The claimed geological ages conflict with erosion rates

[stcordova]

I claim:

The Phanerozoic era of the geological column (roughly 542 million years ago to present) should have been erased by now given even conservative erosion rates. Thus the fossil record is likely misinterpreted to be old, since its presumed age is in conflict with many accepted values for erosion rates. The solution is that the fossil record is not hundreds of millions of years old, but far less old.

Agree or disagree?

This means the claims that fossils are hundreds of millions of years old is a mistaken claim. Scientific evidence actually suggests the fossil are far more recent, and this supports Noah's flood.

Here is the supporting evidence:

The average height of land above sea level is about 840 meters. This website indicates erosion rates of 5 to 25 meters per million years.

http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/arch ... 21-8-4.htm

Simple math then says:

840 meters / 5 meters per million years= 168 million years

If we use the faster figure:

840 meters / 25 meters per million years= 33.6 million years

Now, the paper's measurements presume the geological layers are millions of years old to begin with, so even then this is a generous estimate!

Alternate estimates of erosion rates yield numbers that indicate the geological column is not more than 12 million years. A 1964 paper by Princeton geologists Judson and Ritter, "Rates of Regional Denudation in the United States" pointed out:

Taking the average height of the United States above sea level as 2300 feet and assuming that the rates of erosion reported here are representative, we find that it would take 11 to 12 million years to move to the oceans a value equivalent to that of the United States lying above sea level. At this rate there has been enough time since the Cretaceous to destroy such a land mass six times. Accepting this figure creates the problem of maintaining a continental mass above high elevations. A problem beyond the intent of this report.

The methods in Judson and Ritter were very simple. They tallied measurements by various agencies (like the Army Corp of Engineers) being made over the years of the amount of sand, silt and clay particles suspended in water flowing through various rivers pouring into the ocean. It is a basic simple measurement:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspended_load

The value of suspended load can then be used to estimate the erosion rate of the United States. Though their erosion rates are higher than other methods, pretty much all published erosion rates indicate the fossil record would have been erased if it were really as old as claimed.


Even the most conservative estimates of erosion rates of 2.5 microns (MICRONS!) per year would erase the Phanerozoic column within 330 million years. Thus the fossil record would have been erased by now if it were as old as claimed. This is evidence the fossil record is not hundreds of millions of years old, but that the fossils might not be older than tens of millions of years if not millions of years, and perhaps even only thousands of years given other lines of evidence (such as trace C-14, lack of amino acid racemization, and DNA remnants).

[H.sapiens]

I claim:

The Phanerozoic era of the geological column (roughly 542 million years ago to present) should have been erased by now given even conservative erosion rates. Thus the fossil record is likely misinterpreted to be old, since its presumed age is in conflict with many accepted values for erosion rates. The solution is that the fossil record is not hundreds of millions of years old, but far less old.

Agree or disagree?

Disagree

This means the claims that fossils are hundreds of millions of years old is a mistaken claim. Scientific evidence actually suggests the fossil are far more recent, and this supports Noah's flood.

There is no scientific evidence, when properly considered, that supports a Biblical flood.

Here is the supporting evidence:

The average height of land above sea level is about 840 meters. This website indicates erosion rates of 5 to 25 meters per million years.

http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/arch ... 21-8-4.htm

Simple math then says:

840 meters / 5 meters per million years= 168 million years

If we use the faster figure:

840 meters / 25 meters per million years= 33.6 million years

Now, the paper's measurements presume the geological layers are millions of years old to begin with, so even then this is a generous estimate!

Alternate estimates of erosion rates yield numbers that indicate the geological column is not more than 12 million years. A 1964 paper by Princeton geologists Judson and Ritter, "Rates of Regional Denudation in the United States" pointed out:

Taking the average height of the United States above sea level as 2300 feet and assuming that the rates of erosion reported here are representative, we find that it would take 11 to 12 million years to move to the oceans a value equivalent to that of the United States lying above sea level. At this rate there has been enough time since the Cretaceous to destroy such a land mass six times. Accepting this figure creates the problem of maintaining a continental mass above high elevations. A problem beyond the intent of this report.

The methods in Judson and Ritter were very simple. They tallied measurements by various agencies (like the Army Corp of Engineers) being made over the years of the amount of sand, silt and clay particles suspended in water flowing through various rivers pouring into the ocean. It is a basic simple measurement:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspended_load

The value of suspended load can then be used to estimate the erosion rate of the United States. Though their erosion rates are higher than other methods, pretty much all published erosion rates indicate the fossil record would have been erased if it were really as old as claimed.


Even the most conservative estimates of erosion rates of 2.5 microns (MICRONS!) per year would erase the Phanerozoic column within 330 million years. Thus the fossil record would have been erased by now if it were as old as claimed. This is evidence the fossil record is not hundreds of millions of years old, but that the fossils might not be older than tens of millions of years if not millions of years, and perhaps even only thousands of years given other lines of evidence (such as trace C-14, lack of amino acid racemization, and DNA remnants).

Your error in thinking is well described, in a general sense, by Matthew S. Tiscareno:

The One-Sided Equation: A large class of "evidences" presented by young-Earth advocates involve measuring rates of various Earth processes, then attempting to extrapolate them backwards for millions of years. Generally, the purpose is to show that the process in question would build up to absurdity if it were allowed to continue through "evolutionary timescales." The fallacy of most claims of this type is a failure to recognize the importance of equilibrium. Most processes on Earth are in a state of balance, in which one process (such as erosion of the continents) is counteracted by others (such as emplacement of new continental material by volcanoes and tectonic uplift). Generally, processes on Earth do not build up without limit, because there is always another process that opposes the build-up, leading to the establishment of equilibrium. You make this exact mistake with respect to the basis for your claims of deposition of sediments, you neglect the recycling of sediments. You assume, incorrectly, that it is a one way street.

Marine sediments (and this is 70% of the globe) are scraped off of subducting oceanic plates to form mountains or are subducted into the mantle to be melted and later deposited as igneous rocks these materials are recycled and that is one of the things that you are not considering in your calculation of "averages.". The seabed moves an inch or two per year, making the average age a small multiple tens of millions of years. There are sediments and crustal materials that have passed through this cycle repeatedly and there are still extant terrestrial deposits that have not been eroded into the seas: The oldest dated rocks on Earth, as an aggregate of minerals that have not been subsequently melted or disaggregated by erosion, are from the Hadean Eon. Such rocks are exposed on the surface in very few places.

Wiki: Some of the oldest surface rock can be found in the Canadian Shield, Australia, Africa and in other more specific places around the world. The ages of these felsic rocks are generally between 2.5 and 3.8 billion years. The approximate ages have a margin of error of millions of years. In 1999, the oldest known rock on Earth was dated to 4.031 ± 0.003 billion years, and is part of the Acasta Gneiss of the Slave craton in northwestern Canada. Researchers at McGill University found a rock with a very old model age for extraction from the mantle (3.8 to 4.28 billion years ago) in the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt on the coast of Hudson Bay, in northern Quebec; the true age of these samples is still under debate, and they may actually be closer to 3.8 billion years old. Older than these rocks are crystals of the mineral zircon, which can survive the disaggregation of their parent rock and be found and dated in younger rock formations.

Clearly your willfully misunderstanding of the Judson and Ritter study of 1964 is way out of whack. There are many many interlocking and mutually supporting piece of science that define the age of the earth and if Judson and Ritter is one of a very few outliers then one would be wise to question the outliers rather than all the rest of geological science, but you seem to be more interested in misusing one data point so that you may rant that all the other data points are wrong, knock yourself out.

[stcordova]

You make this exact mistake with respect to the basis for your claims of deposition of sediments, you neglect the recycling of sediments. You assume, incorrectly, that it is a one way street.

First of all thank you for participating in this debate and taking time to repost some of your earlier thoughts that had been moved to the random ramblings forum.

With respect to the assumption of equilibrium whereby eroded sediments are replaced by other sediments through tectonic activity, this would still erase the fossil record since such activity replaces sediments, not fossils.

I did not assume a one way street. In either a one way street (no equilibrium) or two-way street (equilibrium), the fossil record would have been erased. The solution to the problem is the fossil record is relatively young.

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 3 by stcordova]No! You're making the same incorrect one way street assumption. There remain to this day outcroppings that have never been recycled, there remain to this day sediments that have never been recycled. This is all balanced by by rocks and sediments that have been recycled numerous times. When plates are subducted and melted any fossils in them are lost, but clearly there are sediments remaining from most epochs with their fossils intact.

[100%atheist]

I claim:

The Phanerozoic era of the geological column (roughly 542 million years ago to present) should have been erased by now given even conservative erosion rates. Thus the fossil record is likely misinterpreted to be old, since its presumed age is in conflict with many accepted values for erosion rates. The solution is that the fossil record is not hundreds of millions of years old, but far less old.

Agree or disagree?

[font=Verdana]I think this is great. Have you considered alternative approaches to geological dating?
[/font]

This means the claims that fossils are hundreds of millions of years old is a mistaken claim. Scientific evidence actually suggests the fossil are far more recent, and this supports Noah's flood.

Here is the supporting evidence:

The average height of land above sea level is about 840 meters. This website indicates erosion rates of 5 to 25 meters per million years.

http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/arch ... 21-8-4.htm

Simple math then says:

840 meters / 5 meters per million years= 168 million years

If we use the faster figure:

840 meters / 25 meters per million years= 33.6 million years

Now, the paper's measurements presume the geological layers are millions of years old to begin with, so even then this is a generous estimate!

Alternate estimates of erosion rates yield numbers that indicate the geological column is not more than 12 million years. A 1964 paper by Princeton geologists Judson and Ritter, "Rates of Regional Denudation in the United States" pointed out:

Taking the average height of the United States above sea level as 2300 feet and assuming that the rates of erosion reported here are representative, we find that it would take 11 to 12 million years to move to the oceans a value equivalent to that of the United States lying above sea level. At this rate there has been enough time since the Cretaceous to destroy such a land mass six times. Accepting this figure creates the problem of maintaining a continental mass above high elevations. A problem beyond the intent of this report.

The methods in Judson and Ritter were very simple. They tallied measurements by various agencies (like the Army Corp of Engineers) being made over the years of the amount of sand, silt and clay particles suspended in water flowing through various rivers pouring into the ocean. It is a basic simple measurement:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspended_load

The value of suspended load can then be used to estimate the erosion rate of the United States. Though their erosion rates are higher than other methods, pretty much all published erosion rates indicate the fossil record would have been erased if it were really as old as claimed.


Even the most conservative estimates of erosion rates of 2.5 microns (MICRONS!) per year would erase the Phanerozoic column within 330 million years. Thus the fossil record would have been erased by now if it were as old as claimed. This is evidence the fossil record is not hundreds of millions of years old, but that the fossils might not be older than tens of millions of years if not millions of years, and perhaps even only thousands of years given other lines of evidence (such as trace C-14, lack of amino acid racemization, and DNA remnants).

[font=Verdana]I fail to see where do you get name Noah from all that? How about Abdulah's ark? [/font]

[stcordova]

here remain to this day outcroppings that have never been recycled, there remain to this day sediments that have never been recycled

Agreed, and coupled with the fact that they should have been eroded into the sea by now, it means the fossils are young (not hundreds of millions of years old).

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 6 by stcordova]

No, it does not mean that, put on your thinking cap and try again.

[dianaiad]

[Replying to post 6 by stcordova]

No, it does not mean that, put on your thinking cap and try again.

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[FarWanderer]

[Replying to post 1 by stcordova]

Worldwide average rainfall is about a meter per year, and the world's tallest mountain is 8,848 meters tall. Therefore the entire surface of the planet will be submerged in water in about 8,848 years.

Agree or disagree?

[kiran]

here remain to this day outcroppings that have never been recycled, there remain to this day sediments that have never been recycled

Agreed, and coupled with the fact that they should have been eroded into the sea by now, it means the fossils are young (not hundreds of millions of years old).

I've come up with a brief proof-of-concept thought experiment that I hope will make you reconsider your claim. You appear to be overlooking a vital piece of information: in a system in equilibrium, with old material being recycled into new material, there may be some pieces of material that do not undergo the recycling process.

Please keep in mind that this thought experiment is not designed to represent the world. Rather, it is designed as a "consciousness-raiser," as Dawkins would say.

A conveyor belt moves from right to left, carrying a number of rocks varying in size. At the far left of the belt, at the end, the rocks drop into an elevator that brings them back to the beginning of the belt. Halfway in the middle of the belt is a semi-permeable membrane (like a wire fence). The wall blocks rocks larger than a certain size from passing through. The big rocks are stuck at this membrane, unable to be recycled.


(Pardon the crappy and incomplete graphic.)

If you measure the rate of rock recycling to be 100 per hour, and there are a total of 1000 rocks, you may come to the conclusion that no rock on the conveyor belt can have than recycled less than 10 hours ago. This does not however take into account the fact that some rocks are not recycled at all.

I hope I am not guilty, as many people are, of creating some sort of straw man here. I believe I have accurately identified and addressed the flaw in your reasoning. Please also note that this thought experiment in no way proves anything. It should merely serve to open your eyes to the possibility of isolated old age in a constantly changing system.