continental drift

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Originally posted by joz:
Its about 3000 miles from England (London Heathrow) to the US (Boston Logan) a rate of 1/2 a mile per hour would mean they only drifted apart 250 days ago.....

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Where TF did you get 1/2 a mile per hour from?

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He's being generous to the ye-creationist crowd. If they drifted apart during the 40 days of tumult it would be more like 3 miles/hour.CheersJoe Meert

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Originally posted by joz:
Ah I see.....

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Good question, isn`t there some half assed theory on Walt Browns site about reduced friction allowing it or something?

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JM: As a matter of fact, there is. John Baumgardner has also altered the viscosity of the mantle in his models to some ridiculous level in order to facilitate rapid drift of the continents. I've invited Walt to develop his idea and submit it for publication (see http://www.indstate.edu/gga/pmag/walt_brown.htm), but no response so far. Creationists can always invent a 'mighta been' for any individual question, but collectively, their ideas don't hang together very well (see my comments under the thread 'inconsistencies in ye-creationism' for another example of this. One last 'vent'...have you ever noticed how creationists claim expertise in just about every field, but allow that all 'evolutionists' are brainwashed?CheersJoe Meert

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
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--Hm.. I don't know where you got a limit of 40 days for this process, also, the atlantic plates shift from the middle outward, so you would divide by two.

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JM: Isn't that how long the tumult of the flood lasted according to the Bible? After 40 days, the flood waters persisted, but there is no indication of a tumult. You are assuming of course that the Atlantic is the only place that rifted and that the Euopean-North American boundary represents the greatest amount of separation. If that is your assumption, then the 1/2 spreading rate would be 1.5 mph. If you look at a global picture, the rate of 3 mph is something you must contend with. Either way, this rate is some 10^8-10^9 faster than we observe today. There are some serious physical problems with such rates

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
--I am slightly confident, though I wouldnt come to a conclusion on this without either specific further reading, or discussion. I see no other cause of a 'pulling' effect to start this system off. I am aware that mantle convection would slightly drive a 'pulling' of the lithospheric plates away from the spreading centers. The means of the magma upwelling currently isn't the cause I know of plate divergence, I believe, it may be subduction. Though if my mind serves me correctly, what started this system off is an upwelling mantle by heat weakening the lithospheric plate and eventually rifting pangea. I am quite tired, I may be confused on a segment of this issue.

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JM: Well, let me help you out. The driving forces of the plates don't act alone. They work in harmony. As near as we can tell, the breakup of Pangea started with a huge mantle upwelling and that started the continents breaking apart. There are flood basalt provinces that make up sort of an ancient 'ring of fire' along the present-day Atlantic margins. This is probably the initial cause of Atlantic opening. Here's the problem as I see it. Creationists want to pick and choose the geology that they are willing to believe. For example, if you are going to accept this hypothesis for the initial splitting of the Atlantic, then you must accept the evidence for the synchroneity of the volcanism. In order to do that, you must accept the radiometric ages that attest to the synchroneity and/or the sequence of fossils that help provide a time line for the spreading. So, do you accept this geological conclusion?CheersJoe Meert

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b) polar flips, which would have without doubt caused an ecological disaster of unimaginable magnitude accurred rapidly a few thousand years ago

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JM: Do you mean 'real' polar flips as in the earth tumbling in space or magnetic polarity changes. If the former was TC's claim then your argument is correct, if the latter, there is no indication that magnetic reversals cause any ecological disasters. On the other hand, what could be worse than a global flood brought on by a loving God in order to wipe out all the 'good' stuff he created?CheersJoe Meert

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Originally posted by quicksink:
Estimates and dating methods put the last "literal" polar flip at about 780,000 years ago, right? Many claim that the next is long overdue.

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There is little doubt that these polar flips occurred, although we are yet to explain their nature. The creationists can either deny their existence, or use evidence to accomodate these phenomenas into the 10,000 year creationist model.

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I'm asking a creationist to accuston the flip with their theories. It could get a little messy.

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JM: I would caution you in the use of terminology. Magnetic reversals is a better term than 'polar flip'. Polar 'flips' are the stuff of Hapgood theories and other pseudoscience.CheersJoe Meert

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Originally posted by quicksink:
so there were no events where the planet flipped around? I thought there was conclusive evidence, but I guess I was listening to heresy.

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But how do creationists squash all these magnetic flips, or whatever you'd like to call them, into a tiny frame of time?

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thanks for the clarification

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ps- can you comment on my post in "Evolution in the Antarctic"?

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thanks

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JM: No, there is currently no evidence to support the notion of a complete 'flip' of the poles (i.e. N-geographic becomes S-geographic or vice-versa). One person has championed the cause for a 90-degree rotation of the mantle and outer crust, but the evidence now weighs in heavily against that notion. Creationists deal with magentic reversals the same way they deal with other science. They make things up and hope no-one notices the details. Look under magnetite and see what one creationist did.CheersJoe Meert

More thoughts on continental drift....
Several creationists have proposed that prior to the days of Peleg the earth consisted of one single landmass and a large sea. Others, say that this was the situation pre-flood and that all the drift took place during the flood. The objections to this notion are numerous and have been discussed here and elsewhere. What I have not yet seen addressed by the creationists is the paleogeography of this landmass. What did it look like? What evidence was used to reconstruct the pre-flood (or pre-Peleg) supercontinent? Anyone care to show me where this has been addressed. I'm assuming that creationists won't use the Pangea configuration for obvious reasons, so what is their thinking?CheersJoe Meert