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Author Topic:   Hydrologic Evidence for an Old Earth
anglagard
Member (Idle past 836 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


Message 1 of 174 (326177)
06-25-2006 7:38 PM


In the now closed topic YEC Problem with Science Above and Beyond Evolution, several areas of discussion were ended when the topic exceeded 300 posts. Among these areas were the implications the YEC belief system would have on hydrogeology. To return to the debate, please refer to the following two posts:
In a hydrogeology class back in 1983 we worked out how long it would take for rainfall in the Zuni Mountains (the souce of the water in the aquifer) to get to the San Juan River in Northwestern New Mexico through a confined aquifer. The answer was around 830,000 years, if my memory serves correct. The science behind the calculation is here:
http://www.ncwater.org/Education_and_.../Hydrogeology/
The reason I bring this up is that hydrogeology does have practical consequences since in the Western US agriculture and indeed, much human life, is largely dependent on groundwater from confined aquifers. In order to determine how much water is available, or indeed how soon an aquifer is depleted, is based upon the theoretical concepts outlined in the attached website. These are practical real-life consequences to the exact same set of theories that show how old groundwater may be at any point in a confined aquifer.
I guess if one were to demand all science be vetted by YEC mullahs, then such equations may be used to determine where science ends and Last Thursdayism takes over in each confined aquifer. However, this would not address groundwater management problems and solutions in the Western US as using the exact same equations that date groundwater also determine how fast it can be replinished.
And, in response to another post from Faith and to clarify:
You are assuming, per uniformitarian assumptions, that rainfall in the Zuni Mountains has always been the source of water in the aquifers.
No, only so much water can be pushed through a given volume of a confined aquifer depending on its hydraulic conductivity. Amount of rainfall has nothing to do with how fast water can be absorbed by the ground in a given amount of time. In this case velocity is independent of amount.
The only way the water could be there in many confined aquifers is that it was either absorbed through its recharge areas and is often even millions of years old or it was magically created with the appearance of age.
The same equations that provide age determine how long recharge takes.
To me, the hydrologic evidence of an old Earth is beyond logical refutation unless one is going to assert Last Thursdayism from an intentionally deceptive deity. Does anyone disagree?
This is intended to be the first in a series concerning what sciences are negatively affected by a YEC belief system. Further explorations will include, but are not limited to, genetic bottlenecking due to the Flood and Noah's Ark story, the clear differences in species lumped together as kinds, and the melting of the Earth under the laws of physics due to condensed volcanic activity and/or meteoric impacts.
Edited by Admin, : Shorten link.

Replies to this message:
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 Message 5 by Faith, posted 06-25-2006 8:45 PM anglagard has replied
 Message 13 by Faith, posted 06-25-2006 10:51 PM anglagard has replied
 Message 115 by riVeRraT, posted 06-26-2006 11:30 PM anglagard has replied
 Message 118 by Faith, posted 06-27-2006 3:28 AM anglagard has replied

  
AdminJar
Inactive Member


Message 2 of 174 (326178)
06-25-2006 7:45 PM


Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
subbie
Member (Idle past 1254 days)
Posts: 3509
Joined: 02-26-2006


Message 3 of 174 (326185)
06-25-2006 8:17 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by anglagard
06-25-2006 7:38 PM


Prove it!
Playing devil's advocate for a minute, just for fun.....
It seems to me that the biggest YEC objection to this is that you are assuming uniformitarianism; that the process has always been as it is now. Forgetting for the moment that that is really the only reasonable assumption in the absense of evidence to the contrary -- i.e., that things work pretty much now as they always have worked -- what evidence is there to show that things have always worked as they do now? In other words, can we prove (in the scientific sense of the word) that hydrologic conductivity is the same now as it always have been?
Please answer, as much as possible, in words of one syllable or less; hydrology isn't my strong suit. Also, for purposes of your response, you may assume that I will read your answer, evaluate it for reasonableness, logic, and evidentiary support, and not simply dismiss it because it conflicts with preconceived notions I have based on 2,000-6,000 year old mythology.
Oh, you can also assume that I am not an advocate of Last Thursdayism. (I've always hated Thursdays, much fonder of Wednesdays.)

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin

This message is a reply to:
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 4 of 174 (326186)
06-25-2006 8:21 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by subbie
06-25-2006 8:17 PM


Re: Prove it!
Have you ever stuck your finger over the end of a hose and directed it at the ground? What happens?
If you force water through the aquifer at a higher rate, then goodbye aquifer, hello cavern.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 5 of 174 (326187)
06-25-2006 8:45 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by anglagard
06-25-2006 7:38 PM


I guess I just don't understand this whole thing. I don't get why my answer that a worldwide Flood would have saturated and filled what became the aquifers, indeed created them, doesn't deal with what you are talking about. No ridiculous Last Thursdayism is implied. The formula for how the water gets replenished when depleted since then is something else. I assume the rate calculated applies NOW.
{Edit: P.S.
1) I can't follow all the math of course, but can you answer whether the math depends upon the old earth ASSUMPTION? That is, is it built from that as a premise, rather than even considering a more recent beginning?
2) Your answer on the other thread assumed salty ocean water in the Flood. That is not assumed by YECs (based on some Biblical hints), so that should be taken out of any consideration of the Flood answer.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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anglagard
Member (Idle past 836 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


Message 6 of 174 (326189)
06-25-2006 9:01 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Faith
06-25-2006 8:45 PM


I guess I just don't understand this whole thing.
To put it as simple as I can, there is only so much water one can push through a given type of rock at one time. This can be measured, and has been countless times in laboratories and on-site. The time it takes to push the water through lateral hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles of rock is often longer than 6000 years, in some cases even millions of years. Therefore any water in a given confined aquifer (which means no other significant source of water) must be thousands or even millions of years old unless it was created with the false appearance of age. Therfore either the Earth is at least millions of years old according to hydrology or the water was created with the false appearance of age, hence Last Thursdayism.
Edited by anglagard, : clarity

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Replies to this message:
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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 7 of 174 (326211)
06-25-2006 10:16 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Faith
06-25-2006 8:45 PM


Your answer on the other thread assumed salty ocean water in the Flood. That is not assumed by YECs (based on some Biblical hints), so that should be taken out of any consideration of the Flood answer.
Hmmm. But we have some places - Ouargla, Algeria, for one - where there are fresh water aquifers below salt water ones. There's a recharged aquifer there that gets its water from the Atlas Mountains several hundred miles to the northwest. It's about two miles deep at Ouargla. A mismanaged well to down below that fresh water has resulted in an uncontrolled flow (it could possibly have been fixed in the last fifteen years...) up to surface. To get to surface, though, it had to flow up through a minor oil zone with salty water and through massive beds of solid salt from the evaporation of seawater. And above that salt are a couple of thousand feet of sediment. The water from below dissolves the salt and causes the rock to cave in.
Then the hot salty water fills up the sinkhole it's made and leaks off into the near-surface fresh water aquifer. The salt zone was threatening the city of Ouargla's water supply and existance when I worked on a project to block the flow off back about 1990.
How do we get fresh Floode water below salty Floode water below salt from evaporated salty Floode water below fresh? Sounds like a pretty busy 150 days, Faith.
And, for another thread someday, if the Floode was fresh water, how come we still have jellyfish and corals and all that other sealife that dies when it's put in fresh water?

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 8 of 174 (326212)
06-25-2006 10:16 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by anglagard
06-25-2006 9:01 PM


What do you mean by "push through rock?" You mean water absorbed BY rock?

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anglagard
Member (Idle past 836 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


Message 9 of 174 (326213)
06-25-2006 10:21 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Faith
06-25-2006 10:16 PM


The push is water in the recharge zone being absorbed. Actually to be more accurate, the water is also pulled by gravity. The water can only be pushed or pulled as fast as the properties of the rock allows.

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 10 of 174 (326215)
06-25-2006 10:30 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Faith
06-25-2006 10:16 PM


He's talking about the same thing that makes oil drips from your car disappear into the driveway: concrete and many kinds of rock have tiny pores between the grains that make up the fabric of the rock. These rocks have a property - "permeability" in the oilfield biz but maybe "conductivity" in the water-well biz - that is a measure of how much fluid will seep through the rock at some given pressure difference.
In a recharging aquifer, rainwater and snowmelt could pond/puddle up, say, in the mountains in Colorado on top of an outcrop of permeable rock. The slight pressure from that puddle forces some of the water into the rock. Gravity pulls it down to the plains near Lubbock, Texas, where farmers pump it out io irrigate their cotton. But they suck that 100,000 year old water out faster than the sandstone can resupply it from that far away, so they are always drilling deeper wells to get to the water in the very bottom of the sandstone layer. Old water, still.
Oh, by the way: your driveway is about as permeable to oil as a typical oil reservoir rock.
Edited by Coragyps, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 11 of 174 (326217)
06-25-2006 10:45 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Coragyps
06-25-2006 10:30 PM


So we're talking about water contained within rock, not just surrounded and contained by rock, and the time to replenish it has to do with the rate of permeation of various rocks.

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 12 of 174 (326220)
06-25-2006 10:50 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Faith
06-25-2006 10:45 PM


Yes. Essentially all underground water is in the rock itself: caves with pools or srreams exist, all right, but account for a minute fraction of groundwater.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 13 of 174 (326221)
06-25-2006 10:51 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by anglagard
06-25-2006 7:38 PM


Are the rocks that contain the water part of the geologic column, that is rocks laid down in the presumed time frame of a particular portion of that column?

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 14 of 174 (326224)
06-25-2006 11:02 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Faith
06-25-2006 10:51 PM


Sure. I wish I remembered what age the aquifer ones in Algeria were - but they're pretty old to be 10,000 feet deep. The outcrop in the Atlas Mts. is there because that portion was bent up and eroded off to expose an "edge" of the originally horizontal beds.
The Oglala rock out here at Lubbock is only 5,000,000 years old or so, though. Just a baby.

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anglagard
Member (Idle past 836 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


Message 15 of 174 (326226)
06-25-2006 11:04 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Faith
06-25-2006 10:51 PM


Are the rocks that contain the water part of the geologic column, that is rocks laid down in the presumed time frame of a particular portion of that column?
Yes solid (or in the case of the Mohorovic discontinuity, plastic) rock exists down to the liquid outer core of the Earth. Water is usually contained in the pores of rock to some degree as deep as the deepest well. This is far deeper than any action of water could scour from the surface in 150 days as water can only hold so much rock before it falls out of solution, which even if it did would create a single worldwide layer of rock after consolidation.
{ABE} Of course only the chemical precursors to most rock can go into solution. Only a few rocks with lots of air in the pores, like pumice, actually float.
{ABE2} Also, if the floodwaters contained all the rock, even if down a mile or two, it would have been mud at best, not floodwater. It still would have made one continuous flat geologic formation, after settling. I thought it was Noah's flood not Noah's mud.
Edited by anglagard, : clarity
Edited by anglagard, : No reason given.

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