Originally posted by Smilin
Scroll Back Nick

Are you kidding? There are 242 posts in this thread. If you don't want to explain it, post a link or something explaining how cave formation contradicts a young earth so I can get an idea from an outside source of what you're talking about.
 
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Stalactites? You mean like these that were found in the basement of the George Rogers Clark Memorial?

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/gero/hsr7a.htm


I hear they're about 10 feet long now...
 
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Morat

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  Goodness. I wonder who builds buildings out of the same sorts of limestone in caves? I wonder if they're exposed to the same enviroment. They're not? How weird!

  Gee, I wonder if anyone has ever addressed this? Why yes, they have.

   Even if we allow rapid stalctite growth, there's not enough time for cave formation. Unless Nick wants to claim the "Flood" did that, too.

 
 
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Pete Harcoff

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Since npetreley has Morat on "ignore", I'll repaste the link so he won't miss it

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood.html#proof22

Edit: npetreley, Morat wants you to know that building and caves aren't the same thing. Not even close.

(Heh, I wonder how long until I get put on "ignore", too )
 
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What does that have to do with the price of tea in china?

Back to reality: The queston was if it was possible for a stalactite to form quickly. And the answer is clearly yes. We know these formed quickly because they weren't there when people built the basements. In contrast, we don't know what the previous conditions were that caused many cave stalactites to form, so we don't have any way to know how old they are. Just because we can measure how slowly they are continuing to form NOW doesn't tell you anything about what the conditions were when they were first formed.

By the way, as ridiculous as the rest of it is, I love this part of the response from talkorigins...

22. Since when is the age of the earth related to the age of a stalactite?

That's what I say, but I wasn't the one who suggested that they were related, I was just providing the answer to a question by TheBear.
 
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Pete Harcoff

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Originally posted by npetreley
The queston was if it was possible for a stalactite to form quickly. And the answer is clearly yes. We know these formed quickly because they weren't there when people built the basements.

From the talk.origins link (actually from "Cave Minerals and Speleothems", White, W. B. 1976, pg 304):

"On the mortared brickwork of old forts and places of that sort, formations which look to the naked eye like stalactites and stalagmites sometimes form in less than one hundred years. However, those formations are composed of gypsum, which is a salt of calcium sulfate. Unlike calcium carbonate, gypsum is moderately soluble in water, which means that transport and recrystallization can take place much more rapidly"


The talk.origins site also answers this:

"Needless to say, this is not the kind of operation you can turn up the spigot on. A rapid flow of water would simply carry the minerals with it, not to mention diluting the carbonic acid which is produced in limited quantities. We're dealing with a drip-by-drip scenario"

So, it seems that cavern-based stalagmites do take quite some time.
 
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Gypsum forms flowers and needles, not stalactites.

More important, Carlsbad Caverns is not a basement. From the previous link:


Calcite is calcium carbonate, not gypsum.


Here's a description of how caves are supposedly formed. Note that it assumes rain water, and therefore speculates based on that premise.

http://www.guanopage.com/info/cavegeo.html

 
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Originally posted by TheBear
Quick question. Does rapid formation account for all stalactite and stalagmite structures?

How could you know if you weren't there to see the conditions that were present when they were formed? You can't. You have to speculate. Just make sure when you speculate that you understand that they can form quickly, and that the rate of formation TODAY may not be the same as the rate of formation YESTERDAY (or 1,000 or 4,000 years ago.)
 
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Referring to nick's latest posting the growth of stalgmites etc I would like to see some positive proof of the chemical composition of these structures I have been in many karst areas and seen no evdence of these claims Also what type of structures are you you talking about. Straw stalictites or more massive structures?
 
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