the ultimate question

Thanks's funny QS, becasue I actually ask the reverse: how could such neat parralel stacking that traverses sub-continental regions with so few unconformities have been generated gradually? This is especially difficult to understand for land animal/plant fossil bearing beds where one would expect a lot of erosion if it was a series of floods (not to mention how large the areas are).Instead creationists understand that the vast beds that characterise the geological column were formed rapidly by hydrodynamic sorting. I presume you know that rapid layering has been proven (Mt St Helens, in the lab, polystrate fossils etc)?I ask you instead. Why would gradual layering in vast beds form a 'red' layer over thousands of square miles and then suddenly 100 feet of white chalk? Hydrodynamic sorting on an incredible scale is a far better explanation than gradualism.------------------
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Yes I'm afraid you all (apart from TC) have certainly spouted an awful lot of rhetoric with little consideration for the point I was trying to make. I was interested in a scientific assesment of the issue I brought up, not your standard dogma on related but different issues! So I'll take that as a, yes, we can't explain such abrupt transitions between vast 100 foot thick layers by mainstream explanations. Maybe I'll go back to the other sites where the evolutionsists at least read what I wrote. ------------------
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^ Percy, I hope you saw from my smiley that I was mainly trying to be funny. But I still don't think anyone addressed the issue of why for 'thousands/millions of years' there would be red sandstone and then suddenly chalk for 'thousands/millions of years'. I really think this has to be hydrodynamic sorting although I don't deny the oranismal origin of chalk. Let's not sidetrack onto the bigger picture of the fact that you don't think the flood could generate much of the geological column. Let's look at this one issue for a minute.The only sensible creaitonist explanation of the magnetic stripes is that of Snelling/Austin et al that propose a rapid version of continental drift and sea floor spreading. I personally suspect they are correct about this and that it is the accerlated radioisopotic decay (caused by whatever means) that both (i) caused the flood/continental drift via radiogeneic heating and (ii) left radiodecay proportions that correlate with the stripes.I am the first to acknowledge that this is 'after the horse has bolted' reasoning but science sometimes works that way. Sometimes we predict things and sometimes we explain the data after we have it. I presume you are aware of the recently demonstated vast excess of radiogenic helium in granites and corresoponding shortfall of atmospheric helium that supports the accelrated decay scenario?------------------
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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 05-15-2002]

Well I can't be absolutely positive about the conformity of the red/white layers I've seen on the NSW coast but it was a very flat interface. The one I can be sure of is cyclothems. Do you know about them?Joe, your 'no evidnce for rapid geological reversals' is based on the evolutiuonary time scale. We are saying that that is wrong becasue of the flood and accelrated decay! You can't look at our stuff and try and marry it into your system and then pronounce it incorrect. We think those reversals happened very rapidly during the flood probably due to accelerated decay. It's internally consistent and there are quantitative models.And your dismisal of the radiodecay - creationist calculations of the heat issue etc show that it is not a big problem. I'll post that some time for you.And how can we misinterpret the 100,000-fold (!) excess helium in granites and shortfall in the atmosphere? Mainstreamers have agreed that the 'helium budget problem will not go away' in the atmosphere and I haven't read a critique yet of the recent granite helium (vast) excess.------------------
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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 05-15-2002]

Percy, your explanatin may be possible I just don't think it is compelling - these interfaces are very flat - no gullies etc. There just isn't time for uplift given the lack of eroisonal surfaces IMO. I undestand your POV, I've read 3 monographs on origin of sedimentary rocks recently.The flood wasn't a stagnant pool, it was a fast flowing event - we know from paleocurrent data (for you guys the fast currents were constant in direction across Nth America for 200 million years!). Work done by creationists (some published in mainstream journals) does show neat layering. The exact order? - we'll see how that goes as time progresses.The great angular unconformity of GC? We think the flood was a vast tectonic event and linked to rapid continental drift so we have no problem with rapid uplift and the generatioon of unconfromities. Having said that, most flood geologists assign those GC layers as creation week rocks.------------------
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I don't believe you have corroborated your statement that the flood can't do these things. Creationist, and some mainstream published work, supports the idea that rapid flow can generate neat layering. And there is creationist work on the ordering issue - I have it in my hand - by Woodmorappe. Have you heard/read this stuff? I will show you the sources over the next few days but I suspect you are aware of them (have you seen 'the video' on sedimentation or 'the video' on Mt St Helens?). In fact the paelocurrent data shows that the vast beds of Nth America were mostly laid in the rapid flow regime.Do you know about cyclothems?I was unaware that the tilted great angular unconformity had fossils (other than microsopic stuff that could have seeped in)? Are you sure about this? I was under the impression that AIG and ICR agreed that this was creation week stuff (?)------------------
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Percy we are already qualitatively happy that our model could explain all these things without any alternative physics (other than accelerated decay). I know you aren't but we are becasue we can see the whole thing. You guys often look at one of our points in isolation and ignore the rest IMO.Quantitatively things get better every year. There are more and more quantitative simulations and calcs that back up flood geology claims. I'll link some over the coming weeks. Eg? Paleocurrent simulations showing what sort of flood surges you would expect with a rotating globe of water with a single continent. Etc. We actually subscribe to Ocaams razor almost as much as you do - we just allow God to at least have someting to do with instigating the flood!Do you guys really think that you have explained the origin of the geological column in detail? No you have not. Charles Lyell just said he had! There is very little simulation work done on that mainly becasue it's too hard. Have you explained quantitatively and deterministically why there has been 7 or 8 sea level rises and falls over the last 500 million years that completely and repeatedly inundated many continents ? Not really, not quantitatively.I of course do not believe God created strata with fossils. We would presume that the algae seeped into the creation week strata below the GAU.------------------
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I'm not a geologist Joe (I'm a physicist, working in molecular biology who has read the mainstream geological literature on sedimentaiton/stratigraphy/tectonics!).But the typical flood geologist says roughly Cambrian to Cretaceous don't they (?) although I'm aware that this is currently under fierce debate. Some want to include some of the Cenezoic I think. Some say we can't even use the mainstream definitions. I admit I'm out of my league here. It's certainly an important point for us and something I've read a little on but haven't absorbed it fully.------------------
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Firstly I personally know two PhDed flood geologists, I myself am a PhDed physicist and I've read a lot of mainsteam and flood geology. I don't actaully like this compartmentalization of science and I currently do theoretical molecular biology research! That aside I am obviously swayed by the writings of the AIG and ICR creationists. But I have done a lot of mainstream geological reading too.On your points, it's amazing how many times such 'definite' geological statements can be torn down. I've seen retractions made on formations that were aeolian and now aren't or were reefs and now aren't. So, yes I will take some of your 'definites' with a few grains of salt I'm afraid. I can provide links on many of the issues you brought up. You bring them up as if creationists haven't addressed them. I'm happy to talk about them over the coming weeks. I truly am here to learn and share how I'm thinking too.Teach me about your 'reversals'. Are you talking about folding (strata reversals), pole reversals . . .?------------------
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^ On that sort of detail either I or you will have to carefully read the Snelling et al stuff on rapid continental drift. I'll see if I can fii it in. I know they have partially addressed the issue. But, yes, some of it is our expectation of how it will turn out. And I wasn't arguing from authority other than to say that I'm commenting as a sceintist who has looked considerably into the issue - not someone sprouting random thoughts.------------------
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That may be all true Joe, but models start rough and then home in. We'll see whether it really is ruled out. At the end of the day I am scientifically satisfied that there is a potential solution and that I understand most of the major points of the differences in the two viewpoints. I certainly can't argue detailed geophysics with you but I can certainly ask you what your opinion of this or that creationist theory is. And I am still satisfied that accelerated decay could cause the flood in some way and be consistent with the data. It's not much differenet tha nDarwin - he didn't even know about genes and yet he somehow hoped evoltuon could happen somehow. Empirically he 'knew' it must. Well, 'emperically' I think the geological column looks like a flood deposit and so do my flood geolgoist friends. I particularly like cyclothems but I'll inundate you with that another day.------------------
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^ I thought I said that I also found the ICR and AIG creationists arguements compelling.------------------
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They are talking about publishing the helium diffusion work. But they're far to pragmatic to even both sending a creationist rapid continental drift/Noah flood paper to a mainstream journal! Of course you think it's becasue of the (lack of) science - I think there's another reason. As for the tech AIG and ICR journals most of the papers are of high quality and are genuinely interesting IMO. They frequently debunk old creationist ideas too (like moon dust etc).------------------
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I don't deny that in the past many creaitonists have been slack at publishing mainstream.

Mark, over the coming weeks I will cite material and provide links but I have recently read direct contradictions of the fascinating Yellowstone forests. Creationists are convinced that these '27 generations' of forests are not that at all but rather Mt St Helens type burial of a single catastrophically uprooted forest. Are you aware of Steve Austin's study of the Mt St Helens uprooted mats and how the trees, in some cases complete with root systems, frequently sink vertically and lodge themsleves into mud vertically? He has underwater video footage (I have the VHS tape in my hand) taken shortly after the erruption documenting the sinking logs - it is fascinating and erie footge.Anyway, I know these guys have also been to Yellowstone and they find your 27 forests consistent with a single (much larger) Mt St Helens type event. I'll post details later but as a scientist I am currently satisfied that this is a good answer to your point. Paleosoils? Why shouldn't soils be deposited as mud etc? They are at My St Helens too.I wont try and say that they have proved this beyond doubt - but they have definitely made a good case and are still working on these things. Some of you can poke fun at it but it doesn't take away from their hard work and good science IMO. As some of you know Austin's related floating mat hypothesis of coal formation is treated quite seriously and I've got multiple quotes of mainstream geolgoists who agree that coal formation and 100s of feet of cyclothems were rapid.------------------
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