Chalk takes millions of years to form

...evolution. It's all around you.

MICROevolution is all around me, species-to-species evolution is a delusion.

Curiously, My god said "Look at the universe and see the wonders that I have wrought"

Yeah, well you made up your god, he says what you want him to say. Mine inspired 66 written testimonies of Him by at least forty men over 1500 years and He says the earth is young. He also said His Creation was "good."

But after the Fall and the increasing wickedness of humanity He destroyed the entire earth with water. I take a lot of abuse for believing Him but I believe Him and I'm not going to stop believing Him. Since I know what He has said is true I know there has to be physical evidence of the Flood and it's an interesting challenge to try to find it. Some of it is really quite obvious, but that doesn't make it easy to get across to someone who refuses to see it.

Faith writes: MICROevolution is all around me, species-to-species evolution is a delusion.

Unfortunately for you, 'species to species evolution' has been directly observed, both in nature and in laboratories. Multiple times.

Here's an example:

http://www.newscientist.com/...leap-to-multicellularity.html

Unicellular organisms evolved into multicellular organisms. In the laboratory. Speciation occurred. The evolution of cells developing certain 'jobs' occurred, too. Cells start specialising . Both speciation and specialing of cells. Right in front of our very own eyes. No delusion involved.

Faith writes: Yeah, well you made up your god, he says what you want him to say. Mine inspired 66 written testimonies of Him by at least forty men over 1500 years and He says the earth is young. He also said His Creation was "good."

Actually, isn't it supposed to be 73 'testimonies' (Catholic Bible)? Or actually 72 as in the original Christian 'Holy Books'?

Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

Faith writes: No, I'm not suggesting that chalk of the hardness of the cliffs could have been transported.

Ok. That means that before the flood there weren't enough coccoliths to cause them to solidify or there was enough but some magical force prevented it doing so.

I'm considering that perhaps where they collect at the bottom of the ocean that they are in that condition of "ooze" and might be transportable. Can you answer THAT thought?

Yes, as above. But a geological "ooze" isn't what we normally call an ooze, it's rock

Oozes. In case of marine sediments, ooze does not refer to a sediment's consistency, but to its composition, which directly reflects its origin. Ooze is pelagic sediment that consists of at least 30% of microscopic remains of either calcareous or siliceous planktonic debris organisms.

Also, you only have only 2,000 years to build enough ooze to form at least 400m of rock for a process we know takes 1,000 years to form a maximum of 10cm

Never mind, I think Dr. A did and it suggests that yes, they may have been in a transportable condition at the time of the Flood or some great number might have been.

Let's compare the two ideas:

1. What geologists say happened

The chalk cliffs are composed of the microscopic skeletons of various forms of plankton. These plankton live in the top layers of the ocean and when they die their skeletons which are composed mostly of calcium carbonate sink slowly to the bottom of the ocean and slowly build chalk rock.

When the layer of rock form, they combine with the bodies of bottom living organisms such as molluscs and shrimps which become fossilised.

Just to be clear, these skeletons - called coccoliths - are tiny, here's a scanning electron microscope's picture of one:

Can you begin to imagine how many of those you need to make my cliffs?

There are bands in the chalk formed of flints and quartz and other bits and pieces. This describes it better than I can:

Flints are a well known component of Chalk and they are present as nodular seams, tabular beds ann linings to fractures, and characterise the upper parts of the Chalk sequence. They comprises a random mosaic of quartz crystals, only a few microns in diameter, interspersed with minute water-filled cavities. The silica was derived from the dissolution of the siliceous skeletons of sponges and other organisms and has been redistributed in the form of nodules during several stages of crystallisation. The earliest precipitations of Flint occurred near organic remains such as burrow-fills or other decaying debris. Further accretion gave rise to either isolated nodules or layers of tabular flint. The preservation of uncompressed fossils such as Echinoids and Ammonites in flint indicates that the replacement commenced early in the lithification of the chalk. However, the presence of flint sheets along joints and faults shows that the quartz remained mobile and recrystallised during subsequent burial, folding and faulting. The flint beds closely parallel the bedding and are valuable tool in the correlation of the Chalk. Inside flints you can sometimes find a white or cream coloured soft powdery chalk inside flints. It is known to geologists as "flint meal". Fossils such as echinoids can be present within flints. Traces of very fine grained quartz also occur throughout the Chalk, but overall comprise less than one per cent of the rock. At various levels clay material occurs as discrete seams or layers. Locally these may rest on minor erosion surfaces. Many of the marl seams which comprise both quartz and clay minerals such as Illite and Smectite provide persistent marker horizons which can be recognised regionally. Phosphate minerals are widespread in the Chalk and localised concentrations occur as impregnations and coatings on the sediments, or as pelletal concretions. It is often most conspicuos where depostion ceased for a time and the upper surface of the sediment became compacted (hardgrounds). Glauconite occurs in minute quantities throughout the Chalk, but is concetrated at some horizons (commanly at hardgrounds again) as detrital grains or as encrustations or replacements. Finely disseminated pyrite is also common and sometimes pyrite concretion are present with radiating crystals. At some horizons the clay content of the Chalk is higher, particularly at the base where in England the Chalk Marl was deposited. This grey and relatively impermeable Chalk was the main tunnelling horizon for the Channel Tunnel. Higher in the Chalk the Plenus Marl and thinner marls seams occur. The Chalk often shows a distinctive cyclicity, plus it can be both massive at some horizons and nodular at others.

The chalk is not all the same showing time passing. It also shows purity, meaning that the seas were clear of debris and a long way from land:

The Chalk often shows a distinctive cyclicity (on a 1m or so scale) which has been linked to variation in the climate at the time of deposition (Milankovitch cycles). The lack of coarser clastic material in the majority of the Chalk, with quartz being most common in the clay size grade, indicates clear seas with minimal eroded products being transported from the landmasses at the time. Indeed, much of the clay sized quartz and clay may be airborn and of volcanic origin.

Chalk is also only formed in warm (20C) water - I can confirm that the waters here are NOT 20C. So it built up during the long periods of much warmer climate millions of years ago.

The climate was much warmer when the chalk formed than it is now. We know that the water was warm because of the composition of the rock. The billions of cocolithophores which made up the chalk only survive in warm, relatively pure water, so this sea must have had these conditions (Gallois 1995). Calcareous oozes can only form in water less than 4500 meters in depth, so the chalk was not formed in any sort of deep sea environment (Garrison 2002). This chalk had to have been deposited in water approximately 200 to 300 meters in depth because this is the only way the small, delicate cocolithophores would have been preserved (Melville 1982). The chalk is thought to have formed on the outer edge of a continental shelf, the biggest in any Jurassic sea found along the Southern Coast of England (Melville 1982). At this point in time England is thought to have been situated at “a more southerly location…than at present” which would have augmented the already higher temperatures (Lovell 1977).

These conditions lasted a long time:

The Chalk Sea lasted for approximately 30 million years (Ensom 1998) which was enough time for billions of coccolithophores shells to be deposited on the seafloor (Gallois 1995). One thing that makes the chalk so unique is the near “absence of terrigenous material” (Chatwin 1960). This is due to the fact that land was a great distance away from the depositional environment (Chatwin 1960). Also, the land had to have been fairly flat and would not have had a good mechanism with which to bring detrital matter out to the open sea (Rayner 1967). The chalk is especially unique because it has the greatest outcrop area of any formation in England (Rayner 1967).

There are three identifiable layers in the chalk showing a gradual change in conditions over time:

Within the chalk there are three subdivisions, the Lower Chalk, the Middle Chalk, and the Upper Chalk. The contacts between these layers are gradational, indicating a gradual change in environment (Wright 1981). The layers of chalk can be identified by their lithological characteristics, as well as the fossils they contain (Chatwin 1960). Over time, the water in the area became deeper and the chalk became purer (Gallois 1995). Only the Upper Chalk has many economic uses, “it writes readily on wood, and is fit for the cooper, for whiting, for lime, and for manure” (Wright 1981). The Middle Chalk is noted as only being fit to use on highways (Wright 1981). Overall however, the chalk is hard enough to be a significant building tool but only on the local level because it is so much softer than the surrounding limestone (Ensom 1998).

If you look at the chalk cliffs themselves, you see thin (6"+) layers of flint stones the size of your hand +/-. These flints can only form after the the layers of microscopic chalk have formed. The thin lines here are the flints:

Close up:

The flints are formed from silicates deposited from living sponges and silicate plankton which resolve and re-precipitate.

(You obviously realise that if all this could be churned up in your flood and allow to settle - it couldn't chalk is rock - all the flints would be at the bottom, not layered as they are.)

The flints, btw are not little pebbles, we build walls and houses out of them here:

All of this tells the same consistent story of very long periods of time and different climates.

2. Faith's view
Well you don't have one really, you're trying to make one up as you go along but you're trying to imagine how that depth of coccoliths can be built up either

a) in the 2 thousand or so years before the flood in an un-solidified state, then churned up by the flood and allowed to settle in the 4,500 years after the flood. Note that for this you also have to explain the layers of flint that would not settle into neat lines about the less dense coccoliths, why the coccoliths are not rock, why there are three types of chalk signifying differing climates, how the water was very clear allowing pure chalk to form and how the water was at 20C.

b) the chalk formed after the flood. For this you have to explain how the rate of between 1-10cm per thousand years changed to something many, many times faster. Science says it takes 4m years minimum, you have a couple of thousand. (I say a couple of thousand to be generous, because we've been using flint to build stuff for as long as that here.)

You also have to shift it from where it was formed - in a warm, shallow ocean far away from the land which would pollute it to where it is now - in my back garden, 100m above sea level.

MICROevolution is all around me, species-to-species evolution is a delusion.

Microevolution ... is indistinguishable from macroevolution ... it's just a different time scale ... but it is going on now as well.

If you look at a movie frame by frame you don't see movement, it is only when you look at the frames flickering past that this becomes apparent.

The process of evolution involves changes in the composition of hereditary traits, and changes to the frequency of their distributions within breeding populations from generation to generation, in response to ecological challenges and opportunities.

This has been observed and it is a fact that this happens all around us.

If we look at the continued effects of evolution over many generations, the accumulation of changes from generation to generation may become sufficient for individuals to develop combinations of traits that are observably different from the ancestral parent population. This lineal change within species is sometimes called phyletic change in species, or phyletic speciation. This is also sometimes called arbitrary speciation in that the place to draw the line between linearly evolved genealogical populations is subjective, and because the definition of species in general is tentative and sometimes arbitrary.

The process of phyletic change in species with the accumulation of changes over many generations, is an observed, known objective fact, and not an untested hypothesis.d

The process of divergent speciation involves the division of a parent population into two or more reproductively isolated daughter populations, which then are free to (micro) evolve independently of each other.

The process ofdivergent speciation with the subsequent formation of a branching nested genealogy of descent from common ancestor populations is an observed, known objective fact, and not an untested hypothesis.

This means that the basic process of "macroevolution" is an observed, known objective fact, and not an untested hypothesis, even if major groups of species are not directly observed forming (which would take many many generations).

But that is species to species evolution, Faith ... it has been observed.

Yeah, well you made up your god, he says what you want him to say. Mine inspired 66 written testimonies of Him by at least forty men over 1500 years and He says the earth is young. He also said His Creation was "good."

Love your tolerance, especially when you whine about intolerance for your ideas.

No it is not the bible that tells you the earth is young -- that is an invention of people, and the people that make this interpretation can't agree on time and age ... because they make it up with massive assumptions.

But after the Fall and the increasing wickedness of humanity He destroyed the entire earth with water. I take a lot of abuse for believing Him but I believe Him and I'm not going to stop believing Him. Since I know what He has said is true I know there has to be physical evidence of the Flood and it's an interesting challenge to try to find it. Some of it is really quite obvious, but that doesn't make it easy to get across to someone who refuses to see it.

You take a lot of abuse for making stuff up, stuff that has nothing to do with Jesus and stuff that is not specified in the bible.

Your posting on the Grand Canyon is typical of this: there is no mention of the Grand Canyon in the bible -- that is all you.

Curiously I have no problem with people believing in gods and their kin, but I do have problems with people spouting ignorant and false concepts as if they were blessed truths instead of fabrications made to fit the world into a man-made fantasy.

And so, no you have not explained how the chalk beds have the depth of deposits seen at Dover, nor have you explained the magic sorting into layers of different species with transitions from species to species as you travel through the layers.

Enoy.

Enjoy.

Why are you wasting your time making these arguments? Why don't you use your prime argument?

Godidit. He magically poofed the chalk into existence.

Dr Adequate writes: Well, not really.

OK. Thanks for the correction.

Faith writes: MICROevolution is all around me, species-to-species evolution is a delusion.

That's it? You just make your assertion and think someone...anyone is going to accept it?

This is a Science Forum.

I take a lot of abuse for believing Him but I believe Him and I'm not going to stop believing Him.

So, that is your argument. You could save yourself a lot of typing if you just post that.

We all keep going round and round on these things to no avail. Y'all keep pointing out the impossible while Faith keeps insisting on a mechanism. Every time you point out an impossible thing resulting from one of Faith's delusions she comes up with another mechanism to explain the thing. And no matter what impossibility results from that mechanism there is yet another. She has impossible mechanisms nested within impossible mechanisms layered upon impossible mechanisms and the process is not going to stop.

There are so many traps she has set for herself she cannot keep up. We cannot expect the poor girl to continue to pull these things out of her … eh … air every time so she has to resort to something like:

There has to be a mechanical principle of sorting that explains it.

No clue as to what it might be, whether it is feasible or not, possible or not, but it has to be there.

The reason, of course, is that Faith's faith is quite weak and tenuously hangs from the gossamer thread of biblical literalism. Any discrepancy, no matter how small, will bring the inerrant bible, thus her faith and her very reason for existing, crashing down around her ears. This she cannot allow to happen so no matter how impossible an explanation is, it must be true to keep the bible true. If she cannot pull an explanation from ... the air … then there are the blanket “there has to be a mechanical principle”, “there has to be a mechanism”, ”there has to be a way” articles of (tenuous) faith.

So why do we all continue like this? You, me, Faith, all of us … why?

There is, of course, an answer we like to use which brings me to the real reason for this post. All the above was mere verbose window dressing so I can say that I am keeping on topic with a straight face.

The reason we do this, knowing neither is going to sway the other regardless of logic, faith or strength of argument, is for the “lurkers”; that silent majority hidden in the clouds of the internet looking down upon these proceedings gleaning some useful information and understanding to benefit their own thoughts and outlook. We do this to sway Them, to inform Them, to educate and inspire Them.

Except Them aren't there.

I have two masters degrees. One is in Economics. That has helped me in my professional life but doesn't do much for me in this discussion. I only bring it up, in addition to being verbose, to brag on myself even though I know that in this community the academic achievements as well as the non-degreed expertise represented here far out weighs my meager effort. But, I also have a masters in Computer Science, specifically Database Design in Automated Systems. Yeah, it's an old archaic degree but this was 40 some years ago when the most powerful computers were 2 meg, 1.7 mip boxes the size of an Olds 88 with a 30 meg 11-platter disk drive the size of a dishwasher cabled in, and the most popular program language then also began with a “C” but had “OBOL” instead of a “+” or a “++” after it.

Still, I have, somewhat, kept up with the state of the technology so I knew that such things existed but the full realization did not hit me until recently.

Instead of Them watching us, living and learning as we all assumed, what is hidden in the clouds of the internet looking down upon these proceedings are Searchbots. Thousands of them. Their goal is to index every word and image of every page on the net and then pack it all into those search engine databases like Google, NSA, Bing and that GoDuckDuckGoDuckGo thing.

There are so many of them now that they have pushed all of the lurkers off the net. At the top of this page you see the line with the number of folks now online in this domain. Right now it reads 207 Online (10 members, 197 visitors).

Of those 197 visitors fully 344 of them are mindless searchbots (yeah, that's how insidious they are) indexing away without any comprehension of anything we say here. And there is always, these days, the possibility that some of our “members” are really searchbots in disguise.

Straggler? You there?

We know Tanypteryx is one cause that bot screwed up and indexed its finds here (Message 23) instead of in a search engine database.

I wouldn't be surprised if Crash Frog got resurrected, again, as a searchbot! (for those of you who haven't been here for long that's kind of an inside joke, sorry)

Anyway … the searchbots have taken control of the cloud and destroyed all lurkerdom, all so when you put some useful word (evolution) into a search you can get “wholesale prices on evolution” over here and “the widest selection of evolution” over there.

So now we are engaged in a struggle in this and other threads to win debates and to change the minds of those active participants who will never be changed, we know will never be changed, all for the sake of those who are not there, are not listening, are not watching because they have all been “bot” out.

God, what a long fuckin' way to go for such a stu*id joke.

Edited by AZPaul3, : forgot all about my st*pid banned word.

Edited by AZPaul3, : itallics

indexed.....hahahaha

Of those 197 visitors fully 344 of them are mindless searchbots

Wait, that doesn't add up. I checked on my calculator. Typo?

How many of the visitors do you really think are searchbots?

(yeah, that's how insidious they are)

I hope you didn't use 344 out of 197 on purpose as a joke.

I checked on my calculator.

Your calculator has not kept up with the technology.

How many of the visitors do you really think are searchbots?

More than all of them.

I hope you didn't use 344 out of 197 on purpose as a joke.

Pishaw! Me?

Faith, dear heart:

Why are those cliffs white, top to bottom, in the OP picture? Violent currents swept up the ooze, right? They transported the ooze across many miles of ocean, right? And they didn't mix any dirt in? Really?

http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE8/Chalk.html is pretty nice piece from T.H. Huxley. From 145 years ago. It puts the lie to your hypothesis.

AZPaul3 writes: So why do we all continue like this? You, me, Faith, all of us … why?

Because it feels so good when we stop.

I dunno how it was formed, Cor-Cor, I was trying out some questions and I don't have a clear opinion about how it got there yet. But as for dirt in the mix, most of the strata sediments are pretty homogenous too and you'd have to get up very close to see other sediments mixed in. HOWEVER, I don't have an opinion yet, as I said.

I'm enjoying that article by Huxley though. I like that kind of writing and thinking. It's too long to read all at once right now so if he says anything that casts light on my question I'll come back later and let you know.

I am, however, VERY intrigued by his revelation of the extent of the chalk formations, from England across Europe to the Aral Sea, north to Denmark, south to North Africa. Very intrigued.

For those lurkers who are not bots, and perhaps members who do not know of him, Daniel Wonderly was a christian geologist whose book "Neglect of data" was written to set out many lines of evidence to show that the Earth is at least hundreds of thousands of years old with no evidence of a Noachian Flood in that time period. It is an easily understood book and available free by googling it. He doesn't need RM dating to prove his case. It is something Faith should read.
Unfortunately Faith, like ICR et al., says any evidence that contradicts the Bible is false.