Geology and a Young Earth

Freedom777 · #1 6th April 2003, 12:45 AM

Interested. http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4127.asp

edgeo · #2 6th April 2003, 03:22 AM

Today at 09:45 PM Freedom777 said this in Post #1

Interested. http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4127.asp

More nonsense.  The author makes the logical fallacy of assuming (or allowing you to assume?) that all laminations are varves.  And since some laminations form rapidly, then all of them do, including varves.  You might question the grain size of the flume experiments with those of mapped varves in real life. This would give you the first indication that something is amiss in YEC-land. 

Mechanical Bliss · #3 6th April 2003, 01:03 PM

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/41209.html

Mechanical Bliss · #4 6th April 2003, 02:13 PM

The first ~1/3 of that article is devoted to a bunch of complaining about "old earth geology" and quoting scripture. That's a primer to hook the people they're trying to hook because, of course, the evidence does not withstand scrutiny.

It opens with this:

varves — rock formations with alternating layers of fine dark, and coarse light sediment. Annual changes are assumed to deposit bands with light layers in summer and dark layers in winter.

That is correct.

Recent catastrophes show that violent events like the Flood described in Genesis can deposit banded rock formations very quickly.

And it immediately goes wrong starting here. If you had actually read other threads in the forum including my varve thread and the Grand Canyon threads, then you would have seen that these arguments have already been addressed on this very forum. Instead you choose to post a link that shows complete ignorance for basic geological concepts as will be demonstrated.

The Mount St Helens eruption in Washington State produced eight metres (25 feet) of finely layered sediment in a single afternoon![/b]

Lie #1. First of all, how is a volcanic eruption equivalent to a global flood? The article incorrectly states that it is sediment which is a half truth. Inevitably there will be sediments deposited when a lahar occurs--a mudslide resulting from a mix of ice and loose mud on the top of the volcano that melts and rushes downhill as it erupts. However, the key here is that a great deal is actually volcanic ash which is pyroclastic, not sedimentary material. Volcanic ash and mudflows are not the same composition as varves nor are they formed in the same way. This is ignorance of the basic different rock types.

And a rapidly pumped sand slurry was observed to deposit about a metre (3–4 feet) of fine layers on a beach over an area the size of a football field (cross-section shown on the right: normal silica sand grains are separated by darker layers of denser mineral grains like rutile).

Lie #2. Still trying to get you to think that beach erosion and longshore transport are the same as varve formation--when, in particular, it's not even the same type of material. Material in varves is different than that on a beach.

When sedimentation was studied in the laboratory, it was discovered that fine bands form automatically as the moving water transports the different sized particles sideways into position.

Lie #3. Of course what is clearly omitted is that where in the laboratory loose sediments are automatically provided by the laboratory workers, in nature, sediments have to be derived from weathering processes and then transported to a site of deposition--that whole process is omitted from the interpretation. Furthermore, there are varves on Earth (as I mention in another thread) that are lithified--that is, turned into hard rock which the sediments in the experiment clearly are not. The article looks at one small part of the issue (with sediments that are not comparable to varve sediments in the first place) while ignoring other processes at work to provide and lithify that sediment.

It is unthinkable that these dead animals could have rested on the bottom of the lake for decades, being slowly covered by sediment. Their presence indicates catastrophic burial.

Lie #4. What's missing here are the anoxic conditions that preserve organic materials at the bottom of lakes while deposition occurs.

One explanation says the deposits were formed when the sun evaporated seawater — hence the term ‘evaporite deposits’. Naturally, to make such large deposits in this way would take a long time. However, the high chemical purity of the deposits shows they were not exposed to a dry, dusty climate for thousands of years. Rather, it is more likely that they formed rapidly from the interaction between hot and cold seawater during undersea volcanic activity — a hydrothermal deposit.

Lie #5. Of course no evidence is presented in favor of the case and it omits the fact that there are other types of evaporites. The Michigan basin, for example, contains massive amounts of halite (common rock salt NaCl--thus the Detroit Salt Mines) found in marine fluids--this takes time to evaporate out of solution as halite is one of the last minerals to precipitate from marine water. Other localities include a variety of evaporites including trona or gypsum which are not associated with hydrothermal deposits. As is typical, deposits which cannot be explained by the model are conveniently omitted.

...takes no account of the different conditions that likely applied before the Flood.

Lie #6. Upon discussing fossils, the article already makes the a priori assumption that a global flood did indeed occur when it has been in fact falsified.

And on and on. I'm not going to take the time to respond to the rest because it follows the same pattern: omission of contradictory evidence that those uneducated on the matters would not realize is actually omitted, or wild assumptions are made to conveniently fit the model without any evidence presented that such processes actually occurred. I'm not going to take the time to respond to the rest because it will simply fall on deaf ears (creationists) and is repetitive for others (the rest) as these arguments have been discussed many times on this very forum already.

Of course it sounds fine and dandy when the article omits crucial information and makes invalid comparisons any educated geologist would not make. It tells people who are geared to read the website exactly what they want to hear, but is dishonest about it.

So how about starting to address features that cannot be formed by a global flood while operating under the unfounded assumption that there is not enough water on earth?: Varves (using applicable situations, not lies and omissions), angular unconformities (completely ignored by YECists), massive sparry limestones, desert sand deposits interbedded with marine strata, paleosols (buried ancient soils), and the list goes on and on.

Frumious Bandersnatch · #5 6th April 2003, 02:28 PM

I see that Mechanical Bliss beat me to it but since I wrote this on salt deposits I thought I would post it anyway. It has a little more detail.

The AiG page says

Similar bands in some huge deposits containing calcium carbonate and calcium sulphate in Texas are also used to argue the case for long ages.17 One explanation says the deposits were formed when the sun evaporated seawater — hence the term ‘evaporite deposits’. Naturally, to make such large deposits in this way would take a long time. However, the high chemical purity of the deposits shows they were not exposed to a dry, dusty climate for thousands of years. Rather, it is more likely that they formed rapidly from the interaction between hot and cold seawater during undersea volcanic activity — a hydrothermal deposit.18

This is very misleading. There is NO evidence that most salt deposits are of hydrothermal origin. There are huge salt deposits all over the world. There are estimated to be 70 trillion tons of salt under Michigan alone.
http://www.saltinstitute.org/mich-1.html
These deposits sit spread out on top of other supposed flood deposits and often have pollen grains in them and other features indicating they were exposed to air.

Glenn Morton discusses the salt deposits in North Dakota.
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/geo.htm

Boiling away enough water to deposit all this salt would put enough heat in the air to cook the earth to death.

Here is more on salt deposits from geologist Kevin Henke

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Theb...sense.html#A14

The real problem for YECs is getting all of that salt distributed through the "Flood" deposits without dissolving them. This is not easy. Some salt deposits are very thick and pure. How were these thick deposits "stuffed" into a sediment column without contaminating them with silicate-rich muds or dissolving them with "Flood water"? In addition, some evaporites, such as the Castile Formation of west Texas, contain salt varves that can be laterally traced for more than 90 kilometers (Blatt et al., 1980, p. 553). As discussed in Wonderly (1987, p. 74-77), these delicate varves show no evidence of a volcanic, hydrothermal, or violent origin. They are completely incompatible with YEC and "flood geology." 
A review of the origin of the salt deposits of the Michigan Basin shows that their formation is incompatible with magmatic sources or hydrothermal precipitation as advocated by Nutting (1984) or Baumgardner's deadly boiling seas. The rocks contain no evidence of nearby volcanos or other igneous or metamorphic sources (Young, 1982, p. 86). 
When the Silurian paleogeography of the Michigan Basin is restored, thick semi-concentric barriers of coral reefs become very noticeable (Schreiber, 1988, p. 238-239). As evaporites formed in the Michigan Basin, massive reefs existed just to the east of Lower Michigan in Ontario, along the Ohio-Indiana border, along the Michigan-Indiana border and curving through what is now Lake Michigan and north into Upper Michigan. These reefs would have been ideal barriers to trap evaporating sea water in the Michigan Basin. Periodically, fresh seawater could have broken through or flowed over the barriers to recharge the brines. 
Open marine carbonates are located at the bottom of the Silurian sequence of the Michigan Basin (Schreiber, 1988, p. 238-240) Above them are evaporites. The lower portion of the evaporites indicate deep water, but the upper portion formed in shallow water (Schreiber, 1988, p. 240). Many of the reefs in the basin have karst features and weathering zones, which indicate that the reefs were periodically above water (Schreiber, 1988, p. 238-240; Warren, 1989, p. 162). While subaerial reefs could have been effective in trapping evaporite-producing brines, such features would not be expected to form during the middle of a "Flood." 
Overlying the evaporites are more carbonates that formed when fresh seawater entered the basin. Above these carbonates are more layers of evaporites that were slowly produced by evaporating brines that were again trapped in the basin by the reefs. Next, another layer of carbonates formed as seawater once more entered the basin. Finally, more than 610 meters (2,000 feet) of very shallow water evaporites filled the basin (Schreiber, 1988, p. 238-240). Again, these features are entirely compatible with slow evaporation and periodic influxes of seawater over long periods of time. However, they are incompatible with a rapidly raging YEC "Flood."

Like all other YEC claims about geology the creationist claim that salt deposits are mostly the result hydrothermal activity and are consistent with global flood deposits is easily refuted.  The arguments no doubt sound good to those who know little about geology and less about the specific geology being discussed but as Mechanical Bliss so cogently points out, they are totally bogus.

Now maybe some YEC would like to address those many features of the world's geology that completely invalidate the worldwide flood.  MB has given you a few to start with.

The Frumious Bandersnatch

Freedom777 · #6 6th April 2003, 03:49 PM

Ya know modern Creationism is still quit young.there are many unanswered questions that have not been delt with.but that does not mean they are not out there.If you see a partialy built house does that imply that the person building it does not know what they are doing?.Or they should tear it down because its not finished?Come on Frumiuos there are many more builders in the evolution camp than their are in the creation camp.So what camps going to seem to have their **** together more.Creation Scientists need more help building the creation model.Thousands against a few hand fulls, I think that speaks for itself. I stand in the Creation camp.Time will show which camp fits most with the Facts.

Freodin · #7 6th April 2003, 04:14 PM

Today at 08:49 PM Freedom777 said this in Post #6

Ya know modern Creationism is still quit young.there are many unanswered questions that have not been delt with.but that does not mean they are not out there.If you see a partialy built house does that imply that the person building it does not know what they are doing?.Or they should tear it down because its not finished?Come on Frumiuos there are many more builders in the evolution camp than their are in the creation camp.So what camps going to seem to have their **** together more.Creation Scientists need more help building the creation model.Thousands against a few hand fulls, I think that speaks for itself. I stand in the Creation camp.Time will show which camp fits most with the Facts.

Is than an argument or a cop-out?

The creationists problem in not that they have not yet been shown right, it is that they have been shown wrong. Your house is build on quicksand.

Frumious Bandersnatch · #8 6th April 2003, 04:40 PM

Today at 07:49 PM Freedom777 said this in Post #6

Ya know modern Creationism is still quit young.there are many unanswered questions that have not been delt with.but that does not mean they are not out there.If you see a partialy built house does that imply that the person building it does not know what they are doing?.Or they should tear it down because its not finished?Come on Frumiuos there are many more builders in the evolution camp than their are in the creation camp.So what camps going to seem to have their **** together more.Creation Scientists need more help building the creation model.Thousands against a few hand fulls, I think that speaks for itself. I stand in the Creation camp.Time will show which camp fits most with the Facts.

Time showed long ago that the recent creation camp does not fit with the Facts. You should study the history of geology. It is true that modern young earth creationism is relatively new but all the "builders" of modern geology started out in the creationist camp. When they found that the data they collected did not validate their original bias they changed their views to fit their observations. Only recently do we have young earth creationists who call themselves scientists who try so desperately to "reinterpret" the observations to fit their views. This is why they have to leave out so much and distort so much of what they do discuss.   They are only a handful in the geological sciences because only a handful are so blinded by their religious beliefs that they can ignore so much of what they know about geology.

There used to be more but some of them finally realized how bogus YEC geology is based on their own work. Examples are Davis A. Young

http://www.wheaton.edu/ACG/essays/young3.html

and more recently Glenn Morton.

http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/gstory.htm

Here is a well known quote from Glenn

But eventually, by 1994 I was through with young-earth creationISM. Nothing that young-earth creationists had taught me about geology turned out to be true.   

The problem as I see it is that modern young earth creationists do not seem to be trying to convince anyone who knows the science involved. They are deliberately leaving things out that are well known and making misleading statements that are easily seen to be misleaded by knowledgeable people. I suppose that many of them believe it and are also misleading themselves but sometimes I wonder.

YECs claim that the same observations that scienists use to conclude that the earth is ancient that the worldwide flood did not occur can be fit nicely into a young earth framework if interpreted properly. Now you see what "proper" interpretation means to a Young Earth Creation "scientist". It means leaving out much of the data and making misleading statements about the results that are discussed. It also means ignoring the fact that the "proper" young earth interpretation of one observation may directly contradict the "proper" young earth interpretation used to explain another observation, but that's another story. 

As Freodin says your "house" is built on quicksand. It is also built of and by strawmen. 

The Frumious Bandersnatch

Freedom777 · #9 6th April 2003, 05:58 PM

I believe in a literal genesis,It does not matter how much Creation scientists may seem to slip and fall. I believe they are headed in the right direction to understanding The true history of the earth,as revealed to us in scripture.I trust my God because He Is WORTHY TO BE TRUSTED. And He will not let me down.

lucaspa · #10 6th April 2003, 06:08 PM

Today at 02:49 PM Freedom777 said this in Post #6

Ya know modern Creationism is still quit young.there are many unanswered questions that have not been delt with.but that does not mean they are not out there.If you see a partialy built house does that imply that the person building it does not know what they are doing?.Or they should tear it down because its not finished?Come on Frumiuos there are many more builders in the evolution camp than their are in the creation camp.So what camps going to seem to have their **** together more.Creation Scientists need more help building the creation model.Thousands against a few hand fulls, I think that speaks for itself. I stand in the Creation camp.Time will show which camp fits most with the Facts.

Sorry, Freedom, but you are forgetting that creationism, and the Flood Model, was the scientific theory from 1700-1830.  Lots of time.  The data that falsified YEC then is still there today.  See below:

"There is another way to be a Creationist.  One might offer Creationism as a scientific theory:  Life did not evolve over millions of years; rather all forms were created at one time by a particular Creator.  Although pure versions of Creationism were no longer in vogue among scientists by the end of the eighteenth century, they had flourished earlier (in the writings of Thomas Bumet, William Whiston, and others).  Moreover, variants of Creationism were supported by a number of eminent nineteenth-century scientists-William Buckland, Adam Sedgwick, and Louis Agassiz, for example.  These Creationists trusted that their theories would accord with the Bible, interpreted in what they saw as a correct way.  However, that fact does not affect the scientific status of those theories.  Even postulating an unobserved Creator need be no more unscientific than postulating unobservable particles.  What matters is the character of the proposals and the ways in which they are articulated and defended.  The great scientific Creationists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries offered problem-solving strategies for many of the questions addressed by evolutionary theory.  They struggled hard to explain the observed distribution of fossils.  Sedgwick, Buckland, and others practiced genuine science.  They stuck their necks out and volunteered information about the catastrophes that they invoked to explain biological and geological findings.  Because their theories offered definite proposals, those theories were refutable. Indeed, the theories actually achieved refutation.  In 1831, in his presidential address to the Geological Society, Adam Sedgwick publicly announced that his own variant of Creationism had been refuted:

Having, been myself a believer, and, to the best of my power, a propagator of what I now regard as a philosophic heresy ... I think it right, as one of my last acts before I quit this Chair, thus publicly to read my recantation.

We ought, indeed, to have paused before we first adopted the diluvian theory, and referred all our old superficial gravel to the action of the Mosaic Flood.  For of man, and the works of his hands, we have not yet found a single trace among the remnants of a former world entombed in these ancient deposits.  In classing together distant unknown formations under one name; in simultaneous origin, and in determining their date, not by the organic remains we have discovered, but by those we expected, hypothetically hereafter to discover, in them; we have given one more example of the passion with which the mind fastens upon general conclusions, and of the readiness with which it leaves the consideration of unconnected truths.  (Sedgwick, 1831, 313-314; all but the last sentence quoted in Gillispie 1951, 142-143)  Philip Kitcher, Abusing Science:  The Case Against Creationism  pp125-126