2015-11-12

GW: I could live with his dates, but I telescope them into a period of just about 6 milennia BP, due to my assumption that C14 was not well mixed with the early atmosphere available for assimilation in the biosphere prior to the flood, which I would date around 5K BP or so. Dinosaurs died? out with the flood, but alive up to that time, in my view.

6. LK: Do you agree with Walter Brown's Hydroplate theory as the explanation for rapid continental drift? (It explains continental drift as underground water chambers ten miles deep caving in and the pressure blowing out at the ocean ridges, which were previously part of the supercontinent.)

I don't see much plausibility for the underground chambers of water. Do you?

GW: I taught from a standard text written back in the late 70s that made the claim that enough water is outgassed in volcanic eruptions to account for all of the world's oceans. I've been influenced by that statement, and can go with chambers or levels or layers or fissures/vents from the mantle or any other means by which water may have erupted out. But in my flood view, the water that already existed in the early seas is practically sufficient to have done the flood work via tsunami-type action.

LK: I don't think it would be possible for underground chambers of water to exist 10 miles down, because the rock is plastic, according the Kola borehole findings. It became too plastic to drill through at 7 miles. I guess things could've been different before the flood.

CC: I don't see the evidence of large amounts of water coming out of the mid-ocean ridges.

LK: - If so, have you done or seen calculations that support the theory?

GW: I'm intrigued by it. It would fit my model well if further confirmed. I'm not requiring the cave-ins but it's a good idea. I go with inertia after the initial drift-ignition event, Friction and inertia in some mix after that.

CC: I go with Fischer's theory of an impact that generated the momentum. I also favor rapid mountain building, instead of gradualism, just because one cannot say that the crust is oh so plastic, and then say that mountains could have been gradually built up — if the crust was that plastic, the leveling process would have kept up with the mountain building, so clearly, the moutain building was on a faster pace.

GW: Good point, it is also for this reason I don't believe subduction is required to explain boundary mountains and trenches.

CC: I have a totally different idea of subduction. I don't think (like the mainstream) that the oceanic crust is falling because it is cooler — it's actually warmer than the mid-ocean ridges. But I don't go with the "all over in an instant" model of Fischer's. Rather, I think that the impact event got things moving, but then I think that each earthquake in the subduction zone causes the next one. The energy sources that heat up the crust result in expansion. When traction is re-established after the rupture, the cooling then exerts a tensile force on the crust, pulling it toward the fault. This is why the rifts form in the back arcs.

LK: CC, have you written anything yet about earthquakes during the continental drift event?

CC: Do you mean in the initial event (i.e., Fischer's "bad day in Madagascar" event)?

LK: I mean during the entire episode of continental drift, mostly the Americas moving from Africa and Europe to about 3,000 miles west.

CC: No, I haven't treated that at all — I think that Fischer has the right bacic idea, and until/if/when I've done a great deal more studying, I couldn't expect to improve on his work. I just don't think that it was all over in 26 hours — I think that the initial impact got things going, but then the heating/cooling process at the faults helped keep things going.

LK: So the earthquakes you were talking about above are the current ones that do very minor continental drifting.

CC: Yes — it's just a couple of centimeters at a time for a "normal" earthquake, is that right, Gordon?

GW: Yes, Charles, with some noteable exceptions: the quake/tsunami in Japan, the quake tsunami in Indonesia, the 1964 Anchorage quake/tsunami, et.al.

CC: OK, so I can see how the momentum, which when averaged out is just millimeters per year, could have been initiated by an impact event. But I don't believe that the event could have accelerated the continents to the speed that Fischer says, nor do I see what could have brought them to such an abrupt stop.

LK: I like Mike's explanation of fluidization as being involved. He said it's like landslides along continental slopes, where the rock slides horizontally for long distances.

GW: I'm dubious on fluidization as the mechanism... heat increases friction and vice-versa. Am I just plain wrong about heat and friction?

Regardless, I believe that friction between the cont plate and ocean plates of the Pacific caused the slowdown and the mountain/trench building orogenies.

LK: It reduces friction and there may be ionization too.

Gordon, that's what Mike says too, that friction is what caused the continents to slow down and heat up, causing mountain building.

CC: In my model, the lithosphere slides on a frictionless Moho, which is a thin (1 meter) layer of supercritical fluid, which is compressible, and frictionless. So tectonic motion doesn't require mantle plumes, nor the energy sufficient to fight friction at the crust/mantle boundary. [LK: Mike referred to the Moho too.] But this doesn't mean that the continents could have shifted thousands of kilometers in a day in my model. Mountains have roots, and moving the continents rapidly WOULD have forced friction. So in my model, electric currents in the Moho keep it molten (or rather, supercritical), but when mountain roots start pressing against the mantle, the tectonic motion has to wait for the electric currents to melt the rock. (I'll elaborate on that if you want.)

GW: Mountain roots are originating at the same time as the buildup, due to isostasy.

CC: Yes, but what I'm saying is that irregularities in the underside of the crust match up with complementary irregularities in the mantle. Then, for plate shifting to occur, one and/or the other has to undergo deformation. My problem with that is that it would take more energy than seems available. So I'm saying that the Moho is 1 meter thick, and hot enough to be supercritical. And it has an electric current in it. If plate shifting occurs, the irregularities don't match up quite so well, and that 1-meter gap gets reduced. The bad news is that the crust starts to run the risk of "running aground" as it shifts on the mantle. [LK: You mean running aground during the major continental drift event? No — I'm talking about the minor events, as we see today.] The good news is that the reduced gap forces more electric current through a smaller area, which produces more heat. So suppose there used to be a consistent 1-meter gap between the crust and the mantle. But then the crust shifted. Now the irregularities (e.g., mountain roots) result in there being only a 1/2 meter gap between the crust and the mantle. But then that heats up, and melts the rock, re-establishing the gap, and preventing the [ship-wise] "grounding".

LK: Charles, wouldn't the supercontinent have had a root in the mantle with the Moho between them there too?

LK: So if a water chamber were down there, it wouldn't blow out at the thicker part of the supercontinent, would it? Or wasn't it so thick?

Did there have to be a weakness in the supercontinent for the Americas to split off?

GW: But due to the aplasticity of the crust the mountainforming "front" end is also more brittle, with many fissures and faults, thus we see the subsequent formation of the volcanic chains at those locations.Thicker but weaker, that's why I noted above that the roots are of the same nature as the mountains, with the notable difference that due to the same forces you are referring to much melting is occuring there, producing magmas and the like which extrude into the weak upper crust.

CC: Hang on right there...

I also have a totally different idea on volcanoes. I don't think that high pressure magma can get forced up through cracks in the crust. Rather, I think that cracks in the crust, which are common around faults due to the inelastic deformation, enable electric currents. A microfracture just 1 nano-meter wide can drop the electrical resistance of granite, from over 2 mega-ohms, down to about 300 olms. The result is an electric current, and then can melt the rock, due to ohmic heaating. And I'm convinced that such electric currents, between the surface and the Moho (or at least between the ground table and the Moho) are what open up magma tubes. If it were not for that, there wouldn't be the concentration of heat into a tubelike structure that could create such a vent, since heat propagates outward radially. And high-pressure rock is a fair thermal conductor. (Cooler rock is a poor conductor.) But what we're seeing is a vertical shaft, from the Moho to the surface. This is not a characteristic of thermodynamics, but it IS a characteristic of electric currents.

CC: The significance of this is huge. Take the worst case scenario — Yellowstone. There is no known way to prevent volcanic eruptions, much less at supervolcanoes. But what if it is an electric current that is generating the heat to pressurize the magma chamber? All we have to do is go about 100 km away, and drill a bore hole about 5 km deep, which will attract all of the telluric currents in the area, because it will fill up with highly conductive ground water. With no electric currents flowing through the magma chamber at Yellowstone, it will cool down, and eventually freeze over — problem solved. A bore hole 5 km deep would cost about 20 million dollars to drill, which is within reach for humankind. So there's a practical way to prevent a mass extinction event.

GW: I'm not concerned so much with the mechanism; what you are saying is plausible. But the geography shows that generally volcanoes form not in the heights of the mount ranges [some exceptions] but on the lowland adjacent to the ranges

CC: volcanoes occur where there is crustal deformation. I'm saying that the deformation creates the microfractures that enable the flow of electric currents. So under a given stress, it would make sense that the mountains do not undergo deformation, since they're thicker. A rigid material will always fail where it is thinnest. So the crust next to the mountains gets the deformation.

GW: I'm ok with that explanation.

CC: BTW, I'm saying that this is the same mechanism that causes earthquakes — tectonic pressure causes crustal buckling, and then currents can flow through the microfractures. The current heat the crust, which causes more tectonic pressure, which increases the buckling. Thus it's a positive feedback loop, resulting in a rapid increase in pressure, which causes the rupture. The surface heating prior to the rupture cannot be explained as deformation, since it's elastic.

7. LK: Do you think it's possible that the apparent Asteroid Bombardment (matar) during the Great Flood was due to Earth crossing the Asteroid Belt? What would preclude that?

GW: I think the flood and drift event [singular] was directly connected with earth interacting with planetoidal bodies. A glimpse at the the earth's placement with respect to the present known asteroids shows that no exotic explanation about the earth's transposition is necessary. Several possibilities here:

a. A planet swung by Earth (perhaps Venus, which is currently in a tidally phased rotation pattern with Earth), knocking Earth's rotation into a wobble

b. A planet swept through the asteroids, disrupting whatever was there and sending bits streaming by Earth

c. A comet collided with the earth breaking up as it neared, causing the preponderance of the "matar" to fall over the 5 month time

LK: Wouldn't the same event have been the cause of the bombardment on the Moon and possibly on Mars and many other bodies? So, if so, that suggests that they all went through the Asteroid belt to me. Not you?

GW: Why not? My studies have mainly been terrestrial, but the evidence abounds elsewhere in the solar system! But again, the asteroids are really all around us, and a major disruption in the belt could have affected earth as I suggested, but that's just one of many possible scenarios.

CC: I'm not sure I agree that the flood was caused by ET events, but I agree that something came through and upset a lot of apple carts. Recently I've been studying the similarity between the mares on the Moon and on Mars. I rather think that both of them got re-melted by something, instead of the mares filling up with lava flows. But the chance of two different bodies undergoing the exact same process, at exactly the same time (i.e., toward the end of the Late Heavy Bombardment) is relatively slight. So I think that something triggered them both. It could have been the thermalization of the impacts of the Bombardment, or gravitational deformation from a large body passing by.

CC: By "Late Heavy Bombardment", I'm just referring to all of the impact craters on the Moon and on Mars, and the fact that there are many of them in the highlands, but only a few in the lowlands. This means that the lowlands on both the Moon and on Mars were both molten at the same time.

LK: What's the evidence for melting on the mares and on Mars?

CC: It's just the flatness of the mares, and the absence of source volcanoes.

LK: Do you know of evidence of melting in the Moon rocks?

CC: Ummm... I don't know. What would be the difference between my "melting" and the volcanism in the standard model?

LK: Conventional vulcanism comes through volcanoes, except for flood basalts.

CC: So in megaflow eruptions, there isn't going to be an extinct volcano left afterwards, is that correct?

GW: The highly fluid nature of flood basalt is such that no cones were formed and the originating vents are left submerged and invisible to the investigator.

CC: Gordon, what would be the make/break telltale signs that the mares on the Moon and on Mars would definitely be megaflows, and not just general re-melting of the bodies due to some other energy source (such as tidal deformation)?

GW: An astronaut geologist needs to observe the basalt flows to see columnar jointing below and vesicular pattern above, then I would know the maria are mega flows, until then I'm open to any good explanations, such as yours:-)

CC: Is the columnar jointing a result of crystalization, or is it something else?

GW: Cooling of the flow is approximately uniform over the entire surface of the flow, causing a shrinkage pattern that produces the roughly hexagonal columns. The sides of the columns are conchoidal, but the tops are relatively flat where the top part of the flow [vesicular basalt] gets eroded away. Since there is no erosion on the Moon, this structure would have to be exposed in profile somewhere for the astro-geologist to see.

LK: Aren't there closeup images of any of the mares, or aren't there even Apollo landing sites there, which would be clear enough to tell what caused the flat surface?

CC: It sounds like the make/break evidence that I'm looking for would then be just the vesicular pattern. Is basalt too low in viscosity for this? In other words, I can understand air bubbles being trapped in felsic magma, and still being in the ejecta, leaving such characteristics after cooling. But what if the lava had plenty of time to out-gas — would it still be vesicular?

GW: Right, no it would not be vesicular, but the rapidly cooling top surface of each flow is more brittle than the columnar "underbelly"... The analogy I use for students is like pouring coke into a glass, then rapidly freezing the glass...the crystals would be characteristic in the bottom of the glass, but full of airpockets above. This is a different picture than what you are describing I think?

CC: Well, I was just trying to see if there was any way of ruling out any of the various possibilities. BTW, as you know, without much of an atmosphere on either the Moon or Mars, the lava wouldn't have cooled quickly, because there wouldn't have been much thermal conduction, nor much convection to transport the heat away. So it sounds like the lava (if that's what it was) would have had plenty of time to out-gas.

GW: I agree with you on the convection point. Regardless, the columnar pattern should show up if it's basalt.

LK: Charles said the Moon is made of granite, like the Earth's continents.

CC: Actually, they have found both granite and basalt on the Moon, is that correct?

CC: BTW, I'm currently reconsidering whether or not I actually believe that the Moon impacted the Earth. The reason is because of the remelting that occurred at the same time as Mars (if that's what it was). This would mean that the Moon couldn't have been involved in such a catastrophic collision, or it would have been totally remelted, and there wouldn't be any highlands left.

LK: Charles, you said in your papers that Earth's and the Moon's granites are a lot alike, more than any other planets. Didn't you? What would account for that?

CC: Yes, but I'm just no longer sure that it's necessarily quite that simple. If there are basalts on the Moon, especially in the mares, then it isn't that the Moon is made entirely of the same stuff as the Earth's continents.

LK: Maybe Earth's basalt and granite ALL came from the protoMoon.

GW: I'm on the side of Charles' mind change; I don't accept the collision theory of Moon and Earth, nor for that matter the ejected Moon theory.

CC: Yes, that's possible.

LK: I linked to some lunar images. Check them out a few lines below. See the links?

LK: Charles, do you have a very clear idea how a close approach between "planets" would cause melting of the surfaces?

CC: I don't know what you mean by "very clear", but I was thinking that the thermalization of tidal deformation might do it. This is generally considered to be elastic deformation, which doesn't produce heat, but in my model, it is driving telluric currents, which could remelt the crust.

LK: Okay, that makes plenty of sense.

LK: And could Mars have approached closely to the Moon, as EU theorists sometimes speculate, and could that produce melted surfaces?

GW: Due to the tidally syncopated rotations of Earth and Venus, I suspect this was the near approach involved, which could have thrown Mars into its highly elliptical orbit as well as disrupting both the surfaces of Mars and the Moon

LK: Gordon, can you tell anything about melting from this lunar mare image? http://cseligman.com/text/moons/humorum.jpg

Or this one? http://cseligman.com/text/moons/rille.jpg

8. LK: Is it obvious that the Grand Canyon formed from dam breaks of the ancient lakes that previously existed north and east of the canyon?

GW: The Grand Canyon is the popular go to for both catastrophists and uniformitarians, so is a good place to discuss the mechanisms of sedimentation. I refer folks to Guy Berthault's sedimentology for the understanding of how multiple deep sedimentary layers are formed simultaneously by a moving current. The depositing of the sediments and subsequent draining of the rising plateau may have happened within weeks of each other, so the ground would have been adequately soft and immeasurably "young". As to the cementation process in rock formation, there is no reason to require long ages for sediment to become rock. We can do it in hours for a concrete sidewalk. How can we know this could happen in the past? The evidence is before our very eyes: The cement we use comes from the rock formations we're taking into evidence — the rocks are full of these cementers, which we quarry out and grind up for our use. There is no mystery, these rock formations may take months, even years to fully cure, but why assume the hundreds of millions of years required by the standard model? Related, the process of petrifaction is accomplished in hours in the lab, under the right conditions and catalysts. That these conditions existed in the past is inferred [not proven] by the fact that we find petrified remains in all kinds of sedimentary materials. Again, no reason whatever to claim ages of millions of years except to support the requirements of the standard model.

9. LK: Where are the main gaps in Catastrophism theory?

GW: Gaps in Catastrophic concepts. Our current epoch of relative geologic calm, cyclical seasons and climate were prescribed/predicted at the end of the flood event. Until people begin to recognize that our present case is a result and recovery from the cataclysm of old, the only thing that will convince them is the next global catastrophe. Perhaps even for some this is the lure of Anthropogenic Global Warming and its attendant catastrophes. So the "gap" is the the modern cultural mind. Along with this, the standard model indoctrination of radiometric dating, taught without reference or regard for the assumptions on which it is built, is a roadblock for many. "Hasn't science proven the world is 4.5 billions years old?" it will be commonly quipped.

10. LK: What are promising ways to get the theory of Catastrophism widely accepted?

GW: In reverse order, l'd like to first address #10 — the question of the acceptance of Catastrophism. Catastrophism isn't a theory, or even a variety of theories, it is a paradigm. When you view the world around you, you see processes at work, weather, the water cycle, mountains uplifting, volcanism, the biosphere with its myriad varieties and variations. Does this world appear to you as stable, unchanging [or invisibly slowly changing], predictably cyclical? If so, then the pardigm of Uniformitarianism suits you well, and you readily learn to interpret the physical evidence in the framework of gradualism. Since the time of Lyell, Hutton, and Darwin, the social indoctrination in this perspective has been facilitated by the naturalistic approach of scientism which, by its appropriate self-limitation to the experimental study of repeatable processes has led many to the conclusion that all of the universe of space, time and matter, is predictable and formulaic. It is possible that this indoctrination is indelible; there is a comfort to this boxing up of the cosmos, that makes it virtually impossible to break free to explore other options.

As open-minded to the evidence as most scientists claim to be, they generally fail to recognize that their worldview is enslaved to the modern materialistic and deterministic paradigm. I was trained in this perspective, and so it took me a number of years to be able to see the world as I do today. We are in a period of relatively unremarkable stability, punctuated however by occasional [and increasing, imo] catastrophic events. The physical record of the past Is full of evidence of widespread and repeated flood deposition, seismic activity, meteor impacts, and the like. These episodes are separated by imagined hiatal periods in which supposed long epochs of mountain building and subsequent erosion leave the earth's surface relatively flat. Without these alleged hiatuses, the record is one of cataclysm and catastrophe. In the "last days" we are told catastrophism will be mocked according to the biblical record (2 Peter). It is possible we are living in a representative social climate. People will continue to believe what they want to believe, until that belief system no longer suits them... generations later perhaps history will record our time as the Era of Doubt, despite our ever increasing awareness of large-scale catastrophic processes.

Re #6. Fisher pointed out that fast motion of masses of rock against each other produces fluidization from friction, which reduces friction and allows them to move long distances, until the reduced friction finally slows them down enough to end fluidization, causing freezing instead, which increases friction rapidly. So that seems to suggest that the continents must have moved rapidly. Doesn't that seem at all reasonable?

CC: You're going with a "Young Earth" timeline. Very little of the work that I've done so far identifies the duration of the events in question. I'm starting to get an idea of how long it takes for dusty plasma filaments to implode, and for main sequence stars to form, and for toroidal plasmoids (a.k.a., natural tokamaks) to form. But I don't have any timeframe for geologic processes — they could be fast or slow, but either way, the same things would occur in the same order.

LK: I've been posting on the Cataclysm thread in order to show that the conventional dating methods are way off. C14 dating seems to be most accurate and it dates many things way younger and if there was a thick damp atmosphere there may have been no C14 initially, which would make older C14 dates off too.

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