Salt in Oceans

Now, I'm all new to this site. And it seemed to me (via the ''search button'') that this topic of not enough salt in the oceans hadn't had a thread of its own.Considering that this method was first brought in Newton's days, and that the problem of missing salt was found out by John Joly (geologist,physicist) who calculated a maximum age of 98millions years. I have never found any peer-reviewed article that resolved it. I thought it would be cool to discuss it on herehere are the references to Halley and Joly's article:2.E. Halley, ‘A short account of the cause of the saltness [sic] of the ocean, and of the several lakes that emit no rivers; with a proposal, by help thereof, to discover the age of the world’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 29:296—300, 17153.J. Joly, ‘An estimate of the geological age of the earth’, Scientific Transactions of the Royal Dublin Society, New Series, 7(3), 1899; reprinted in Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, June 30, 1899, pp. 247—288This is the link to the Humphreys and Austin research on this which I am sure everyone has already seen and ''debunked'':The Sea's Missing Salt: A Dilemma For EvolutionistsHere is the link to the talkorigins article which attempted to rebute it (unsuccessfully):CD221.1: Amount of dissolved sodium in oceansFor those who do not know the subject a lot, a quick resume is that there is an input of 450 millions tons/year of salt going in the oceans, while only 27% goes out (as calculated by Humphreys and Austin)

Thanks for the greetings people! (except for Dr Adequate, what's with all the arrogance lol ?)Ok I'll start by saying that my first langage is french, and so I will probably do some mistakes while writing in english''This is why they have to go back to 1715, let's say that again, 1715, to find a scientist sufficiently ignorant of geology to support them''''This makes it very different from papers published in 1715, which are totally reliable''''1715 and 1899 eh? I love the way creationists keep up with the cutting edge of modern research!''Some of you mentioned that the references I gave were real old (1715 I think). I didn't intend these for any kind of support, I just put them as the historic aspect of the dilemma. Just to show that Humphreys didn't come up with this method.
- The first paper was the first time it was mentioned as a possible dating method
- the second paper was the first time it was used as a dating methodOther then for the historic aspect of this, they obviously have no relevance (my first time here, but i find it surprising someone actually thought i was using a 1715 paper as support lol)''So, even according to Young Earth Creationist estimates, the Earth is at least 98 million years old.''Two errors here, Joly is not a creationist first of all. You should maybe have some respect for your fellow evolutionist. Second, the 98 million years is a maximum age, not a minimum. Since he was a long-ager, he knew that something was wrong with his calculations. But he left the problem unresolved.''The same reasoning can be applied to the aluminum content of the oceans to "prove" that the Earth was created during President McKinley's administration. Austin and Humphries are not being truthful.....and do you know anyone that remembers the guy before McKinley?''The link you gave referenced to an article by Henry Morris. His argument is very different from Austin-Humphreys: he only calculated the amount of an element in the sea and divided it by the input per year. the flaw is of course that he didn't consider the output.So I don't see how Austin and Humphreys are being untruthful because Morris was. They did calculate an output, and so their argument has no real relevance with Morris'.''Some more references:
INFLUX OF OTHER ELEMENTS TO THE OCEAN (from Dalrymple, G. B., 1984, 'How Old is the Earth?: A Reply to "Scientific" Creationism,' in Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division, American Association for the Advancement of Science, vol. 1, pt. 3, Frank Awbrey and William Thwaites (Eds)).The Sea's Salt by Glenn Morton''The first link refences to Morris' data again, so the above applies as well. The second link is the one that is relevant, so we will adress it here. (on the next page, it will by less messy)BTW, How do we quote on here lol ?Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

First off, I will give you the response Humphreys gave to the arguments advanced in Morton's paper:No, Glenn Morton is not at all correct on this, and sincere creationists can continue using sea sodium as an evidence for a young world. Morton showed you an early letter in his correspondence with Steve Austin and me, but not our replies. He also did not show you how he terminated the correspondence.What happens is this: indeed albite forms in mid-ocean vents and takes sodium out of the high-temperature sea water. But then when the albite gets into cooler water, it decomposes into the mineral chlorite and releases the same amount of sodium back into the sea water. That is why albite (in any significant amounts) is found only at the mid-ocean ridges and nowhere else. So his albite sink would change into a chlorite source, and the net effect on sodium in the sea would be zero.That may seem technical to you. So here is a non-technical way you can judge for yourself whether Morton is right or not: find out whether he has published his albite sink theory in a peer-reviewed secular geochemistry journal. The foremost one has the Latin title Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. Such journals would be overjoyed to publish his theory if it were correct, because it would solve the 75-year-old problem Steve and I pointed out, the great imbalance between ingoing and outgoing sodium. The secular science establishment would probably award Morton the Nobel Prize for it!Moreover, Morton would be very proud to have his theory published in such a journal and would be sure to mention it prominently on his website. Let me know if you find such a citation there. If you don’t, then you know Morton is blowing smoke at you.Smoke and mirrors are generally what you will get on skeptics’ and old-earther web sites. They shun peer review and publication. Instead they rely on the navet of most of their readers to protect their bad science from exposure. Anybody can say anything on a website, and they do. Psalm 1:1 promises a blessing for avoiding such company:How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
Instead, delight in the law of the Lord,
Russ Humphreys
Institute for Creation ResearchMorton repplied to this by editing at the end of the paper. I don't know if you have read it, but if not go read it now.Now, I am no expert on this, but there seems to be a difference between what Humphreys said, and what Morton replies. Humphreys says that ''what happens is this: indeed albite forms in mid-ocean vents and takes sodium out of the high-temperature sea water. But then when the albite gets into cooler water, it decomposes into the mineral chlorite and releases the same amount of sodium back into the sea water''Morton counterarguments this by saying: ''Historically, dissolution rates have been measured indirectly using powdered materials. Rates from albite powders (pH 9, 80C, Burch et al., 1993) correspond to a surface normal retreat velocity of 33.2 10-7 nm/sec.''Maybe I'm the only one seeing this, but humphreys does say that albite accumulates in high-temperature sea (i think you can consider 80C as high temperature) It accumulates there specifically because it does not dissolve in those temperatures, as the research referenced by Morton points out.But Humphreys says that the sodium in albite is released in the lower temperatures of the ocean, where Morton's reference is irrelevant because it deals with high temperatures.Maybe I'm wrong, and that 80 degrees celsius is considered low-temperature. I'm not an expert on this.Finally, on that last bit about Nobel-prize, publishing in journals etc. Although it is pretty much irrelevant to the subject, you have to say that if Morton really has found the solution to Joly's hundred year old problem, it would have been published. Two solutions: either Morton never wanted to get it published for some unknown personnal reason. Or it did not/would not pass peer-review.

Yeah I noted that tooBut then again, his paper doesn't solve the 100 year-old problem, it just brings it back to life ...Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Of course I don't think we understand all of them.But, if you state that there are other sodium outputs that can account for the missing 63% (or a bit less obviously), then the burden of proof is not on me, it is on you ...Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

A solution to the problem would be worthy of publication. Just restating the problem isn't worthy of publication in my opinion. it would be like publishing multiple articles on the ''Solar missing neutrino'', but always saying the same facts. (I know it was solved in 02-03, but I didn't want to take a scientific dilemma related to the Evolution/creation debate and that's the only one who came to my mind)

I understand all this very well. My point never was to say: ''See! the salt problem is unsolved! I'm right! I WIN! the earth is YOUNG!''Maybe you saw some people do that, but I'm not that type of argumentator. All I want is to discuss arond here, and if it happens, once in a while we can say: ''hey, maybe this problem is unsolved''.I have to admit that I knew this problem was unsolved from even before I posted, since it is one of the oldest unresolved problems in geology and I have never, ever found any article that had found the solution. If it ever comes out, it will be making the headlines I'm pretty sure.I just usually post a thread about this very subject on a new forum to see what type of people are around, if they are the type of people that just can't admit that something is as of yet unexplained, etc.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Another point to remember is that I could easily say that about 98% of the data discussed in Evolution/creation forums fit within both theories (examples of natural selection being the most common ones obviously)The trick is to avoid those subjects who fit within both perspective, and focus on the ones that present problems for one theory but not the other, as the salt in the sea one.A third category of subjects is those who, to fit within a theory, have to do some special pleading (one that comes to mind is the soft tissues in dinosaur bones, it is possible some unknown process can preserve soft tissues-proteins for millions of years, but as long as this process is not found and identified, it is special pleading)Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

I truly doubt the history of the earth is all catastrophism or all uniformitarian. The present is always the key to the past, unless you have reasons to think other wise, that's how I see it.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Yeah, I thought someone would comment that when I wrote it. Ok, let's say one theory and a diverging point of view.I'm not the kind to argue on words, I hope you aren't either

Lol, I know this is uniformitarianism ...you forgot the part: ''unless you have reasons to think otherwise''. it would be pointless to suppose a cataclysm when you don't have any reasons to think it ...

just to point out that even if no creationist had touched this, it would still be a fact that needs to be adressed by long-age theory since it is around since a hundred years and still not resolved...Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

I don't really care what semantics you use lol ...As long as we agree there is one objective past, and that naturalism is a belief (thats probably another topic)Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

I know this is just one unanswered question lol, i just wrote a couple of posts ago that I posted this to see who on here has that feeling to provide an answer to every single objection.Browsing through debates such as these, there's always that category of people who just cannot leave a question unanswered and say: you have a point. They feel forced to try and answer even a question that is assumed unresolved by the scientific community. I'm glad that you are not one of those people, since you were able to say that there are unanswered question such as this oneI was just trying to pin some of those people down, so I don't have to waste my time arguing with them further on (by the way, I will be doing night shifts on a campground all summer, so I'll have a lot of time to discuss with you people)

Yeah, its a pretty neat place heheBut on naturalism, I like the way you put it. Now I hope we got the same definition of naturalism: matter and energy is all there isThe question is, can you objectively verify (that the criterion you used) that matter and energy is all there is ?Unless of course naturalism is outside the use of this criterion, because it is the default. But then, what would falsify it as the default ? (It's the first time I encounter this view of naturalism as the default, which explains why I these questions)Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.