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#Post#: 50--------------------------------------------------
JB/MEGATSUNAMIS
By: Admin Date: January 23, 2017, 3:04 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Critique
HTML http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/agescience2.htm
Cambrian Tapeats Sandstone: basal unit of the Sauk megasequence
HTML https://www.socalsem.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/flood12.jpg
St. Peter Sandstone: basal unit of the Tippecanoe Megasequence
HTML https://www.socalsem.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/flood15.jpg
Jurassic Morrison Formation
HTML https://www.socalsem.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/flood23.jpg
Complete Geologic Column
HTML http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geocolumn/basin3.gif
-----
« on: January 23, 2017, 03:04:25 pm »
HTML http://funday.createaforum.com/s/jb/
Noah’s Flood: The Key to Correct Interpretation of Earth History
by John Baumgardner, Ph.D. | Sep 18, 2013
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Retired
Presented at the International Noah and Judi Mountain Symposium
Şirnak University, Şirnak, Turkey
September 27-29, 2013
- - Prominent Physical Aspects of <THE CATACLYSM>
<DISCONTINUITIES>
- ... The logical place in the rock record for the onset of this
cataclysm therefore must be where five striking global-scale
geological discontinuities ... all coincide (Snelling 2009,
707-711):
a mechanical-erosional discontinuity,
a time/age discontinuity,
a tectonic discontinuity,
a sedimentary discontinuity,
and a paleontological discontinuity
- This unique boundary lies at the base of the Ediacaran in the
late Neoproterozoic part of the geological record.
- The identification of this boundary with the onset of the
Flood implies that a staggering amount of tectonic catastrophism
also must have accompanied the large amount of erosion and
sedimentation involved.
<MEGASEQUENCES>
- The Great Unconformity
- This striking erosional unconformity, which simultaneously
corresponds to time/age, tectonic, sedimentary, and
paleontological discontinuities, is indeed of global extent
(Ager 1973, 10-11).
- The violence of the erosion at this discontinuity is revealed
by huge quartzite boulders in the basal portion of the Tapeats
Sandstone in the Grand Canyon.
- Figure 9 is a photograph of one of these boulders that is 4.5
m in diameter and weighs 200 tons.
- Figure 10 is a map showing the lateral extent of the Cambrian
Tapeats Sandstone and its equivalents across North America.
<NOTE3: See References/transcontinental strata etc.>
- - Megasequences
- The Tapeats Sandstone corresponds to the base of what is known
as the Sauk Megasequence, the lowest of six sediment
megasequences, originally identified and described by Sloss
(1963) in North America, that are separated from one another by
global-scale erosional unconformities (Snelling 2009, 528-530,
740-741).
- Figure 11 is a simplified representation of how these six
large packages of sediment are distributed in an east-west
direction across the North American continent.
- What is striking is that separating each megasequence from the
next is a craton-wide erosional unconformity.
<HOW?>- The six erosional unconformities essentially beveled the
continental surface flat before the deposition of the next thick
sequence of sedimentary layers.
- Figure 11. Diagram showing the six Phanerozoic megasequences
described originally by Sloss (1963) for the North American
craton.
<SHOW CRATONS>- These six huge packages of sediment are thickest
near the craton margins and thinnest near the craton center.
- - Global-scale numerical modeling of Flood erosion and
sedimentation
- The numerical approach applies the equations of open channel
turbulent flow to model sediment transport and deposition within
the framework of a scheme that solves the shallow water
equations on a rotating sphere.
<CAVITATION ON SUPERCONTINENT>
circular supercontinent that covers 38% of the spherical
surface.
<TSUNAMIS>
- Numerical experiments so far suggest that large tidal pulses
are required to drive the water strongly enough to erode,
transport, and deposit the required volumes of sediment.
- Figure 13 contains snapshots of the solution from this model
at a time of only one day after the onset of a tidal pulse of
amplitude 2500 m centered at 30° latitude and 90° longitude
relative to the center of the continent.
- The circular continent initially is slightly domed, with a
height of 150 m above sea level at its center and 24 m below sea
level about its perimeter.
- The surrounding ocean has a uniform depth of 4000 m.
- Figure 13. Snapshots at time of one day after the onset of a
2500 m high tidal pulse of (a.) suspended sediment load, (b.)
cumulative bedrock erosion, (c.) net cumulative sedimentation,
and (d.) topographic height relative to sea level in a global
erosion/sedimentation model.
- The velocities indicated are the velocities near the top of
the moving water layer.
- The vertical water velocity profile decreases to zero in a
logarithmic manner at the land surface according to standard
turbulence theory.
- Cavitation erosion of crystalline bedrock is assumed to
produce sediment that is 70% fine sand with a mean grain size of
0.063 mm, 20% medium sand with a mean grain size of 0.50 mm, and
10% coarse sand with a mean grain size of 1.0 mm.
- Bottom friction and turbulent eddy viscosity are included in
the momentum equation and cause the water velocities to diminish
with time.
- Nevertheless, moderate erosion and sedimentation continues for
several weeks after the tidal pulse.
- A significant amount of erosion occurs at the continent
margin.
- The experiments conducted thus far indicate that six such
pulses spaced about 30 days apart are adequate to erode,
transport, and deposit, on average, the 1,800 m of sediment
observed to blanket the continental surface today.
<QUOTE:
HTML https://www.britannica.com/science/sedimentary-rock
The sediment-sedimentary rock shell forms only a thin
superficial layer. The mean shell thickness in continental areas
is 1.8 kilometres; the sediment shell in the ocean basins is
roughly 0.3 kilometre.>
- The strong, global-scale tsunami-like waves these pulses
initially generate do indeed result in erosional unconformities
that affect most of the continent surface.
<SEE>- For more details of the model and a more complete
description of this specific case, see Baumgardner (2013).
<Baumgardner, John R. 2013. “Explaining the continental
fossil-bearing sediment record in terms of the Genesis Flood:
Insights from numerical modeling of erosion, sediment transport,
and deposition processes on a global scale.” In Proceedings of
the Seventh International Conference on Creationism, edited by
Mark Horstemeyer. Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship,
Inc.>
<STRATA EXTENT>
- Figure 14 provides a summary glimpse into some of the general
characteristics of this record.
- One feature is the thickness of the sequence, originally some
5000 m in this Colorado Plateau region before later erosion
removed a significant fraction.
- Why is there so little erosional channeling at formation
boundaries within the thick layer-cake like succession of
layers, as illustrated in Figure 15 (Snelling 2009, 591-592)?
- Nowhere on earth is there currently such a sequence of layers,
mostly of marine affinity, with such vast lateral extent being
deposited within continent interiors.
- Figure 14. Illustrative north-south cross section of the
western Colorado Plateau region of North America. Note the
generally smooth contacts at formation boundaries, in contrast
with the channelized topography of the continental surface
today. Most of the formations shown here are laterally
continuous over hundreds of thousands of square km. Some with
their equivalents are global in lateral extent.
<WET NOT DRY SANDSTONE>
- Moreover, many formations throughout the Phanerozoic
sedimentary record display persuasive internal evidence for
rapid, even catastrophic, deposition.
- This is true for many of the formations in the Colorado
Plateau shown in Figure 14, especially several of the strongly
cross-bedded sandstone formations, beginning with the Cambrian
Tapeats Sandstone (Snelling 2009, 506, 508, 528-530), but also
including the Permian Coconino Sandstone (Snelling 2009,
501-510, the Triassic Shinarump Conglomerate (Snelling 2009,
519-520), and the Jurassic Navajo Sandstone (Morris, 2012, 163).
- Although the Coconino crossbeds are interpreted in the
conventional literature as eolian, there are several compelling
reasons to reject that interpretation and instead conclude that
they must be the product of water action.
<1>- The first reason is the grain size distribution.
- The Coconino sand is poorly sorted with a bimodal distribution
consisting of two populations of grain sizes, each of which is
log-normal distributed.
- By contrast, wind-borne sand in a desert environment is almost
always well-sorted with a unimodal grain size distribution.
<2>- The second reason concerns the crossbed angle relative to
the horizontal.
- In desert dunes, the bedding angle is close to the angle of
repose of dry sand, which is 31°. By contrast the crossbed angle
observed in modern marine environments is 20-25°, which is what
is observed for the Coconino.
<3>- A third reason involves mineralogical composition.
- Because biotite grains are so fragile, there are quickly
destroyed under desert wind conditions.
<4>- A fourth reason is the presence of recumbent folding
observed within the Coconino crossbeds.
- This phenomenon is common today in alluvial settings where
gravity-induced shear occurs at the base of sand waves as grains
are able to rotate in water-supported sand, and the sand wave
partially collapses.
- Such a process does not occur, however, in dry sand.
<5>- A fifth reason is the abundance of well-preserved animal
trackways on many crossbed surfaces in the Coconino.
- Wet sand is essential for such preservation.
- It is difficult to conceive how trackways could possibly be a
common feature in desert dunes.
<6>- Finally, the Coconino has inter-tonguing layers of
water-deposited dolomite near its boundary with the overlying
Toroweap Formation, which itself is clearly marine.
<G:INFO WITH FLOOD WATER VELOCITY.>
<TSUNAMI TRANSPORT>
- A key line of evidence supporting a catastrophic,
world-destroying Flood is the huge lateral extent of so many of
the sedimentary formations and the staggering volumes of
sediment they represent.
- The uniformity of a formation as laterally extensive as the
Coconino suggests a coherent rapidly moving water column
capable, by virtue of its turbulence, of suspending a
considerable thickness of sediment and transporting it a
considerable distance before deposition finally takes place.
- Under such conditions it is not surprising that sand waves
could result in the deposition zone.
- Figure 18 shows how crossbeds can form in response to
sustained water flow with a sustained supply of sand falling
from suspension.
- Indeed, to deposit the average amount of Phanerozoic sediment
observed to be present [on] the continents today, 1800 m, ...
unmistakably requires — on average — tens of m of sediment in
suspension in a tsunami-like column of water which is thick
enough to support such a sediment load, moving with a speed of
at least tens of m/s (Baumgardner 2013).
- The presence of many layers in the sediment record that
require such conditions for their formation testify to the
reasonableness of such conclusions.
- Figure 18. Diagrams illustrating the formation of cross beds
on a sandy bed in response to sustained water flow. Top: Diagram
showing the formation of tabular cross beds by down-current
migration of sand waves beneath sustained water flow. Bottom:
Cross-sectional diagram showing how sand waves migrate and form
inclined beds on the down-current side of the sand wave where
the flow direction is reversed. For clarity, the bottom diagram
is drawn with a large vertical exaggeration. (From Austin 1994,
33)
<EROSION PHASE>
- Massive sheet erosion seems to be required to remove huge
volume of sediment once present but now missing from much of the
Colorado Plateau region (Snelling 2009, 595-596).
- Figure 23 shows the global distribution of sediment today.
- It is clear from this map that the thickest accumulations of
sediment are along the continent margins, mostly on the
continental shelves.
- Figure 22. Diagram illustrating the huge volumes of sediment
stripped away from continent interiors in the latter stages of
the Flood cataclysm.
- Figure 23. Global map of sediment thickness. Thickness scale
is in km. Sediment thickness averaged over the continents today
is 1800 m. Thickest accumulations are on the continental
shelves, presumably the result of runoff during the final stages
of the Flood. (From Laske and Masters 1997)
#Post#: 75--------------------------------------------------
Re: JB/MEGATSUNAMIS
By: Admin Date: January 28, 2017, 4:30 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Paper1 Part 1 JB: FLOOD
« on: January 23, 2017, 03:04:25 pm »
HTML http://funday.createaforum.com/s/jb/
Noah’s Flood: The Key to Correct Interpretation of Earth History
by John Baumgardner, Ph.D. | Sep 18, 2013
John Baumgardner, Ph.D
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Retired
Presented at the International Noah and Judi Mountain Symposium
Şirnak University, Şirnak, Turkey
September 27-29, 2013
- - Prominent Physical Aspects of <THE CATACLYSM>
<DISCONTINUITIES>
<>- ... The logical place in the rock record for the onset of
this cataclysm therefore must be where five striking
global-scale geological discontinuities ... all coincide
(Snelling 2009, 707-711):
a mechanical-erosional discontinuity,
a time/age discontinuity,
a tectonic discontinuity,
a sedimentary discontinuity,
and a paleontological discontinuity
....
<>- This unique boundary lies at the base of the Ediacaran in
the late Neoproterozoic part of the geological record.
- Where Ediacaran sediments are missing, it coincides with the
Precambrian-Cambrian boundary where Cambrian sediments are
present.
<>- The identification of this boundary with the onset of the
Flood implies that a staggering amount of tectonic catastrophism
also must have accompanied the large amount of erosion and
sedimentation involved.
- This paper summarizes some of the work done over the past
thirty years to apply numerical modeling to investigate various
aspects of this year-long event that dramatically refashioned
the face of the earth.
- Although the paleontological discontinuity is commonly
referred to as the ‘Cambrian explosion’ because of the sudden
appearance of almost every modern animal phylum in the lower
Cambrian strata, it is now clear that the organisms fossilized
in the Ediacaran sediments also are part of this explosion,
because the Ediacaran sediments lie above the global scale
erosional discontinuity.
<MEGASEQUENCES>
<>- The Great Unconformity
<>- This striking erosional unconformity, which simultaneously
corresponds to time/age, tectonic, sedimentary, and
paleontological discontinuities, is indeed of global extent
(Ager 1973, 10-11).
- In much of North America, the sedimentary layer just above
this discontinuity is the Tapeats Sandstone and its equivalents.
<>- The violence of the erosion at this discontinuity is
revealed by huge quartzite boulders in the basal portion of the
Tapeats Sandstone in the Grand Canyon.
<>- Figure 9 is a photograph of one of these boulders that is
4.5 m in diameter and weighs 200 tons.
<>- Figure 10 is a map showing the lateral extent of the
Cambrian Tapeats Sandstone and its equivalents across North
America.
<><NOTE3: See References/transcontinental strata etc.>
- This prominent erosional discontinuity, here beneath the
Tapeats Sandstone but worldwide in its distribution, has become
known as the Great Unconformity.
- - Large boulder of Shinumo Quartzite
- Figure 9. Large boulder of Shinumo Quartzite 4.5 m in diameter
near the base of the lower Cambrian Tapeats Sandstone in the
Grand Canyon that illustrates the intensity of the catastrophism
that deposited this extensive sandstone layer. (From Austin
1994, 46)
- Map showing the distribution of the lower Cambrian Tapeats
Sandstone
- Figure 10. Map showing the distribution of the lower Cambrian
Tapeats Sandstone and its equivalents across North America.
(From Morris 2012, 149)
<>- - Megasequences
<>- The Tapeats Sandstone corresponds to the base of what is
known as the Sauk Megasequence, the lowest of six sediment
megasequences, originally identified and described by Sloss
(1963) in North America, that are separated from one another by
global-scale erosional unconformities (Snelling 2009, 528-530,
740-741).
<>- Figure 11 is a simplified representation of how these six
large packages of sediment are distributed in an east-west
direction across the North American continent.
<>- What is striking is that separating each megasequence from
the next is a craton-wide erosional unconformity.
<><HOW?>- The six erosional unconformities essentially beveled
the continental surface flat before the deposition of the next
thick sequence of sedimentary layers.
- As just mentioned, the Tapeats Sandstone and its equivalents
lie just above the first of these six erosional unconformities.
- It is also useful to note here that where Neoproterozoic
Ediacaran sediments are present, this first erosional
unconformity occurs just beneath these sediments.
- The basal formation of the next megasequence, known as the
Tippecanoe Megasequence, is the widely distributed St. Peter
Sandstone.
- Figure 12 displays the lateral distribution for this
distinctive sandstone formation.
<>- Diagram showing the six Phanerozoic megasequences described
originally by Sloss
- Figure 11. Diagram showing the six Phanerozoic megasequences
described originally by Sloss (1963) for the North American
craton.
<><SHOW CRATONS>- These six huge packages of sediment are
thickest near the craton margins and thinnest near the craton
center.
- They are separated from one another by craton-wide erosional
unconformities.
- The Tapeats sandstone and its equivalents are the basal unit
of the Sauk megasequence in North America.
- - Distribution of the St. Peter Sandstone and its equivalents
in North America
- Figure 12. Distribution of the St. Peter Sandstone and its
equivalents in North America. This formation is the basal unit
of the Tippecanoe Megasequence. (From Morris 2012, 111)
<>- - Global-scale numerical modeling of Flood erosion and
sedimentation
- In the context of the global Flood described in the Torah,
what could possibly have been the mechanism that resulted in
such a large-scale pattern of erosion and sedimentation?
- Recently Baumgardner (2013) has developed a numerical model
designed to explore this issue.
<>- The numerical approach applies the equations of open channel
turbulent flow to model sediment transport and deposition within
the framework of a scheme that solves the shallow water
equations on a rotating sphere.
<CAVITATION ON SUPERCONTINENT>
- The treatment of erosion is restricted to cavitation.
- Up to this point the continental geometry has been restricted
to a single circular supercontinent that covers 38% of the
spherical surface.
<TSUNAMIS>
<>- Numerical experiments so far suggest that large tidal pulses
are required to drive the water strongly enough to erode,
transport, and deposit the required volumes of sediment.
<>- Figure 13 contains snapshots of the solution from this model
at a time of only one day after the onset of a tidal pulse of
amplitude 2500 m centered at 30° latitude and 90° longitude
relative to the center of the continent.
<>- The circular continent initially is slightly domed, with a
height of 150 m above sea level at its center and 24 m below sea
level about its perimeter.
<>- The surrounding ocean has a uniform depth of 4000 m.
- - Snapshots at time of one day after the onset of a 2500 m
high tidal pulse
<>- Figure 13. Snapshots at time of one day after the onset of a
2500 m high tidal pulse of (a.) suspended sediment load, (b.)
cumulative bedrock erosion, (c.) net cumulative sedimentation,
and (d.) topographic height relative to sea level in a global
erosion/sedimentation model.
<>- The velocities indicated are the velocities near the top of
the moving water layer.
<>- The vertical water velocity profile decreases to zero in a
logarithmic manner at the land surface according to standard
turbulence theory.
<>- Cavitation erosion of crystalline bedrock is assumed to
produce sediment that is 70% fine sand with a mean grain size of
0.063 mm, 20% medium sand with a mean grain size of 0.50 mm, and
10% coarse sand with a mean grain size of 1.0 mm.
- A modest amount of isostatic compensation is folded into the
topography calculation.
<>- Bottom friction and turbulent eddy viscosity are included
in the momentum equation and cause the water velocities to
diminish with time.
<>- Nevertheless, moderate erosion and sedimentation continues
for several weeks after the tidal pulse.
<>- A significant amount of erosion occurs at the continent
margin.
<>- The experiments conducted thus far indicate that six such
pulses spaced about 30 days apart are adequate to erode,
transport, and deposit, on average, the 1,800 m of sediment
observed to blanket the continental surface today.
<><QUOTE:
HTML https://www.britannica.com/science/sedimentary-rock
The sediment-sedimentary rock shell forms only a thin
superficial layer. The mean shell thickness in continental areas
is 1.8 kilometres; the sediment shell in the ocean basins is
roughly 0.3 kilometre.>
<>- The strong, global-scale tsunami-like waves these pulses
initially generate do indeed result in erosional unconformities
that affect most of the continent surface.
<><SEE>- For more details of the model and a more complete
description of this specific case, see Baumgardner (2013).
<Baumgardner, John R. 2013. “Explaining the continental
fossil-bearing sediment record in terms of the Genesis Flood:
Insights from numerical modeling of erosion, sediment transport,
and deposition processes on a global scale.” In Proceedings of
the Seventh International Conference on Creationism, edited by
Mark Horstemeyer. Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship,
Inc.>
<STRATA EXTENT>
- - General characteristics of the sediment record consistent
with a global-scale Flood
- Already discussed is clear physical evidence associated with
the Tapeats Sandstone and its equivalents of global-scale
catastrophic process at the Flood’s onset.
- Equally clear indicators of high-energy laterally-extensive
processes are also abundant throughout the subsequent geological
record.
- There is space here to highlight only a few examples.
<>- Figure 14 provides a summary glimpse into some of the
general characteristics of this record.
<>- One feature is the thickness of the sequence, originally
some 5000 m in this Colorado Plateau region before later erosion
removed a significant fraction.
- What physical process would lower the surface of the normally
high-standing continents so that they could receive so much
sedimentary deposition?
<>- Why is there so little erosional channeling at formation
boundaries within the thick layer-cake like succession of
layers, as illustrated in Figure 15 (Snelling 2009, 591-592)?
- These features of the record are sufficient by themselves to
falsify the claim that “the present is the key to the past” as
far as the sediment record is concerned.
<>- Nowhere on earth is there currently such a sequence of
layers, mostly of marine affinity, with such vast lateral extent
being deposited within continent interiors.
- - Illustrative north-south cross section of the western
Colorado Plateau region of North America
<>- Figure 14. Illustrative north-south cross section of the
western Colorado Plateau region of North America. Note the
generally smooth contacts at formation boundaries, in contrast
with the channelized topography of the continental surface
today. Most of the formations shown here are laterally
continuous over hundreds of thousands of square km. Some with
their equivalents are global in lateral extent.
- - View of the contact between the Coconino Sandstone (above)
and the Hermit Shale (below) in the Grand Canyon
- Figure 15. View of the contact between the Coconino Sandstone
(above) and the Hermit Shale (below) in the Grand Canyon along
the Bright Angel Trail. Note the lack of erosional channeling
along this contact. This is not uncommon for contacts between
successive formations across the geological record. (From Austin
1994, 49)
<WET NOT DRY SANDSTONE>
- - Evidences of catastrophic process internal to the sediment
layers
<>- Moreover, many formations throughout the Phanerozoic
sedimentary record display persuasive internal evidence for
rapid, even catastrophic, deposition.
<>- This is true for many of the formations in the Colorado
Plateau shown in Figure 14, especially several of the strongly
cross-bedded sandstone formations, beginning with the Cambrian
Tapeats Sandstone (Snelling 2009, 506, 508, 528-530), but also
including the Permian Coconino Sandstone (Snelling 2009,
501-510, the Triassic Shinarump Conglomerate (Snelling 2009,
519-520), and the Jurassic Navajo Sandstone (Morris, 2012, 163).
- The Permian Coconino Sandstone is easy to recognize in the
Grand Canyon.
- Figure 16 is a photograph taken by the author from the Hance
Trail that begins on the south canyon rim. Well-developed
cross-bedding is evident in this photo.
- - Exposure of the Permian Coconino Sandstone near the south
rim of the Grand Canyon
- Figure 16. Exposure of the Permian Coconino Sandstone near the
south rim of the Grand Canyon (foreground). Note the evident
cross-bedding. The formation is also easy to identify on the
opposite side of the canyon.
<>- Although the Coconino crossbeds are interpreted in the
conventional literature as eolian, there are several compelling
reasons to reject that interpretation and instead conclude that
they must be the product of water action.
<><1>- The first reason is the grain size distribution.
<>- The Coconino sand is poorly sorted with a bimodal
distribution consisting of two populations of grain sizes, each
of which is log-normal distributed.
<>- By contrast, wind-borne sand in a desert environment is
almost always well-sorted with a unimodal grain size
distribution.
<><2>- The second reason concerns the crossbed angle relative to
the horizontal.
<>- In desert dunes, the bedding angle is close to the angle of
repose of dry sand, which is 31°. By contrast the crossbed angle
observed in modern marine environments is 20-25°, which is what
is observed for the Coconino.
<><3>- A third reason involves mineralogical composition.
- The Coconino sand includes biotite, a type of mica, at
approximately the 1% level.
<>- Because biotite grains are so fragile, there are quickly
destroyed under desert wind conditions.
<><4>- A fourth reason is the presence of recumbent folding
observed within the Coconino crossbeds.
<>- This phenomenon is common today in alluvial settings where
gravity-induced shear occurs at the base of sand waves as grains
are able to rotate in water-supported sand, and the sand wave
partially collapses.
<>- Such a process does not occur, however, in dry sand.
<><5>- A fifth reason is the abundance of well-preserved animal
trackways on many crossbed surfaces in the Coconino.
<>- Wet sand is essential for such preservation.
<>- It is difficult to conceive how trackways could possibly be
a common feature in desert dunes.
<><6>- Finally, the Coconino has inter-tonguing layers of
water-deposited dolomite near its boundary with the overlying
Toroweap Formation, which itself is clearly marine.
<><G:INFO WITH FLOOD WATER VELOCITY.>
<TSUNAMI TRANSPORT>
<>- A key line of evidence supporting a catastrophic,
world-destroying Flood is the huge lateral extent of so many of
the sedimentary formations and the staggering volumes of
sediment they represent.
- This is certainly true of the Coconino Sandstone.
- Figure 17 is an isopach map of a portion of the Coconino
Sandstone and its equivalents, corresponding to an area of than
500,000 km2 and a volume of more than 40,000 km3.
- - Isopach map of the Coconino Sandstone and its equivalents
- Figure 17. Isopach map of the Coconino Sandstone and its
equivalents. The area displayed for the Coconino is more than
500,000 km2 and the volume is more than 40,000 km3. Contour
lines are in feet (0.305 m/ft). (From Austin 1994, 36)
<>- The uniformity of a formation as laterally extensive as the
Coconino suggests a coherent rapidly moving water column
capable, by virtue of its turbulence, of suspending a
considerable thickness of sediment and transporting it a
considerable distance before deposition finally takes place.
<>- Under such conditions it is not surprising that sand waves
could result in the deposition zone.
<>- Figure 18 shows how crossbeds can form in response to
sustained water flow with a sustained supply of sand falling
from suspension.
<>- Indeed, to deposit the average amount of Phanerozoic
sediment observed to be present [on] the continents today, 1800
m, ... unmistakably requires — on average — tens of m of
sediment in suspension in a tsunami-like column of water which
is thick enough to support such a sediment load, moving with a
speed of at least tens of m/s (Baumgardner 2013).
<>- The presence of many layers in the sediment record that
require such conditions for their formation testify to the
reasonableness of such conclusions.
- - Diagrams illustrating the formation of cross beds on a sandy
bed in response to sustained water flow
<>- Figure 18. Diagrams illustrating the formation of cross beds
on a sandy bed in response to sustained water flow. Top: Diagram
showing the formation of tabular cross beds by down-current
migration of sand waves beneath sustained water flow. Bottom:
Cross-sectional diagram showing how sand waves migrate and form
inclined beds on the down-current side of the sand wave where
the flow direction is reversed. For clarity, the bottom diagram
is drawn with a large vertical exaggeration. (From Austin 1994,
33)
<EROSION PHASE>
- - Massive removal of sediment from continent interiors during
final stages of the Flood
- Not only were catastrophic processes involved in the creation
of the thick accumulation of sediment layers on the continents,
but observations reveal that a significant fraction of this
deposited sediment was subsequently stripped away in a rapid
manner near the end of the cataclysm.
- This [is] shown in a relatively clear way in the Colorado
Plateau region of North America as indicted in Figure 22.
<>- Massive sheet erosion seems to be required to remove huge
volume of sediment once present but now missing from much of the
Colorado Plateau region (Snelling 2009, 595-596).
- This suggests that a rapid increase in the volume of the
oceans and a consequent rapid lowering of the global sea level
may be responsible [for] a rapid runoff of water from the
continent interiors that removed a notable fraction of the upper
layers of sediment that had not yet been cemented and lithified.
<>- Figure 23 shows the global distribution of sediment today.
<>- It is clear from this map that the thickest accumulations of
sediment are along the continent margins, mostly on the
continental shelves.
- - Diagram illustrating the huge volumes of sediment stripped
away from continent interiors in the latter stages of the Flood
cataclysm
<>- Figure 22. Diagram illustrating the huge volumes of sediment
stripped away from continent interiors in the latter stages of
the Flood cataclysm.
- - Global map of sediment thickness
<>- Figure 23. Global map of sediment thickness. Thickness scale
is in km. Sediment thickness averaged over the continents today
is 1800 m. Thickest accumulations are on the continental
shelves, presumably the result of runoff during the final stages
of the Flood. (From Laske and Masters 1997)
<OROGENESIS>
- - Rapid uplift of today’s high mountain ranges and an Ice Age
after the Flood
- A major enigma in continental geology today is why a major
portion of the uplift of the earth’s major mountain belts
occurred so recently, during the Pliocene and Pleistocene
(Ollier and Pain 2000), while, presumably, most of the crustal
thickening required to support such elevated topographical
features had taken place millions or even tens of millions of
years earlier.
- The Flood, involving catastrophic tectonic processes to be
described later in this paper as well as a dramatically
compressed timescale, readily solves this enigma (Baumgardner
2005b).
<ICE AGE>
- The Flood also nicely accounts for an Ice Age afterward.
- The warming of the oceans during the Flood caused higher
evaporation rates over the oceans and significantly increased
precipitation rates, especially at high latitudes, following the
Flood.
- This resulted in more snowfall at high latitudes and at high
mountain elevations during the winters than could melt in the
summers, resulting in rapidly growing ice sheets and mountain
glaciers (Austin et al. 1994; Snelling 2009, 769-786).
<SEAFLOORS>
- - New insights concerning the Flood from the ocean bottom
- Thus far, the focus has been on the evidence for the rapid,
catastrophic formation of the fossil-bearing sediment record on
the continents during the Flood.
- What occurred in the ocean basins?
- A major development following World War II, as the sonar
technology developed to find and track submarines was applied to
mapping the topography of the seafloor, was the discovery of the
mid-ocean ridge system that winds around the sea bottom like the
seam of a baseball.
- Figure 24 shows the segment known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge of
this global feature that bisects the North and South Atlantic
Ocean basins.
- The subsequent quest to understand this remarkable global
feature led to the development and acceptance of the concepts of
plate tectonics in the 1960’s (Snelling 2009, 365-415).
- - Topographical map of the Atlantic Ocean Floor
- Figure 24. Topographical map of the Atlantic Ocean Floor.
(From National Geographic Society, 1968) All the basaltic ocean
crust on the earth today is of Mesozoic age or younger.
- As rocks and sediment cores from the ocean floor were
recovered and analyzed, it was discovered that today’s ocean
floor is all younger than early Mesozoic.
- All ocean floor from earlier in the earth’s past has been
subducted into the earth’s interior, except for tiny fragments
that have been thrust onto the continents and preserved as
ophiolites.
- Figure 25 shows the point in the continental record below
which no ocean floor exists at the earth’s surface.
<__?__PACIFIC SEAFLOOR TOO?>- In other words, all the igneous
ocean crust on earth today cooled from a molten state at a
mid-ocean ridge as shown in Figure 26 since that point in the
continental record.
- - Diagram marking the point in the continental stratigraphic
record where the history of the current ocean floor begins
- Figure 25. Diagram marking the point in the continental
stratigraphic record where the history of the current ocean
floor begins.
- - Diagram illustrating the structure of the mid-ocean ridge
system
- Figure 26. Diagram illustrating the structure of the mid-ocean
ridge system, formed as adjacent plates of oceanic lithosphere
diverge. Partial melting of upper mantle rock occurs beneath the
ridge axis to generate molten basalt that rises, cools, and
crystallizes to form new ocean crust between the spreading
plates.
<SLIDING, NOT SUBDUCTION><X>- - Catastrophic plate tectonics — a
logical necessity
- What does this imply about mechanics of the Flood cataclysm?
- It implies that a vast amount of subduction and seafloor
spreading must have unfolded during the Flood and that
subduction and seafloor spreading must have been a major aspect
of the overall Flood cataclysm (Baumgardner 1986; Austin et al.
1994; Snelling 2009, 691).
- Because none of the pre-Flood or Paleozoic ocean floor is to
be found at the earth’s surface today, all of this ocean
lithosphere must have been cycled into the earth’s interior
during the year of the Flood.
- The logic is just that tight.
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