Solving the Mystery of the Biblical Flood

It seems a lot of you guys are having problems with this diatom layer found in Antarctica, so let's look at it again. First off the deposit is not found on ice or a glacier, but in a dry valley type environment. What they are talking about in the part I posted was a layer of marine diatoms that did not appear to be deposited by glacial activity or by wind activity."These results indicate that for one deposit on which the dynamicists built their viewpoint, the Sirius Group at Mount Fleming, the glacial conveyor mechanism appears erroneous. We suggest that if the microfossils in the surface unit arrived by glacial transport mechanisms, they ought to occur within a glacial deposit of younger age than the underlying lodgement tills."They then go on to state why wind depositing is a problem." If the microfossils arrived by eolian processes, they should occur in surface deposits of disparate origin but of unknown age, both glacial and nonglacial, given the ability for the deposit to trap fine-grained, wind-blown material (McFadden, Wells, and Jercinovich 1987; Wells et al. 1995).'They then went to describe a theory on how this diatom layer mite have been deposited by wind action."Denton, Prentice, and Burckle (1991) proposed scenarios by which airborne diatoms were incorporated into Sirius Group glacial sediments. For these diatoms to become airborne, however, at least two requirements must be met:
Outcrops of Plio-Pleistocene marine sediments were available for subaerial wind-scouring.
The atmospheric circulation system and the ice-sheet configuration were significantly different, so that only the observed Plio-Pleistocene marine diatom flora of the Sirius Group was elevated.
The latter is important because eolian transport at present recycles varying proportions of marine and nonmarine diatoms to east antarctic ice sheet plateau locations (Burckle et al. 1988; Kellogg and Kellogg 1996). In addition, the source area from which these marine diatoms were scoured by wind remained enigmatic, because the preponderance of planktic taxa over benthic taxa in Sirius Group sediments seemingly invalidates uplifted near-shore marine sediments (e.g., Webb and Harwood 1991) and because a stable cryosphere and marine diatom source areas appear to be conditions in contradiction. This contradiction arises because the stabilists melt-down mechanisms cannot account for the necessary ice recession (Denton et al. 1993). Finally, the absence in Sirius Group samples from Mount Fleming of marine diatom species such as Nitzschia curta that dominate today in circumantarctic waters (Burckle 1984) requires that the eolian microfossil conveyor operated before such species became dominant."Notice in the above paragraph that a source for these presorted diatoms remains 'enigmatic', as in they can't find it. The lack of diatoms of other ages in this layer argues against a wind deposition. It is very interesting that newer diatoms don't appear in this layer as they should if this layer has wind source. I thought the following statement of theirs particularly interesting. "The atmospheric circulation system and the ice-sheet configuration were significantly different, so that only the observed Plio-Pleistocene marine diatom flora of the Sirius Group was elevated." So what they are saying, is that for this diatom layer to have been eolian transported, or carried by the wind; first there had to be a Plio-Pleistocene diatom deposit that became exposed above water and ice, that the wind could whip up. Second this deposit had to be located in such a manner, and the wind flow patterns and ice and land topography was such that only diatoms from this unknown deposit were carried by the wind to where they were found without any diatoms being carried from the sea or other surfaces were the wind could pick them up. Pew! In short, wind depositation seems to be virtually impossible due to the unusual and extreme conditions necessary for the wind to deposit the diatoms in the manner in which they are found. A marine transgression at the time the diatoms are dated to, is a far better interpretation of the available evidence. The weight of the ice sheets has depressed the Antarctica land mass, it is possible that when the ice sheet there was more extensive the land was even more depressed and a fast entry of water/ice into the sea before isostatic adjustment could occur would have temporally raise global sea levels and flooded this area. These post ice age floods occurred to greater or lesser degrees at the end of each ice age or stage. As much as I would like to claim this evidence for the flood, I will be fair and point out that due to the age of the diatoms involved and the location, this flood event could possibly be from a smaller marine transgression of on earlier retreat of the ice age. On the other hand, it could be from the end of the Wisconsin, but until I know more on the dating of the diatoms involved, I will hold off on that claim for now.Some of you also seem to be having difficulty accepting the idea of large portions or even an entire ice sheet suddenly surging. As I have already posted, the GRIP drop stones found over the area of the North Atlantic are believed to be the result of just such an event. There are also, the last I heard, three teams monitoring one of the largest ice sheets in Antarctica, because it is feared that rising sea levels due to a warming climate could destabilize the ice sheet and cause it to surge which could flood coastal areas all over the world, sort of a mini Noah's flood. The possibility of large sudden movement by ice sheets is today not only believed in, it is feared. Link to site on the possibility of the ice sheets collapsingPage Not Found | UW College of Arts & SciencesAs for drop stones in other oceans, there are probably are many other areas which have them, perhaps a Internet search will turn up more information, and remember just because we haven't gone and found something doesn't mean it isn't there, you don't know that until you look. And on "entire ice sheets melting"? where did that come from? I am proposing that the ice sheets had been melting slowly over time up until the flood, when they suddenly released a flood of meltwater which resulted in massive surging. As for the long term climate effects of having the remains of large portions of the former ice sheets dumped into the world oceans, the effect would probably be a warming trend for the air while the water may have cooled some what. The removal of glacial ice from land areas would result in a much greater warming effect since land surfaces absorb a much greater amount of sunlight than does ice and snow which reflects most of it back out into space. The ice in the oceans in the form of ice burgs would also have most of their surfaces submerged below water, water absorbs 90% of sunlight compared to ice's 10%. The icebergs would have existed for quite sometime in the oceans, there is no reason to conclude that they would all have to melt during the short time period of the flood. Some of these icebergs were trapped on land as the waters drained into the sea. At one time it was even thought that the Carolina bay lakes were created in this manner, but it seems too improbable given the characteristics of the lakes. Stagnate ice traces found far south of where the edge of the ice sheet edge was, could be evidence of ice that had be moved by floating south as the waters drained.On the extent of SA glaciers, picture a map of the area about six inches long and mentally drag your thumb down the west side of the map where the mountains are.On the dates for the extinction of the Pleistocene animals. Remember as I have been repeatedly saying, we do not necessarily have fossil remains of the last animal alive of each species. How long they lived after the last specimen found is impossible to tell. And as I have repeatedly stated, there is a pattern of animals appearing to disappear before the extinction event that killed them off due to these effects. Also there is play in the dates, and many of the finds may have been alive later than currently believed. Since the evidence available indicates that the flood did not cause much erosion, there was little opportunity for flood victims to be buried by sediment which would have preserved their remains. Only would be fossils that happened to settle in areas where sedimentation was occurring, like lake bottoms and sand bars, would have much chance of being preserved. Since the flood did not create a large number of fossils, the ones we find date from before the extinction event and the dates will fail to cluster at the extinction event. This same problem has be noted to happen with other extinction events leading to the creation of theories that the extinct animals where in decline before the event. Due to these factors and the uncertain nature of knowing the exact timing of things in the past, I feel it is reasonable to conclude that a large number of the extinct ice age animals did indeed die in a sudden event at the end of the ice age.Patrick- does Geology magazine have a web site? I would like to look at the articles you cited. I am aware of wind transport of marine diatoms, if you read the earlier posts you will see this subject has already been well covered as to why the diatoms I have found could not have been deposited by wind action.

As I have already repeatedly posted, I don't have a problem with wind transported marine diatoms. Also, comparing ice core with till core records of diatoms is like comparing apples with oranges. A flood deposited layer in theory would only be present in the till core and not the ice core. In addition, for the one layer in till core only, this paper's statement of the diatoms being of a secondary nature is hard to believe since as the second paper stated that the diatoms in the one layer and the material they are with, do not show disparate origins as the wind blown ice core materials in the other paper do. As I stated in my earlier post, the dating on these diatoms may be too early and may be related to a smaller earlier flooding event. (the one layer in the till, the rest are wind blown) the dry valleys do contain evidence of a recent flooding in the form of dead seals found over a hundred miles from the sea. these freeze dried animals are believed to have traveled over land away from the sea by mistake and died. However one group is in a neat row all aligned like seals would be in a bad storm while laying on an ice flow. It would seem they died in a storm and were covered by snow, the ice later drifted into the flooded valley during the flood and was left behind. The ice slowly disappeared leaving the dead seals behind. I find it hard to believe these animals traveled to far inland as a group and they all happened to tire out and die in the same place in a neat row. Their behavior seems more typical of a normal group of seals on ice than a very lost and starving group that had traveled over a hundred miles inland. Since the diatoms even in the till layer seem to at best be the documentation of an earlier small event, I regard the dead seals as better evidence. Perhaps in time more flood associated material in these areas will be found. So even if the diatoms in the valleys are dated to an earlier flood and the rest are wind blow, we still have recent indications in the seals of a recently much higher sea level.The two reasons the marine diatoms found here are not of wind origin are the absence of wind deposed diatoms as shown by their being lacking in samples of the current surface. Apparently due to distance and or wind patterns and mountain ranges, very few wind carried diatoms make it here. If any do, they seem to be too few in number to show up in the sampling method used. The second reason is the pattern of deposit, this layer is not found beneath glacial boulders showing that these rocks were deposited before the diatoms were, then there are other large rocks which appear to possibly be drop stones under which this layer is found. Wind could not deposit diatoms underneath large boulders. The diatoms are not found beneath the surface in the soil in general, which eliminates them being from a reworked source. In short, the pattern of deposit indicates a short period of deposit at the end of the last ice age. The ice had retreated north of this area leaving boulders behind, the flood occurred and rock bearing ice floated south dropping rocks which landed on a surface already covered by a layer of marine diatoms.edge- I am pressed for time today, so I don't have time to post the information you request. I would suggest doing some reading on the subject, the extent of ice cover in SA and the way the last ice age ended. "Late glacial and Postglacial Environmental changes" is a good book for this. I suggest this because you are mostly questioning mainstream theories on the ice age. I merely believe that many of the huge flooding events happen at the same time and perhaps on a larger scale or range then is currently believed. but you seem to keep questioning basic things like ice sheets surging, doesn't common sense tell you that the bigger a pile of ice is, the more unstable it is? If we are to have a discussion on the details of this, you need to get a better background in the subject.

You are once again comparing apples and oranges. The reasons for the patchyness in the Antarctica glacial diatom deposits don't apply to a Midwestern temperate woodland setting. The main reason given for the diatom patchyness in Antarctica was the diatoms had to fall into cracks in the ice not to be blown away by the winds. Also the tendency for the ice to sublime, melt and refreeze, creep and flow, will disrupt the evenness of the diatom layers. None of these processes are a major concern in a non glacial setting. In the patchyness due to storm tracks, it has to be considered that this patchyness is on a large scale related to the size of the storm and the paths they take. In the Midwest the storms are large enough that the resulting precipitation covers several counties and is repeated much more frequently than the south pole area which receives on average only about 2 inches worth of rain equivalent a year. The Midwest's more frequent rain fall and higher amounts, would even out the spread of any air borne diatoms. Also the inconsistency of background sampling was on far to small of a scale to be accounted for in this manner. Any wind blown diatoms reaching this area appear to have done so in too low of quantities to show up in tests on areas that have had the post ice age surface eroded.I enjoyed the technical information on diatoms not lasting in different soil types, and would appreciate any links you have on such. That was a major concern early on and I was happy that it did not turn out to be an impossible problem. If you were correct on diatoms only lasting something like a year in the soil here, then any area undisturbed for more than a year would have the same level of diatoms present, that was not found to be the case. The soil here aside from swamps, lakes etc., is very consistent in its make up and origin, and is not a factor in the patchyness of the pattern of finding diatoms. Since as I have repeatedly stated, I have marine diatoms found underneath a glacial boulder, yet other glacial boulders don't have any. Clearly the diatoms were deposited after some of the boulders were left by the melting ice, but before the other one was dropped by floating ice in a flood of sea water. The fact that I can sit here and look at pictures of diatoms found beneath a glacial drop stone from the end of the ice age, settles the survivability question. The diatoms had to be placed before the boulder was, for there is no way wind could deposit diatoms beneath a boulder. One other point to consider is "on occasion to euhedral K-Fe-rich clay minerals replacing the original siliceous frustule. In addition, converted diatom particles are found in" sounds like the some of the diatoms didn't disappear, they were converted in their chemical make up while they retained their physical form and were still recognizable as diatoms. I believe this process is called fossilization. If the diatoms that have been affected this way are still recognizable, wouldn't arguing against their survival be arguing against the existence of most of the fossilized remains we have in the fossil record?On the date for the flood, in my book I strongly favor the bible date but leave open the possibility that due to the possibility of omission in the genealogy list used to date when the flood occurred, that it may have occurred earlier perhaps as long ago as 10K when the end of the ice age is currently believed to have happened. But to simplify the argument, let's use the biblical date for now. Since using the biblical date would require shortening the dates for everything that happened at the end of the ice age by two thirds, you can see why I was unfazed by some of the dating inconstancies with the extinction of ice age animals. If bible chronology is correct on the age of man and when the flood occurred as I believe it to be, our absolute dating systems apparently have some pretty sizable errors left in them yet and are better suited to giving approximations then exact dates. The dating systems in use, yield valuable information and are well worth using, but the information they give needs to be evaluated thoughtfully, and not swallowed whole without examination. Blindly believing whatever number some of these tests spit out, may well result in our generation of scientists being regarded as gullible dupes by future generations.

Hello Wehappyfew, long time no see, glad to see a keen mind like yours on the board. Good question on movement of diatoms through soil pores. The glacial drop stone with the diatoms beneath, has a neighbor a few feet away that is a less glamorous glacially deposited boulder. The glacial boulder was found to have no diatoms beneath it at all. Several cores where taken from both by digging down next to the boulder and underneath the edge, then a coring tool was pounded in at angle beneath the boulder. The two boulders are sitting near the top of a low slope ridge line, the area is not very steep, and the water run off isn't that great. The total lack of diatoms beneath the glacial deposited boulder eliminates the possibility of the diatoms having significant movement through soil pores at this site.LudvanB-The accuracy of early biblical chronology is not accepted by science in general, therefore finding 'scientific impartial evidence' presented in scientific works would in theory be nearly impossible since science doesn't accept the chronology and gaining acceptance for publication of any such evidence would be extremely difficult. The bible is a historical record, and its recent dating has proven very reliable. For the earlier chronology, it is important to remember the account opens with an already existing earth, and proceeds to describe a progressive creation of life by an undescribed means over a period of six creative days or periods of unstated length. The 6 or 10K dates for the age of the earth are the creation of fundamentalists interpretation and are in conflict with the bible itself, so don't let your mind be closed by the ridiculous claims of YECs. The date for the flood is based on a list of genealogies and adding up the time. If the record we have of these generations is complete, the date is trustworthy. In my book I allow for the possibility that the flood may have occurred much earlier then the biblical date. I believe the biblical date is correct, and the end of the ice age has been moved up in time before. It once was believed to have ended much earlier, 30K, then as dating technology got better it was moved up to about 10K. So perhaps as technology improves, it will be once more moved forward in time, closer to the date the bible states. It is also interesting to point out that the newer AMS carbon dating system has been giving newer dates, like the one we have been arguing about for the flooding of the Black Sea. So perhaps many years from now, when even better dating methods are available, science will decide the bible date for the flood is correct after all.Patrick- First Patrick, in my opinion having read some of his books, nothing could make Henry Morris cringe. On the patchyness of the Antarctica wind blown diatoms, the mechanisms I listed came from the web link you posted, where they stated. "Diatoms settling on the polar pateau are buried and trapped in the snow. As the snow compresses to ice and flows gradually down and outward toward the ice sheet margin, the diatoms are carried along until they reach either the glacial bed or come to the surface in an area with surface ablation (where flowlines out crop). In the former case, diatoms from many years of deposition may become concentrated at the ice bed in morainal material. Thus, atmosphereically transported diatoms have the potential to result in reworked assemblages containing diatoms of different ages. Not all diatoms carried through the atmosphere end up in the ice. If they land on an ice- or snow free area, they may be retransported unless they fall in cracks or crevices protected from the wind. Evidence for this diatom trapping mechanism was presented by Burckle." Even recent surface cores can be affected by the surfacing of flowlines, and a smooth glacier surface such as an ice crust would allow for the wind to blow dust and diatoms along until they dropped into a crack. Also the extremely low amount of precipitation at the south pole also accounts for some of the patchyness. As I have already posted, these effects are not applicable to our area here.On the comet impact as a trigger for the sudden collapse of the ice sheets. First the bible indicates a global rain of 40 days, which flooding by ice sheet surging would not cause. However if the surging was caused by the results of a comet impact, such an impact would have caused the rain reported in the bible. An impact in an ocean or on a ice sheet, would have blasted ice and or water high into the atmosphere and if large enough, out into space on short term ballistic trajectories to fall back all over the earth. An ocean impact is theorized to create hyper canes that would lift water into the stratosphere. A comet impact could trigger a ice sheet surge in two ways, an ocean generated tsunami hitting the sheet margin, or a direct impact creating a massive pressure wave in the sub glacial lake beneath the glacier resulting a wide scale breaching of the margin ice dam. Possible evidence of an tsunami could be found in the manner of some ice age tundra deposits, but these deposits are more likely to have been created by glacial out burst floods released from the ice sheets or mountain glaciers. There is also a lack of the massive sediment layer in many areas that a comet caused tsunami wave would create as it swept inland and then drained back to the sea. If there were comet ocean impacts at this time, they appear to have been small or to have occurred only in certain parts of the earth. The direct impact theory seems to be more likely of the two. A direct impact of a large comet on the Laurentide ice sheet in Canada and the resultant pressure wave in the lake of trapped water beneath it, would have caused very large releases of water and ice to occur at many places along the sheet margin all at the same time. The evidence we have of glacial mega floods, super floods of melt water and the stream lining of drumlins point to a large enough release of water that if many of these happened all at once, the rise in sea level would have been more than enough to trip the domino theory of ice sheet ocean surging resulting in massive global flooding. Direct evidence for such a comet impact is thin. We do have a number of aligned lakes that some believe were created a the end of the ice age by an impact event. But as of yet, no one has found a iridium layer for this event, yet no one has thought to look ether. A comet impact on a ice sheet would leave little direct evidence. We would expect to see the releases of large amounts of water, which we do have evidence for, but if the ice was thick enough, the impact crater could have been limited to the ice itself and no mark may have been formed in the bedrock below. So unless someone finds an iridium layer at the end of the ice age, the best evidence for this event will be the effects the impact caused to the ice sheet in the sudden releases of melt water. That evidence we do have, but for the comet impact, it is still indirect evidence. Even the Carolina Bay lakes are probably from secondary impacts created by glacial ice blasted out from the impact ice crater in the Laurentide ice sheet.

Patrick- Yes I do discuss the topic of wind blown diatoms in my book, I also go on to show as we have been discussing here that there is no way the wind could deposit marine diatoms beneath an ice age boulder. One of the reasons I posted here was to see if anyone could come up with another workable explanation, so far no one has done so. On the Antarctica diatoms, maybe I am misunderstanding some of the details, but I don't believe the Midwest and Antarctica can be compared as being similar areas, despite what some of you southern boys may think, Wisconsin is not nearly all that bad. The climate, wind patterns and speeds, distance from the sea, off shore sea air surface interface conditions, precipitation averages and topography are all very different.On the comet impact debris, "a huge blanket of ejecta decreasing in average clast size away from the crater, and a blanket of melt spherules" would only be found if the ground was impacted. An impact by a comet limited to the ice of an ice sheet would not create any of these typical impact traces. The Laurentide ice sheet is believed to have had a thickness of over a mile and may have been much thicker. Such a thickness could easily have contained an impact crater over a mile deep and several miles wide, and if the sheet was thicker the crater could have been even larger without reaching the bedrock beneath the ice sheet. On the aligned lakes having impact traces, the ice chucks blasted from the impact crater would of have had a much lower speed than the comet and would fail to produce many of the typical impact traces associated with comet impact craters.Quetzal-The ice sheets believed to have possibly to have been hit, no long exist, they have long since melted away. I do not believe that the surviving ice sheets in Greenland or Antarctica were hit. If they were, an ice sheet would not fracture like a small piece of ice, it is too large and flows like a pile of soft wax. Detection of such an event in an ice core record would be very difficult, if the bore hole passed through the crater itself or a piece of ejected ice, the discontinuity would be noticed. But it would probably take a number of corings to map the crater and determine the cause and location. The best means of detection would be the fine dust settling on the surface from the rocky material that is generally present in comets. This material such as iridium is a possible trace that maybe identified in the ice core records. However, if the comet was lacking in these materials or if the events associated with the impact and resulting flood melted the surface of the glacier, the evidence may have failed to form or may have been washed away. It will proably take a specific search for these traces to detect them if they are present.

Patrick, I would think the weight of a ice age boulder would be a pretty weighty argument for disproving wind depositing all by itself. The idea of the diatoms having migrated through the soil after the boulder was in place is disproved by the other boulder having no diatoms below it. If the diatoms had migrated below one boulder, they would have migrated below the other. I agree with the fact that the marine diatoms had to be deposited in a brief period after the first boulder was placed and before the second one was. Now this raises a question, if the first boulder was deposited by the retreating glacier as it melted back, and then a thin layer of marine diatoms were deposited, how did the second boulder get to its resting place on top of the diatoms without disturbing the layer? If the glacier had readvanced it would have severely disrupted the surface with the diatoms. If it was still close enough for the second boulder to somehow roll off the ice and land where it is, the nearby area covered by the glacier at the time of the marine diatom deposit would not show the same layer. On your statement "idea of a global flood prefentially depositing diatoms of all things is absurd, given that even the slightest current will keep them in suspension. Where are the planktonic foraminifera, for instance? Why no marine organisms larger than, say, 100um in those midwest soils? Hmm." The reason for this is very simple, I haven't looked for them for one thing, I have been looking exclusively for marine diatoms. the reasons for this is that diatoms are very common and most likely to be found due to their very large numbers, and their silicon shell gives them a very good chance of surviving over time. As for even slight currents keeping diatoms in suspension and preventing deposition, you must be kidding, there are plenty of currents in the oceans and yet diatoms manage to settle on the ocean floor just fine. The other marine organisms are not as plentiful and many of them are carbonate based rather than silicon, making them harder to find and far less likely to have been preserved. And as we have already discussed, we do have the remains of very large marine organisms found on land buried in deposits dated to the end of the ice age in the form of the three finds of whale bones in the state of Michigan. Finds of the marine organisms in the in-between sizes will no doubt turn up in time.On the impact, As far as I know, this idea is entirely new. As far as I know, no work as been done on this. But the answer to your question is simple enough, if the ice sheet is thick enough to contain the impact, then no impact features would be formed on the land surface below. Also remember that some of the ice sheets may have been much thicker and easily could have absorbed the effects of very sizable impacts. Small meteor fragments are routinely found on glaciers, which were easily able to absorb their impacts. In my book I also theorize that the comet may have been broken up into a number of fragments on a close fly by of the sun on its way to the earth. This would have resulted in the earth possibly receiving a number of smaller hits spread out over the globe instead of one large one. But for math calculations on the comet impact, take an velocity of lets say, 120,000 miles per hour, at which speed each pound of comet ice would be carrying about 6,441,752 BTUs, enough energy to melt 22 tons of ice. Ice weighs 57.2 lb. per cubit foot. An impact crater one mile in diameter if a perfect hemisphere would have contained 38.5 billion cubit feet of ice weighing 1.1 billion tons. It takes 1294.7 BTUs to turn one pound of ice into steam, so 1.1 billion tons would take 1,424 billion BTUs which would take 221,079 pounds of comet ice, or 3,856 cuft which would form an ice sphere only 19.4 ft in diameter. Comets are giant snowballs with a low density of perhaps 12.5 pounds per cuft and hence would have a larger diameter of about 32.3 ft. Since we are dealing with the volume of a hemisphere and a sphere, if the impact crater is doubled, the comet diameter is also doubled. Hence a ice crater 2 miles deep would take a 64.6 ft dia comet to create it, 3 miles 97 ft dia. As comets go these would be small fragments, but if the speed was lower, for a given impact the comet would have been that much bigger. These are very rough calculations, we are assuming many factors like the shape of the crater and ignoring many others like the energy carried away by ejected material and the fact that much of glacier ice would be converted into not just steam, but would be raised to far higher temperatures. Some of these factors tend to cancel each other a bit, so our rough calculations may still be in the ballpark. They do show that a small comet makes a big hole, and packs quite a wallop. Considering the comparative small size, and the low concentrations that rocky type material is generally present at in comets, the amount of detectable fall out from such an event would probably be below current detection levels. Hence if this impact event or events failed to significantly penetrate below the ice, they may only be detectable in their effects on the ice sheets they impacted.On Heinrich events, I would expect an association with the 0 event, the last one. There seems to be a number of theories on these cycles, some work well with the idea of a sudden surge event.
Lehman, Scott (1993). "Ice Sheets, wayward winds and sea change." Nature 365: 108-110.
. MacAyeal proposes that an ice sheet (the LIS) starts out frozen to its bed and gets progressively taller (with steep marginal profiles). Eventually, geothermal heat (or whatever) warms the base of the ice sheet enough to "float" the base and cause massive collapse (and iceberg discharge).Now if we take the above sheet just as it was about to release on its own and hit it with a comet, the resulting release will be very large and abrupt. These huge releases are noted to result in a sudden increase in sea level.Blanchon, Paul and John Shaw (1995). "Reef drowning during the last deglaciation: Evidence for catastrophic sea-level rise and ice-sheet collapse." Geology 23 no. 1: 4-8.
Drowned coral reefs in the Caribbean give evidence for three meter-scale increases in sea level during the past 30,000 years. These increases occur simultaneously with Heinrich events. The ocean is affected by the components involved with Heinrich events in that climate is different, ice sheets are collapsing, ocean circulation patterns change, and very large volumes of sub-ice sheet meltwater enters the ocean. What happens is that a certain species of coral (Acropora) has a very limited depth range for habitation. If sea level goes up a meter, corals near the lower limit of the range drown. By radiometrically-dating the corals and finding out when they drowned, one can tell when sea level rose (and get an idea how fast it rose). By determining that this massive meltwater influx into the ocean was pretty fast, Blanchon and Shaw suggest that this expulsion was itself the cause of the ice sheet collapse. Since mid-latitudes are most affected by the changes in summer insolation, and the northern hemisphere's mid-latitude region was large enough to sustain a huge ice cap, the summer insolation maxima was able to produce a huge volume of meltwater. The release of this water was (theoretically) the cause of ice sheet collapse and ocean circulation changes and sea level changes.This sudden shift detected in sea level shows that these huge releases of ice and water can suddenly raise the sea level by nearly 10 feet in a very short period of time. Now if one of these cycles was tripped by one or more comet impacts on one or more ice sheets, the effects would have been a very sudden and large rise in sea level, which would have been great enough to cause a chain reaction of further surging and rising sea level. Below is the link to the site where these extracts are located.
Web Login Service - Stale Requestthanks for the book reference, it looks like a good book, on page six it states "The paleoclimate record has become the primary source of evidence that abrupt climate events, unrivaled in human history and unrecorded by human measurement, occur frequently. . . . This idea has gained almost universal acceptance and has fostered a rethinking about the stability of earth's climate." Yes I think this is a book I would enjoy reading.

Patrick- You may have raised a valid point on the foraminifera and forams.
They may have been present in my samples, and I just didn't recognize them because I wasn't looking for them and didn't think to consult an identification guide for them. I will have to take that into consideration next time. And just because I didn't look for them doesn't mean they aren't there.On settling of diatoms, as already posted earlier in our discussion, strong currents were not necessary to flood the world and the evidence we have indicates that in general strong currents were not part of this event. Since the depth of water would be much less than the water covering the sea floor, particularly at the beginning and end, excessive depth is not a problem.On the seaway explanation for the Michigan whales, no such sea way is believed to have existed. You are perhaps thinking of the Champlain Sea which didn't extend far enough west to count for the whales. On the timing of the deposits, both diatoms and whales are found in material from the end of the ice age.On a comet impact on an ice sheet you stated. "contrary to what you say, all kinds of impact modeling and empirical research has been done" Could you kindly post some links or give some references? I would like to review such information.On Heinrich events, the information on these events is a big step forward for the discussion on this board. Earlier Edge had posted "We have already established that this is not the behavior of ice sheets. No complete ice sheets have melted, surged or otherwise been disrupted in history. Jokhulhlaups occur on the fringes of glaciers and ice sheets. Never has an entire ice sheet been affected that I can tell." The Henrich events answer his objection that yes they have and strongly enough to raise the world's sea level by 10 feet. These events appear to happen in connection with each retreat of each ice age or stage. A number of earlier retreats where associated with a rise in sea level, and a Heinrich event would be a good possibility of how the rise occurred. Now as I was saying earlier, if a comet impact or impacts triggered a Heinrich event, the event could have been much larger and abrupt than it would have been otherwise. The earlier non comet triggered Heinrich events possibly occurred in stages over a period of time, with the result that the oceans had more time to isostatically adjust under the increased water depth. A comet triggered event could have been too abrupt for this adjustment to keep pace with, and the larger size of the event trigged a larger rise in sea level. This sudden large rise, unlike the earlier Heinrich induced rises, was great enough to trigger a general surging of the ice sheets into the rising waters. I don't view the dating of the HO event as a problem at this time, considering that a number of the events, that at least to me that seem to have all been connected, have varying assigned dates with a spread of a few thousand years.Now if, if the 0 Heinrich event was the start of the biblical flood, then yes we should be able to locate the flood in the ocean floor sediment cores. I agree that evidence of this event should be visible in these records. But yes this was one very stealthy flood, the movement of water on and off the land was for the most part very steady and did not involve rapid movement or flow. These are global events, events of this magnitude are of necessity very stealthy or they would render the earth uninhabitable due to the sudden and impossibly large release of energy it would take to power such a movement rapidly on a global scale. The water currents would not have been fast, but they would have been vast and prolonged. Some effects from this type of prolonged current change may show up. What I would expect to see is evidence of the isostatic depression in the form of earthquake induced turbidity flows and evidence of some areas experiencing a large increase in depth with a resulting change in conditions. These effects may not be present in all areas, for some areas may not have experienced significant isostatic depression. The location of the cores will need to be taken in consideration when looking for these effects. The channel area between Greenland and North America is not that wide compared with an ocean and may not have been depressed very much. Plus there is the fact Greenland still has the weight of its ice sheet which may have reduce the effects of shifting weight since a lot if its weight didn't shift. But I would expect a lot of other cores to show earthquake turbidity flows at this time in other parts of the world.

Patrick and Edge, you two seem to be thinking very much a like so I will respond to you both at once. I think in terms of "strong" currents we will have to start using some numbers as to the speeds involved, for in forty days at a slow walking speed of 2 or 3 miles per hour, the rising waters would have been able to reach just about everywhere. 40 days is 960 hours, times 2 equals 1920 miles traveled or times 3 would be 2880 miles. There are few places on earth that far inshore. We are also assuming that the rise in sea level all took place in 40 days, it may very well have been longer. On topographic irregularities causing faster currents due to pinch points you are absolutely correct, and we see such erosional effects due to this at places such as the Straits of Gibraltar, the Bosporus Straits, the Manych depression and many other places where the terrain focused the effects of the otherwise slow current flow.On the Michigan Whale bones, SW Wisconsin drop stones and diatoms in SE Wisconsin all being the effects of a minor extension of the Champlain sea flooding of the St. Lawrence river valley. Here below is a map of the extent of the former Champlain sea.If you look to the lower left side of the map, notice that the Champlain sea failed to even extend into lake Ontario. Lake Ontario has an elevation of 245 ft, the next lake west is lake Erie at 570 ft and is separated from lake Ontario by Niagara Falls. To cover the whale sites in Michigan would require a rise in the Chaplain's level by well over three hundred feet. The pattern of ice age and post ice drainage is known, and from this it is known that the areas west of the former Champlain sea were not depressed nearly enough to have once been under its waters. The pattern of fossils is that the finds in the Champlain sea area are associated with marine mud and bottom life showing a long marine submergence. While the other finds farther to the west, lack the marine muds and bottom creatures, showing that the submergence in that area was much briefer. What happened is the areas west were only briefly submerged in the flood, while the Champlain sea area was flooded for a time after the flood until the on going process of glacial rebound slowly raised the area back above sea level. I am very happy that you guys are at least being to see a pattern behind the origin of the evidence, that it all is best explained by a single flood event of one type or another... On the locations of the drop stones in the Driftless Area here some information on their locations. The book "The Physical Geography of Wisconsin, Third Edition by Lawrence Martin 1965, pages 130-131 sites Grant River valley and near the Mississippi at several localities east of Trempealeau, La Crosse, and De Soto, at elevations of 380 to 480 feet above the river, which would be about 1000 ft above sea level. In the book "Ice Age Lost" by Gewn Schultz on page 270 she talks about the occurrence of glacial erratics or drop stones in the Driftless area, but blames them on pranksters and gives no locations. For information on the Michigan whales see the book, The Late Quaternary Development of the Champlain Sea Basin, edited by Nelson R. Gadd. The details as I recall where they were found by people digging basements or whatever, they were found in gravel and or sand deposits reworked by glacial run off or former streams. On the HO event, I do not even mention it in my book, and would like to associate it with the flood, but I would like to have much more information before I would positively make that claim. I will say it appears to be a very likely association for the time being"No complete ice sheets have melted in history" Really? I am not sure what you meant to say, flood or no flood, the ice sheets are gone. And I didn't say they melted all at once to create the ether, they released trapped melt water which had melted earlier and was merely released at that time, and they surged into the sea or were surrounded by water where they sat. So I don't get your point on this one. As for the Heinirich events only effecting the edges of the ice sheet, the rise in sea level by one of these events was 10 feet, that is a lot of edge. As the water rises, the 'edge' moves inshore and continues the process. In earlier events this was probably a step by step feed back event. A sudden comet triggered event would run at a possibly faster pace and be large enough to raise sea levels high enough to trigger more general surging which in turn triggered even more surging and so on.I look forward greatly to your future posting on coseismic mass-slumping and turbidity currents in ocean cores. Please also consider the possibility of H1 instead of H0 as being the flood. Considering the limited look I have had on these events, I think it best to consider the last two in case I got it wrong. "where, exactly, the largest isostatic readjustments occurred?" The Pacific ocean as the largest ocean would have experienced the greatest depression, perhaps as much as a mile or more. Smaller ocean areas would have experienced proportionality smaller amounts of isostatic depression. The shifts where felt planet wide and were not limited to just the oceans, effects will also be found on land as well.

PatrickNo my theory does not involves the melting of a large proportion of the glacial ice at the flood event. In involves the sudden release of already melted melt water, trapped underneath the ice sheet in the subglacial lake, and lakes of water on top of the ice sheet and lakes dammed up by the ice sheet in glacial lakes. The comet impact or impacts would also have melted some ice, but % wise, not very much. The comet impact caused a sudden release of the subglacial lake waters which caused a massive surge of ice into the ocean. This was probably seen in the ocean cores as a Heinrich event. This surge event raised sea level high enough to trigger the start of a domino chain reaction surging event. As each surge raised the sea level higher and triggers another surge. As the water rises, the remaining glaciers didn't even have to move to be in the ocean, it came to them. At the end of the flood, after the waters had drained into the isostatically depressed ocean basins, the ice sheets for the most part were still where they were before. Some large amounts ended up in the seas, some went aground on land in other places. Some of the world's ice sheets may have split into pieces and drifted apart into sections before regrounding. The amount of ice before and after the flood was roughly the same. The biggest change would be the sudden release of formerly trapped melt waters, and the redistribution of large amounts of ice into the oceans.On the 40 days, since the rising waters came from glacial surging, the length of the rain fall is unimportant. The account in the bible is vague on when the springs of the deep where closed, which could be an indirect referral to the effects glacial surging would have on sea level. Considering the size of the events, and the comparative lack of erosional effects, it may have been that the waters rose for half the time period of the flood and went down for the other half. Noah and company were in the ark for most of a year, and then exited on a high point, which would allow more possible time for the water to finish draining from the lower elevations.On topographic irregularities causing faster currents due to pinch points-" explain why we don't see these features worldwide on the continents, for instance around mountains and hills, especially in areas closer to the equator where there is no evidence for glaciation!" When water drains, the water flow is concentrated in the low points like river valleys, not the hill tops. We do find this erosional evidence in a number of places, some of which are near the equator such as the straits of Gibraltar where the sea floor shows giant ripple marks from a massive in rush of water into the Mediterranean. These marks left by the rapid movement of huge quantities of water are found in a number pinch points around the world.wehappyfew
Good to hear from you again. On "the "mile or more" figure for the "isostatic rebound" of the Pacific Ocean? Can you express your result in isostatic buoyancy equations describing pre-Flood conditions, Flood conditions, and post-Flood conditions for the various areas" The figure is based on a worst case scenario of theoretical flood depth, that what if the ice sheets contained half the earth's water and suddenly released them back into the sea. At a theoretical maxim depth of about 4,000 ft for the flood waters, the oceans covering 2/3 to of the earth's surface, would have in theory been depressed about 6,000 ft to hold that much more water. The actual flood depth may have been less of course. What kind of isostatic buoyancy equations are you referring to? Could you give some examples or provide a link to a demonstration of such equations. I am not sure what you are looking for.

The historical record in the bible unfortunately fails to give us any depth soundings of the flood waters. Since Noah apparently lacked a weight and a length of rope, we will have to make some estimated guesses of how deep the flood waters might have been. Lets use the range of from 500 ft to 4,000 ft. The shallower numbers sounds more believable until you remember the statement that everything was submerged, if correct it would require a pretty subdued topography. Which is why the higher end depth numbers are attractive in their own way, yet they are just the extreme end of the range we are considering, the actual amount was probably less. No one knows for sure how much water was contained in the former ice sheets, or even the exact range they covered, all the figures are like what will follow, estimates.First let's go metric, so the range is 152m to 1219m. The earth's surface is 509,600,000 sqkm, with 45,000,000 sqkm believed to have been glaciated. Using the figure you gave of 52,000,000 cubit km for total ice volume would result in a global flood depth of only 102m. Global floods in the 152m to 1219m range would take an ice volume of 77,459,200 cukm to 621,202,400 cukm, which would be 1.5 to 12 times as much ice as the ice sheets are believed to have contained, although a smaller flood using just the believed size of the former ice sheets is still a possibility. (this clear things up for you wehappyfew?) With 45,000,000 sqkm glaciated with 52,000,000 cukm, the average thickness would be 1,156m, for the range I gave, thickness would be 1721m to 13,804m. Of course as the volume of the hypothetical ice sheet increases, the area of land to support it also increases which would reduce the average thickness, and the area actually glaciated in the last ice age may have simply been larger than is currently believed which would also reduce the average thickness. As for the amount of water/ice that ended up in the sea, just subtract the volume of current glaciers (23,000,00 cukm?) from the former figure, or from the range I gave above. That would put between 54,460,000 and 598,292,400 cukm into the oceans over time. Much of the water dumped into the oceans was in the form of ice, which slowly melted over time dropping stones on the ocean floor as the ice drifted. Since the surging glaciers displaced the ocean water, the surge itself was probably nearly pure ice % wise, the huge volume of tapped melt waters would probably be minor compared to the over all volume of glacial ice. The current ocean area is about 361,600,000 sqkm, which for the range I have given, would have been depressed an average of 50m to 553m, under the increased average depth of 151m to 1,658m. The depression is expected to be some what in the shape of a parabolic curve resulting in greater depression in larger basins. Using a rough ratio for the density of water to rock of 1 to 3, the weight of water put into the oceans would have displaced between 18,153,333 to 199,430,800 cukm of magma inside the earth. Since there is more land than there is water, the depression of the oceans resulted in a greater rebounding of the land areas. Most of the rebound occurred in areas once covered by ice sheets that lost much of their ice into the sea. There was also a general up lifting of the land as well as demonstrated by raised shorelines. On the amounts of ice left on land that later melted, and the amount initially dumped into the sea, it would % wise be smaller for the smaller flood, greater % would be put in the seas for the deeper floods. For thicker ice sheets would spread out more if surrounded by thousands of feet water, they would be much more unstable. If we assume a volume equal to the present ice volume 23,000,000 cukm in addition to what we have now, was left on land to melt away from the former ice sheets, that would have put between 31,460,000 cukm and 575,292,400 cukm into the oceans in a short period of time. Our present earth is the end result of these shifting pressures, the difference between the various models is what the ice age oceans looked like before the flood, how much water had been withdrawn and how much had their basins rebounded. The withdrawal happened slowly over time, while a large portion of the return was very quick. This difference in speeds has resulted in a different pattern in the shifts in the lithosphere before and after the flood. If for the moment we take the high end of the flood ranges I gave, which would mean pulling 1658 m depth of water out of the worlds oceans and would in turn result in a rebounding of the ocean floor of an average of 553 m. Since the weight was transferred to the land, the glaciated areas would in theory sunk a corresponding amount. However, since the water is in many cases being transported over longer distances than the sifting pressures on the asthenosphere could reasonably be felt, the rebounding of the ocean floors would have caused a general sinking of the adjoining land areas. This effect would be like letting the air out of a balloon, the earth's topography would become flatter. The weight of mountain glaciers would increase the effect of course. This resulted in many coastlines subsiding as the ocean floors were raised, which would tended to disguise the amount of water withdrawn. The sudden return of much of this water would result in the asthenosphere being unable to flow suddenly fast enough to accommodate the pressure changes. This resulted in a deeper flexing of the earth. Since density increases with depth, and isostatic shifts are on a weight for weight basis, the deep sudden flow involved material denser than the asthenosphere. Things tend to even out over time, so as the asthenosphere flows to compensate for the deeper shift, the asthenosphere is less dense resulting in a rebounding over time in formerly glaciated areas and an on going depression under isostatically depressed areas.Thank you wehappyfew for the links, I noted an interesting statement on one of the web pages. "This study demonstrates a positive feedback process in the deglaciation stages in terms of eustatic change. The destabilization of an ice sheet causes destabilization in other ice sheets."The earlier statements on the lack of foraminifera got me thinking so I reviewed some of the pictures I had taken with my microscope of Unidentified Field Objects, and compared them with some foraminifera pictures on the web. I found one. Not sure which type yet, but from the size, shape and characteristics it appears to be a foraminifera, looks a bit like Dentalina mariei, only with a bend. Have to pick up an identification guide and figure out what it is. Seems I was wrong to focus on diatoms exclusively.

Patrick;
If you are celebrating over having let your 'cats' out of the bag, you can put the cork back in the champagne bottle. Most of your 'cats' are dead, there may be 100 uses for a dead cat, but I don't know any of them. The information you posted on the history of sea level changes was very nice, but I was already well aware of that information when I developed my flood model. All of these sea level records are time dependent. The level has to be changing slowly or at one level for a time to be recorded. Under the model I use, the rise and fall in sea level is too brief to show up in these records. That is to be expected since as I having been posting, we do not find marine bottom life on land as a result of the flood. Since the flood was too brief to create corals on land, it is to be expected that it was too rapid to show up in coral ring records. The only parts I would maybe expect to see would be the pre flood and post flood changing levels, for example there may have been a slow tapering off in the rate the sea level went down at which may have been gradual enough to be detectable in coral and other records.On the amount of ice contained in the former ice sheets, I like to propose the possibility of larger ice caps, but such are not essential to my flood theory. On your statement that "Sure we know how much water was contained the former ice sheets, within reasonable limits of certainty, and this poses spectacular problems for your theory." I will have to balance your statement against the following one.
" It is also worth noting that despite all our efforts, we still do not know unequivocally the distribution of ice on the planet during the last glaciation!" (Late Glacial and Post Glacial Environmental Changes; Quaternary, Carboniferous-Permian, and Proterozoic, Edited by I. Peter Martini 1997, p.22) If the distribution is not known, how can the total amount of ice contained by those same glaciers be known? Guess it all depends on how you define the term 'reasonable limits'. Is 150% still reasonable? What is the percentage range on your figures? Perhaps the lower part of the range I gave is with in 'reasonable limits'. And since I allow for the possibility that the ice sheets were not any larger than is currently believed, this is hardly a 'fatal assumption'. But I, unlike some others, allow room for the possibility that our current understanding of the distribution and thickness the Pleistocene ice sheets in the future may very well turn out to have been too small. One cute comment on "I don't know of anyone in this field who postulates a drastically larger ice volume." well I do. Well, at least the possibility anyway.On the evidence against lower sea levels in the ice age, I was once again aware of the information you posted. The effects of coastal subsidence due to ocean basin rebounding on the possible scales in the range I use, have not been looked at, or taken into account and remain a possible effect.The only part in your posting that really could be a limiting factor on the amount of water removed from the oceans in the ice age, was the oxygen isotope ratio. This is by far the best part of your objections to larger ice caps. But remember this method is for estimating, it is not precise. It is good enough however to possibly eliminate the higher end of the range I gave, which was pretty incredible anyway. It will take a detailed look at the methods used, how they are calibrated and the possibility of effects not considered that could effect the accuracy of the method. If the method for example was calibrated using the amount expected to have been removed in the last ice age which would be circular reasoning. Depending on the calibration, this method could be very useful here or almost valueless. Since this here is the best part of your post, perhaps you would care to post on how this method has been calibrated on how the various oxygen isotope ratios were related to sea volume. I would prefer laboratory experiments over historical sea volume estimates which could be in error. I believe I remember a bit on this, but I think it is fair to let you post, since so far this is your best shot. Good work. If you do more research on this, my objections would be that this method is best at determining ocean surface temperatures based on removal of O

"As I see it, the cats are alive and well, and happen to be sharpening their claws on the shredded remains of your flood theory." Cute, very good analogy. Like I said only one of them arrived alive and he is a cute little fellow that takes awhile to get to know. He actually has been fairly well behaved and I think he will make a good pet. I need to study his pedigreed, I have reason to believe he is not the shredder he is made out to be. No you didn't hit any nerves, but I did think that perhaps you had come up with a solid limiting factor on the size of the flood, which you may have. But using the ratio of Ohttp://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp?bookid=11275On the freshwater spikes and other core records, I will need to look at such in detail before I can really comment on your interpretation of the data. You may have a whole army on your side, but I have to do all my own research, which imposes limits on what I can do, and how long it takes.

Edge-in debating you fire off impressive broadsides, but your targeting skills are poor. To be of any value, you have to hit the target. For example, "There should be massive volcanism of the right age on all continental margins along with mappable faults and seismicity." Who said that? I didn't, do you have your own theory on this that predicts that? What I have been saying is that the depression of the oceans was deep flexing, not shallow, no volcanic or faulting is expected on the ocean margins. The movement was too deep and spread over too wide of an area for this to occur."Even with many thousands of feet of ice on them, Antarctica and the high northern latitudes are significantly above sea level. No amount of ice melt will submerge those areas completely." Actually you are referring to the surface of the glaciers, without the ice the Antarctica land surface is a number of islands. Since ice floats, it of course was impossible for any major glacier to be submerged in the flood waters. Due to the isostatic depression of the land beneath a glacier, those areas are the most susceptible to flooding and many marine relic lakes from the end of the last ice age are found in those areas, proving that they were under water at that time."You have not provided any evidence that there was enough ice melt to raise the oceans a significant degree and if there were, you have to melt significant parts of the ice pack that you say remained intact. Even if the event occurred you are a long way from showing the remote possibility of a global flood." Actually I have provided evidence, such as the marine traces here in Wisconsin at an elevation of 1000 ft, the Michigan whale bones, the drop stones in the Wisconsin Driftless area, etc. Considering the elevation these things and others are found at, the fact that there was a global flood, is a simple fact. The only thing really debatable is how deep the water was, and did it really cover all of the land. Melting an "ice pack" will have no effect on sea level at all by the way, because an ice pact is floating ice that is already in the sea. In the last ice age the earth had much more ice than it does today, in our discussions we have been talking about the former ice sheets, not current ones."a cometary impact for which there is no evidence" Actually there is some, as we have been discussing the Carolina bay lakes show signs of having been created by secondary impacts at the end of the ice age, and of course we have the sudden collapse of the ice sheet itself."Show us a mechanism and evidence for see-sawing of the continents and the ocean basins." We, or at least Patrick and I have been discussing the mechanism of the flood for the last several posts. You really should read the posts before jumping into a discussion. It is nice that you have an interest in the flood, but it would be better if you could contribute something to the discussion other than just the usual Internet flaming. If you want to make more of an impression with your arguments, I would suggest learning what and where the targets are. Look at KingPenguin, at least he is open minded enough to consider what I have to say, where as your mind is closed. That is why I wasn't too happy when they moved this posting to the debate page, in debates people already have their minds made up. As things progress each side becomes more entrenched in its position, and less willing to see the other side of things. I prefer discussions, the free exchange of ideas, where people are willing to consider other viewpoints. Which is much more productive than always trying to prove yourself right. Due to the entrenchment effect, I don't expect any of the regular posters to read my book, the main purpose is to test my theory, and find any areas that need improvement.

Patrick;Yes we both agree at least on the fact that I need to do research on oxygen isotope ratios in relationship with ocean volumes. Until I do, I am not in any position to reply on this topic until I learn more about it. Since it will be a few days before my schedule will permit me to visit a suitable library, perhaps you would like to post a selected reading list for me. I have already requested two books on this topic from the inter library loan program, but it is not possible to predict when or even if they will arrive. I will paste together a list of the papers that you have recommended so far, but perhaps you would like to pick out the best ones, sort of a top ten list, so that if time is short I will at least get to the most important ones, and I would be very interested in any book recommendations you would care to make. Good idea on getting more modern calculations on the isotope ratio, I am particularly interested in the math and what it is based on, how the variables are determined."the maximum volume of "tropical mountain glaciers" was at the LGM," I agree with you, the % was probably pretty low, I am just searching for effects that may not have been considered that could have effected isotope ratio estimate. Like you said, I don't know enough on this subject to express an educated opinion at this time, so I will keep my thoughts on this to myself until I know more about it."you are not in fact defending the Biblical Story itself" Actually I am, the YECs would strongly disagree with me however on nearly all points. I am only defending the biblical account itself, not all the interpretations, doctrinal viewpoints and mythical nonsense that many people claim is part of the biblical flood. The belief that the bible states everything outside the ark died, is at best a misunderstanding of Genesis 7:21-23 where it states "Everything in which the breath of the force of life was active in its nostrils, namely, all that were on the dry ground, died." What the bible is stating is that all the animals that breathed and were still on the ground died since the ground was covered by water. The use of the word 'earth' or 'ground' refers to the land surface, not the entire earth. Many animals survived outside the ark.I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with on the Black Sea flood, you are the only one on this page that gives me a run for my money.Edge;
We are not talking about having a flood now. The Antarctca mountains are at their current elevation due to the shifts that occurred in the flood. The Antatcta Ice sheet was larger in the ice age and the ocean level was lower, the combination of these effects would have put the mountains at a lower level."mechanism that would uplift the deep ocean basins relative to the continents." "Isostatic copensation- The adjustment of the lithosphere of the earth to maintain equilibrium amoung units of varying mass and density; excess mass above is balanced by a deficit of density below, and vice versa." Dictonary of geological Terms, third edition.Coral- The flood was brief enough for some coral to survive. Some did not survive and was restarted by new growth.

Edge;"that these mountains were at a "lower level?" . . . is unsupported." The mountains had less support when the surrounding ocean had less water in it, and the ice age ice cap was larger and heavier which would have pushed these mountains to a lower elevation. Isostatic compensation."Tell us why the flow of the asthenospere is so rapid from beneath continents to the ocean basin and back, but so slow during continental uplift due to glacial melting." There is the normal slow acting isostatic compensation which takes place in the asthenosphere, then there is a second type called Ice Age Flexing which takes place deeper inside the earth and is faster acting. Due to the great depth and rigidness of the mantel, the deep flexing only occurs if there is a sudden large shift that the asthenosphere is unable to handle. What happens is the earth flexes suddenly, then over time the asthenosphere adjusts to the change and the flex slowly returns to normal. The slow build up and melting of glacial ice is adjusted for by normal isostatic compensation. But when the flood water and ice, was suddenly dumped into the seas, the huge shift in pressure from glaciated areas to ocean basins, put an enormous pressure shift on the crust of the earth that was strong enough to flex the entire earth. Think if the earth was put in a giant vise and someone turned the handle faster than the asthenosphere could flow, the earth would flex like a rubber ball deeper down where the temperatures are higher the earth is more fluid. Then over time the asthenosphere would slowly adjust, and as it did so, the deeper interior would slowly go back to its normal shape."long was the wscott flood, and how do you reconcile this with the biblical story?" In the bible, Noah spent about a year in the ark and exited on a high spot. So the expected length of deep submergence of coral would be about a year, maybe more, maybe less depending on location and how the earth's crust responded to the flood pressures. Some coral types may have been able to survive, some may have be able to regrow and some probably had to be recolonized. The flood wasn't meant to kill of all the world's coral, so much of it survived one way or another.There is a nice article in the new March issue of Scientific American called "Repeated Blows" on extraterrestrial impacts being to be associated with a number of extinction events other than just the one that killed the dinosaurs, also had some nice information on how some extinction events were much more abrupt than they had realized. Related a bit to some of the things we had been talking about earlier on this page.