Geology Questions
Question: A documentary about the Himalayas reported that marine fossils were found at their highest elevations. Do you understand that geology as being in accord with the biblical orbital-year chronology?
Setterfield: Yes! That geology is in basic harmony with the Bible. What has happened was that the strata of the Himalayas was laid down under water in the period from the Cambrian (about 540 million atomic years) to the Cretaceous (ending about 65 million atomic years ago). The Cambrian started just after Noah's Flood, and the Cretaceous ended at the time of the Peleg continental division (Genesis 10:25 when continental drift started). At the continental division, India was separated from Australia and Antarctica and moved rapidly northwards. Shortly afterwards, the Indian plate collided with the Eurasian plate. The buckling of the (still soft) sediments that had been laid down under water began, and the Himalayas started to rise. They are still rising today at a slow rate, of about 5 mm per year. In the early days the rise would have been very much faster and then slowed as the two plates interacted with each other. The catastrophe of the Peleg continental division began about 3050 BC. The Cambrian strata were being laid down just after the Flood of Noah about 3450 BC. So there was a period of about 400 years for the strata to be laid down under very active geological conditions, then the buckling of the strata to form the mountains went on from 3050 BC up to the present time. Erosion on the still-plastic sediments gave their craggy look. There are legends of people seeing mountain ranges rise in their life-times, but I would have to check to see if the Himalayas were among them, or whether it was just the Andes.
Please get back to me if you have any questions.
Question: How could the chalk in the White Cliffs of Dover and other chalk deposits around the world happen in one year in the Flood?
Setterfield: I don't think that is a possibility. I was particularly impressed by an article by David Tyler, who has assembled a large number of facts which are important.
If we summarize the facts relating to the chalk deposits, they are as follows:
- The purity of the chalk indicates that no other material has come in, so there are no turbidity currents involved in their deposition
- There are horizons called “hard grounds” which are very common. In these hard grounds there are burrows and boring and encrusting organisms. This indicates the sediments had formed a firm surface and so deposition had stopped. These surfaces form bedding planes a half to two metres apart. In some cases there are over a hundred horizons. On these horizons, at the top of these horizons, there is often bentonite, which is a form of clay which comes from the weathering of volcanic ash in the presence of water, and it contains a high percentage of iron oxide. For this reason the bentonite layers, or hard grounds, are orange or brown, because of the iron.
- There is the thickness. We have up to 350 metres of material in some places.
- There are speciation trends, or a change in the type of microfossil as you progress up through the sequence. This indicates longer time intervals are involved, which is the same impression we get from the horizons of hard grounds.
In addition to these points, some more can be made. In the book Petrology, by W.T. Huang (McGraw Hill, 1962) he makes the point that chalk contains microfossils which range from 17-34% of the total rock. The remainder of the rock is usually calcium carbonate. He also makes the point that these rocks are formed at depths usually less than a few hundred feet. So we have shallow water. He says that the purest limestones and chalks form as very shallow water deposits. He also points out that chemically precipitated calcium carbonate, which makes up the majority of the chalk, forms in warm, shallow, quiet waters, but there must be good circulation. He suggests that for continuous precipitation or precipitation over lengthy periods, to give these horizons, the sea bottom is undergoing slow, continuous subsidence.
He said this precipitation occurs as a result of one or more of these factors: a rise in temperature which would warm water brought up from depths, or by warm air currents, evaporation with a hot sun, a decrease in barometric pressure, and the removal of carbon dioxide from oceans by photosynthesis and the secretion of calcium carbonate by organisms. These are all the factors that we have to deal with.
There are several factors in here which impinge on our modeling. First of all, the Cretaceous and the Mesozoic generally was period of high temperatures. The average temperature was about ten degrees higher than what we have today. This means that there would be enhanced evaporation and water coming up from the interior would also be warmed. The second thing is that photosynthesis by these algae was proceeding at a much faster rate because of the higher speed of light at that time (the lower ZPE strength). This would aid in the removal of CO2 from the oceans and also the secretion of calcium carbonate by organisms. Both of these result in rapid formation of chalk deposits.
I strongly disagree with Andrew Snelling that these depositions could build up in six days. I think Tyler is much more on target talking about decades for the building up of these layers. The evidence that this has taken time, even with rapid photosynthesis comes from the fact that deposition has stopped when the hard grounds were formed and that speciation trends are present.
There is one final point which must be made. We have mentioned previously in other posts that the plasma model for the formation of the solar system and the earth results in a layered planet. It also means that the planet is heating from the interior outwards, and that water is being driven out of rocks from the interior outwards. This means that, because of the layering of the elements, the first waters coming out from the interior would be rich in silicon and this is also why the early granites are tonalitic, or sodium-rich. It is only later that the predominant constituent of these interior waters would be carbonates. As a consequence, the deep layers of carbonates in the Mesozoic can be attributed to the waters coming out from the interior of the earth being rich in that chemical. And so precipitation of limestones and chalks would be facilitated.
In summary, it would seem that the conditions required for the chalk beds to build up cannot be satisfied by the Flood process in a period of one year or less. It must have come subsequent to that event and taken at least several decades to have formed.
Question: I have read in materials from ICR that radiometric dating has been done on rocks from recent lava flows (tens of years) the indicate thousands or millions of years of radioactive decay. I have asked ICR this question and have been told to read one of their books on the subject. However, I consider this question to be a straightforward Yes or No question. Does radioactive decay occur in magma? Their discussion seems to indicate that radioactive decay only begins when the magma solidifies into rock. If it does occur in magma the what is being measured is the length of time the magma has been in existance, not the age of the rock. What am I missing?
Setterfield: You ask an important question. You mention that some recent lava flows have dated thousand or millions of years old. The reason for that is that the potassium/argon dating method was used. The inherent problem there is that argon is a gas and therefore migrates very easily and is lost to the system, thereby yielding incorrect results.
The next part of the question, does radioactive decay occur in magma, has the answer yes. But a word of explanation is needed here also. Because the magma is in a fluid state, the parent and daughter nuclei become easily separated and swept away while the rock is still molten. It is only after the rock has crystallized that the parent and daughter nuclei are compelled to remain together in the same location. It is from that moment that the radiometric clock is actually registering a radiometric age. In other words, in a magma, even though decay is occurring, the radiometric clock is continually being set to zero. Once the rock solidifies, the clock starts to register an actual time.
I hope that answers your questions. If you have further questions, or if something is still not clear, then please get back to me.
Question: Have you ever seen this video? It shows that the Earth expanded in size -- it shows that if the earth's radius was smaller, all the land masses would fit perfectly together! i know you've investigated geology too. what do you think?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJfBSc6e7QQSetterfield: Thank you for sending me the video link. I have looked at it and find it interesting. It makes a good point, but several matters need comment.
First, Neal Adams claims that everything fits perfectly together without the necessity for rotation if earth expansion occurred at the mid-ocean ridges. A close inspection shows that he does have some rotational movement, but not nearly as dramatic as the currently accepted standard model requires. In one sense this is a plus, but a mechanism is lacking for the expansion.
Second, for the effects to occur that Adams indicates, the earth would have to have almost doubled in diameter. As indicated, the mechanism for this is a problem unless it is conceded that the whole universe and everything in it is likewiise expanding. The idea of a currently expanding universe has only one origin; the redshift of light from distant galaxies. The data, however, indicate that the redshift is not from universal expansion but rather from an increasing strength of the Zero Point Energy which is affecting atomic processes. So we need to look further before whole-heartedly accepting this.
Third, from the figures he presents, it also requires the expansion to be occurring much more rapidly now than in the past; in other words accelerating expansion. Until recently, it was claimed that the expansion rate of the universe was slowing down. But other data have one interpretation that requires the expansion rate to be increasing. So the standard model in astronomy is ambivalent on that one.
Fourth, if all the earth were originally one land mass, that does not leave room for oceans, and the Bible says that they were there originally.So while the presentation is very interesting, my impression is that it does not contain the whole truth. The heating of the earth interior will result in a 5% increase in linear dimensions as it became molten. This gives an increase in diameter of 400 miles or an increase in circumference of 1200 miles. While this can account for the width of the Atlantic, there is a huge problem with the Pacific Ocean which does not fit in with Adams' scenario. So at this stage, while I consider it an interesting possibility, I must put it back on the shelf until further information comes in which will validate the concept.
Responding email: Thank you Barry for your reply.
I agree that there is no mechanism presented. But who knows what happens inside the earth =)
As for oceans, Neal Adams said that previously there were no oceans, only shallow seas -- above the current land mass. But yes, the Bible mentions the waters being gathered to one place, wherever that was. Perhaps part of the Pacific was the original sea. My first thought was that expanding the earth's surface area would be a convenient way to drain the flood waters off the surface of the land.
I looked on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanding_Earth and they mentioned the gravitational constant might have changed. What effect would that have? ThanksSetterfield: Thanks for the link. I think that it summarizes the situation fairly well.
You ask about the gravitational constant changing, but the link points out several problems. On the ZPE approach, the gravitational acceleration, g, will always be constant. The only way that I can think of accounting for an expanding earth is the hypothesis of Dirac in 1974, and subsequently followed through by Hoyle and Narlikar, called multiplicative creation of mass. In that hypothesis, they proposed that, wherever there were atoms, a process was in operation whereby more mass would be generated. This was distinct from the possibility of additive creation of mass whereby mass was created uniformly throughout the universe over time. On this second approach, something like one hydrogen atom was estimated to be created in the volume of the Empire State building in a period of 100 years. On the multiplicative approach, the higher the original concentration of matter, the faster the creation rate. It is this multiplicative process which would result in the creation of more atoms in the volume of the earth thereby multiplying its mass, and so cause expansion.
If a changing ZPE scenario is considered, even though individual atomic masses increase as the strength of the ZPE increases, there are no extra atoms formed, and atomic volumes decrease rather than increase. So that line of argument will not produce the desired effect.
Some links regarding the Dirac and Hoyle discussions are
Dirac's Large Numbers Hypothesis and the Acceleration of the Moon's Mean Longitude
Cosmology and Controversy, page 183
I trust that this gives you a feel for the possibilities or otherwise of the proposal.
Question: I believe I earlier saw reference to the plasma formation of petroleum like products.... possibly in some of my initial perusal of some of Barry's posted materials. If you could point me to where this might have been, or even if you have any unpublished thoughts on this, I would appreciate any help you might be able to provide.
Setterfield: Thank you for the question. In response it can be said that plasma physics does have some suggestions on this matter.
Plasma forms filaments, and frequently they will pinch because of an instability in the circling magnetic field. This pinch concentrates the plasma and forms balls of material, whether they be stars or planets. In this context, one other item is important. In a plasma filament, ionized atoms are sorted according to ionization potential. The atoms with lowest ionization potential collect closest to the center of the filament, while those with the highest ionization potential collect on the outside of the filament. This process is called Marklund convection. Thus when the pinch occurs to form a planet, the planet is already layered and cool, since Marklund convection, when complete, results in cool atoms.
The ionization sequence is of importance here. I give my students a Periodic Table of elements listed in order of their first ionization potential. If the order is given from the center of the earth outwards, a representative sequence would run from , potassium, sodium, uranium, nickel, iron and other easily ionized metals concentrated towards the core. Going outwards we find less easily ionized elements such as magnesium, silicon, and sulfur concentrated in the middle layers. Then carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in the penultimate layer, with nitrogen and helium in the outermost layer. These layers are not sharply defined, but exist as mixes in the boundary areas. In solar system formation, the sorting is happening at several levels at once, since the primary filament from which the solar system formed was undergoing Marklund convection at the same time as the convection was occurring in the lesser filaments from which the individual planets formed. This in turn meant that the supply of material for each individual planet was dependent upon where it was situated in the primary filament. And it was then this supply which was further sorted for the planet involved.
That having been said, it consideration suggests that, near the uppermost layers of the solid earth, there would be a concentration of carbon, then hydrogen, then oxygen. Since hydrogen is reactive, it would be expected that the nearby and overlapping concentration of carbon atoms would form a hydrocarbon enriched layer. On the other side, closer to the surface, the hydrogen might be expected to react with the overlapping concentration of oxygen atoms and form a water enriched layer. The oxygen concentration would still be high in the atmosphere along with nitrogen.
It is significant that there exists a water enriched layer beneath the crust called the asthenosphere from about 45 miles down to a depth of about 200 miles. Geologically, it is also known that the condition for diamonds to form from carbon lies at a depth of about 250 miles. This attests to the concentration of carbon existing at that depth. Therefore, the hydrogen enriched layer exists about 200 miles down and hydrocarbons would be likely to form at approximately that depth.
This would then suggest that at least a reasonable percentage of hydrocarbons originate from deep in the earth. This is attested by the fact that in Russia and Scandinavia oil sources are found to bubble up through cracks in granite or collect in drill holes in that granite. Since the granite goes to depths far greater than 10 miles, and seems to form the core of that segment of the continental mass, and that the oil originates below this mass, then the field evidence indicates that the hydrocarbons come from a deep layer beneath the earth's surface crust. This evidence is in complete accord with the plasma model.
That having been said, Dr. Andrew Snelling investigated the Bass-Strait oil fields in Australia and noted that the Yallourn coal fields were nearby. He suggested that the oil was bubbling off the coal. This is also a possibility that needs further investigation.