Clams on Mt Everest

[Caissie]

Just wondering, how do evolutionists or local flood believers explain the fossilized clams found in the closed position on Mt Everest?

 

[notto]

I think you mean

Clams in Mount Everest.

Clams and the sediment make the mountain, they are not on top of the mountain.

Uplift, which is still observed and measured to be happening today adequately explains why clams are in the sedimentary layers that make up the mountain.

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/Jul2003/1058996766.Es.r.html

Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, is still growing as India continues to push into Eurasia. Average growth in the Himalayas is 3-5 mm/year total as measured using the Global Positioning System (GPS) units that have been placed on the top of Mount Everest by scientists. This growth includes the uplift from the two colliding plates (about 1 cm/year) and erosion of the mountains (approximately 3 mm/year). Not only is Mount Everest growing higher every year, it is also being pushed in the north-easterly direction about 3 cm/year as India continues to move northward into Eurasia!

The evidence doesn't suggest that the mountain was there first and then clams settled on top if it. The sedimentary layers are warped, broken, and bent due to uplift from a lower horizontal position where they were originally laid.

The same kind of uplift is what created the grand canyon. As the plateue grew, the river just kept cutting into the rock to get to a lower level.

 

[Hnefi]

In fact, my entire country is on the way up as we speak - and it's rising pretty fast.

 

[Caissie]

How many digs do they do at 20,000+ feet?

"However, in 1927 Noel Odell first documented finding fossilized sea shells near the very top of Mount Everest. Later on Sir Edmund Hillary, on his famous climb, verified not only that there were fossilized sea shells near the top - but that the top three thousand feet of Mount Everest was covered in fossilized closed clams in seams up to ten feet thick!"

Sure, they might have been in the top layer, but that still shows much evidence for recent burial (not millions of years ago). And can you tell me when exactly Mount Everest was under water?

 

[Hnefi]

That they are in the top layer is not surprising, since all mountains - particularily high ones like Everest - are subject to erosion. Since, in addition to the above, there are no new sedimentary layers being created on such high altitudes, it's not surprising that ancient fossils are appearing at shallow depths or even on the surface of the mountain.

 

[Caissie]

Again, I will ask you exactly how many years ago was Mt Everest under water?

 

[Hnefi]

I don't know. I don't have an answer for everything. Google says it was about 65 million years ago and I have no reason to doubt that claim.

Why?

 

[Caissie]

That they are in the top layer is not surprising, since all mountains - particularily high ones like Everest - are subject to erosion. Since, in addition to the above, there are no new sedimentary layers being created on such high altitudes, it's not surprising that ancient fossils are appearing at shallow depths or even on the surface of the mountain.

This statement assumes a VERY rapid uplift because even though it might not be adding sediment now...it should have add sediment before it became a mountain

 

[Caissie]

I don't know. I don't have an answer for everything. Google says it was about 65 million years ago and I have no reason to doubt that claim.

Why?

Can you show me the link that says that....I thought that Pangea was around before that time (and this area is located on the Pangea map)

 

[Hnefi]

Well, the Himalayan uprising is always described as having been rapid in the beginning. Apparently, the Himalayas are now increasing in height much slower than they did at the beginning, but are still rising with about 5 mm/year. If that had been the original average rate of ascent, it would only take Mt. Everest about 1.6 million years to rise from sea level to its current height. Since it was apparently much more rapid than that and it doesn't need to be 8000m high to reach altitudes where sediments no longer form, I guess it might have gone from seabed to net positive erosion in less than a million years. That leaves 64 million years of net positive erosion to expose the clams.

But much of the above is just back of the envelope type calculations. I'm not an authority on the subject and would be much more comfortable if someone schooled in geology would reply.

ETA: Data found at http://library.thinkquest.org/10131/geology.html

 

[KerrMetric]

Again, I will ask you exactly how many years ago was Mt Everest under water?

Technically speaking Mt. Everest was never underwater.

 

[notto]

Sure, they might have been in the top layer, but that still shows much evidence for recent burial (not millions of years ago).

How did they fossilize in the absense of water, pressure, and leaching chemicals.

The fossilized shells show no indication that they were deposited on the mountain and then fossilized.

They were very clearly buried and fossilized before the mountain uplifted.

Suggesting that the clams fossilized on the top layer after the flood receded isn't supported by what we know needs to happen for something to fossilize.

When and how did the layers these shells are in turn to ROCK in the absense of pressure and heat? That is the question you need to answer if you are suggesting that a flood model can explain the shells better than the accepted uplift model.

So, how did these layers turn to solid ROCK from sediment and loose shells? Any mechanisms to explain it in your flood model?

 

[USincognito]

Your tax dollars at work:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/himalaya.html
(The entire This Dynamic Earth series is an excellent primers for laymen on plate tectonics.)

 

[Assyrian]

How many digs do they do at 20,000+ feet?

"However, in 1927 Noel Odell first documented finding fossilized sea shells near the very top of Mount Everest. Later on Sir Edmund Hillary, on his famous climb, verified not only that there were fossilized sea shells near the top - but that the top three thousand feet of Mount Everest was covered in fossilized closed clams in seams up to ten feet thick!"

Sure, they might have been in the top layer, but that still shows much evidence for recent burial (not millions of years ago). And can you tell me when exactly Mount Everest was under water?

This is not describing a layer of clams on top of the mountain but layers in identifiable seams, strata, running through the mountain. Did they do a dig at 20,000 feet? of course not, but mountaineers tend to know rocks, and a mountaineer that cannot tell a surface layer from a seam running through the rock will not have a great life expectancy.

 

[Caissie]

Ok, still when did this happen? When did water cover Mt Everest?

 

[USincognito]

Ok, still when did this happen? When did water cover Mt Everest?

Water never covered "Mt Everest". Did you take the link I provided for you above? It's your tax dollars at work so you might as well utilize them.

 

[Caissie]

Water never covered "Mt Everest". Did you take the link I provided for you above? It's your tax dollars at work so you might as well utilize them.

Then how are clams found in the closed position on the top of Everest?

 

[USincognito]

Then how are clams found in the closed position on the top of Everest?

Are you being lazy or obtuse?
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/himalaya.html

Read the link. It's very simple and explains how Mt Everest forms and where the marine fossils on it came from.
(There's only about 8 short paragraphs and 3 or 4 graphics.)

 

[notto]

Then how are clams found in the closed position on the top of Everest?

The same way they are found in any sedimentary layer. They were deposited at the bottom of a body of water, they were covered by more sediment, they were compressed by the weight of overlying sediment and turned to ROCK, and then the layer they were in was uplifted to create the mountain.

They were laid down and the layer turned to ROCK long before they were uplifted to become mount everest.

They are not on mount everest.
They are mount everest.