I recall participating in a discussion on a fundie board (since censored in odious fashion) whein a person with some knowledge of physics (evidentially) ran thru a number of calculations that expressed the energy that would be released with a Flood event. It suggested massive rises in temperature and a host of other unplesentness. Anybody familiar with this line of reasoning?
"Reasoning"?
Interesting use of the word.
How to generate scale model of a flood of (Literally) biblical proportions.
Take a cheap metal terrestrial globe, say 1 foot diameter.
Press thumb over Mesopotamia.
Depress surface of globe by about 1/100 mm.
Viewed that way, it's not such a big deal. The vertical movement would be about the same as that experienced by Scotland in the last 20,000 years.
However, there's no evidence at all for such movement in the middle east.
Actually flooding the whole planet? Well, were I an omnipotent being, I would not go down the rain route. I would submerge the continents, then pop 'em up again. Simple.
Like I say- reasoning is not part of the process.
Interesting use of the word.
How to generate scale model of a flood of (Literally) biblical proportions.
Take a cheap metal terrestrial globe, say 1 foot diameter.
Press thumb over Mesopotamia.
Depress surface of globe by about 1/100 mm.
Viewed that way, it's not such a big deal. The vertical movement would be about the same as that experienced by Scotland in the last 20,000 years.
However, there's no evidence at all for such movement in the middle east.
Actually flooding the whole planet? Well, were I an omnipotent being, I would not go down the rain route. I would submerge the continents, then pop 'em up again. Simple.
Like I say- reasoning is not part of the process.
"Reasoning" refers to the dissapation of the resulting energy and it's implications for flood guys. Anyhoo, it was rain.
David Swidler
Philosopher
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Not just rain.
Genesis 7:11: "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened."
Some years ago archaeologists apparently discovered evidence of ancient communities all around the Black (or possibly Caspian) Sea that had been inundated by the rising lake (sea is a misnomer). They posited that the flood mythologies came from that real event. Don't know how mainstream that hypothesis is,though.
Genesis 7:11: "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened."
Some years ago archaeologists apparently discovered evidence of ancient communities all around the Black (or possibly Caspian) Sea that had been inundated by the rising lake (sea is a misnomer). They posited that the flood mythologies came from that real event. Don't know how mainstream that hypothesis is,though.
"At half past four, just before tea-time..."
Post glacial sea level rise in the Med, backflowing through the Dardanelles into the Black Sea. Has to have happened more than once. At least the last time, humans had to see it. Shame they didn't have cameras , really.
Post glacial sea level rise in the Med, backflowing through the Dardanelles into the Black Sea. Has to have happened more than once. At least the last time, humans had to see it. Shame they didn't have cameras , really.
Dunno that it happened that often- the Black Sea is called that for a reason: not much lives in it. Currently there is a backflow of saline water through the Dardanelles straits, while the fresh water from the Danube floats on top- there is a stratification that results in the lower saline layer being hypoxic; nothing can live below a few hundred feet, if I remember right.
The evidence they are talking about is from around 7,000 + years ago; freshwater shells dredged from the bottom, primitive shoreline evident on the bottom of the sea, and the Danube's banks continuing several hundred feet below the shoreline. There have been a few attempts to dredge for remains, and some reasonable hope exists that any organics will be well preserved due to the hypoxic environment.
The evidence they are talking about is from around 7,000 + years ago; freshwater shells dredged from the bottom, primitive shoreline evident on the bottom of the sea, and the Danube's banks continuing several hundred feet below the shoreline. There have been a few attempts to dredge for remains, and some reasonable hope exists that any organics will be well preserved due to the hypoxic environment.
Correa Neto
Philosopher
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Well, at least I hope they had surfboards...
rwguinn
Penultimate Amazing
Just looking at US geology, Lake Bonnevile apparently busted its dam and 380 Cubic miles of water (1.6x10^12 m^3) scoured out a little bit of the Snake River chanel....between 15000 and 30000 years ago....Left some interesting geology in its wake:
http://photoalchemy.com/Bonneville/paper/the-bonneville-flood.pdf
Also, it appears it wasn't too uncommon during the Pleistocene era:
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Glaciers/IceSheets/description_ice_sheets.html
Another interesting fact from that page:
" The tremendous size of the ice sheet further influenced paleogeography by lowering sea level about 450 feet below the present level; the water contained in the ice and snow came from the oceans. The continental shelves around our continent, as well as the other continents of the world, were above water and, as a result, some States such as Florida were much larger than they are today. The shoreline deposits and shells at the edge of the Continental Shelf, in waters to 450 feet deep, are evidence of this marked drop in sea level during the Pleistocene."
rwguinn
Penultimate Amazing
Isaid it scoured it out a bit, not created it...
It would be a valid assumption that if some huge natural dam existed, there was probably a river exiting somewhere, which would have created the river valley to be scoured..
but then, logic is a pretty tall mountain for many "woo's" to scale...
Also, it wouldn't explian all the fossils from the ocean, since the Grand Canyon doesn't lead out to sea, you don't find the fossils on the top layer, and the creationist theory says the water came from the floodgates behind Heavenly firmament- I mean underground resevoirs from around the world... Did the sea life teleport inland or something? And where are all these holes the geysers would have left behind?
Speaking of fossils, I don't suppose they believe in instant fossilization, do they?
Speaking of fossils, I don't suppose they believe in instant fossilization, do they?
Goshawk
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Mongrel
Begging for Scraps
The scablands floods must have been something to see. Similar, but far smaller catastrophic drainage of ice-dammed lakes was probably fairly common in the end stages of numerous glaciations. (Glen Spean / Glen Roy in Scotland for instance). Volcano related Jokullhaups are well known in modern Iceland.
Any biblical flood which filled the Grand Canyon would have to inundate the Colorado Plateau, currently a mile above sea level on average. The isostatic and tectonic effects of adding at least a mile depth of seawater to the entire globe would be, to say the least, interesting. Even more so if it went another four miles to the top of Everest.
There would be significant effects on the angular momentum of the Earth and Earth / moon system, too. Even if the water came from inside the Earth, the mass distribution would be different. The Earth's rotation would have slowed measurably at the time. We should see distinct changes in fossil growth lines around the time of the flood.
Which raises the interesting problem of Bristlecone Pine growth rings, which do form a record going back several thousand years, but (so far as I've heard) show no such effects.
Any biblical flood which filled the Grand Canyon would have to inundate the Colorado Plateau, currently a mile above sea level on average. The isostatic and tectonic effects of adding at least a mile depth of seawater to the entire globe would be, to say the least, interesting. Even more so if it went another four miles to the top of Everest.
There would be significant effects on the angular momentum of the Earth and Earth / moon system, too. Even if the water came from inside the Earth, the mass distribution would be different. The Earth's rotation would have slowed measurably at the time. We should see distinct changes in fossil growth lines around the time of the flood.
Which raises the interesting problem of Bristlecone Pine growth rings, which do form a record going back several thousand years, but (so far as I've heard) show no such effects.