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Author Topic:   Solving the Mystery of the Biblical Flood
wmscott
Member (Idle past 6247 days)
Posts: 580
From: Sussex, WI USA
Joined: 12-19-2001


Message 61 of 460 (3013)
01-28-2002 4:07 PM


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.

Replies to this message:
 Message 62 by edge, posted 01-28-2002 4:20 PM wmscott has not replied
 Message 63 by LudvanB, posted 01-28-2002 4:52 PM wmscott has not replied
 Message 64 by ps418, posted 01-28-2002 5:45 PM wmscott has not replied

edge
Member (Idle past 1706 days)
Posts: 4696
From: Colorado, USA
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 62 of 460 (3015)
01-28-2002 4:20 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by wmscott
01-28-2002 4:07 PM


quote:
Originally posted by wmscott:
...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.

Do you really think that geochronologists "blindly accept" dates? Do you really think they want to publish faulty data and half-baked ideas? Seems to me that it is YECs who blindly accept a biblical myth and warp/ignore data to fit their model. How does a whole generation of scientists become so duped?
It has always amused me that creationists have all these reservations about radiometric dating, but then criticize scientists for throwing out data that is questionable. Is it your opinion that there is some kind of mass delusion or conspiracy that is involved in the acceptance of radiometric dating?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by wmscott, posted 01-28-2002 4:07 PM wmscott has not replied

LudvanB
Inactive Member


Message 63 of 460 (3016)
01-28-2002 4:52 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by wmscott
01-28-2002 4:07 PM


Question...on what scientific imperical evidence do you base your belief of the accuracy of the biblical cronology?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by wmscott, posted 01-28-2002 4:07 PM wmscott has not replied

ps418
Inactive Member


Message 64 of 460 (3020)
01-28-2002 5:45 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by wmscott
01-28-2002 4:07 PM


Wmscott,
Once again, your defense of diatoms as flood-deposited is completely inadequate. Since I have satisfied myself on the main questions I had, I will limit myself to correcting a few of your latest errors.
Originally posted by wmscott:
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.
Wrong. Diatoms do not need preexisting cracks in ice to accumulate, since they fall with snow and are subsequently incorporated into the ice. Moreover, if all the diatoms accumulated in cracks, you would not expect the record to be replicable in widely-spaced cores. Finally, if the diatoms did accumulate in cracks only, then you should find vertical sheets of diatoms and dust, similar to the "clastic dikes" found in swelled vertisols, healed mudcracks and so on, except on a smaller scale. In fact, they are throughout the ice, and sieved out after melting.
Also the tendency for the ice to sublime, melt and refreeze, creep and flow, will disrupt the evenness of the diatom layers.
Wrong again. The ice from the cores presented by Kellog and Kellog (the 2000 year core, not the 160k yr core) are from shallow depths showing little or no flow or disrupted layers. In order for disruption of the type you suggest to occur, you'd have to have well-developed z-folds in the core itself, at very shallow depths.
Furthermore, in the older core record, covering 160k years, you can see that the diatom flux is correlated with the delta 180 proxy, which itself correlates within fluctuations of amount of wind-blown dust, air temperature and so on. This correlation is not consistent with chance preservation in cracks. Therefore your attempt to explain the patchiness in space as a result of ice flow is totally erroneous.

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
Wrong again. I did not say that diatoms would persist only a year. I summarized what I could find in various envirnments, and then asked you what your evidence was that diatoms could persist at shallow depths in soils for 4500 years or more. Since you are now ignoring this question, I can only assume that you have no evidence whatsoever that such as thing is possible. Furthermore, you continue to make the basesless claim that if your diatoms were wind-transported, then we should also find diatoms in recently disturbed areas. As a simple matter of logic, that's quite wrong. It may be that the diatom flux since the area was disturbed has been low or nil. Again, you are just assuming, without any evidence, that the flux of diatoms should be constant.
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.
Ok, thats a good observation. I'd like to corroborate it. Where were your samples taken, exactly? What I want to know is where precisely I can go and find *marine* [not soil!] diatoms beneath a glacial erratic. I can't go and sample it myself, but I can do some research on the area in general and look at soil and geologic maps. I may even be able to get some soil samples mailed to me.
Furthermore, if you remember, you claimed that if the diatoms were windblown, they should be found in all areas. The evidence I presented shows that this is false, as in many types of soils they will disappear very quickly.
Obviously though, even assuming that what you state is correct, this STILL does not demand, imply or even suggest a Noah's Flood origin, nor does it rule out an eolian origin. The diatoms could have been emplaced by wind before the emplacement of the boulder. You claim to base your theory on geology, but you keep making basic errors like this that would make even Henry Morris cringe.
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?
No, not at all. For your own sake, you should really get a textbook on petrology. Aluminosilicates are CLAYS. Clays are formed via chemical weathering. This is NOT a fossilization process, this is the breakdown of silicate minerals into weathering products. Are the diatoms you found clay pseudomorphs, or primary silica? I've never heard of any examples of clay-neopmorphed silicate fossils.
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.
One would have to be a gullibe dupe indeed to believe that the mish-mash of widely-spaced events you mention all occurred in one year as part of a Noah's Flood. You make it sound as if you have indeed 'evaluated thoughtfully' the voluminous information on Quaternary geology and the dating methods used. I find that quite hard to believe, given that you havent even been able to tell me why you think this event occurred around 4500Bp rather than, say, 50,000Bp. Your model relies upon a wholesale abandonment of dating techniques, not a thoughtful evaluation of them. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.
My next question is, do you propose some kind of bolide impact as part of your flood theory? If so, on what evidence?
Patrick
[This message has been edited by ps418, 01-28-2002]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by wmscott, posted 01-28-2002 4:07 PM wmscott has not replied

wehappyfew
Inactive Member


Message 65 of 460 (3030)
01-28-2002 7:26 PM


Just one small item to add to Patrick's diatom research...
wmscott cites diatoms under boulders as evidence of pre-Holocene deposition of the diatoms.
But I wonder what the mobility of diatoms is through soil? Galcial till is usually quite porous. I would expect the average pore size of at least some tills to be far larger than diatom tests. As a result, any significant ground saturation from rainwater, snowmelt, or stream flooding could flush diatoms through the porous soil - under a nearby boulder. Think back a few years to the unusual floods in the Dakotas due to rapid spring melting of a thick snowpack. Even in upland areas, significant flow of water would be expected through the soil, as well as over it.

ps418
Inactive Member


Message 66 of 460 (3034)
01-28-2002 8:35 PM


WehappyFew,
This occurred to me after I wrote my last post. Even big diatoms are only on the order or 80um or so in diameter, which is very small compared to the porosity of many soils. Movement of particles this size through soil is no problem at all. In fact, this would be yet another problem for the flood-diatom hypothesis, since after 4500 years worth of rain draining through a soil with diatoms at the surface, you would NOT expect to find them only at the surface. You would expect them to be present at least to the same depth as other illuviation features (clay skins, etc.).
PS- illuviation is:
The process of depositing soil material removed from one horizon in the soil to another, usually from an upper to a lower horizon in the soil profile. Illuviated substances include silicate clay, hydrous oxides of iron and aluminum, and organic matter.
[This message has been edited by ps418, 01-28-2002]

wmscott
Member (Idle past 6247 days)
Posts: 580
From: Sussex, WI USA
Joined: 12-19-2001


Message 67 of 460 (3083)
01-29-2002 3:55 PM


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.

ps418
Inactive Member


Message 68 of 460 (3093)
01-29-2002 5:25 PM


Wmscott,
Thanks for your reply. You are STILL confused on the diatom issue. Your quote above is from the article talking about how diatoms could be concentrated in the tills near the margins of the ice, not about the record of diatoms in the ice itself, near the center of the ice cap.
However, I have examined your evidence re: diatoms to my own satisfaction, and the most charitable thing I can say is that they are not evidence for a worldwide flood. At the very least you may want to include a footnote in your book stating that diatoms are easily transportable by wind, and that eolian transport of marine diatoms onto land is a demonstrable phenomenon.
Now let's move on the bolide impact. You write:
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.
Well, at least you admit that the evidence for impact is "thin." I agree. I have a few additional comments though. First iridium or other REE enrichment is probably the least conspicuous impact product, and is not something you could identify in the field. The more obvious results would be a huge blanket of ejecta decreasing in average clast size away from the crater, and a blanket of melt spherules. If the impactor penetrated a quartz-rich target, you would expect shocked quartz too. Again, however, the test is quite simple. For the period ~5000BP to present, you could look for evidence in the ice record itself, or in the many northern European varve records. Its hardly reasonable that the amazing events postulated by you could have occurred without leaving evidence in any of these holocene climate records.
Regarding the aligned lakes as impact craters. Why, there's no need to remain in the dark. All you need to do is core down through the lake sediments into the underlying rock and see if you find any meltrock, shattercones, or breccia. Simple as that.
PS- I just noticed above that you state that this major impactor could have struck ice and never left a mark in the underlying bedrock. What if anything is your argument/source/reference for this assertion? I'm assuming that you are proposing a fairly large impactor, right?
Patrick
[This message has been edited by ps418, 01-29-2002]

Replies to this message:
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 Message 70 by Quetzal, posted 01-30-2002 3:05 AM ps418 has not replied

Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 69 of 460 (3101)
01-30-2002 3:05 AM
Reply to: Message 68 by ps418
01-29-2002 5:25 PM


Hi Patriclk!
I'd like to add a question on to Patricks discussion of the lack of evidence for a bolide impact on either ice sheet. Wouldn't the remnants of the sheets themselves at the appropriate layer show evidence of shock fractures? AFAIK, the Greenland studies have shown no such anomalies. Admittedly, my knowledge of how a glacier would react to impact is limited, but there should be some evidence, n'est-ce pas?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by ps418, posted 01-29-2002 5:25 PM ps418 has not replied

Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 70 of 460 (3102)
01-30-2002 3:05 AM
Reply to: Message 68 by ps418
01-29-2002 5:25 PM


Hi Patriclk!
I'd like to add a question on to Patrick's discussion of the lack of evidence for a bolide impact on either ice sheet. Wouldn't the remnants of the sheets themselves at the appropriate layer show evidence of shock fractures? AFAIK, the Greenland studies have shown no such anomalies. Admittedly, my knowledge of how a glacier would react to impact is limited, but there should be some evidence, n'est-ce pas?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by ps418, posted 01-29-2002 5:25 PM ps418 has not replied

wmscott
Member (Idle past 6247 days)
Posts: 580
From: Sussex, WI USA
Joined: 12-19-2001


Message 71 of 460 (3127)
01-30-2002 4:41 PM


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.

ps418
Inactive Member


Message 72 of 460 (3139)
01-30-2002 6:31 PM


Wmscott,
You still haven't offered a single argument that rules out eolian transport. As I said before, even a marine diatom beneath a glacial erratic hardly implies transport via a global flood. It could have been emplaced by wind before the erratic was emplaced (assuming it could persist that long), or it could have migrated through the soil after the boulder was emplaced, given the extremely small size of the average diatom compared to the pore space in soils.
And of course, the whole 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.
On the impact. I asked you some very specific questions, which weren't answered. Therefore I should repeat them:
I just noticed above that you state that this major impactor could have struck ice and never left a mark in the underlying bedrock. What if anything is your argument/source/reference for this assertion? I'm assuming that you are proposing a fairly large impactor, right?
I'm not looking for opinions, surmises, or a restatement of previously-made assertions. I want to know on what evidence you assert that such a large impact could occur and not even pass through the ice. I want either the calculations themselves, or references to peer-reviewed articles I can read myself.
Up to this point, the impact 'theory' seems to me to be mostly a collection of excuses about why no evidence is found for any major impact ~4500 years ago. I'm more than willing to accept a recent major impact, but not without some evidence.
Next, I seem to remember you referring to ice-rafted debris in the Atlantic as evidence for the flood. I assume you are referring to Heinrich events, right? And if so, which of the Heinrich events is supposedly part of the flood? Was it the last one (H0), which occurred about ~11,000 years ago, or one of the other 3 or 4 such events that occurred in the last 40k years or so? [35,000 (H4), 27,000 (H3), 21,000 (H2), 16,000 (H1) ] And why should we invoke a global flood or bolide impact to explain this, when these are clearly cyclic events and have occurred repeatedly?
For what its worth, I highly recommend you familiarize yourself with the literature on the subject. I recommend Cronin's Principles of Paleoclimatology. Specific articles on Heinrich events you may want to read are:
Andrews, J. T., H. Erlenkeuser, K. Tedesco, A. E. Aksu, and A. J. T. Jull, 1994. Late Quaternary (stage 2 and 3) meltwater and Heinrich events, northwest Labrador Sea, Quaternary Research, 41, 26.
Bond, G. C., and R. Lotti, 1995. Iceberg discharges into the North Atlantic on millennial time scales during the last glaciation, Science, 267, 1005.
Heinrich, H., 1988. Origin and consequences of cyclic ice rafting in the northeast Atlantic Ocean during the past 130,000 years. Quaternary Research, 29, 142-152.
McCabe, A.M., Knight, J. and McCarron, S., 1998. Evidence for Heinrich event 1 in the British Isles. Journal of Quaternary Science, 13 (6), 549-568.
Ruhlemann, C., Mulitza, S., Muller, P.J., Wefer, G. and Zahn, R. 1999. Warming of the tropical Atlantic Ocean and slowdown of thermohaline circulation during the last deglaciation. Nature 402: 511-514.
Verbitsky, M., and B. Saltzman, 1995. A diagnostic analysis of Heinrich glacial surge events, Paleoceanography, 10, 59.
Cheers,
Patrick
[This message has been edited by ps418, 01-30-2002]

wmscott
Member (Idle past 6247 days)
Posts: 580
From: Sussex, WI USA
Joined: 12-19-2001


Message 73 of 460 (3231)
01-31-2002 8:14 PM


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 Request
thanks 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.

Replies to this message:
 Message 74 by ps418, posted 01-31-2002 10:49 PM wmscott has not replied
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ps418
Inactive Member


Message 74 of 460 (3237)
01-31-2002 10:49 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by wmscott
01-31-2002 8:14 PM


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.[/B]
How could you miss foraminifera but find diatoms? Unless you are putting your soil samples in a hydrochloric acid bath. . . Besides, we wouldnt have to wait for you to find them, they would have been noted long ago if they had been present.
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.
Yet, you haven't provided a single piece of data on diatom taphonomy in shallow soil environments. What is your evidence that diatoms have greater preservation potential in soils than forams? I want evidence and not more assertions.
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.
I'm kidding? Actually, the joke's on you. First, open-ocean currents are extremely sluggish compared to the currents required to produce a one-year global flood, obviously. So thats a fallacious analogy. Second, most of the diatoms that do settle out of the water column are dissolved even before reaching the ocean floor. Third, the diatoms that do reach the ocean floor are almost completely altered into amorphous silica (Opal-A).
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.
In fact, while diatoms are only abundant in cold, nutrient-rich water, planktonic forams are found in the surface ocean everywhere. And while foraminiferal ooze comprises 47% of pelagic sediment in the oceans, diatom ooze only comprises 12% (Pinnett, Oceanography, p. 102). Also, the dissolution rate of diatoms in ocean surface waters is far greater than that for carbonate (ibid. p. 105).
On top of that, forams are much larger than diatoms, have thicker walls, have a smaller surface area to volume ratio, and would therefore be more resistant to crushing in soils than delicate glassy diatoms! In calcerous soils especially, forams could be preserved quite well.
So, again I'm curious, what is your evidence that diatoms are more likely to be preserved in soils than forams?
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.
Another non-argument for a global flood. Evidence that can be explained via a seaway is not evidence for a global flood, especially when you cannot even establish synchroneity between the whale bones and the other organisms you are attributing to the flood.
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.
So, you're just going to repeat the assertion again?
Small meteor fragments are routinely found on glaciers, which were easily able to absorb their impacts.
Nice red herring! No one denies that small mateorites are found in the ice. We're not talking about pebbles, but about a massive impact with global effects. And contrary to what you say, all kinds of impact modelling and empirical research has been done.
On Heinrich events, I would expect an association with the 0 event, the last one.
In that case, you would be abandoning the biblical date for the flood, which was several thousand years later (~4500Bp), as well the association of the flood with the end of the last glaciation, which was several thousand years earlier, as well as the association with the Black Sea flood, the Pleistocene mammal extinctions, and so on.
And you didn't explain to me why we should invoke a global flood to explain H0, when we don't need a global flood to explain H6, H5, H4, H3, H2, and H1, and when these events have happened at least over the past 70,000 years with a quasi-periodicity of 7-12,000yrs? You'll have to forgive me for not preferring your explanation over Heinrich's!
There seems to be a number of theories on these cycles, some work well with the idea of a sudden surge event.
In fact, none of the theories on Heinrich events are compatible with your global flood, comet impact, ice-flexing, etc. theory. And let's be clear on the difference between what you may mean by "sudden," and what geologists mean by sudden. We're talking about repeated episodes lasting ~1000 years, not a unique, 1-year global flood.
Thanks for the abstracts you included. I'm not sure if you were trying to make this point or not, but let me say that there is no disagreement that Heinrich events can begin abruptly and are correlated with small rises in sea-level (about 10ft!). The events are also correlated with 3-6C drops(!) in temperature in Greenland. No support in any of this for a global flood.
Now, let's try another argument, this one quite simple.
Since you identify your flood with H0, we can locate the interval corresponding to your flood very precisely in both in the Greenland record and in the many north Atlantic DSDP and ODP sediment cores, as well as in numerous records on land.
Your theory proposes that the flood was characterized by rapid, large-scale isostatic crustal movements, as well as by an impact event of some kind. Furthermore, the flood theory by definition requires that a huge amount of water first flooded the continents, and then regressed off of them back into the ocean basins.
Contrary to what you seem to think, the effects of these processes would hardly be subtle or easily missed. First, from the rapid isostatic movements and possible bolide impact there would be massive and widespread slope failure at the Atlantic margin, resulting in massive turbidites right at the base of H0 in the ODP and DSDP cores. Above the megaturbidites I would expect a sedimentary layer rich in clay and terrestrial detritus washed off of the continental margins by the receding flood waters.
Numerous cores from the Atlantic have been described in the reports of the ODP/DSPD, including some from ideal, 'toe of slope' locations,' some of which I have read myself.
So, not to put too fine a point out this, but why don't we find evidence for this either? I'm starting to get the general picture that we're talking about one very stealthy flood . . .
Patrick
[This message has been edited by ps418, 01-31-2002]
[This message has been edited by ps418, 01-31-2002]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by wmscott, posted 01-31-2002 8:14 PM wmscott has not replied

wmscott
Member (Idle past 6247 days)
Posts: 580
From: Sussex, WI USA
Joined: 12-19-2001


Message 75 of 460 (3276)
02-01-2002 5:36 PM


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.

Replies to this message:
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