The Grand Canyon and Noah's flood
Tim DeLaney
have always fascinated me. I guess the source of my fascination is
the immense self-deception necessary to suppose it was created by the
flood.
The usual creationist explanation, as I understand it, is that all the
layers of the geologic column from the Cambrian forward were laid down
by the flood, since they contain fossils. Many of these layers are
visible on the canyon walls, so the canyon must have been carved after
the flood.
Moreover, these layers would take time to solidify from mud, clay and
sediment into solid rock. Had the canyon been formed while the layers
were still in a semi-liquid state, sheer cliffs could not have
formed. How long would it take for sediment a mile deep to turn into
rock? I don't know, but certainly many years, I would think.
So, the usual explanation is that a huge lake was dammed up, and a
sudden failure of the natural dam that held these waters back
unleashed a catastrophic flood that carved the canyon in a matter of
hours or days or weeks. (Take your pick)
We know that such catastrophic events are possible, or at least
conceivable. But the rock that now forms the canyon walls must have
been fully solidified when this catastrophe occurred. How much water
would it take to carry away the rock that was removed?
We can roughly estimate the volume of rock removed at about 2000 cubic
miles. How much water would it take to carry away that much rock? If
you picture a cubic foot of water churning furiously through the
canyon, it's hard to imagine more than a tenth of that amount (by
volume) being being suspended rock. By this metric, it would take at
least 20,000 cubic miles of water to do the job. And, frankly, a
slurry that's 10% rock, 90% water is hard to imagine.
How about a lake the size of lake Tahoe? Just 37 cubic miles --
woefully inadequate. OK, how about Superior? 2900 cubic miles.
Closer, but no cigar. We would need a lake about seven times the
volume of Superior. Picture a lake the size of the Gulf of Mexico
175 feet deep.
Is it possible that a lake this big existed just a few thousand years
ago, and left no trace whatever of its existence? No putative
shoreline, not even a hint?
And where is the 2000 cubic miles of rock that was presumably carried
away? We might explain it whereabouts if it was carried away one sand
grain at a time over millions of years. (Do we have a geologist on
the group who can tell us where that rock is now?) But if it was
removed in one catastrophe, where did it go?
That's the challenge I pose for creationists. Please don't bother to
post links to creationist sites that try to explain it. I've read
them all, and they don't even bother to address the volume problem.
Tim
Wombat
> For some reason, the creationist claims regarding the Grand Canyon
> have always fascinated me. I guess the source of my fascination is
> the immense self-deception necessary to suppose it was created by the
> flood.
>
> The usual creationist explanation, as I understand it, is that all the
> layers of the geologic column from the Cambrian forward were laid down
> by the flood, since they contain fossils. Many of these layers are
> visible on the canyon walls, so the canyon must have been carved after
> the flood.
>
> Moreover, these layers would take time to solidify from mud, clay and
> sediment into solid rock. Had the canyon been formed while the layers
> were still in a semi-liquid state, sheer cliffs could not have
> formed. How long would it take for sediment a mile deep to turn into
> rock? I don't know, but certainly many years, I would think.
I have asked this a few times but have never received an answer.
>
> So, the usual explanation is that a huge lake was dammed up, and a
> sudden failure of the natural dam that held these waters back
> unleashed a catastrophic flood that carved the canyon in a matter of
> hours or days or weeks. (Take your pick)
>
> We know that such catastrophic events are possible, or at least
> conceivable. But the rock that now forms the canyon walls must have
> been fully solidified when this catastrophe occurred. How much water
> would it take to carry away the rock that was removed?
>
> We can roughly estimate the volume of rock removed at about 2000 cubic
> miles. How much water would it take to carry away that much rock? If
> you picture a cubic foot of water churning furiously through the
> canyon, it's hard to imagine more than a tenth of that amount (by
> volume) being being suspended rock. By this metric, it would take at
> least 20,000 cubic miles of water to do the job. And, frankly, a
> slurry that's 10% rock, 90% water is hard to imagine.
>
> How about a lake the size of lake Tahoe? Just 37 cubic miles --
> woefully inadequate. OK, how about Superior? 2900 cubic miles.
> Closer, but no cigar. We would need a lake about seven times the
> volume of Superior. Picture a lake the size of the Gulf of Mexico
> 175 feet deep.
>
> Is it possible that a lake this big existed just a few thousand years
> ago, and left no trace whatever of its existence? No putative
> shoreline, not even a hint?
The Washington Scablands were formed by a series of massive floods
caused by the collapse of ice dams at the end of the last ice age.
These flloods did not form a massive canyon.
>
> And where is the 2000 cubic miles of rock that was presumably carried
> away? We might explain it whereabouts if it was carried away one sand
> grain at a time over millions of years. (Do we have a geologist on
> the group who can tell us where that rock is now?) But if it was
> removed in one catastrophe, where did it go?
This was covered in a thread a short while ago when a professional
geologist was trying to explain it to (M)adman. It was an impossible
task - (M)adman lacked the intelligence (or integrity) to accept the
evidence.
>
> That's the challenge I pose for creationists. Please don't bother to
> post links to creationist sites that try to explain it. I've read
> them all, and they don't even bother to address the volume problem.
>
> Tim
You'll be lucky!
Wombat
Jim
On Jul 28, 12:44 am, Tim DeLaney <delaney.timo...@comcast.net> wrote:
> For some reason, the creationist claims regarding the Grand Canyon
> have always fascinated me. I guess the source of my fascination is
> the immense self-deception necessary to suppose it was created by the
> flood.
>
> The usual creationist explanation, as I understand it, is that all the
> layers of the geologic column from the Cambrian forward were laid down
> by the flood, since they contain fossils. Many of these layers are
> visible on the canyon walls, so the canyon must have been carved after
> the flood.
>
> Moreover, these layers would take time to solidify from mud, clay and
> sediment into solid rock. Had the canyon been formed while the layers
> were still in a semi-liquid state, sheer cliffs could not have
> formed. How long would it take for sediment a mile deep to turn into
> rock? I don't know, but certainly many years, I would think.
>
> So, the usual explanation is that a huge lake was dammed up, and a
> sudden failure of the natural dam that held these waters back
> unleashed a catastrophic flood that carved the canyon in a matter of
> hours or days or weeks. (Take your pick)
One major problem with that is that if you fill the Grand Canyon back
up with rocks you discover that it is not the lowest outlet for a
hypothetical lake in the upper Colorado River valley. The elevation
of the North Rim is around 8,000 feet; the elevation of the South Rim
is around 7,000 feet, so to cut the Grand Canyon where it is, the
surface of the hypothetical lake must have been at least 7,000 feet
above modern sea level. However, if one travels north along the crest
of the Kaibab uplift about 50 miles, to the highway between Glen
Canyon Dam and Kanab, Utah, one discovers that the divide between the
upper and lower Colorado River valleys there is at 5,700 feet
elevation. That means that the lake would have drained over this
sill rather than some point over a thousand feet higher. That is, if
the Grand Canyon is the result of catastrophic emptying of an
impounded lake, then it is in the wrong place - it should be a
westward continuation of Glen Canyon.
>
> We know that such catastrophic events are possible, or at least
> conceivable. But the rock that now forms the canyon walls must have
> been fully solidified when this catastrophe occurred. How much water
> would it take to carry away the rock that was removed?
>
> We can roughly estimate the volume of rock removed at about 2000 cubic
> miles. How much water would it take to carry away that much rock? If
> you picture a cubic foot of water churning furiously through the
> canyon, it's hard to imagine more than a tenth of that amount (by
> volume) being being suspended rock. By this metric, it would take at
> least 20,000 cubic miles of water to do the job. And, frankly, a
> slurry that's 10% rock, 90% water is hard to imagine.
>
> How about a lake the size of lake Tahoe? Just 37 cubic miles --
> woefully inadequate. OK, how about Superior? 2900 cubic miles.
> Closer, but no cigar. We would need a lake about seven times the
> volume of Superior. Picture a lake the size of the Gulf of Mexico
> 175 feet deep.
>
> Is it possible that a lake this big existed just a few thousand years
> ago, and left no trace whatever of its existence? No putative
> shoreline, not even a hint?
Good point! Lake Bonneville, of which the Great Salt Lake is a
remnant, left all kinds of shoreline features like wave-cut terraces
festooning the mountainsides. Further, the Lake Bonneville flood,
another catastrophic outflow, provides another example of catastrophic
flood effects and deposits (see http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/hydr/lkbflood/lbf.htm
for a nice introduction). Conspicuous among the deposits are huge
gravel bars (over a hundred feet high, some over a mile long) made of
huge gravel (boulders up to 10 feet in diameter) - features that are
conspicuously absent from the lower Colorado River.
>
> And where is the 2000 cubic miles of rock that was presumably carried
> away? We might explain it whereabouts if it was carried away one sand
> grain at a time over millions of years. (Do we have a geologist on
> the group who can tell us where that rock is now?) But if it was
> removed in one catastrophe, where did it go?
Well, it's all in the Colorado River delta, which fills the northern
Sea of Cortez. The problem is, catastrophic flows tend to leave
distinctive signatures - the Channeled Scablands have gravel bars a
hundred feet high, made of boulders the size of cars; the 1996
jokulhlaup in southern Iceland (a jokulhlaup is a catastrophic flood
resulting from the failure of an ice dam impounding a lake), while
much smaller than the Missoula floods that cut the Scablands
nevertheless easily moved car-sized rocks. Alas, no such debris is in
the lower Colorado River valley and delta - only silt.
>
> That's the challenge I pose for creationists. Please don't bother to
> post links to creationist sites that try to explain it. I've read
> them all, and they don't even bother to address the volume problem.
>
> Tim
The obvious (and only) answer is that God miraculously took care of
all the fiddling little details, though I suspect that no creationist
will admit that.
Ron O
> For some reason, the creationist claims regarding the Grand Canyon
> have always fascinated me. I guess the source of my fascination is
> the immense self-deception necessary to suppose it was created by the
> flood.
>
> The usual creationist explanation, as I understand it, is that all the
> layers of the geologic column from the Cambrian forward were laid down
> by the flood, since they contain fossils. Many of these layers are
> visible on the canyon walls, so the canyon must have been carved after
> the flood.
It doesn't really matter. The lowest layers are actually tilted (not
horizontal) and have been eroded flat and then the horizontal layers
begin accumulating, so there had to be some sedimentary rock formed
before the flood. There are salt water sediments, and freshwater
sediments and dry land sand dunes. There are mammal tracks in the
upper layers of the Grand Canyon so a mile of sediment would have to
be deposited and animals would still have to be alive to walk around
and then those layers would have to get burried.
I don't know how they explain the fact that most of the sedimentary
rock is overlaying eroded Cambrian rock.
The ICR used to give tours of the Grand Canyon (they may still do
it). The last that I heard from Austin (an ICR geologist) was that
all the sediments below pliestocene (the last 2 million years) were
preflood. Beats me how this model works.
Nothing has to make sense to these guys.
Ron Okimoto
Mark Evans
(SNIP)
>
> The obvious (and only) answer is that God miraculously took care of
> all the fiddling little details, though I suspect that no creationist
> will admit that.
This paragraph made me think of the work of Slarty Bartfast on the
fjords.
Mark Evans
John Harshman
> For some reason, the creationist claims regarding the Grand Canyon
> have always fascinated me. I guess the source of my fascination is
> the immense self-deception necessary to suppose it was created by the
> flood.
[...]
> And where is the 2000 cubic miles of rock that was presumably carried
> away? We might explain it whereabouts if it was carried away one sand
> grain at a time over millions of years. (Do we have a geologist on
> the group who can tell us where that rock is now?) But if it was
> removed in one catastrophe, where did it go?
Some of it is in the Colorado River delta, down in Baja. I don't know
the volume of that delta, and at any rate it would contain input from
sources other than the Grand Canyon too. However, much of the canyon
sediment would be limestone, and that tends to dissolve in water.
[snip]
Desertphile
<delaney...@comcast.net> wrote:
> For some reason, the creationist claims regarding the Grand Canyon
> have always fascinated me. I guess the source of my fascination is
> the immense self-deception necessary to suppose it was created by the
> flood.
>
> The usual creationist explanation, as I understand it, is that all the
> layers of the geologic column from the Cambrian forward were laid down
> by the flood, since they contain fossils.
Some Creationists are now including the Pre-cambrian, now that
they have conceeded the fact that fossils exist there as well.
> Many of these layers are
> visible on the canyon walls, so the canyon must have been carved after
> the flood.
Flawless logic there, provided their first supposition is true.
> Moreover, these layers would take time to solidify from mud, clay and
> sediment into solid rock. Had the canyon been formed while the layers
> were still in a semi-liquid state, sheer cliffs could not have
> formed. How long would it take for sediment a mile deep to turn into
> rock? I don't know, but certainly many years, I would think.
>
> So, the usual explanation is that a huge lake was dammed up, and a
> sudden failure of the natural dam that held these waters back
> unleashed a catastrophic flood that carved the canyon in a matter of
> hours or days or weeks. (Take your pick)
Unfortunately for Creationists who claim that, the canyon system
clearly shows meandering and the whole region shows uplifting:
evidence against a huge lake's dam being suddenly opened.
> We know that such catastrophic events are possible, or at least
> conceivable. But the rock that now forms the canyon walls must have
> been fully solidified when this catastrophe occurred. How much water
> would it take to carry away the rock that was removed?
>
> We can roughly estimate the volume of rock removed at about 2000 cubic
> miles. How much water would it take to carry away that much rock?
About 9,000,000 year's worth for the Grand Canyon, and about
6,000,000 years worth for many side canyons.
> If
> you picture a cubic foot of water churning furiously through the
> canyon, it's hard to imagine more than a tenth of that amount (by
> volume) being being suspended rock. By this metric, it would take at
> least 20,000 cubic miles of water to do the job. And, frankly, a
> slurry that's 10% rock, 90% water is hard to imagine.
>
> How about a lake the size of lake Tahoe? Just 37 cubic miles --
> woefully inadequate. OK, how about Superior? 2900 cubic miles.
> Closer, but no cigar. We would need a lake about seven times the
> volume of Superior. Picture a lake the size of the Gulf of Mexico
> 175 feet deep.
>
> Is it possible that a lake this big existed just a few thousand years
> ago, and left no trace whatever of its existence? No putative
> shoreline, not even a hint?
>
> And where is the 2000 cubic miles of rock that was presumably carried
> away? We might explain it whereabouts if it was carried away one sand
> grain at a time over millions of years. (Do we have a geologist on
> the group who can tell us where that rock is now?) But if it was
> removed in one catastrophe, where did it go?
>
> That's the challenge I pose for creationists. Please don't bother to
> post links to creationist sites that try to explain it. I've read
> them all, and they don't even bother to address the volume problem.
>
> Tim
--
http://desertphile.org
Desertphile's Desert Soliloquy. WARNING: view with plenty of water
"Why aren't resurrections from the dead noteworthy?" -- Jim Rutz
r norman
The Colorado River is so named because of the heavy sediment load it
carries. There is no problem carting off the debris in a few million
years. Two thousand cubic miles in two million years is 4 cubic feet
per second. Given that the river flow is currently about 10,000 cubic
feet per second the "problem" is easily solved.
John Harshman
it at all. Remember that they think erosion is much faster than you do,
fast enough to account for pretty much all of it in a single year.
r norman
<jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
If they can account for where all the water went, they should have no
problem accounting for where very muddy water went.
John Harshman
Walter Bushell
<2eaa11db-9373-47e5...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com>,
Ron O <roki...@cox.net> wrote:
It's religion. Just like the birthers. The more it contradicts reality
the more faith it engenders, and faith is the key.
Walter Bushell
r norman <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote:
I thought the Colorado river never reached the Ocean.
r norman
wrote:
Little does. But it mostly gets drained off after leaving the Grand
Canyon area.
r norman
<jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
I'm not arguing or disagreeing with you at all here. I just pointed
out that classical geology has no problem removing the volume of
material in the Grand Canyon in the available time. Someone asked how
it could be done and I gave some numbers.
You countered that creationists think it was all done in a flash. But
they have to believe so many strange things, like where did the water
come from and where did it go and how did all the animals fit and how
did the ark survive mechanically or hydraulically and how did they
animals first get together and then disperse and....... So the little
problem of carting off the material from the Grand Canyon is just one
little more trivial detail that has to be done with smoke and mirrors
or goddidit. If you believe in an actual Noachan flood that produced
fossils and geologic sequences and all that, you can believe anything.
John Harshman
You misunderstood. The question wasn't how it could be done in the
standard timescale, but how it could be done in the creationist,
catastrophic timescale.
> You countered that creationists think it was all done in a flash. But
> they have to believe so many strange things, like where did the water
> come from and where did it go and how did all the animals fit and how
> did the ark survive mechanically or hydraulically and how did they
> animals first get together and then disperse and....... So the little
> problem of carting off the material from the Grand Canyon is just one
> little more trivial detail that has to be done with smoke and mirrors
> or goddidit. If you believe in an actual Noachan flood that produced
> fossils and geologic sequences and all that, you can believe anything.
F'sher.
Friar Broccoli
Some of the earthquakes that were used to create the
Rockies after the flood, created giant rifts which were
kept open by subsequent normal water flows?
D. Stussy
news:4cc4b241-e570-4a62...@k1g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...
The Washington Scablands were formed by a series of massive floods
caused by the collapse of ice dams at the end of the last ice age.
These flloods did not form a massive canyon.
-------
It is the breakage of one of these ice dams that is probably responsible
for the flood of Noah. One such breakage caused sea level to rise just
enough to spill over a natural earthen dam and fill the Mediterranian Sea
(previously empty) and bodies of water beyond.
This has NOTHING to do with the Grand Canyon. Its creation is a separate
and distinct event.
Ernest Major
<pr...@panix.com> writes
(Gulf of California) due to the diversion of its waters for irrigation.
(IIRC, the US is required by treaty to maintain a certain level of flow
into Mexico.) More water reached the Gulf in historical times, and I
suspect that even more did during glacial periods.
As for the sediment, some is in the Colorado Delta at the head of the
Gulf of California, some is in the Salton Trough, and some is upriver
from the Delta, in southern Arizona.
--
alias Ernest Major
Jim
> On Jul 28, 3:27 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > r norman wrote:
> > > I'm not arguing or disagreeing with you at all here. I just pointed
> > > out that classical geology has no problem removing the volume of
> > > material in the Grand Canyon in the available time. Someone asked how
> > > it could be done and I gave some numbers.
>
> > You misunderstood. The question wasn't how it could be done in the
> > standard timescale, but how it could be done in the creationist,
> > catastrophic timescale.
>
> Some of the earthquakes that were used to create the
> Rockies after the flood, created giant rifts which were
> kept open by subsequent normal water flows?
>
Only problem with that is that earthquake faults don't meander. A
good example of an active 'rift' fault is the Wasatch fault zone which
runs through downtown Salt Lake City, and forms the western front of
the Wasatch Range. If one were to look at a map or satellite photo of
the western front of the Wasatch Range, from say Salt Lake City south
to Provo, and compare that to the course of the Colorado River through
the Grand Canyon, one would notice a significant difference in the
relative linearity of the two features. Another example is the Rio
Grande rift, where the Rio Grande flows through a tectonic rift valley
from El Paso north through New Mexico into Colorado (http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Grande_rift). Again, if one were to compare
the course of the Rio Grande through the rift valley and the Colorado
through the Grand Canyon one would notice the Rio Grande is a lot
straighter. Too, rift faulting results in offset of the geology on
both sides of the fault; such offset is conspicuous by its absence in
the Grand Canyon. Nice try, though.
Jim
Um, the filling of the Mediterranean basin was a little over 5 million
years ago (cf. Messinian salinity crisis). The sill at Gibraltar
(Camarinal sill) is at 280 meters below sea level, so even at the most
extreme sea level low-stand during the last glacial maximum (-120
meters or so) there was flow through the Straits of Gibraltar. While
oral tradition may indeed have a kernel of historical truth, it is a
little far-fetched to expect oral tradition to carry back to before
the emergence of the genus Homo...
Ernest Major
writes
>"Wombat" <tri...@multiweb.nl> wrote in message
>news:4cc4b241-e570-4a62...@k1g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...
>The Washington Scablands were formed by a series of massive floods
>caused by the collapse of ice dams at the end of the last ice age.
>These flloods did not form a massive canyon.
>
>-------
>It is the breakage of one of these ice dams that is probably responsible
>for the flood of Noah. One such breakage caused sea level to rise just
>enough to spill over a natural earthen dam and fill the Mediterranian Sea
>(previously empty) and bodies of water beyond.
The filling of the Mediterranean preceded the evolution of Homo sapiens
by a factor of more than 10. (BTW, it was a hard rock sill that
separated the Mediterranean from the Atlantic.)
It has been suggested that the Noachian Flood takes its origin from a
rise in the level of the Black Sea after breaching of barriers between
that and the Mediterranean. This is far from universally accepted. It
has also been suggested that the flooding of the head of the Persian
Gulf by post-glacial sea level rise lies at the root of the myth. This
isn't particularly plausible either. A big river flood in Mesopotamia,
or perhaps the retreat of the sea shore after an onshore storm (as has
occurred in, for example, Louisiana, Heligoland and Bangladesh) are more
plausible source events. But there is no compelling reason to believe
that the story of Noachian Flood was inspired by a particular event.
>
>This has NOTHING to do with the Grand Canyon. Its creation is a separate
>and distinct event.
>
>
>
--
alias Ernest Major
Desertphile
<pr...@panix.com> wrote:
In 1854 the USA Army started sending steam boats up the Colorado
from the Gulf of California / Sea of Cortez to kill the Pipa a'ha
macave. Rio Colorado had been trashing boats entering it from the
Gulf ever since the rescue mission to save the Coronado invasion
of Cíbola (they got as far as Rio Gila as I recall reading).
Desertphile
"The basement rocks under the north end of the Gulf are covered by
as much as 25,000 to 30,000 feet of these deltaic sediments. This
enormous volume of silt suggests the amount of erosional debris
taken from the Colorado Plateau to the Gulf by the Colorado River
over several million years." --
http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/salton/The%20Gulf%20of%20California.html
Friar Broccoli
.
> Nice try, though.
Ehhhh, not so fast!!
How about a rising sheet of deep magma that separates into a
Y shape on either side of the present day Grand Canyon? I am
thinking about an event that would be somewhat similar to mid
ocean rifting.
Presumably such a process could create uneven separation
resembling a meandering pattern, and the geological features
would remain lined up over most of the length.
Better?
r norman
wrote:
>On Jul 28, 5:35 pm, "D. Stussy" <s...@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:
It is true that Australopithecus had very poor handwriting so that
their written records couldn't even be read by the author. However
their oral traditions were beyond reproach.
David Hare-Scott
>> The ICR used to give tours of the Grand Canyon (they may still do
>> it). The last that I heard from Austin (an ICR geologist) was that
>> all the sediments below pliestocene (the last 2 million years) were
>> preflood. Beats me how this model works.
>>
>> Nothing has to make sense to these guys.
>>
>> Ron Okimoto
>
> It's religion. Just like the birthers. The more it contradicts reality
> the more faith it engenders, and faith is the key.
If that is the case why do they go through the motions of manufacturing
"science" to support their position? Surely it is a whole lot simpler to
say "my faith is strong so I don't need any other explanation". I suspect
the answer is that the faith isn't really that strong at all and needs
constant maintenance.
David
Jim
Nope. Rift valleys (sensu stricto, as in mid-ocean rifts) are flanked
by normal faults, as the center kinda falls into the hole in the crust
caused by extension. A good example of this is the East African Rift
in Kenya - stepped normal faults lead from the rift valley up to the
surrounding plateau. Further, rifts tend to be controlled by large-
scale stress fields (possibly modified by local structure) of
'wavelength' much greater than the meanders of the Colorado. Then
there is the control exerted by the thickness of the rigid upper
layer of the crust: fracturing the crust in a rift tends to produce
features whose minimum wavelength is more or less the same as the
thickness of the rigid upper crust - in the case of the Colorado
Plateau, this is on the order of 10 to 15 kilometers. Of course, all
this is irrelevant if God did it.
Jim
> On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:50:28 -0700 (PDT), Jim <jimwille...@gmail.com>
Didn't the ability to form speech as we know it appear after
Australopithecus?
Greg G.
You are right and r norman is wrong. Australopithecus had excellent
handwriting because their speech was so primitive.
r norman
wrote:
You mean they could write perfectly but had nothing to say so they
never bothered? I remember a really interesting silicon valley
start-up company that developed a fantastic write-only memory chip.
They soon went out of business and I never did learn why.
Paul J Gans
> .
>> Nice try, though.
>Better?
Not necessary. Consider the Delaware Water Gap, located on
I80 where it crosses the New Jersey/Pennsylvania boundary.
The Delaware River flows THROUGH the Appalachian mountains.
How? It was flowing before the Applachians were raised, and
it eroded the land away faster than it rose.
[By the way, I could find no decent pictures of it on the
web. I'll have to take some next time I go through it.]
The Colorado doubtless did the same. It was likely flowing
*before* the uplift of the southwestern part of the US
through which it flows.
--
--- Paul J. Gans
Walter Bushell
"David Hare-Scott" <sec...@nospam.belcom> wrote:
Well we don't hear from those of strong faith. Or they are trying to
convert us, which is driven by as you might expect by a fear the
religion is not *true*. If you can bring a lot of people to believe what
you believe then your position must be correct. And the leaders
encourage proselytization because going out in public and stating a
belief strengthens the belief.
Walter Bushell
Ernest Major <{$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In the recent past little if any of the Colorado River reaches the ocean
> (Gulf of California) due to the diversion of its waters for irrigation.
> (IIRC, the US is required by treaty to maintain a certain level of flow
> into Mexico.) More water reached the Gulf in historical times, and I
> suspect that even more did during glacial periods.
I hear the treaty is ignored. Because each water rights holder has a
right to a certain quantity of water and the amounts were set in a very
wet year. We obviously can't reduce the allotment of the American sacred
water rites holders, so the Mexicans get screwed.
Greg G.
They wrote "ug" and "grunt" all over the place. Unfortunately, H.
habilis invented the eraser.
> I remember a really interesting silicon valley
> start-up company that developed a fantastic write-only memory chip.
> They soon went out of business and I never did learn why.
Though their low-power comsumption claims were shown to be valid,
their claim that their write-only memory was capable of an infinite
number of write operations per second could not be verified.
Andre Lieven
I found quite a few just doing a basic Google Image Search.
Try:
http://www.serve.com/wizjd/parks/photo/mediumSize/DelawareWaterGap04.jpg
http://www.jdonohue.com/parks/photo/mediumSize/DelawareWaterGap03.jpg
> The Colorado doubtless did the same. It was likely flowing
> *before* the uplift of the southwestern part of the US
> through which it flows.
Andre
Wombat
In the German series "Das Boot" the U-boat grounded on that sill (U-
boats were well built!) after an attack while trying to break into
the Med. The crew managed to repair the damage, pump the excess water
out and resurface. Just an aside.
Wombat
Wombat
They surely need the science to stand a chance of their pet theology
being taught in science class.
Wombat
John S. Wilkins
> On 28 July, 23:50, Jim <jimwille...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Jul 28, 5:35 pm, "D. Stussy" <s...@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:
> >
> > > "Wombat" <tri...@multiweb.nl> wrote in message
> >
> > >news:4cc4b241-e570-4a62...@k1g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...
> > > The Washington Scablands were formed by a series of massive floods
> > > caused by the collapse of ice dams at the end of the last ice age.
> > > These flloods did not form a massive canyon.
> >
> > > -------
> > > It is the breakage of one of these ice dams that is probably responsible
> > > for the flood of Noah. One such breakage caused sea level to rise just
> > > enough to spill over a natural earthen dam and fill the Mediterranian Sea
> > > (previously empty) and bodies of water beyond.
> >
> > > This has NOTHING to do with the Grand Canyon. Its creation is a separate
> > > and distinct event.
> >
> > Um, the filling of the Mediterranean basin was a little over 5 million
> > years ago (cf. Messinian salinity crisis). The sill at Gibraltar
> > (Camarinal sill) is at 280 meters below sea level, so even at the most
> > extreme sea level low-stand during the last glacial maximum (-120
> > meters or so) there was flow through the Straits of Gibraltar. While
> > oral tradition may indeed have a kernel of historical truth, it is a
> > little far-fetched to expect oral tradition to carry back to before
> > the emergence of the genus Homo...
Was the Mediterranean basin empty before the break? Why wouldn't it have
been at least a series of large lakes?
>
> In the German series "Das Boot" the U-boat grounded on that sill (U-
> boats were well built!) after an attack while trying to break into
> the Med. The crew managed to repair the damage, pump the excess water
> out and resurface. Just an aside.
>
I thought that was a single film not a series...
--
John S. Wilkins, Philosophy, University of Sydney
http://evolvingthoughts.net
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre
Burkhard
TV into 3 and 6 episodes respectively
Ron O
So far, they have only needed the claim that there is a scientific
basis to their beliefs to get the rubes to try to teach it in the
science class. Scientific Creationism and Intelligent Design both
failed as science. The last generation of ID scam artists knew that
they didn't have the science and were running the bait and switch scam
on their creationist support base years before ID failed in court.
Just ask the clueless creationist rubes on the Ohio State board of
education how much ID science they got to teach from the ID perps back
in 2002-2003. Zero should tell any rational person something and it
isn't something good. No creationist rube that claimed to want to
teach the science of intelligent design ever got any ID science to
teach. Not even the Dover rubes and they still tried push it into the
science class when the ID perps that sold them the scam were trying to
push off the switch scam onto them. When some slease bag comes to you
and claims that they have a new scam and the new scam doesn't even
mention that ID ever existed, even the densest rube should have known
how much to trust the ID scam, but the Dover rubes wouldn't take the
switch or drop the issue and the rest is history.
Ron Okimoto
Wombat
> But al be that he was a philosophre,
> Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre
It was shown here as a six-part series.
Wombat
Chris
I don't think it ever made it to the US as a series. It was a popular
film though.
Chris
Jim
That appears to be a question of some dispute. Certainly parts of the
Med abyssal plain were dry; the Wikipedia article on the Messinian
salinity crisis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Messinian_salinity_crisis) refers to some Deep Sea Drilling Project
cores that contain windblown, dessicated foraminiferal silt
interbedded with salt. Indeed, at least one core sample shows a
dessication crack in such a silt layer, filled with salt. (Hole 134,
leg 13, on the Balearic Aabyssal plain near Sardinia; DSDP Initial
Reports; http://www.deepseadrilling.org/13/dsdp_toc.htm. Chapter 22.2
describes the dessication crack in a sample recovered 344 meters below
the sea floor, which is at a depth of 2864 meters. The inescapable
conclusion is that sea level in the western Mediterranean dropped
three kilometers during the late Miocene.) We simply don't have
enough data to say absolutely one way or another. By the way,
Chapter 43 of the Leg 13 Initial Reports volume (http://
www.deepseadrilling.org/13/volume/dsdp13pt2_43.pdf) is a fascinating
narrative of science in action - three different working hypotheses
about the formation of the Mediterranean salt layer are discussed
while the ship is steaming between drill sites. Each hypothesis is
evaluated against the evidence available, predictions made about what
the next drill hole should find in each scenario, and ultimately
rejection of two of those hypotheses on the basis of what the next
drill hole actually discovered. I recommend perusal of that chapter
to anyone who thinks scientists' primary goal is to 'prove their
theory right'.
<snip>
John S. Wilkins
> On Jul 29, 2:25 am, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > Wombat <tri...@multiweb.nl> wrote:
> > > On 28 July, 23:50, Jim <jimwille...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On Jul 28, 5:35 pm, "D. Stussy" <s...@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:
> >
> > > > > "Wombat" <tri...@multiweb.nl> wrote in message
Thanks, Jim, that's really useful.
Walter Bushell
Paul J Gans <ga...@panix.com> wrote:
> Not necessary. Consider the Delaware Water Gap, located on
> I80 where it crosses the New Jersey/Pennsylvania boundary.
Er, isn't that a little reversed? I80 goes there because the river and
thus the gap was there. For one reason, the other Gap was a major route
for pioneers and later trade, hence regional towns would be drawn to it.
r norman
wrote:
>In article <h4o7pl$ph4$2...@reader1.panix.com>,
I always wondered why railroad lines were constructed to pass so close
to a station.
Steven L.
> The Washington Scablands were formed by a series of massive floods
> caused by the collapse of ice dams at the end of the last ice age.
> These flloods did not form a massive canyon.
>
> -------
> It is the breakage of one of these ice dams that is probably responsible
> for the flood of Noah. One such breakage caused sea level to rise just
> enough to spill over a natural earthen dam and fill the Mediterranian Sea
> (previously empty) and bodies of water beyond.
There is a respectable scientific theory (not from creationists) that
the flood of Noah/Gilgamesh was caused by a bolide impact in the waters
off Madagascar around 4,800 B.C.. This generated enormous tsunamis,
waves hundreds of feet high, which raced up the waters of the Middle
East. It would also have thrown up great volumes of steam and water
vapor into the stratosphere, which could well have taken 40 days and
nights to settle out.
Scientists have found the remains of an underwater impact site which
looks to be just about that old, as well as others.
I posted on this once before:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/asteroids
and also
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/science/14WAVE.html?scp=1&sq=ancient+crash&st=nyt
This theory is still not widely accepted. But then, neither was
Alvarez's theory about a bolide causing the K-T extinction. Wait ten or
twenty more years.
--
Steven L.
Email: sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
Paul J Gans
Property rights, lad, property rights. They ought to be glad
we don't enslave them.
Oh, wait...
Paul J Gans
I heard about that. I never understood it either. After all,
they'd solved the hard half of the permanent storage and retrieval
problem...
Paul J Gans
>Try:
>http://www.serve.com/wizjd/parks/photo/mediumSize/DelawareWaterGap04.jpg
>http://www.jdonohue.com/parks/photo/mediumSize/DelawareWaterGap03.jpg
Thanks.
Neither really shows the river cutting right through the ridge
line. The second one shows the ridge on one side of the river.
What you don't see is the matching ridge, strata and all on
the other side.
>> The Colorado doubtless did the same. It was likely flowing
>> *before* the uplift of the southwestern part of the US
>> through which it flows.
>Andre
Paul J Gans
Of course. I was just noting where us modren folks can find
it.
By the way, I80 barely fits. The lanes get awfully narrow as
one goes through the "bottleneck".
Paul J Gans
Some stupid congressional mandate or other is the reason.
Walter Bushell
Paul J Gans <ga...@panix.com> wrote:
> Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
> >In article <h4o7pl$ph4$2...@reader1.panix.com>,
> > Paul J Gans <ga...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> >> Not necessary. Consider the Delaware Water Gap, located on
> >> I80 where it crosses the New Jersey/Pennsylvania boundary.
>
> >Er, isn't that a little reversed? I80 goes there because the river and
> >thus the gap was there. For one reason, the other Gap was a major route
> >for pioneers and later trade, hence regional towns would be drawn to it.
>
> Of course. I was just noting where us modren folks can find
> it.
>
> By the way, I80 barely fits. The lanes get awfully narrow as
> one goes through the "bottleneck".
Did I mention that places where this happens are historically important?
You're taking your family west; you have two choices you can go up the
mountain at 3K feet of twisty, treacherous mountain road, or you can go
out of your way and follow a river. If you're hauling a load of whiskey
back, the choice is even clearer.
Oh, and in war every sergeant and some lieutenants knew where the gaps
were.
Mike Painter
<snip>
>
> That's the challenge I pose for creationists. Please don't bother to
> post links to creationist sites that try to explain it. I've read
> them all, and they don't even bother to address the volume problem.
>
> Tim
I have a partial answer to this which would require a lot less water and
which seems to actually be partly responsible for the canyon.
It will only require a minimum of research on the part of the creationist to
find and use it.
Of course in doing such work they will have to explain the time frame
involved in the damming of the canyon by volcanic activity. It will make for
a very large value of "6000 years"
Andre Lieven
You're welcome. I sometimes look around on the 'Net for good
photos of interesting places, including some where I've been.
And, I've driven on that section of I-80 lots of times.
> Neither really shows the river cutting right through the ridge
> line. The second one shows the ridge on one side of the river.
> What you don't see is the matching ridge, strata and all on
> the other side.
Ah. Well, some further digging around might turn some shots
of such thing up.
One trick that I've learned is to do not just Google Image searches,
as GI often misses pictures that are on some sites. So, do a
search through just regular Google, and look at a few to see if
some pictures are on the sites that Google turns up.
Friar Broccoli
> by normal faults, as the center kinda falls into the hole in the crust
> caused by extension. A good example of this is the East African Rift
> in Kenya - stepped normal faults lead from the rift valley up to the
> surrounding plateau. Further, rifts tend to be controlled by large-
> scale stress fields (possibly modified by local structure) of
> 'wavelength' much greater than the meanders of the Colorado. Then
> there is the control exerted by the thickness of the rigid upper
> layer of the crust: fracturing the crust in a rift tends to produce
> features whose minimum wavelength is more or less the same as the
> thickness of the rigid upper crust - in the case of the Colorado
> Plateau, this is on the order of 10 to 15 kilometers.
I have to admit that I didn't understand a word of the above,
which for a creationist would mean - this is scientific jargon
song and dance being used to confuse my understanding
of God's eternal truth.
So it looks like I've got a story good enough to write up
for answers.in.genesis. Anybody know what their payment
schedule looks like?
r norman
Hell, my course in Geology 1 was 51 years ago, before plate tectonics
even, and I understood it! Of course I did recently have to review
normal (and thrust and strike-slip) faults to understand the geology
of the area around my new winter home in Tucson.
So just do a google images search on "normal fault diagram"
Paul J Gans
I was ROTC'd during the Korean War, and the sergeants (rotated back
from Korea) assured us that knowing such things was a Darwinian
survival advantage.
Of course they didn't actually invoke Darwin. They just reported
that pig-headed second lieutenants were not high-survival types.
John S. Wilkins
> r norman <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >On Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:34:59 -0400, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com>
> >wrote:
>
> >>In article <h4o7pl$ph4$2...@reader1.panix.com>,
> >> Paul J Gans <ga...@panix.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Not necessary. Consider the Delaware Water Gap, located on
> >>> I80 where it crosses the New Jersey/Pennsylvania boundary.
> >>
> >>Er, isn't that a little reversed? I80 goes there because the river and
> >>thus the gap was there. For one reason, the other Gap was a major route
> >>for pioneers and later trade, hence regional towns would be drawn to it.
>
> >I always wondered why railroad lines were constructed to pass so close
> >to a station.
>
> Some stupid congressional mandate or other is the reason.
The wives of Congressmen hated having to walk more than 20 yards to and
from the platform. They absolutely *hated* 20 mile hikes.
Tim DeLaney
> For some reason, the creationist claims regarding the Grand Canyon
> have always fascinated me. I guess the source of my fascination is
> the immense self-deception necessary to suppose it was created by the
> flood.
>
> The usual creationist explanation, as I understand it, is that all the
> layers of the geologic column from the Cambrian forward were laid down
> by the flood, since they contain fossils. Many of these layers are
> visible on the canyon walls, so the canyon must have been carved after
> the flood.
>
> Moreover, these layers would take time to solidify from mud, clay and
> sediment into solid rock. Had the canyon been formed while the layers
> were still in a semi-liquid state, sheer cliffs could not have
> formed. How long would it take for sediment a mile deep to turn into
> rock? I don't know, but certainly many years, I would think.
>
> So, the usual explanation is that a huge lake was dammed up, and a
> sudden failure of the natural dam that held these waters back
> unleashed a catastrophic flood that carved the canyon in a matter of
> hours or days or weeks. (Take your pick)
>
> We know that such catastrophic events are possible, or at least
> conceivable. But the rock that now forms the canyon walls must have
> been fully solidified when this catastrophe occurred. How much water
> would it take to carry away the rock that was removed?
>
> We can roughly estimate the volume of rock removed at about 2000 cubic
> miles. How much water would it take to carry away that much rock? If
> you picture a cubic foot of water churning furiously through the
> canyon, it's hard to imagine more than a tenth of that amount (by
> volume) being being suspended rock. By this metric, it would take at
> least 20,000 cubic miles of water to do the job. And, frankly, a
> slurry that's 10% rock, 90% water is hard to imagine.
>
> How about a lake the size of lake Tahoe? Just 37 cubic miles --
> woefully inadequate. OK, how about Superior? 2900 cubic miles.
> Closer, but no cigar. We would need a lake about seven times the
> volume of Superior. Picture a lake the size of the Gulf of Mexico
> 175 feet deep.
>
> Is it possible that a lake this big existed just a few thousand years
> ago, and left no trace whatever of its existence? No putative
> shoreline, not even a hint?
>
> And where is the 2000 cubic miles of rock that was presumably carried
> away? We might explain it whereabouts if it was carried away one sand
> grain at a time over millions of years. (Do we have a geologist on
> the group who can tell us where that rock is now?) But if it was
> removed in one catastrophe, where did it go?
>
> That's the challenge I pose for creationists. Please don't bother to
> post links to creationist sites that try to explain it. I've read
> them all, and they don't even bother to address the volume problem.
>
> Tim
Well, I'm disappointed. Our creationist friends are perfectly willing
to engage in a lengthy debate over the meaning of "literalism", and
similar topics that serve only as a vehicle for name-calling, but they
are unwilling to defend the very basic tenets of their faith, such as
the flood of Noah.
OK, one last try: I claim that the geological features of the Grand
Canyon stands as a complete refutation of the notion of a young
earth. I invite a single YEC to contest that claim.
Tim
TomS
<92a27f36-15e5-4a16...@b15g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>, Tim DeLaney
stated..."
>
>On Jul 28, 12:44=A0am, Tim DeLaney <delaney.timo...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> For some reason, the creationist claims regarding the Grand Canyon
>> the immense self-deception necessary to suppose it was created by the
>> flood.
>>
>> The usual creationist explanation, as I understand it, is that all the
>> layers of the geologic column from the Cambrian forward were laid down
>> visible on the canyon walls, so the canyon must have been carved after
>> the flood.
>>
>> Moreover, these layers would take time to solidify from mud, clay and
>> were still in a semi-liquid state, sheer cliffs could not have
>> rock? =A0I don't know, but certainly many years, I would think.
>>
>> So, the usual explanation is that a huge lake was dammed up, and a
>> sudden failure of the natural dam that held these waters back
>> unleashed a catastrophic flood that carved the canyon in a matter of
>>
>> We know that such catastrophic events are possible, or at least
>> been fully solidified when this catastrophe occurred. =A0How much water
>> would it take to carry away the rock that was removed?
>>
>> We can roughly estimate the volume of rock removed at about 2000 cubic
>f
>> you picture a cubic foot of water churning furiously through the
>> canyon, it's hard to imagine more than a tenth of that amount (by
>> least 20,000 cubic miles of water to do the job. =A0And, frankly, a
>> slurry that's 10% rock, 90% water is hard to imagine.
>>
>> woefully inadequate. =A0OK, how about Superior? =A02900 cubic miles.
>> Closer, but no cigar. =A0We would need a lake about seven times the
>> volume of Superior. =A0 Picture a lake the size of the Gulf of Mexico
>> 175 feet deep.
>>
>> Is it possible that a lake this big existed just a few thousand years
>> shoreline, not even a hint?
>>
>> And where is the 2000 cubic miles of rock that was presumably carried
>> grain at a time over millions of years. =A0(Do we have a geologist on
>> the group who can tell us where that rock is now?) =A0But if it was
>> removed in one catastrophe, where did it go?
>>
>> post links to creationist sites that try to explain it. =A0I've read
>> them all, and they don't even bother to address the volume problem.
>>
>> Tim
>
>Well, I'm disappointed. Our creationist friends are perfectly willing
>to engage in a lengthy debate over the meaning of "literalism", and
>similar topics that serve only as a vehicle for name-calling, but they
>are unwilling to defend the very basic tenets of their faith, such as
>the flood of Noah.
>
>OK, one last try: I claim that the geological features of the Grand
>Canyon stands as a complete refutation of the notion of a young
>earth. I invite a single YEC to contest that claim.
>
>Tim
>
How about this:
The Grand Canyon is a complex specified structure.
Therefore it must have been intelligently designed, not carved
out by a flood.
And the Bible does not say that Noah's Flood carved out any canyons.
--
---Tom S.
"...ID is not science ... because we simply do not know what it is saying."
Sahotra Sarkar, "The science question in intelligent design", Synthese,
DOI:10,1007/s11229-009-9540-x
Wombat
> "On Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:59:21 -0700 (PDT), in article
Anyway, if Ye Floode could carve out a canyon so easily, why aren't
there lots of canyons on every continental margin?
Wombat
Ernest Major
<38d04220-aaa3-4728...@b15g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
Wombat <tri...@multiweb.nl> writes
on various continental margins. Google for "undersea canyon". (The
Hudson Canyon is the best known.) They are believed to be eroded by
turbidity currents.
--
alias Ernest Major
Nomen Publicus
Slartibartfast spent to much time over the fjords found on the coast of
Norway.
--
Aldous Huxley: Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Wombat
> In message
> <38d04220-aaa3-4728-a468-e4bbd942b...@b15g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
I do know about undersea canyons, but I was thinking of canyons just
like the GC along every continent as the floode waters poured off the
continents.
Wombat
Wombat
Surely fjords are clearly glacial in origin, as Slartibartfast
intended.
Wombat
Kent Paul Dolan
>>>> Jim <jimwille...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> While oral tradition may indeed have a kernel
>>>>> of historical truth, it is a little
>>>>> far-fetched to expect oral tradition to carry
>>>>> back to before the emergence of the genus
>>>>> Homo...
>>>> It is true that Australopithecus had very poor
>>>> handwriting so that their written records
>>>> couldn't even be read by the author. However
>>>> their oral traditions were beyond reproach.
>>> Didn't the ability to form speech as we know it
>>> appear after Australopithecus?
>> You are right and r norman is wrong.
>> Australopithecus had excellent handwriting
>> because their speech was so primitive.
> You mean they could write perfectly but had
> nothing to say so they never bothered? I remember
> a really interesting silicon valley start-up
> company that developed a fantastic write-only
> memory chip. They soon went out of business and I
> never did learn why.
The answer is on the chip, of course.
Meanwhile, it was neither oral nor written tradition
that conveyed to us the mundane everyday life
details of the Australopithecus. Instead everything
was carried down to us in mime, for which they had
all the requisite parts.
xanthian.
r norman
Well that certainly accounts for the funny whiteface and eye markings
on the fossils, not to mention the strange striped shirts in their
sacrificial burial sites.
Kent Paul Dolan
Yep, and why it took them millions of years to
evolve out of a box no one else could see.
xanthian.
Louann Miller
@news.albasani.net:
> Meanwhile, it was neither oral nor written tradition
> that conveyed to us the mundane everyday life
> details of the Australopithecus. Instead everything
> was carried down to us in mime, for which they had
> all the requisite parts.
So you're arguing that other, later hominds hunted them to extinction?
Dick C.
@news.albasani.net:
I was thinking that the mimes eventually evolved to being
Neanderthals, and they went extinct because our lineage could
no longer stand mimes anymore.
--
Dick #1349
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety."
~Benjamin Franklin
Home Page: dickcr.iwarp.com
email: dic...@gmail.com
Kent Paul Dolan
> Kent Paul Dolan <xant...@well.com> wrote:
>> Meanwhile, it was neither oral nor written tradition
>> that conveyed to us the mundane everyday life
>> details of the Australopithecus. Instead everything
>> was carried down to us in mime, for which they had
>> all the requisite parts.
> So you're arguing that other, later hominds hunted
> them to extinction?
Wouldn't you?
xanthian,
Dan Drake
> On 28 July, 06:44, Tim DeLaney <delaney.timo...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > For some reason, the creationist claims regarding the Grand Canyon
> > have always fascinated me. ÿI guess the source of my fascination is
> > the immense self-deception necessary to suppose it was created by the
> > flood.
> >
> > The usual creationist explanation, as I understand it, is that all the
> > layers of the geologic column from the Cambrian forward were laid down
> > by the flood, since they contain fossils. ÿMany of these layers are
> > visible on the canyon walls, so the canyon must have been carved after
> > the flood.
> >
> > Moreover, these layers would take time to solidify from mud, clay and
> > sediment into solid rock. ÿHad the canyon been formed while the layers
> > were still in a semi-liquid state, sheer cliffs could not have
> > formed. ÿHow long would it take for sediment a mile deep to turn into
> > rock? ÿI don't know, but certainly many years, I would think.
>
> I have asked this a few times but have never received an answer.
>
> >
> > So, the usual explanation is that a huge lake was dammed up, and a
> > sudden failure of the natural dam that held these waters back
> > unleashed a catastrophic flood that carved the canyon in a matter of
> > hours or days or weeks. ÿ(Take your pick)
> >
> > We know that such catastrophic events are possible, or at least
> > conceivable. ÿBut the rock that now forms the canyon walls must have
> > been fully solidified when this catastrophe occurred. ÿHow much water
> > would it take to carry away the rock that was removed?
> >
> > We can roughly estimate the volume of rock removed at about 2000 cubic
> > miles. ÿHow much water would it take to carry away that much rock? ÿIf
> > you picture a cubic foot of water churning furiously through the
> > canyon, it's hard to imagine more than a tenth of that amount (by
> > volume) being being suspended rock. ÿBy this metric, it would take at
> > least 20,000 cubic miles of water to do the job. ÿAnd, frankly, a
> > slurry that's 10% rock, 90% water is hard to imagine.
> >
> > How about a lake the size of lake Tahoe? ÿJust 37 cubic miles --
> > woefully inadequate. ÿOK, how about Superior? ÿ2900 cubic miles.
> > Closer, but no cigar. ÿWe would need a lake about seven times the
> > volume of Superior. ÿ Picture a lake the size of the Gulf of Mexico
> > 175 feet deep.
> >
> > Is it possible that a lake this big existed just a few thousand years
> > ago, and left no trace whatever of its existence? ÿNo putative
> > shoreline, not even a hint?
>
> The Washington Scablands were formed by a series of massive floods
> caused by the collapse of ice dams at the end of the last ice age.
> These flloods did not form a massive canyon.
Well, actually they did, just not at that place, and this in fact
strengthens the case.
When those unimaginable floods got downstream a little, they got to the
Cascade Range, through which the Columbia had cut a gap on its orderly way
to the Pacific. After the floods, that broad old valley had a deep, narrow
V-shaped canyon in the middle of it. I strongly encourage driving up out
of the Columbia Gorge to some viewpoint on the rim and admiring the view.
Then you can drive down again, and visit *Multnomah* Falls(1) and lots of
others: streams which were left in hanging valleys when the gorge was
suddenly cut, as Yosemite Creek and others were left hanging after the
glaciers had done their slightly slower work of deepening the Merced River
valley that's now Yosemite Valley.
The point: You see all those hanging valleys and impressive waterfalls in
the Grand Canyon? No, because normal slow erosion allows time for the
tributaries to erode their own valleys. You can see this happening on the
Columbia, where the fast erosion at the waterfalls have made the falls
retreat from the river, leaving their own deep gorges leading the rest of
the way to the main river. Some geologists believe that this process will
continue until the falls are all replaced with steep rapids leading the
whole way down those tributary canyons.
To a hearer who has or can have the brain engaged, this sort of visual
proof should be really convincing. Considering that the Columbia Gorge and
the Grand Canyon, not to mention that other place, are much sought out for
scenic beauties, this gives a new meaning to "elegant proof".
(1) Not that other name that some bozo used a few days ago. Incidentally,
both Multnomah and Willamette are stressed, absurdly enough considering
the spellings, on the second syllable.
--
Dan Drake
d...@dandrake.com
http://www.dandrake.com/
porlockjr.blogspot.com