Noah's Flood Came Down. It's Goin Back Up!!

Yea, that's about what it looks like -- "assume" in other words you're making it all up. LOL

Buzsaw
I think both your questions are based on the same mispreception. You seem to be thinking of the oceans as holes of some sort, as depressed and the continents as the "normal" level.It is (well sort of) the reverse of that. The continents float on the surface of the earth. They are made of material that is lighter than the underlying basalt. They are like giant icebergs.They are pushed around by the stir of the mantle underneath them like a scum on hot coffee. They move as mostly solid lumps and don't smooth anything out.

The question is still a bit confused I think. The continents remain high because they are light not the oceans remaining deep. The ocean bottoms are wide plains with occastional deep trenchs. (a geologist might want to correct me). The trenchs are caused when the ocean bottom dives under the continent. So to some degree you're sort of right. The oceans are flat with the bumps filled in by sediment.Here one picture of the topography.
http://mscserver.cox.miami.edu/MSC111/Lectures/Lec04.htmNot the oceans bottoms are more or less flat with the mid ocean ridges pushed up and the ocassional hot spot mountain chain. They stay this way because the cotinents don't plow over them. The ocean bottoms are formed at the mid ocean ridge and destroyed at the subduction trenchs. The continents don't get into this. The continents are pushed around by these moving ocean bottoms which have been described as "conveyor belts".Is that clearer?

Ok, it's getting a little clearer now.I'm not a geologist but I'm sure one can step in if I get it wrong.I'll oversimplify ok?In the simplified case the continents are in two parts. Core parts that have been around since they first froze out of the cooling earth. For example the precambrian shield of Canada is billions of years old. It is hard rock and seems to have been covered enough to have not weathered away.Other parts are newer. The continents are getting rebuilt when they are pushed up or volcanoes recoat them. So there is a recycling going on. The moutains wear away, wash to the sea, are laid as sediments are either subducted and blown out of volcanoes or uplifted as new mountains. All this goes on around a core of continental rock.

Well it does press down! You are making up your mind about something you clearly know less about than my grade 8 son from his simple science classes.The continents are, as I pointed out, like icebergs. They are much, much deeper into the mantle than the surrounding oceans. Something like 200 km.The ocean floor is, I guess, "pressed upward" but on a sphere that doesn't make much sense as there isn't any obvious level. To some degree the ocean floor is "broken up" but not as you suggest. The mid ocean ridges are that break but it is not caused by the continents pushing down. The continents have been there for Gigayears they haven't just been dropped into the surface of the earth so everything is in some kind of dynamic equilibrium. Nope, just on your side of the isle. Guessing based on no knowledge at all. The crust has been measured. The movement of plates has been measured. The physics is well understood. What "guesses" do you not like?Don't go running off this topic until you demonstrate the integrity necessary to admit you didn't have a clue and are wrong about the overall geology of the earth.

I didn't say you were stupid and wasn't trying to say so. What you have proven here is that you have no clue about the facts of geology. Pretty much none at all. That is what I meant when I said you didn't know anything about it.You might not know what you think you know about the coelacanth, Nebraska "man" or java man. That's for sure if you've been geting that information from the same place you get your geology.

I think it calls for rapid radioactive decay to generate mantle softening heat and mess up radiometric dating. Thus creating way too much heat and maybe a radiation problem.

I'm surprised that you don't know that this is a completely useless way to reach any decent conclusion. Do you have any knowledge of statistics?

Says who? You have been asked for real data. You have supplied assertions. Even if there is an increase -- how much?In fact, my best guess (but only a guess) is the the problem is there are FEWER forest fires now than a century ago. We over control them.

Well your humble opinion is wrong. You don't know what a theory is do you?

You made the assertion. You back it up.It would take a lot of effort on your part to read enough to understand why a few, personal, bits of anecdotal evidence are a very poor way to arrive at a safe conclusion.Those doing research (e.g., in the medical area) will take anecdotal information as input. They would never, ever arrive at a conclusion from it. They know all to well about selection bias and how unreliable an indivdual is at judging patterns in complex datasets. If they suspect something they gather real data and do careful analysis.

Buz
I went to this page
http://nfdp.ccfm.org/...ed/reports/provinces/bc/P3121_10.PDFI used July and August figuring that'd be the worst months.I could see when graphed no increase in number of fires. This is hard numerical data. It, by itself, doesn't mean much. It is just a small part of what would be needed.Then there would have to be careful consideration to be sure there wasn't a problem of reporting bias and other types of things.

There isn't anything to refute. There may be a local increase or decrease in forest fire rates. Neither of us has any real data and analysis to say which is happening.Your assertions and a paragraph for a local area of indeterminate time frame don't tell me anything.

This site:
http://www.geocities.com/thomas_rooney2001/ Environmentalism.html
Simply makes an assertion with no backup whatsoever. It also makes a number of simple minded mistakes so I wouldn't consider it all that reliable.This one:
The University of Wales, Aberystwyth Users Site
offers no references or any hard data either. it is simply another assertionWhile anecdotal evidence, increasing interest by the press or whatever might be a reason to look into the possibility that something is changing none of that proves anything.The site I gave you gives forest fire occurances over a ten year period in a major forestry area. They have not gone up. This isn't a matter of opinion it is in the data.As I said one area of the world and even the most recent ten years doesn't prove anything but it's the only real data that you and I have posted here yet.There is nothing to refute.

Buz, you were talking about global drought. All the climate models predict changes in precipitation in different areas some higher, some lower. I'm not sure but I think the overall effect is of increased global precipitation.You haven't made any progress.This is why there is a very difficult rigorous process called science. It is the best we have for overcoming individual human errors and mispreceptions. It brings multiple viewpoints to bear on one problem and depends on data and reasonig to arrive at a, perhaps not universal, but at least consensus answer.You may start with your feelings about things but you need better than that.Besides this is sooo far off topic now. I don't recall anyone posting any biblical passages referring to more forest fires in coloado or drought in Australia. So what are we discussing them for?If you think it is the end of days then give me a date for the end (with error bars of course) and we'll place a little bet.