Four questions for YECs - (and a little history of creationism vs evolution)

[Sparks]

2 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

The trees are fallen and  horizontal there.  You won't see polystrate trees that way.  They have to be upright so that the layers form around them.  

No, they tip when they become water logged.  The picture of Spirit Lake below shows this:

This illustration shows that they are buried in the 'strata' upright, and prone.  Soon, some person will stroll by that does not understand that these came from a volcano in the 1980s and claim they have been this way for trillions of years.  They will exactly match the polystrate fossils that you see from the great flood of Noah's day.

 

[Sparks]

2 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

Fortunately, one can determine heights of ash deposits by a variety of methods would you like to learn how we do that?   Notice my estimate of the gulley's height turned out to be very close to your claim.   About 164 feet to your 150 feet.

Nope.  Loowit canyon was carved by mudslides, and carved through hard volcanic rock within months, not trillions of years.

Imagine what a world-wide flood could do! 

[The Barbarian]

Fortunately, one can determine heights of ash deposits by a variety of methods would you like to learn how we do that?   Notice my estimate of the gulley's height turned out to be very close to your claim.   About 164 feet to your 150 feet.

1 hour ago, Sparks said:

Nope. 

Sorry, that's the converson.   Fifty meters is just a tiny bit more than 164 feet.   Learn about it here:
https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/length/meter-to-feet.html?x=50#

1 hour ago, Sparks said:

Loowit canyon was carved by mudslides,

Grand Canyon was eroded out of hard rock over millions of years.  

1 hour ago, Sparks said:

and carved through hard volcanic rock within months

Mud is not hard volcanic rock.   Sorry.

And you were badly misled here.   It's "Loowit creek" which was cut out of soft ash over 40 years.   It falls over an existing cliff at Sasquatch Steps, where it now is slowly eroding harder rock:

Loowit Falls, which drain Mount Saint Helens' youthful Crater Glacier and are themselves only about 40 years old, cut back into a canyon in the Sasquatch Steps at the rate of about 20 feet per decade. The falls were measured at 186 feet in 2011, but the dynamic landscape means this statistic is always changing.

https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guide/Loowit_Falls

It's been nearly thirty years since I've been there last.   Good memories of that hike,which I'm probably too old to climb now.   Suffice to say 20 feet per decade is a lot difference than 150 feet in a few months.  

 

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by The Barbarian

[The Barbarian]

Approaching Mt. St. Helens from the west:

From Johnson's ridge:

Pretty amazing, um?   These were taken on 120 film with a Voigtlander Perkeo.   How retro is that?

 

[Sparks]

43 minutes ago, The Barbarian said:

Fortunately, one can determine heights of ash deposits by a variety of methods would you like to learn how we do that?   Notice my estimate of the gulley's height turned out to be very close to your claim.   About 164 feet to your 150 feet.

Sorry, that's the converson.   Fifty meters is just a tiny bit more than 164 feet.   Learn about it here:
https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/length/meter-to-feet.html?x=50#

Grand Canyon was eroded out of hard rock over millions of years.  

Mud is not hard volcanic rock.   Sorry.

And you were badly misled here.   It's "Loowit creek" which was cut out of soft ash over 40 years.   It falls over an existing cliff at Sasquatch Steps, where it now is slowly eroding harder rock:

Loowit Falls, which drain Mount Saint Helens' youthful Crater Glacier and are themselves only about 40 years old, cut back into a canyon in the Sasquatch Steps at the rate of about 20 feet per decade. The falls were measured at 186 feet in 2011, but the dynamic landscape means this statistic is always changing.

https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guide/Loowit_Falls

It's been nearly thirty years since I've been there last.   Good memories of that hike,which I'm probably too old to climb now.   Suffice to say 20 feet per decade is a lot difference than 150 feet in a few months. 

It was cut with in a mud slide dragging stones, sawing through hard lava, and making Loowit canyon over months.

[Sparks]

25 minutes ago, The Barbarian said:

Approaching Mt. St. Helens from the west:

From Johnson's ridge:

Pretty amazing, um?   These were taken on 120 film with a Voigtlander Perkeo.   How retro is that?

 

Nice photos.  Not sure of your point.

[The Barbarian]

22 minutes ago, Sparks said:

It was cut with in a mud slide dragging stones, sawing through hard lava, and making Loowit canyon over months.

It's just a creek in a gully formed about 40 years ago.  Cuts through soft ash until Sasquatch Steps  And as you learned, it's cutting into hard rock at the falls at about 20 feet per decade.   (young rivers typically erode things faster, which is why they tend to be straighter than old rivers)  Take a look here:

 https://earth.google.com/web/search/loowit+falls/@46.21895055,-122.19010054,1570.88892347a,4767.81056311d,35y,-61.23292376h,45.0077809t,359.99999987r/data=CnYaTBJGCiQweDU0OTY5OTA4YjU2ZmEzOWQ6MHhjOTQxNGE5NGNiYzBhZWYZcxXmmIccR0AhZuyVw7iLXsAqDGxvb3dpdCBmYWxscxgBIAEiJgokCdu7rRPVJkdAEeQZ1zKJGUdAGR1Pd0xyhV7AIaIhV1gPjl7A

Edited May 22, 2023 by The Barbarian

[The Barbarian]

1 hour ago, Sparks said:

Nice photos.  Not sure of your point.

Just remembering.   Happy time there.

 

[teddyv]

On 5/21/2023 at 10:05 AM, Retrobyter said:

Shalom, teddyv.

Good! This is a positive start; however, the Flood was indeed a worldwide, cataclismic event; so, it was something one would EXPECT to find evidence for within the strata. That puts it BACK in the "realm of scientific inquiry." As Paul said about the Resurrection of our Lord, "this was NOT done in a corner!" The same thing is true about the Flood during Noach's lifetime, between his 600th birthday and his 601st birthday! It likewise was "not done in a corner!"

If it was a truly worldwide event that is responsible for much of the geomorphological landscape of the earth, then it is very well hidden. The last 150 years of geological mapping and knowledge has not presented a global coherent example of such an event. 

On 5/21/2023 at 10:05 AM, Retrobyter said:

Taking it "out of the realm of scientific inquiry" doesn't put it into the realm of legends and myths and fairy tales. It was still a REAL EVENT!

If it was a real event, then, as the current evidence stands, you must invoke the miraculous to have it actually occur but leave no obvious trace of it. If that's the case, then so be it, but then why complicate matters by using naturalistic methods? It only opens it up to scientific scrutiny. 

 

I don't really see anything wrong with the opening of the Bible in the realm of myth or imagery borrowed from the contemporary cosmology (this is not the same as a fairy tale for those who insist on building strawmen). Ironic, for YEC (e.g. AiG, CMI, ICR) seems caught in the trap of rationalism and modernity by reading the Bible as a modern piece of historical narrative.

[teddyv]

On 5/20/2023 at 11:59 PM, Retrobyter said:

Shalom, teddyv.

When hydrologists look at the strata, they see not only the layering, but also the discontinuities in the strata! Mount St. Helens is a miniature of the Grand Canyon, cut in 4 years!

Addressed previously. Different rocks, some unconsolidated at Mt. St. Helens.

If it took 4 years at Mt St Helens, then the Grand Canyon would have to have been even less.

On 5/20/2023 at 11:59 PM, Retrobyter said:

Sorry? I don't know the word "lithofed." Are you saying it was "lithofied?" as in "changed into rock?" or are you saying that it was "lifted up?" or ...what?

Lithified.

On 5/20/2023 at 11:59 PM, Retrobyter said:

That's because "the fountains of the deep were broken up!" (Genesis 7:11). They weren't placidly laid down in layers; they were JUMBLED TOGETHER! There ARE NO pre-Flood sections! What was pre-Flood can't be distinguished from what was laid down post-Flood!

This is important but a bit tangential to the topic here. If all sediments are post-Flood, that has some rather big implications. If all Grand Canyon sediments were laid down post Flood, then they needed to be lithified. We are dealing with limestones, formed in quiescent ocean basins, mudstones to sandstones, formed in more shallow areas proximal to the continental shelves, and eolian (windblown) sandstones formed in dry above water conditions. Only then can the Flood waters be cutting through these sediments to create the canyon itself. If you cannot see the timeline issue here, then I'm not sure what to say. 

If we say these sediments are Pre-Flood (essentially created as-is by God in the creation, you get out of one problem and step into another.

On 5/20/2023 at 11:59 PM, Retrobyter said:

Before the Flood, we have 1,656 years (See Genesis 5), and then there was the year of the Flood. In all of the time prior to the Flood, we're not told of any geologic changes to the land - no volcanoes, no earthquakes.

The Bible is pretty silent on all these things outside of Genesis as well. Earthquakes are mentioned here and there. I'm not aware of any mention of volcanoes anywhere (possibly Mt. Horeb, but it's not specifically mentioned).

On 5/20/2023 at 11:59 PM, Retrobyter said:

Then, in Genesis 7, we read,

Genesis 7:11-12 (KJV)

11 In the six hundredth (600th) year of Noah's life, in the second (2nd) month, the seventeenth (17th) day of the month, the same day were ALL the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows (sluicegates) of heaven were opened. 12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

This was NOT some local, "tranquil" flood! This was a MASSIVE EVENT! I do believe that, before the Flood, we did have a Pangaea - a single massive continent - that rose above sea level, making all the waters below the skies a single massive "Panthallassa" - a single ocean. And, the Flood didn't begin on the land but beneath the ocean! This disrupted the balance above the skies, and started the rain to fall.

Have you ever considered just how much water would have fallen if the waters below the skies were the same amount as the waters above the skies? Whereas the amount of water in the ocean DID change during the FLOOD, there was the same amount of water overall as there is today.

It is estimated that the earth contains 326 quintillion gallons of water! If God divided the waters in half and put half of that water above the skies, then we're talking 163 quintillion gallons above the skies. Now, there are 24 hours in a day and night period, and it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. So, it rained for 24 x 40 = 960 hours. That means that we have an average of 163 quintillion gallons / 960 hours = 169,791,666,666,666,667 gallons fell per hour! The surface area of the earth is 196,900,000 square miles. Multiplying the square miles by 5280 x 5280 square feet per square mile and dividing the total gallons / hour by the result, gives one 30.9316 gallons / sq ft / hour ... ON AVERAGE! No breathing creature on the face of the earth would have stood a chance! They would be drowned in a matter of a couple of minutes!

The heat problem must be addressed here.

AiG recently published: Heat Problems Associated with Genesis Flood Models—Part 4: Heat Deposited by Magmatic Activity

source

From the conclusions:

"The main conclusion of this article is that the total amount of geological heat deposited in the formation of the ocean floors and of LIPs [Large Igneous Provinces] is overwhelming: it cannot be removed from the biosphere within a biblically-compatible timescale by known natural processes. Using CPT [Catastrophic Plate Tectonics]-style Flood models as our 228 William J. Worraker theoretical framework, no more than a tiny fraction of the total could have been released into the atmosphere and oceans during and after the Flood. Given that the highest bulk ocean temperature in the early Cenozoic did not exceed 13°C in contrast with the present-day value of ~2°C (Worraker 2018; the lower figure of 2°C may be taken as a representative pre-Flood minimum temperature), the total heat absorbed by the oceans, earth’s main environmental heat sink, would have been of order 6×1025 J at most, assuming a thermal capacity of 5.5×1024 J/K (as estimated above). This is only 0.04% of the total heat deposition: the remaining 99.96% must have been removed or absorbed elsewhere. It seems that this must have been accomplished by some special, hitherto unrecognized mechanism."

I underlined the last bit, because it seems they are really running out of options. It's not a bad statement on the face of it, as there are lots areas of discovery that we are still trying to understand mechanisms, but it downplays the magnitude of the problem.