being pulled rather than pushed as basic level data.I mean, can you actually observe the plates being pulled apart rather than pushed apart?
Sure you can infer it from observations but then that makes it a conclusion rather than an undebatable fact or data point.To be quite honest I don't know much about plate tectonics but I can't really understand how it would be possible to directly observe the pulling forces that you claim as facts.
I certainly don't dispute that other evidence may point towards this as a conclusion but what is this evidence? Where is the data?I think that is what Ben and Faith are getting at.

As I have discovered, pulled and pushed are bad words.Take a look at the links and information thread I started on divergent boundaries. There I explain.The observation is simply that the plates are moving in opposite direction. That in combination with the type of faulting, the rifting, and the type of volcanism is why "pulling" is a better description than "pushing". I explain in much greater detail in the other thread but the notion of a pushing force at the divergent boundary that is driving the plates appart is impossible. The only kind of "pushing" you can say that is happening is that each plate is "pushing" ITSELF forward in opposite direction but not OFF OF the other plate.

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

OK that is a lot better.I think what Faith is suggesting though, is that the upwelling of magma is exerting a hydraulic pressure that is actively pushing the plates apart. If this were possible then it would tend to explain the way she sees things.
On the face of it this seems to be a feasible alternative explanation. What we need to discuss is why it isn't feasible.I know how easy it is for someone who knows a field well to jump a little ahead of other's level of knowledge.
It is just that what you probably see as obvious and almost beneath mentioning really isn't to the layman. Personally I really have no idea what happens but I would like to find out.I will check out your thread and read your description of the process before making any more comments. Thanks for the suggestion.

I'll explain in brief here but you can also go to the other thread to see more. That seems like a good idea until you learn why the magma is coming up. It is not just welling up on its own, it is welling up because the rifting creates cracks in the crust allowing it to rise.This might be confusing to some who think of the "classical" style of volcanoe like the ones on the ring of fire (e.g. Mt. St. Helens). These volcanoes are created by magma that is rising up because it is hot enough to rise through the crust.There are two ways to make liquid or air expand right. One is to heat it, the other is to decrease the pressure. The volcanoes at the ridges are due to the latter. Hope that makes sense.

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

I do not see that WHY it is rising up makes any difference at all. It is still the rising up and spreading out of this magma that is pushing the plates -- basically by creating more sea floor. No matter how you look at it, the action that is moving the continents originates with the spreading magma, and this is a PUSHING action.Honestly, Jazz, I see nothing in anything you've said to give me a different understanding of this. Much of what you have said is not very clear, but when something is clear it still looks the same to me. Again, HOW or WHY it is expanding does not change the fact that it is exerting a PUSHING action on the continental mass by the simple fact that it IS expanding and creating new sea floor. It doesn't matter if it exploded out of the ridge or rises up because of the rift itself. As long as it is rising and creating new sea floor and pushing older magma ahead of it, it is this pushing action that is also moving the continents.This message has been edited by Faith, 09-15-2005 05:14 PM

Hi Faith,Did you read my response to you over in the links and information thread? That post had much more detail. The why is extremely important. At a rift all the magma is doing is filling up the space created by the rift. It is not pushing on anything. The only reason it rises is because room was made for it to rise.On the opposite side of things, Mt. St. Helens for example, the magma there rose because it was heated. That DOES displace crust causing all kinds of neat things like intrusions and metamorphism. No it is not. It is not pushing the plates at all. If it could push the plate then magma at any random spot under the ocean crust could do it. The only reason the magma rises is becuase of the rifting due to the plates moving apart.The key here is that magma does not spontaneously rise to the surface any more than air or a liquid will spontaneously expand. It either has to be heated or the pressure exerted on it by the crust has to be lightened.Magma that is heated does push its way through the crust but it dosen't do it the way we see it happening at divergent boundaries. The ring of fire has all kinds of volcanoes all due to magma that rose to the surface but they are in no way breaking the plate up and pushing it anywhere. Magma is a liquid so like a liquid it will follow the path of least resistance which is up not sideways. First off when magma cools it contracts. Second, you don't get to make up your own facts. The observation at a divergent boundary is that magma rises due to rifting not the other way around. That is the observation. Bingo! That is where you are backwards. Look at the bolded section. The magma at a divergent boundary does not push older magma or rock out of the way. It rises because there is a hole to fill. There is space. All it is pushing is water or air. This IS the observation. This IS the fact. The only thing being pushed at a divergent boundary is the empty space created by the rifting.The plates might be moving because the theorized convection cells are "pushing" it but none of that is observation. Regardless of what theorized force is moving the plates they are RIFTING at the boundary. Empty spaces are being created, rift valleys are dropping out, and normal faults are forming. All of can't occur with a pushing action. Pushing fills in holes, uplifts land, and creates reverse faults.I am not feeding you any bullshit here. This is what we observe. If you don't believe me then check out those links I posted, search for some more, or ask me to provide more resources for you.

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Jazz, I already said those links were too much to ask me to read. YOu need to to do a better job of explaining in your own words.I do NOT see that WHY makes any difference and nothing you are saying convinces me otherwise.So what's causing the rift that the magma is filling? WHat's causing the movement of the plates? The illustrations do NOT show a rift being filled. They show magma rising up and pushing cooler magma away from the ridge. That's what they SHOW.There is no need to repeat the distinction from volcanic action. That was never the point and it makes NO difference. I have NO idea what this means. You are not being clear. WHAT "empty spaces?" What is creating the empty spaces? What is a "rift valley" and what does it mean that they are "dropping out?"Are you saying that the plates are moving and as they move the previously extruded magma moves with them and that leaves space that is filled by new magma? How odd that the new magma doesn't just pile up on top of the old. How come the rate of movement is precisely right for creating this apparently continuous new sea floor?It matters where the movement originates. If not the continental ridge, then where? Clearly it doesn't originate in the Pacific trenches. Those are explained as collisions of plates in which one dives under the other -- a movement toward one another. It is at the Atlantic ridge that there is this divergent action, and this has to be the driving force that moves the continents.This message has been edited by Faith, 09-15-2005 06:42 PM

When have I ever suggested that it rises from any particular cause? I never said anything about the magma's erupting like a volcano; that is an issue of your creation, not mine. The rift through which it rises is quite clear on the diagrams; how it got there is not so clear, but that has not been a consideration of mine. You seem to be talking about something else, though.So you are picturing something like what happens when too much soap is put in the washing machine or too much leavening in the batter? It will overflow its container given the chance. But that IS a force and it CAN push.This message has been edited by Faith, 09-15-2005 06:51 PM

Once again, did you read my last post in the Links thread? Please answer. Anyway, the links are there for you to follow up on in case you think I am just pulling this out of thin air.On the positive side. There are lots of good questions here. The rift is caused by the plate moving apart. We do not know why the plates are moving apart. We just know that they ARE moving apart. That is an observation. No one knows. We cannot observe the mechanics of the mantle. The leading theory is the convection cell theory which says that plates are similar to big conveyer belts of material and move around.What we do know is that, in the example of the mid atlantic ridge, is that the two plates are moving apart, splitting the crust, creating rifts. That is it. That is the observation. The cause of the movement of the plates is unknown except via theory. I can see where there is some confusion. You are coming from the perspective of wanting it to be that way and thus the animations certainly look like the magma that is coming up is pushing the rocks aside. But think about this critically for a moment. If magma, being a liquid, is rising up to the surface and it has the choice to displace a rock laterally or displacing nothing by moving vertically what do yout think is going to happen? Because it is a liquid it will take the path of least resistance and go up into the empty space above it rather than the filled space to the sides.If you want to focus your case on a gif animation then first of all realize that it is just a darned gif. Second, think of it in the context of the other information that you know. Magma is prevented from coming to the surface by the crust. When you remove crust the magma will come up. Now look at that animation as if the plates are moving first and THEN the magma fills up into the space. Supplement your knowledge not just based on this one picture but also the text of the sources that explain that picture just how I am explaining it to you here. It is very pertinent to the discussion or I would not have said it. One of the primary observations that makes a divergent boundary different from a convergent boundary is the type of volcanism that happens there. IT is one of the observations. We don't want to ignore facts now do we? A rift is a hole. A hole is an empty space. Before the hole is made there is no way for the magma underneath the crust to come up like it wants to. When a rift is made there is now an empty space. Now the magma can come up and fill that empty space. That is the point I am trying to show you. The magma comes up not because it is pushing on the crust. The magma comes up because the crust moved out of its way. It works the opposite way at a convergent boundary. Take a cloth and pull on it from two opposite sides. If you pull hard enough you will make it rip at some point in the middle. You have just created an empty space in the cloth. The empty spaces in the crust are created by one plate moving in on direction, another plate moving in the opposite direction. At some point something has to give. What gives is called a rift. Think of a normal valley but instead of a river carving it or something it is created by the land falling at a fault. This should be one of the key points for you because you already know that if it were being compressed that it would be pushing things up like those hills we are trying to describe. This is the opposite of that and is the opposite action that creates it. Pushing makes hills, pulling and rifting makes valleys. Yea. The magma comes up to fill the empty spaces. Then it hardens joining the two plates again. The plates rift more spliting that newly formed rock and more magma comes up to fill the gap. How can it? It won't get past old magma unless the plates cause another rift. Remember, the only reason it is rising is because room was made for it to rise. Once that room is take up again it stops until more room is made by another rift. It has nothing to do with any rates. The magma wants to come up but the crust stops it. Make a hole in the crust and the magma will come up. You can do this at any pace. Unknown. How the plates move is currently explained by convection cell theory. We cannot see into the mantle AFAIK. We cannot say clearly because we do not know. The plate is moving due to some mechanism. The leading theory it is moving due to convection in the mantle meaning that it isn't being pulled or pushed on either "end" of the plate. No it dosen't have to be the driving force. Certainly not just because you say so. IN fact we specifically know it is not the driving force which is the point of this whole discussion.The best way to simplify this I think is simply that what is happening at a divergent boundary is a weakening of the crust. That is why normal faults occur. That is why the land sinks. That is why the land break apart (rifts). The crust is letting its guard down which is why the magma CAN rise to the surface. It is a passive reaction. These are the things we observe. Period.This message has been edited by Jazzns, 09-15-2005 05:43 PM

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Please SHOW ME THIS RIFT OR RIFTS. The only one I see is the center opening where the magma rises up. I think you mean something else, but ONLY this center split is shown on the diagrams. When the crust splits, what's beneath it? The diagrams clearly show magma rising up through a rather narrow rift and spilling out to right and left. That's all. That is absolutely not the case. That's simply how it looks to me and it is where I GOT the idea. I didn't get it from any other source. I guess, but don't seem to be dealing with the ACTUAL ILLUSTRATION of the action. WHAT "empty space above it?" WHAT "filled space to the sides?" Those descriptions don't fit what is actually in the illustration. I assume it was made with the intention and best information for being accurate, but also there are MANY diagrams online that show EXACTLY the same thing -- a block of seafloor with a narrow funnel shown in cross section up through the center, through which magma rises and spills out to right and left, falling in behind the cooled magma ahead of it in a way that looks like pushing. The gif is a particularly nice illustration, but I already anticipated the same movement from the diagrams I'd seen before. I told you I had done a lot of research already. It merely confirmed it if confirmation was even needed. I said I did a lot of reading already. It is your job to make these things clear, not mine at this point to do all this extra work just because you are having trouble explaining it. Again, WHAT space? You mean the space that WOULD be there if the cooled magma had done the moving and the hot magma had not immediately filled it? The only space that is actually VISIBLE is the narrow slit through which the magma rises. Facts are very nice things if they are pertinent to the discussion. The magma is coming up continuously through one narrow rift that is clearly visible on ALL the diagrams and shows no sign of being continuously created by moving crust. What you are describing does not make sense. I simply cannot visualize what you are talking about. Jazz, don't you get that I can SEE the rift on the diagrams? It is NOT being formed and re-formed over and over again, it is simply there and magma keeps coming up out of it. There is no hint of a SPACE other than that. Arrgh. I'm going to have to give up. I have NO idea what you are referring to. This all sounds perfectly obvious about something or other but not about this, absolutely irrelevant to this. I can't understand this degree of miscommunication but it is very frustrating. Oh. So it is not continuous, it comes up and hardens, then the plates pull it apart again, and this goes on over and over and over again? It SURE looks continuous on all the diagrams. You know, if this really is the case, it would not be difficult to illustrate it, on any series of diagrams. The gif could very easily show that action. --> Arrows show pulling/tearing action from right and left, causing rift. Magma comes up and spills over to right and left and also plugs up the rift it came from. Arrows show pulling action again, opening a new rift. Magma wells up through new rift, spills to right and left, plugs up the rift. Etc. If this is what is happening, the illustrators have failed utterly to convey it. The illustrations show a continuous flow of magma, no open-close start-stop action at all, no closing of the rift, and no new tearing of a new rift. Jazz. If this is what is happening, I cannot imagine how it would produce this very smooth-looking process of sea floor creation. Your description is of something absolutely different from what is actually depicted -- and described in what I've read as well, but if the only way I'm going to find out if you're right -- or even what on earth you are talking about -- is to read all those links, it isn't going to happen very fast. You appear to be awfully certain that it isn't, but you have completely failed to prove it to me, and what you ARE saying is VERY vague. Well, thanks I guess. I guess there's no reason for you to answer this as I don't suppose it will make anything any clearer. I will continue my researches as I have the time/inclination.This message has been edited by Faith, 09-15-2005 09:43 PM

The ocean. The seafloor.If you shake up an open bottle of champagne, do the sides explode? Seems to me that the pressure takes the path of least resistance -- it comes out the top.
If the magma was under enough pressure to move continents, it would rocket out the top, as that's the weak spot.This message has been edited by DominionSeraph, 09-16-2005 03:54 AM

The problem is that various online illustrations and descriptions of the action at the ridge don't fit that model at first glance and Jazz's explanations aren't clarifying it for me. His model, your model, don't seem to be the same as the official models. I'm sure I'm wrong somehow, but I don't see how yet. Maybe it did in the beginning -- at the time of the Flood when the continents were still together. I'm trying to account for the Appalachians, and the occurrence of something abrupt and pushing at the very start of the action seems a good guess -- as unless there was a backlash/rebound -- that's possible I suppose -- it does seem, as Jazz says, that a pulling force wouldn't have made those mountains. But then really they shouldn't exist at all according to his explanation.The idea that the continents have drifted to and fro for millions of years also doesn't seem very explanatory -- seems to me the re-collision and repeated collisions along the Atlantic ridge would cause more than the little ripple of the Appalachians.Seems that on the western or Pacific side much more force was encountered that built the more extensive and higher mountains there, and for pulling to be the action that brought all this about just doesn't compute. The pulling would have to be against that resistance in the Pacific but coming from the same direction as that resistance at the same time.Pushing makes much more sense -- force encounters resistance head-on that way. That puts the origin of the movement at the Atlantic ridge. How the ridge generates such force is the question then. As a Floodist I tend to think in terms of the origin of the action being most violent, as the continents broke apart, smoothing out once the drift was underway. Initially greater force of the release of the magma? The movement according to a Floodist would also have been a lot faster at the beginning, slowing down gradually to its present rate. The main violence was then on the Pacific side of the Americas as resistance was encountered -- the collision and subduction of the plates there. That resistance would also account for the slowing of the drift.{Edit: Tying this in to the theme of the thread, this is an example of how my YEC presuppositions lead me. I don't have a problem at all with the vast majority of scientific work -- such as the overall theory of tectonic movement. I do have a problem with constantly encountering such unprovable statements as, "Eighty million years ago..." etc. I have to read around those statements. I translate them in to relative time -- this happened before that -- and ignore the actual numbers.Things had to have happened a lot faster given Biblical suppositions, and that of course leads to all the objections that occur to the opposition -- such as how certain events -- intense meteor activity, the release of enormous quantities of water at the seafloor etc -- would have boiled the oceans away and that sort of thing. Well, those things I can't answer and they are just too speculative in any case -- all conceivable variables simply aren't available for the calculations.I don't think Irish Rock Hound's thread is useful for a YEC who isn't a scientist. I think possibly the idea that creationism should be producing hypotheses from scratch is wrong anyway. Creationists don't object to the data itself, or even to the majority of scientific conclusions about the data. The objections are predominantly in terms of the time factor, so creationist thinking goes into accounting for events in a shorter time frame that OE theory says had to take millions of years.)This message has been edited by Faith, 09-16-2005 09:58 AM

Hi FaithI see we have actually gotten into evidence and descriptions now. That has to be a good thing all around. Like you I always thought of divergent boundaries as a PUSH thing. I even took some quite advanced Geology classes back in the 70s that still left me thinking that way.What Jazz is saying actually makes a lot of sense though so I went googling myself to find some simple descriptions of what is going on. Here are a few that I found. They definitely agree with what Jazz has been saying. This picture came from This very informative site.
Note that the thickness of the crust at the divergent boundary is very thin so a PUSH from this point would be likely to result in some serious buckling I think.
Also check the Rift Valley shown to the right. It clearly shows the pulling action by the way that the sides of the valley are constantly falling into the rift via faulting as the plates move apart.
This site is very simple to understand also. It shows the way that a rift valley forms at a divergent boundaryI think the issue here is that the rift valleys (particularly land based ones) at divergent boundaries have been observed to widen prior to the emergence of magma.Does this information help at all?{ABE for some reason my thumbnail doesn't show up properly. It does still open the picture when you click to enlarge though}{AdminBen: AbE: PurpleYouko, you were using the URL of the webpage, not the image, in the "thumb" dbCode. You need to use the URL of the image}This message has been edited by PurpleYouko, 09-16-2005 10:08 AMThis message has been edited by AdminBen, 09/16/2005 10:22 AM