High Oxygen Atmosphere before Flood

[Melethiel]

I have seen this brought up a number of times by creationists. So I want them to answer - how, exactly, would a high oxygen level allow things to grow bigger, live longer, etc? Everything I have learned in biochem so far suggests that the opposite would be the case.

 

[laptoppop]

First of all - the Scriptures are silent on this issue, so what we have is speculation.

I have not heard folks talk about a high oxygen atmosphere -- I *have* heard some propose a higher pressure atmosphere -- like a hyperbaric chamber. I also have heard folks talk about a different c-14 ratio because of all the live plants over the globe.

 

[Deamiter]

It's hard to find references to this -- apparently it doesn't exist at AIG (or if so, my search on a combination of oxygen, pressure, age, plants doesn't bring it up) but here's the first real reference I found:

http://www.sixdaycreation.com/facts/flood/jan2003.html

Most creationists believe that the world before Noah's flood was very different. It was a lush garden, tropical from pole to pole. The "canopy" model of a watery layer above the Earth's atmosphere is the best way to understand how this is possible. The Scripture tells us that God separated the "waters from the waters on creation day 2 and placed waters above and on the Earth. The increased atmospheric pressure would have allowed a large amount of condensation at the end of each night cycle. This very heavy dew along with the "mist" would have been adequate to water the ground, so there was no need for rain on the Earth. This water above would have compressed the atmosphere and created both much larger creatures and greatly increased longevity. In laboratory conditions bacteria life spans are increased 10 times by this increased pressure. Our 70 to 90 years would be increased to 700 to 900 years. There would have been fewer animals since all the variety of species that exist today would not have been necessary. God created "Kinds" of animals not all the various species. There would have been a dog kind that included all the genetic variation to produce all the modern dogs plus wolves, dingoes, coyotes... When Noah's flood was over, the earth had changed radically. It would rain for the first time. The lush vegetation was gone. The climate was much more severe. And predatory behavior, animals killing other animals for food, became dominant. So the dinosaurs became extinct because of these new conditions.

First off, slightly higher pressure has been shown to help in bacteria and I think in plant growth, but not in increasing the lifespan of mammals to my knowledge. Also, higher oxygen content is dangerous and even lethal to humans:
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ39.html

. Doubling atmospheric pressure doubles the blood’s oxygen content. Doubling the blood’s oxygen content, by any means, can produce a disease, called retrolental fibroplasia, in unborn or premature children. An opaque membrane forms behind the lens of the eye, resulting in blindness. This also occurs in mice and other species.


Increased ambient pressure also results in excess carbon dioxide in the blood. Oxygen and nitrogen toxicities increase significantly. The problem is aggravated at high work levels and for the elderly and ill. [Personal communication with Daniel J. O’Rourke, M.D., 11 December 1994.]

 

[Deamiter]

I have not heard folks talk about a high oxygen atmosphere -- I *have* heard some propose a higher pressure atmosphere -- like a hyperbaric chamber. I also have heard folks talk about a different c-14 ratio because of all the live plants over the globe.

Wait, plants have NO effect on c-14 ratios. They absorb and emit c-12 and c-14 equally and will REFLECT the current atmospheric ratio, but do not affect it in any way.

 

[laptoppop]

Wait, plants have NO effect on c-14 ratios. They absorb and emit c-12 and c-14 equally and will REFLECT the current atmospheric ratio, but do not affect it in any way.

http://icr.org/article/117/
Says it better than I can

 

[Deamiter]

http://icr.org/article/117/
Says it better than I can

Oh, okay.

A conservative estimate for the pre-Flood biomass is 100 times that of today. If one takes as a rough estimate for the total 14C in the biosphere before the cataclysm as 40% of what exists today and assumes a relatively uniform 14C level throughout the pre-Flood atmosphere and biomass, then we might expect a 14C/12C ratio of about 0.4% of today's value in the plants and animals at the onset of the Flood. With this more realistic pre-Flood 14C/12C ratio, we find that a value of 0.24 pmc corresponds to an age of only 4200 years (0.004 x 2-4200/5730 = 0.0024 = 0.24 pmc). Even though these estimates are rough, they illustrate the crucial importance of accounting for effects of the Flood cataclysm when translating a 14C/12C ratio into an actual age.

First off, the issue in this thread is how they could possibly claim there was 100 times more biomass on the Earth. Do you have a citation for where creationists come up with that number or is it arbitrary?

I'm afraid I'm at quite a loss as to how removing 99% of the Earth's biomass would change c-14 ratios. c-14 and c-12 exists in the same ratio in biomass and the atmosphere, so removing 99% (or 100%) of the biomass would have absolutely no effect on on the final ratio (only the final AMOUNT of carbon).

 

[random_guy]

From what I read, higher oxygen levels is what allowed insects to grow larger. This is because they don't have lungs, and use air tubes to get their oxygen. As oxygen levels dropped, it was harder to get high enough oxygen to all of their parts. That's how I understood oxygen level's effects on insects. On other creatures, not so sure.

 

[Deamiter]

I'm going to repeat myself because I have more time to be more specific here. After reading this passage about a dozen times, I'm still at a total loss as to how they conclude that C14/C12 ratio changed with the removal of 99% of the biomass.

A conservative estimate for the pre-Flood biomass is 100 times that of today. If one takes as a rough estimate for the total 14C in the biosphere before the cataclysm as 40% of what exists today and assumes a relatively uniform 14C level throughout the pre-Flood atmosphere and biomass, then we might expect a 14C/12C ratio of about 0.4% of today's value in the plants and animals at the onset of the Flood. With this more realistic pre-Flood 14C/12C ratio, we find that a value of 0.24 pmc corresponds to an age of only 4200 years (0.004 x 2-4200/5730 = 0.0024 = 0.24 pmc). Even though these estimates are rough, they illustrate the crucial importance of accounting for effects of the Flood cataclysm when translating a 14C/12C ratio into an actual age.

What Dr. Baumgardner has done is claim that the earth had at least 100 times more biomass before the flood. I'd still like a reference or some kind of support for that, but that's not the problem here so I'll assume it for the moment.

He then claims that there was about 40% as much C14 in the atmosphere as today (apparently another unsupported assumption, but I'll play along here too -- though it should be noted that tree rings and ice cores have been calibrated back over 10,000 years without any such findings).

Then he does something really weird. He says that we might expect a C14/C12 ratio of about 0.4% of today's value based on these numbers.

Apparently he is guessing at the 40% TOTAL C14, and then saying that the total C12 was the same. But here's a huge mistake -- he apparently claims that this 0.4/1 (the C14/C12 ratio relative to modern values) should be divided by the difference in the amount of biomass to get 0.004 times the C14/C12 ratio.

Unless I'm missing something huge, this is an extreme mathematical error -- something that should CERTAINLY call into question the value of any ICR "peer review" process!

Since plants absorb C14 and C12 equally, a ratio that is lower at 40% of modern values would leave a C14/C12 ratio on plants totally independent of the amount of biomass on the planet. He's apparently decided to multiply the (entirely arbitrary) lower ratio by the ratio of plant life today to (entirely arbitrary) estimates of plant life then to get 0.4%.

This would only be valid if plants absorb ONLY C14 and not C12 -- in that case the C14 levels would drop by the amount of biomass taken out of the system (claiming 99%) while the C12 levels would remain constant. What actually happens in nature is that plants do not distinguish between C14 and C12 and absorb them equally.

I'm totally at a loss as to how a Ph.D. could make such bogus claims, and to how the editorial staff that claims to review the scientific content of the work would allow such a thing to be published...

[EDIT]I took a look at his credentials, and apparently he got a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and then went back for a Ph.D. in geophysics for the sole purpose of looking qualified to talk on creationist matters. While I don't doubt the quality of his education in either of his degrees, when he makes such huge mistakes by assuming that plants absorb C14 and not C12 I question his commitment to accuracy given that his stated purpose for getting the second Ph.D. was not to advance our knowledge but to look credible to creationists and non-creationists on these topics.[/EDIT]

 

[Jadis40]

Actually, while we're on the subject of oxygen levels, it's actually thought that the oxygen levels were actually much LOWER in the past, compared to present levels:

From http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/516516/

THE AIR THAT WE BREATHE
When our planet formed some 4.5 billion years ago, virtually all the oxygen on Earth was chemically bound to other elements. It was in solid compounds like quartz and other silicate minerals, in liquid compounds like water, and in gaseous compounds like sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Free oxygen -- the gas that allows us to breath, and which is essential to all advanced life -- was practically non-existent.
Scientists have long thought that appearance of oxygen in the atmosphere was marked by two distinct jumps in oxygen levels. In recent years, researchers have used a method developed by University of Maryland geologist James Farquhar and Maryland colleagues to conclusively determine that significant amounts of oxygen first appeared in Earth's atmosphere some 2.4 billion years ago. Sometimes referred to as the "Great Oxidation Event," this increase marks the beginning of the Proterozoic period.
A general scientific consensus has also held that the second major rise in atmospheric oxygen occurred some 600 million years ago, with oxygen rising to near modern levels at that time. Evidence of multicellular animals first appears in the geologic around this time.
"There has been a lot of discussion about whether the second major increase in atmospheric oxygen was quick and stepwise, or slow and progressive," said Wing. "Our results support the idea that the second rise was progressive and began around 1.3 billion years ago, rather than 0.6 billion years ago."

And from here:
http://scienceweek.com/2007/sw070112.htm

3) The "oxygen revolution" stems from the first appearance, 3 billion years ago, of organisms releasing O2 as a metabolic waste. This process led to a first great "oxygenation event", 800 million years later, with a second one occurring one billion years ago. This second event is believed to have eventually fuelled the appearance of complex life-forms during the Cambrian explosion about 543 million years ago (2). More recently, 425 million years ago, O2 levels were a major factor in the progressive adaptation of aquatic arthropods and vertebrates to terrestrial life (3). Accordingly, evolutionary analyses encompassing the past 2.3 billion years have revealed a correlation between increased organism complexity and the development of aerobic metabolism (4).

That's not to say it wasn't subject to fluctuation:

From http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=2205

Recent evidence suggests that oxygen levels were suppressed worldwide 175 million to 275 million years ago and fell to precipitously low levels compared with today's atmosphere, low enough to make breathing the air at sea level feel like respiration at high altitude.
Now, a University of Washington paleontologist theorizes that low oxygen and repeated short but substantial temperature increases because of greenhouse warming sparked two major mass-extinction events, one of which eradicated 90 percent of all species on Earth.
In addition, Peter Ward, a UW professor of biology and Earth and space sciences, believes the conditions spurred the development of an unusual breathing system in some dinosaurs, a group called Saurischian dinosaurs that includes the gigantic brontosaurus. Rather than having a diaphragm to force air in and out of lungs, the Saurischians had lungs attached to a series of thin-walled air sacs that appear to have functioned something like bellows to move air through the body.
Ward, working with UW biologist Raymond Huey and UW radiologist Kevin Conley, believes that breathing system, still found in today's birds, made the Saurischian dinosaurs better equipped than mammals to survive the harsh conditions in which oxygen content of air at the Earth's surface was only about half of today's 21 percent.

EDIT: Found something else too, from here: http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=27608

The paper also is part of Ward's new book, "Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds and Earth's Ancient Atmosphere," published this month by Joseph Henry Press. In the book, Ward argues that dinosaurs became the monsters that ruled the Earth for more than 60 million years -- and survived mass extinctions that destroyed many other species -- because they developed respiratory systems far more efficient than other terrestrial creatures.

Dinosaurs first appeared in the last part of the Triassic period, about 230 million years ago. That was during one of the lowest ebbs of atmospheric oxygen content of the last 500 million years, but he speculates that it took some time, until oxygen levels rose appreciably, before dinosaurs grew to their familiar gargantuan sizes.

"Dinosaurs thrived and nothing else did. There's an explanation for that, and it is that the air sac breathing system in dinosaurs and their descendants, modern birds, is more efficient than systems used by other organisms," Ward said.

 

[shernren]

And of course, the fact that oxygen levels were lower in the atmosphere before life started having its impact on the atmospheric makeup explains nicely how hematite layers were laid down in the PreCambrian.