A Discussion of the Cause of the Flood

[pnattmbtc]

Mark, I think sky was just quoting from the original author, so that it is being presented as a fact represents the writing style of the author. I don't know if sky considers this as a fact or a theory.

I want to make sure I understand your point. Is it that the Scripture is not clear that this happened in the past? So you see it may be only a prophecy of what will happen, and not necessarily also a description of how things were previously?

[Twilight]

Mark, I think sky was just quoting from the original author, so that it is being presented as a fact represents the writing style of the author. I don't know if sky considers this as a fact or a theory.

I want to make sure I understand your point. Is it that the Scripture is not clear that this happened in the past? So you see it may be only a prophecy of what will happen, and not necessarily also a description of how things were previously?

I think it was presented as fact, I could be wrong...

Which created the first questioning on the usages of the texts which I reposted for you above.

Mark

[pnattmbtc]

Again, being presented as a fact is a function of the writing style of the author whom sky quoted. Sky also uses a similar style, it seems to me, in his own posts. To be fair, just about every body here seems to do this. I suppose I probably do too.

Was I correct in identifying the subject of your disagreement? I assume there was something of substance you were disagreeing with, and not just the writing style.

[Twilight]

I bumped the issue pnatt.

Did you not see it?

Mark :-)

[The Searcher]

As a structural geologist, I have studied this particular problem extensively. If I am to posit a cause for the flood, I must have a mechanism that would explain several consequences. These include:

How was plate tectonics initiated?

What would cause the mantle material to erupt onto the surface of the earth through volcanoes and through fractures?

How were the magnetic reversals initiated and created?

Why was there no rain before the flood?

What precipitated the rain?

What caused the water canopy to dissipate?

What caused the great jets of water which burst through the crust?

As I have contemplated these questions, I realized that the best explanation had to start with something which would destabilize the earth's pole of rotation and at the same time, cause magnetic reversals. I needed something that would cause the interaction between the inner and outer nickel/iron cores to tumble out of their normal rotational patterns in such a fashion as to completely change current directions in the core rapidly. I also needed a source of aerosols around which the vapor in the atmosphere would collect forming raindrops. I needed to create volcanoes and ruptures deep enough to penetrate the mantle and the upper lithosphere. I needed a mechanism that would create stresses and consequent strains great enough to rupture the earth's crust.

My answer came when I studied the cratering on the moon. I had originally believed the cratering was a phenomena which had been continuous throughout the span of earth's history. But as I studied this history, it was obvious through radiometric dating that the cratering on the moon was during a very short period of time shortly after its creation. (Please note that I use radiometric dating in a relative fashion. Early dates represent early in the flood year, later dates later in the flood year, and the most recent as events in the last part of the flood or post-flood.) The moon is supposed to have began formation at the same time as the solar system which is dated at 4.6 billion years with solidification achieved about 4.1 billion years ago. The cratering event on the moon is dated at about 3.9 to 4.1 billion years. In flood terms, about the beginning of the flood 2500 years before Christ. There have been no major cratering events since. Meteorite hits on the moon are fairly rare.

As I studied the inner planets, it was obvious that this cratering event occurred throughout the system at the same time. This would suggest that all the inner planets were hit by meteorites during this period of time. The reason that they are not observed in any great detail on the earth is because the earth's surface has gone through a major upheaval which thoroughly obliterated all the early evidence on the continents, and plate subduction carried the early oceanic crust into the mantle also destroying all evidence for this event. But there are some major flood-related craters around the globe such as north of the Yucatan Peninsula, craters in Canada such as Buffin Bay, and many other such anomalies found throughout the world. These are large; hundreds of kilometers in diameter.

I calculated the mass and velocity required to tilt the earth from its normal pole of rotation and found that, using current velocities, a meteorite of 12 kilometers in diameter at the time of impact could cause the pole to wander one degree. And if many of these hit the earth at approximately the same moment in time, then the result would be horrendous tectonically. The earth's crust would be disastrously pulled in various directions rupturing the earth's lithosphere and opening vast vents and fractures to the underlying mantle. The sudden drop in pressures, where these rips in the earth's lithosphere appeared, would allow the volume to increase catastrophically causing the mantle material to rapidly liquify and then explode onto the surface throwing mantle material high into the sky into the surrounding water canopy.

At the same time the core and mantle would begin to tumble in the same fashion as a gyroscope does when it is tilted from its axis. This would cause the electrical currents which create the earth's magnetic field to tumble and bring about magnetic reversals. This would also cause the mantle material to flow upward into the tears of the earth, and the material, which did not escape through the ruptures, would move horizontally away from these zones carrying the passively riding plates with the motion.

As time would pass, the earth's polar wander would try to re-establish equilibrium returning to its original orientation, and the lithosphere and the mantle material would also seek equilibrium. Thus the plates would move in various directions in order to re-distribute the mass and re-establish a surface and an interior mass equilibrium.

With the subduction, more volcanoes would appear along the overriding plate above the subducting plate and islands arcs and new continents would be created. New mountain chains would form as continents collided.

During the initial crustal destruction, whole oceans, and lakes, and continents were completely deformed and metamorphosed becoming the core complexes of the present continents and the green metamorphic belts such as those in southern Africa and around the great lakes in Canada and northeastern America. In these locations are now the remnants of the pre-flood world. The originals are completely destroyed and metamorphosed, but their original environmental types can still be determined.

Over time, the mantle temperatures would drop and the heat of the igneous material would lower. This is seen by the kommadiite flows early in the Pre-Cambrian rock which are very high temperature flows with a slow lowering of temperature to the cooler temperature presently seen in basaltic flows.

Before the flood, there was no rain which meant there were no aerosols about which the moisture could nucleate, thus the water canopy would remain suspended above the earth's atmosphere. But along with the eruption of the mantle material into the atmosphere, aerosols were also created and sent into the atmosphere. This caused the moisture in the water canopy to nucleate, and it began to rain rapidly. At the same time the lakes and seas were warming up and their moisture was rapidly evaporated into the atmosphere adding to the rain.

Prior to the flood the earth was watered by ground water which flowed from the four rivers coming out of Eden. These rivers would split into smaller streams which would water the areas between the larger rivers. Also these streams would keep the seas filled. The water from the lakes, streams, and seas would seep into the surrounding land keeping the water table at a level which would keep the plants watered and also bring nourishment to them. This water would cool and seep down deep into the subsurface. There were vast underground layers of clean sand which would purify the sinking water as it flowed along the lithosphere mantle boundary. The mantle was loaded with radioactive material which would generate heat. This heat would flow into the lithosphere heating the water and causing the water to expand and flow upward, resurfacing to repeat the cycle.

Thus there were vast subterranean pure, clean sand reservoirs of water at the time of the flood. With the catastrophic tearing of the crust these reservoirs also felt a drop in pressure with resulting expansion and both sand and water would explosively erupt into the oceans and up through the crust of the continents. Jets of high pressure water would burst into the air throwing massive rocks hundreds of meters into the air. These jets and fountains added to the rain and flooding.

Over time, pressures subsided, explosive jets slowed and stopped, earthquakes slowed, and active volcanism began to subside. By the first 150 days the flood had reached its high water mark, and things at the surface of the vast ocean calmed. There were still rain squalls caused by daytime heating. But all was cooling. Over time the mantle cooled and ocean basins began to subside creating vast depths. The average depth of the ocean is 5 miles with the deepest depth at 12 miles in the Marianas Trench. The continents average about a mile above sealevel with the highest height at Everest approximately five miles and still growing.

But we are still feeling the effects of the flood. Volcanism is still relatively active with 3 to 5 active eruptions in the world every year. The plates are still moving slowly but steady trying to come back to some form of equilibrium. Earthquakes are still happening as the plates move creating positive and negative stresses with strains building and then being suddenly released. Without the canopy, the earth surface is exposed to the deleterious effects of space bombardment, and the extrusion of mantle material brought the radioactive material to the earth's surface also adding to the destructive environment. Thus the lives of men were shortened, not because of meat-eating, but because of the ill effects of the space and radioactive erosion on the DNA of all creatures.

All of this, the result of a meteor storm which hit all the inner planets.

Shortly after reaching these conclusions, while working on my Ph.D. in Structural Geology, I attended a session in Geophysics where a non-creationist geophysicist presented the exact same scenario for initiating plate tectonics. He also came to the same conclusion as to the change in the pole of rotation and mass redistribution for achieving equilibrium. And no body challenged him. It gave me comfort to know that others were coming to the same conclusions.

I hope this all makes sense. This is a synopsis of a paper that I presented before a group of our church leaders and scientists many years ago. I am open to any questions; I can't guarantee that I have the answers. But I have given you a starting place. I am a Seventh Day Adventist.

Sincerely,

Seafarer.

[olger]

The Flood was caused by too much water.

That will be all,

olger

[The Searcher]

But what caused the large volume of water at the surface of the earth?

Sincerely,

Seafarer

[Guest]

God said he was going to do it. That's good enough for me.

Gen 6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for I am sorry that I have made them.

[pnattmbtc]

Thus there were vast subterranean pure, clean sand reservoirs of water at the time of the flood. With the catastrophic tearing of the crust these reservoirs also felt a drop in pressure with resulting expansion and both sand and water would explosively erupt into the oceans and up through the crust of the continents. Jets of high pressure water would burst into the air throwing massive rocks hundreds of meters into the air. These jets and fountains added to the rain and flooding.

This is what I think as well. I can't think of anything else that would be plausible.

[Twilight]

As a structural geologist, I have studied this particular problem extensively. If I am to posit a cause for the flood, I must have a mechanism that would explain several consequences. These include:

How was plate tectonics initiated?

What would cause the mantle material to erupt onto the surface of the earth through volcanoes and through fractures?

How were the magnetic reversals initiated and created?

Why was there no rain before the flood?

What precipitated the rain?

What caused the water canopy to dissipate?

What caused the great jets of water which burst through the crust?

As I have contemplated these questions, I realized that the best explanation had to start with something which would destabilize the earth's pole of rotation and at the same time, cause magnetic reversals. I needed something that would cause the interaction between the inner and outer nickel/iron cores to tumble out of their normal rotational patterns in such a fashion as to completely change current directions in the core rapidly. I also needed a source of aerosols around which the vapor in the atmosphere would collect forming raindrops. I needed to create volcanoes and ruptures deep enough to penetrate the mantle and the upper lithosphere. I needed a mechanism that would create stresses and consequent strains great enough to rupture the earth's crust.

My answer came when I studied the cratering on the moon. I had originally believed the cratering was a phenomena which had been continuous throughout the span of earth's history. But as I studied this history, it was obvious through radiometric dating that the cratering on the moon was during a very short period of time shortly after its creation. (Please note that I use radiometric dating in a relative fashion. Early dates represent early in the flood year, later dates later in the flood year, and the most recent as events in the last part of the flood or post-flood.) The moon is supposed to have began formation at the same time as the solar system which is dated at 4.6 billion years with solidification achieved about 4.1 billion years ago. The cratering event on the moon is dated at about 3.9 to 4.1 billion years. In flood terms, about the beginning of the flood 2500 years before Christ. There have been no major cratering events since. Meteorite hits on the moon are fairly rare.

As I studied the inner planets, it was obvious that this cratering event occurred throughout the system at the same time. This would suggest that all the inner planets were hit by meteorites during this period of time. The reason that they are not observed in any great detail on the earth is because the earth's surface has gone through a major upheaval which thoroughly obliterated all the early evidence on the continents, and plate subduction carried the early oceanic crust into the mantle also destroying all evidence for this event. But there are some major flood-related craters around the globe such as north of the Yucatan Peninsula, craters in Canada such as Buffin Bay, and many other such anomalies found throughout the world. These are large; hundreds of kilometers in diameter.

I calculated the mass and velocity required to tilt the earth from its normal pole of rotation and found that, using current velocities, a meteorite of 12 kilometers in diameter at the time of impact could cause the pole to wander one degree. And if many of these hit the earth at approximately the same moment in time, then the result would be horrendous tectonically. The earth's crust would be disastrously pulled in various directions rupturing the earth's lithosphere and opening vast vents and fractures to the underlying mantle. The sudden drop in pressures, where these rips in the earth's lithosphere appeared, would allow the volume to increase catastrophically causing the mantle material to rapidly liquify and then explode onto the surface throwing mantle material high into the sky into the surrounding water canopy.

At the same time the core and mantle would begin to tumble in the same fashion as a gyroscope does when it is tilted from its axis. This would cause the electrical currents which create the earth's magnetic field to tumble and bring about magnetic reversals. This would also cause the mantle material to flow upward into the tears of the earth, and the material, which did not escape through the ruptures, would move horizontally away from these zones carrying the passively riding plates with the motion.

As time would pass, the earth's polar wander would try to re-establish equilibrium returning to its original orientation, and the lithosphere and the mantle material would also seek equilibrium. Thus the plates would move in various directions in order to re-distribute the mass and re-establish a surface and an interior mass equilibrium.

With the subduction, more volcanoes would appear along the overriding plate above the subducting plate and islands arcs and new continents would be created. New mountain chains would form as continents collided.

During the initial crustal destruction, whole oceans, and lakes, and continents were completely deformed and metamorphosed becoming the core complexes of the present continents and the green metamorphic belts such as those in southern Africa and around the great lakes in Canada and northeastern America. In these locations are now the remnants of the pre-flood world. The originals are completely destroyed and metamorphosed, but their original environmental types can still be determined.

Over time, the mantle temperatures would drop and the heat of the igneous material would lower. This is seen by the kommadiite flows early in the Pre-Cambrian rock which are very high temperature flows with a slow lowering of temperature to the cooler temperature presently seen in basaltic flows.

Before the flood, there was no rain which meant there were no aerosols about which the moisture could nucleate, thus the water canopy would remain suspended above the earth's atmosphere. But along with the eruption of the mantle material into the atmosphere, aerosols were also created and sent into the atmosphere. This caused the moisture in the water canopy to nucleate, and it began to rain rapidly. At the same time the lakes and seas were warming up and their moisture was rapidly evaporated into the atmosphere adding to the rain.

Prior to the flood the earth was watered by ground water which flowed from the four rivers coming out of Eden. These rivers would split into smaller streams which would water the areas between the larger rivers. Also these streams would keep the seas filled. The water from the lakes, streams, and seas would seep into the surrounding land keeping the water table at a level which would keep the plants watered and also bring nourishment to them. This water would cool and seep down deep into the subsurface. There were vast underground layers of clean sand which would purify the sinking water as it flowed along the lithosphere mantle boundary. The mantle was loaded with radioactive material which would generate heat. This heat would flow into the lithosphere heating the water and causing the water to expand and flow upward, resurfacing to repeat the cycle.

Thus there were vast subterranean pure, clean sand reservoirs of water at the time of the flood. With the catastrophic tearing of the crust these reservoirs also felt a drop in pressure with resulting expansion and both sand and water would explosively erupt into the oceans and up through the crust of the continents. Jets of high pressure water would burst into the air throwing massive rocks hundreds of meters into the air. These jets and fountains added to the rain and flooding.

Over time, pressures subsided, explosive jets slowed and stopped, earthquakes slowed, and active volcanism began to subside. By the first 150 days the flood had reached its high water mark, and things at the surface of the vast ocean calmed. There were still rain squalls caused by daytime heating. But all was cooling. Over time the mantle cooled and ocean basins began to subside creating vast depths. The average depth of the ocean is 5 miles with the deepest depth at 12 miles in the Marianas Trench. The continents average about a mile above sealevel with the highest height at Everest approximately five miles and still growing.

But we are still feeling the effects of the flood. Volcanism is still relatively active with 3 to 5 active eruptions in the world every year. The plates are still moving slowly but steady trying to come back to some form of equilibrium. Earthquakes are still happening as the plates move creating positive and negative stresses with strains building and then being suddenly released. Without the canopy, the earth surface is exposed to the deleterious effects of space bombardment, and the extrusion of mantle material brought the radioactive material to the earth's surface also adding to the destructive environment. Thus the lives of men were shortened, not because of meat-eating, but because of the ill effects of the space and radioactive erosion on the DNA of all creatures.

All of this, the result of a meteor storm which hit all the inner planets.

Shortly after reaching these conclusions, while working on my Ph.D. in Structural Geology, I attended a session in Geophysics where a non-creationist geophysicist presented the exact same scenario for initiating plate tectonics. He also came to the same conclusion as to the change in the pole of rotation and mass redistribution for achieving equilibrium. And no body challenged him. It gave me comfort to know that others were coming to the same conclusions.

I hope this all makes sense. This is a synopsis of a paper that I presented before a group of our church leaders and scientists many years ago. I am open to any questions; I can't guarantee that I have the answers. But I have given you a starting place. I am a Seventh Day Adventist.

Sincerely,

Seafarer.

That was very interesting Seafarer.

Thank you. :-)

It is a good theory.

Testable.

Mark

[SivartM]

Seafarer needs to write a book. I'd read it.

[Lineman]

I have wondered about this lack of the need of sun or moon in the Holy City and have come to this Bible based conclusion:

Even though there will be a sun as we know it today (an orb of light "burning" in the sky) the light from God's throne will be so bright that the sun will not be needed inside the city. Outside the City will be a different story though, especially on the other side of the earth.

Still thinking.

[John317]

And at the same time that there's all that brilliant light, our eyes are going to be so much better and we'll be able to see for miles. Yet obviously the light won't hurt our eyes.

[Lineman]

FYI, here is a video created by Adventist Media that I found VERY informative. I posted it in the "Adventists on YouTube" forum last night, but after reading this forum topic I thought maybe I should post it here too. I found it worth every minute I spent watching.

Part 1 of 2 (38:00 minutes):