Plate tectonics, mountain building, and the Flood

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Originally posted by LRP:
According to the Bible a near circular supercontinent (called 'Earth' in the Bible but probably 'Pangaea' by mainstream scientists) was formed a long time (several thousand of years)before
the time of the first known (biblically) man.

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Unless you are talking about Gen. 1, please cite your sources. Until further notice, I assume you are a day-age person.

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Again according to scriptures this supercontinent was formed in a single day as the result of a crashed planetissimal.

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What scripture? And have you any idea what such a crash would do to the Earth? Last time it made the moon.

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Prior to this crash the Earth had its shell of basaltic rock (now recognized as 'the plates') which the bible calls 'the foundations'.

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Interesting.

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The spread out crashed planetissimal remained near circular but subject to oscillations in and out of the global ocean that then covered the planet.

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But crashed planetissimals don't spread out and make continents. They melt everything and through stuff into space, leaving a big hole in the ground, basically. The dynamics of what you propose are unworkable.Plus, there would be distinctive chemical signatures had this happened.

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The last oscillation out of the global ocean (again according to the bible) was only about 6000 years ago.

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What?

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This supercontinet did not break up
until 120 years or so after the Flood-again according to the bible.

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4-6 thousand years ago? So the plates are moving half a mile a year, maybe? Don't you think we could measure this? Don't you think someone would have noticed?

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The breaking up of the plates are also referred to in the Bible-centuries before man discovered this.

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We didn't notice because the plates mve vastly more slowly than than you propose. At any rate, I think the Chinese had some understanding of this thousands of years before the west.

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To understand why the superconinent had to be formed in the way it was and subsequently broke up is a very long story.

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I bet it is.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by iconoclast2440:
-btw The Leviathan isn't a dinosaur its a dragon silly!
Job 41:18-22

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18 His snorting throws out flashes of light;
his eyes are like the rays of dawn.
19 Firebrands stream from his mouth;
sparks of fire shoot out.
20 Smoke pours from his nostrils
as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.
21 His breath sets coals ablaze,
and flames dart from his mouth.
22 Strength resides in his neck;
dismay goes before him.

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The Behemoth must have been a really small brachosaur if lotuses can conceal him and the poplars by the stream can surround him!

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The lotuses conceal him in their shadow;
the poplars by the stream surround him.
23 When the river rages, he is not alarmed;
he is secure, though the Jordan should surge against his mouth.
24 Can anyone capture him by the eyes, [3]
or trap him and pierce his nose?

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What is funny to me is that if these same descriptions where found in Mayan myth, for example, they'd be instantly written off as myth and interpretted to mean some mundane indigenous wildlife. But since it appears in the Good Book, we've got to hear about dinosaurs on the ark.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by LRP:
Genesis is not the only book in the Bible which deals with creation matters.

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Hence the request that you provide references.

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No I am not a day age person. Nor am I a traditioinal YEC or OEC but I do believe the earth was fairly recently put together using some extremely old material.

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You are rather hedgy about telling us exactly what you are though.

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It is long because I start at the very beginning of the Universe itself and then trace out the development of the Solar Nebula from which our Solar System eventually formed.

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Interesting. And all of this is in the Bible is it?

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There are on other planets examples of 'crashed planetissimals' which I mention in my book.

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There is orbitting the Earth just such an example as well.

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if the approach direction is almost tangential the planetissimal will inflict a galancing blow at first and then skim on the earths surface breaking up as it did so to form a near circular deposit of its contents.

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No it wouldn't. A glancing blow is more likely to throw stuff into space, not to deposit it in a circle. You are going to get a crater, not a continent.

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The precise nature of the contents we can now determine but it is also predictable from the theory I have used to explain how the Solar System was formed and why the planets have the structure and composition that they do.

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What?

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My theory proposes that the plates are in very slow movement now because of residual frictional and gravitational effects of the crashed planetissimal.

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They should be slowing down then and at a detectable pace. Can you show this?

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Hence I can easily see why the Bible tells us that the pre Flood supercontinent did break up some years after the flood by parts simply sliding off rather than being carried as if by conveyor belt.

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What?

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The mid Atlantic ocean ridge is in my opinion a tearing of the basaltic shell caused by land masses moving east and west by gravitational forces.

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What gravitational forces?

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I would love to quote the relevant scriptures here but then our arguement may centre on my interpretation of scripture against yours or somebody elses.

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So you won't back up your claims then?

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When it comes to interpretation scripture it is my belief that it very much depends on what guiding spirit we have within us.

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I also believe that we can make up whatever we want when reading scripture.

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I hope this answers your queries.

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Not even close.------------------
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Originally posted by LRP:
I will be happy to send you a free complimentary copy if you wish.

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Hey, if you are serious, I won't turn down a complimentary book.

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Not a YEC because they defend a non biblical and non scientific doctrine of instantaneous ex nihilo creation.

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Strange stance, but ok.

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Not a OEC because they seem to ignore many relevant scriptures

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You might consider posting just a few of those scriptures.

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Not a day age creationist because I do not see God requiring thousands or millions of years to do some finishing touches to a creation he began before the first day of the Genesis account.

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So the six days of creation were in fact six normal days and God did his thing in the order laid out, but there was stuff prior to those days?

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I am a scientist and geotechnical engineer by profession and can see in scriptures scientific truths where others see poetry or myth or nothing.

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I can see valid observations here and there too, but the same is true for all mythology I've read.

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Yes and other planets have many moons any of which could be knocked of its orbit and on to the planet itself.

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And? This isn't terribly contraversial, but forming continents of those crashed moons is a different story.

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Yes and no. The 'crater' in this case in my opinion is defined by the 'ring of fire' round the Pacific Ocean.
The planetissimal plunged into the 4000m deep(average) global ocean and being composed partly of ice, granitic rock minerals and sediments of all kinds it broke up some distance from its point of initial contact.

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This doesn't jibe with your pronouncements elsewhere about Pangea. You appear to have two different stories going on here.

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Yes thats exactly what I mean.

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That wasn't a this-is-insane 'what' but a what-the-heck-does-this-mean 'what'.

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My theory for the formation of the Solar System describes the nature of sediment distribution in what I call the planetary disc. So it is easy to see why each planet has the composition that scientist tell us they have.

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And is this different from the mainstream explaination?

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No. We have been measuring plate movements for only about 40 years. Maybe in another 40 we will know the answer.

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Not an adequate answer. The plates move slowly but at measurable speeds. You've got your continents breakin up only 4000-5000 years ago-- right after the flood. That means they must have started moving at quite a clip and have since slowed to the pace matching the growth of my fingernails. After forty years a speed change like that ought to show up.

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It stands to reason that if you place a small piece of well chewed chewing gum on a wet egg it will be easy to slide it about on the egg.

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Love the analogy. It doesn't help, but you get an A for the imagery.

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The egg shell in this case is the basaltic lithosphere and the driving mechanism is simply differences in level of the lubricated surface.

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1) The lithophere isn't a highly lubricated surface.
2) Have you forgotten about the oceanic plates that the continents must plow through?
3) The continents slide downhill? Is that your mechanism?

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In particular the asthenosphere that lies below the basaltic lithosphere is the origin of level differences and isostacy.

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ummm.... what gravitational forces?

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Psalm 24:2

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ummmm.... wow. That is a real stretch.

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All the scientific facts I have used in my theory have come from standard textbooks in Geology and Astronomy.

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Textbooks? Scary... That'll put you about fifty years behind the curve right there.

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I simply give a different interpretation of these facts coupled with some collaboration from the scriptures.

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What are you calling facts? Raw data? A wee bit of theory? Just curious.

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It is unfortunate how 'theory' in peoples minds become 'truths' For this reason I dont expect many to be open minded enough to consider alternatives to what they have become used to.

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All you need is a good argument.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by LRP:
The offer for a free copy of my book is still open. Just send me an e mail LRP@newnet.co.uk with an address to foward it to.

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'k.

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Before the formation of any land mass the Earth had to have a covering of water with an average depth of around 4000m.

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Why? Where is the common sense science to support this?

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My theory for the sudden appearance of a land mass

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What sudden appearance of a land mass?

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that covered about a third of the earth's surface is that this was the result of a crashed planetissimal

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That exhibited impossible dynamics, like neatly spreading itself into a circular continent that somehow also represents the ring of fire.

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which had within it all the soil and rock minerals found on the continents today.

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You do know that the crash would have to create all of the layers of sediment and rock as well as deposits of salt, oil, etc. that are found in the continents? And this without melting most of it?

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No doubt geological processes worked on this immense deposit and in time produced the geology we have today.

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How much time? 4.3 billion years maybe?

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The immense heat generated by friction on the impact surfaces would have reduced the top of the basiltic lithosphere and the bottom of the continental land mass into a highly pressurized complex fluid-ideal to allow the land mass to slide about on the basaltic shell with only the slightest provocation.

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Except an impact of something the size you propose would destroy the planet.Consider. And bare with me, my math is horrible. The Chicxulub crater was made by an impactor of appr. 10-12 km giving it a volume of about 4200 cubic km. The surface area of the Earth is something near 200,000,000 km. 30% of that-- land mass and hence roughly continental crust-- is 60,000,000 km. Given that continental crust is 50-250 km thick I guestimate about 150 km and calculate volume at 9,000,000,000 cubic km. I am sure some of the smart people here can correct the numbers and maybe bring this figure down. Even if you cut it in half though, the size difference is enormous. Given the damage done by the puny Chicxulub you can't believe that your impactor would lay down rock and sediment in an orderly fashion and then melt only the bottom bits so the new continents could slide over the mantle. Something that size would turn us to rubble.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by Joe Meert:

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Consider. And bare with me, my math is horrible.

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JM: Ok, I'm naked, now what?

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PS: Could not resist that one.

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I can never do math with clothes on... I guess I assume everyone is the same. But... since you are nekkid already, are my figures at least close enough that the Math Guild will let me live?
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No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com[This message has been edited by John, 01-18-2003]

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
Edge: "So, don't you think someone would have notice that sea level has dropped thousands of feet in the last 2k years?"
--No they wouldn't because whatever the mechanism, such a rapid deceleration in heat flow hasn't been observed.

​

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Sorry? No one would notice because you can't see the mechanism causing it? That makes no sense.------------------
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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
No, that isn't what I meant. I meant that the mechanism for cooling wouldn't even be applicable if it didn't explain the fact that we don't see a rapid deceleration in mean surface heat flow. And therefor no one would notice that the sea level has dropped thousands of feet.

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TC, the level would have dropped thousands of feet very rapidly. Drop the jargon. I don't really care about mean surface heat flow. Focus, man, focus. You are saying that whatever mechanism you cook up will explain why no one noticed that the sea levels dropped? Whatever the mechanism, how can people not notice that the sea level dropped thousands of feet?------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
What are you talking about? The surface heat flow is directly proportional to the bathymetry of the ocean floor and hence, eustasy.

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I don't care about the mechanism, TC. Just answer the question. How in bloody hell can people not notice the ocean drop thousands of feet?

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What others have layed out and I have agreed with here is that that is exactly what I cannot show yet, that bathymetry & eustatic levels would drop rapidly after the flood.

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Yes, and the question is how can people not notice this drop? I can't think of any way to pull this off. I am imagining a continent and an ocean, and I can't think of a way to make the ocean drop and it not be damned obvious to someone on shore. I am thinking only of the water-line against the shore and pretending that I can pull and push the land masses at will as if by giant hands.

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"You are saying that whatever mechanism you cook up will explain why no one noticed that the sea levels dropped?"
--No, I'm saying that if the mechanism doesn't explain this, it isn't plausible.

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LOL.... so whatever mechanism you cook up will explain this effect.

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Well someone obviously would have observed it. Just not in recent times.

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Not in recent times, eh? Fine. Bet the Egyptians would have noticed given the location of Egypt. Come on, there were sea-faring people at the time. You can't think they wouldn't have noticed. Of course, I suppose you would deny the sea-faring people and insist that only the few on the ark were around at the time.------------------
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Originally posted by LRP:
A simple experiment could be tried. Take a small lump of very soft clay and hurl it on to a rotating sphere Aim for just above the equator.

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Your experiment won't come close to approximating the enormous speeds and hence, energies, associated with planetary collisions. Even firing your clay ball out of a cannon will only get it up to a few hundred miles an hour and this isn't even close to the speeds at which planets travel. Even so, fire your clay ball at a globe and you won't get an ellipse, a circle or anything else except thousands of fragments stuck to the walls of the lab.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by LRP:
If the velocity was too low the ball would remain intact and just sit on the sphere (assuming it was sticky enough to cling to it and then flatten into a circle.

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Sure, if the velocities were low enough. They won't be. Gravitational attraction will take care of that.------------------
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I'm not a physicist, but wouldn't there also be an issue with the moon's gravitational attraction and/or the moon simply swatting the thing out of the sky if it's really going slowly enough to avoid shattering and/or burning up on earth re-entry?

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I thought about the moon too. The moon is going to be a huge problem for the planetissimal theory. To tell the truth, I just pretended it wasn't there to simplify thinking about main collision.Here are a couple of thoughts.1) There is no way a planet could approach earth directly and impact at the incredibly slow speeds required. Gravitational attraction will accelerate anything to thousands of miles per hour long before it gets to earth. A parachutist will accelerate to a couple of hundred miles per hour in a few seconds and then level off due to air resistance. I once saw a report about a man who worked on the early pre-space program. He jumped out of a balloon at 100,000 feet and accelerated to faster than the speed of sound. In space there is no air resistance to slow anything down. Gravitational attraction weaken with distance, to be sure, but at 385 or so thousand kilometers the earth's gravitation is still strong enough to hold onto the moon. So a slow acceleration for 400,000 kilometers or more is going to give speeds well in excess of a few meters per second. This will be the case even if the offending planet approaches from behind.2) The only other option is that this planet was first captured into a moon-like orbit and spiralled inward. This puts the moon very much in the way. However, as the planet gets closer to earth it will speed up. That is the way orbital mechanics work. Go to the mall and drop a coin into one of those funnel shaped charity gadgets. You will still have enourmous impact speeds.------------------
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Thinking about it some more. Even if we could cancel gravity and place a continental-mass equivalent sphere on the surface of the earth, I am not sure it would work. Once we reinstated gravity, I wonder if the sheer force of gravity wouldn't generate so much heat and stress as to pop the invading sphere like a firecracker. An explosion like that wouldn't make continents, maybe a few islands....------------------
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With any reasonable estimate of the mass of the object it will be straightforward to calculate the potential energy assuming the object was somehow held still at some height above the earth.

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I'd be interested in seeing this result. I have not found a good figure for the total mass of the continental crusts though. I worked up a guesstimate somewhere but it isn't good enough to actually use in a real live equation.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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The origin and detailed characteristics of this nebula has however not received much attention.

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Look up star formation. There is a great deal of work going on concerning this.

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I explain how this nebula was formed as the result of the collapse of a binary star

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Do you have any evidence that this was actually the case?

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in which one or both bodies of the system had already reached an advanced state in stellar evolution.

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That one of them exploded requires that at least one was very old. What concerns me is the idea that only one was old. Given the probable mechanisms of star formation, both stars must be close to the same age. Now given that the sun is about 5 billion years old now and will likely burn for another 5 billion before beginning its death throws, you end up having to assume a ten billion+ year difference in age for the two stars. You also end up assuming a solar age of ten billion+, contrary to, and more than twice that of, the estimates of those who study the sun.

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The collapse of a binary system results in the production of a very hot rapidly expanding nebula that rotates about the now central single body.

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ummm.... no. The energy released by an exploding star would throw most of the material out of the gravitational pull of the second star-- think "escape velocity"-- and the rest would be headed more or less right at the other star. You won't end up with much of a gas cloud.

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Hence at a fairly late stage in the development of our Solar System there would have been billions of asteroids of all sizes and thousands of planetissimals among about a dozen or so almost completed planets.

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Fairly late meaning what? 4.5 billion years ago?

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So at one stage of this process we would have Earth in an orbit at say 94 million miles from the Protosun, a large planetissimal at say 0.5 million miles further out and the Moon at a safe distance away of say 2 million miles further out.

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So we have the Earth orbiting about 10 million miles closer to the sun than Venus does today, and the moon is just over five times further from the earth than it is now AND orbiting the Sun?

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But the collision between the Earth and the planetissimal would be a ‘side by side’ one rather than a head on one.

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Doesn't really matter. Gravity would accelerate the two objects to many thousands of miles per hour.

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In my theory for the formation of this particular planetissimal I explain how it would have been would
have been completely encapsulated by three different spheres.

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Any evidence for this?

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When Planetissimal Pangaea collided with the Earth it had to be a gentle touchdown for two reasons. Firstly its own gravity was able to suck up great volumes of water from the global ocean which had a ‘drag’ effect and impeded it in its flight.

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WHAT???????? This is silly. Sucking up the ocean is the same as PULLING ITSELF TOWARD the earth. Both planets would accelerate toward one another.

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Secondly when it landed in the Pacific Ocean area it made a huge dent on the ocean floor and cracked it in the process, thereby losing some of its energy.

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Yeah, no kidding. Wow.... you have no idea the energy release you are talking about. It is as if you were treating a nuclear bomb like a fire cracker.

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But it bounced off and came to rest on the other side of the globe again in a deep ocean of water.

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No it didn't, because it had already melted itself, along with a quarter of the planet, and evaporated the oceans. Planets do not behave like rubber balls.

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For this reason the Earth only has a substantial land surface on one side of the globe

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Not much of an objection. We know why this is and we know that it wasn't always the case. The continents move, remember.

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has a basaltic base but a generally granitic body with billions of tons of sorted and unsorted sediments

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And? Your whole discourse on sediments is confusing.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com[This message has been edited by John, 01-25-2003]