A Deluge of Evidence for the Flood?

[LittlePig]

And I can't think of any reason you would make the comment you made if you weren't suggesting that the find favored your view of a worldwide flood.

Umm, because simply it's a better explanation? And the fact that it's more consistent with the Flood Model doesn't hurt either.

Except, of course, it isn't consistent with a 'Flood Model', since it isn't mixed in with any animals that we know are modern.

Before the rabbits multiply beyond control, I'll just leave my proposal as a rapid burial. Nothing more than that. For this thread, it can just be a giant mud slide.

Since it's still spring time, let's let the rabbits multiply.

Questions for Debate:

1) Does a Global Flood Model provide the best explanation for our current fossil record, geologic formations, and biodiversity?

2) What real science is used in Global Flood Models?

3) What predictions does a Global Flood Model make?

4) Have Global Flood Models ever been subjected to a formal peer review process?

[micatala]

Here is some more information on ice core dating.


First, on checking the ice core dating against other dating methods.
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/crea ... synch.html

Scientists think that they have counted ice layers accurately. And, they think that one layer almost always means one year. The GISP2 workers believe that they were very careful, and that they are off by less than 5% at 50,000 years BP (Before Present). But are they right?

There turn out to be a bunch of ways to check. For example, the Beryllium 10 measurements can be compared against historical records about sunspots. Unfortunately, sunspot records only go back to the invention of the telescope. Still, the records from the 1600's can indeed be matched up to the Beryllium 10 record. So, the layer counting seems correct that far back.

Another interesting measure is the element iridium. Greenland ice seems to have a lot of it in the year 1908. That probably came from the asteroid which exploded over the Tunguska River in Siberia.

Carbon dating has been applied to pollen found in various layers of the GRIP (Greenland) core. Carbon dates across the last 60,000 years were obtained, and all were in essential agreement with the matching ice-layer dates.

A radioactive dating of some ocean sediment was done, using Uranium/Thorium dating, that gave an answer of 30,470 BP plus or minus 240 years. The place in the GISP2 core which is thought to correspond, was counted as being layer 31,000. If the U/Th date is as accurate as its authors think, then the true error in that ice date is less than 2%. That's nicely within the ice date's plus or minus of 5%.

We know that there are astronomical cycles which should slowly change the climate. If the ice cores really do extend for 100,000 or 200,000 years, then the shorter astronomical cycles should have happened several times over, and some sort of cyclic effect should be detectable in the cores. This has been looked for, and found.

Erupting volcanoes give us another method. An ice layer can be analyzed to see if it contains ash, sulphur, and so on. Most layers don't. So, it should be possible to match up the volcanic layers against historical records of eruptions. And, it should be possible to match the volcanic layers in Greenland with the ones in Antarctica. It's also possible to match that against periods of bad weather, as seen by the California bristlecone pines and the Irish bog oaks. From just such tree matching, it is believed that there was a major eruption in exactly 1628 BC. That was Thera, the eruption in the Mediterranean that ended the Minoan civilization. The layers in the "Dye3" Greenland ice core say that there was a very major eruption in 1645 BC, plus or minus 20 years. So, the ice date for Thera is pretty close to the tree ring date.

That's not the only volcano, of course. Of the volcanoes that have happened in the last 2000 years, about 85% have been matched to ice layers.

Some references for the above information are:

10Be in ice at Vostok Antarctica during the last climatic cycle, Yiou et al, Nature Vol. 316 pp. 616-617, 15 August 1985
Extending the Vostok ice-core record of palaeoclimate to the penultimate glacial period, Jouzel et al, Nature Vol. 364 pp. 407-412, 29 July 1993

Irish tree rings, Santorini and volcanic dust veils, Baillie and Munro, Nature Vol. 332 pp. 344-346, 24 March 1988

The Minoan eruption of Santorini in Greece dated to 1645 BC? Hammer et al, Nature Vol. 328 pp. 517-519, 6 August 1987

Record of Volcanism Since 7000 B.C. from the GISP2 Greenland Ice Core and Implications for the Volcano-Climate System, Zielinski et al, Science Vol. 264 pp. 948-951, 13 May 1994

The author of this site is admittedly not an expert in the field, although he seems to be quite well-educated. The above is one of four pages that can be linked to from. http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/icecap.html. The home page for the website is http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/

Here is his short statement of belief, for what it is worth.

I believe that Creation - that is, nature - is not deceptive. Anything which Creation clearly and unambiguously shows, must be Truth. Whenever Revealed Truth is in conflict with Creation itself, humans must somehow have mistranslated, or misinterpreted.

So, for me, the debate, the issue, is what (if anything) is clearly and unambiguously shown by Creation. The problem is not simple. The craters on the moon may be writ large, but they are not written in English.

He also has a page on physical constants being the same in the past as today. I am including it as it seems relevant to our discussion on uniformitarianism.

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/crea ... dence.html




Here is one more link which I am putting here just for reference.
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/icecap.html

[otseng]

The seasonal snow layers are easiest to see in snow pits, writes Alley, the Evan Pugh Professor in the Environment Institute and Department of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. To see the layers, scientists dig two pits separated by a thin wall of snow. One pit is covered, and the other is left open to sunlight. By standing in the covered pit, scientists can study the annual snow layers in the snow wall as the sunlight filters through the other side. I have stood in snow pits with dozens of people"drillers, journalists, and others"and so far, every visitor has been impressed. The snow is blue, something like the blue seen by deep sea divers, an indescribable, almost achingly beautiful blue, writes Alley. The next thing most people notice is the layering.

I've found an image of a snow pit in Antarctica.


http://lima.nasa.gov/antarctica/

The caption reads:
"Snow pits dug into the surface snow (and back lit with a second pit to illuminate a thin wall of snow) show layers caused by individual snowfall events. Unevenness of the layers results from drifting of the snow while it was on the surface."

I assume the numbers on the right is the depth. If so, even near the surface, the individual layers are quite thin and irregular. Layers are not attributed to annual layers, but to individual snowfall events. Also, if you drill down at one point and count the number of layers, it will be different at another point. Also, we are only seeing the first 150 cm. As one goes deeper, the layers will be even more indistinguishable. So, this image leads me to believe that visual layer counting cannot be used as a method of dating in the Antarctic.

[micatala]

The seasonal snow layers are easiest to see in snow pits, writes Alley, the Evan Pugh Professor in the Environment Institute and Department of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. To see the layers, scientists dig two pits separated by a thin wall of snow. One pit is covered, and the other is left open to sunlight. By standing in the covered pit, scientists can study the annual snow layers in the snow wall as the sunlight filters through the other side. I have stood in snow pits with dozens of people"drillers, journalists, and others"and so far, every visitor has been impressed. The snow is blue, something like the blue seen by deep sea divers, an indescribable, almost achingly beautiful blue, writes Alley. The next thing most people notice is the layering.

I've found an image of a snow pit in Antarctica.


http://lima.nasa.gov/antarctica/

Very nice. Thanks for the inclusion.

The caption reads:
"Snow pits dug into the surface snow (and back lit with a second pit to illuminate a thin wall of snow) show layers caused by individual snowfall events. Unevenness of the layers results from drifting of the snow while it was on the surface."

I assume the numbers on the right is the depth.

Based on the comparison with the person in the photo, that seems reasonable.

If so, even near the surface, the individual layers are quite thin and irregular. Layers are not attributed to annual layers, but to individual snowfall events.

How do you know the layers are not annual but are individual snow fall events? I looked for some accompanying explanation, but there was none concerning this photo. I agree the layers are "irregular". I would agree it is possible that a layer can be "pinched off" so you might get a different number of visual layers. This could be due to drifting, for example. I would even agree that I would not personally feel confident in predicting where the yearly breaks are. Keep in mind that any "missing layers" only increases the actual age as compared to the estimated age based on the core sample.


In addition, you and I don't have a lot of experience looking at such layers. Nor do we have any of the other data for these layers, like oxygen ion ratios, carbon dating of pollen and other residues, etc. If this photo is from close to the surface, it is possible and perhaps likely that they have kept track of the annual layers as the fell for several years. I mentioned this before.

I can understand how you might come to an initial impression, but your comment completely ignores many considerations that have already been discussed concerning ice cores, especially that scientists use a variety of methods in concert to check for errors in any one method.

See http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~www-glac/datering ... tint_e.htm for an image including very deep visual layers together with accompanying data from two chemical tests.

As one goes deeper, the layers will be even more indistinguishable. So, this image leads me to believe that visual layer counting cannot be used as a method of dating in the Antarctic.

I will allow the visual inspection is not perfect, and this is acknowledged in the sources I have cited. However, it is incorrect, I think, to say that it cannot be used as a dating method by people with experience with ice core layers.

Also, I am not sure that deeper necessarily means more indistinguishable. The image from the link I posted (from the Copenhagen Ice Core Dating Initiative) is deeper and these seem on first blush to be MORE distinguishable. I think it depends on how deep you go. I would agree, and the sources Ive cited allude to this, that when compression makes the layers too thin, one will lose the ability to visually distinguish layers and may lose the ability to distinguish them chemically and by other means. I will see if I can check on how for down one typically has to go before this happens.



Here is a section from http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/icecore/review.php which discusses how O16 versus O18 concentrations are used for dating purposes.

Stable Isotope Analysis:

One of the most common ice core proxies is the analysis of stable isotopic ratios, primarily deuterium and oxygen 18. Atoms are composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons. The number of protons determines what the element is, while neutrons and electrons can vary. An isotope is an atom with a different number of neutrons from the set number of protons. For example, oxygen, which contains 8 protons, usually has with it 8 neutrons creating oxygen 16. However, in some cases, there may be 9 or even 10 neutrons in the oxygen nucleus creating oxygen 17 and oxygen 18 respectively.

Water, composed of hydrogen and oxygen, contains naturally occurring isotopes that combine into molecules of differing weights. Oxygen occurs naturally as three different stable isotopes with relative abundance in parenthesis - 16O (99.76%), 17O (0.04%), and 18O (0.2%). Hydrogen can occur with two stable isotopes -- 1H (99.984%) and 2H (0.016%). Together these combine to make up all water molecules, of which only two combinations are important for paleoclimatic research - 1H2H16O and 1H218O. As these water molecules are evaporated, primarily from the oceans, the lighter molecules, those having fewer neutrons, are preferentially evaporated over the heavier ones, due to a slight difference in vapor pressure caused by the extra neutrons. This causes the vapor to be depleted in heavy molecules but enriched in lighter ones. As the air mass cools and condensation occurs, the heavier molecules preferentially condense due to the same principle. The condensation is then assumed to fall out of the cloud as precipitation. Thus, the oxygen isotopic ratio of rain and snow is strongly related to condensation temperature. If the temperature of the air mass should continue to fall, the condensation will contain decreasing concentrations of the heavy molecules, resulting in a depletion of 18O relative to precipitation that condensed in a warmer environment. In the current environment this is exemplified by annual layers exhibited in Greenland and Antarctic cores with a much greater depletion of heavier molecules in ice and snow.

In the 1960's this principle was well understood by scientists and engineers; however for researchers around the world to study the relationship between isotopic ratios and air temperature a standard had to be developed to allow for intercomparisons of all samples. Developed in 1961, this is called Standard Mean Ocean Water (SMOW), and all oxygen isotopic deviations from it are denoted as delta18O; hydrogen isotopic deviations as deltaD.

More details follow this paragraph.



To reiterate, it is the combination of methods checked against each other, including the use of marker events like volcanic eruptions, crater impacts (like the 1908 impact in Russia), ongoing observation as layers form, etc., that allow us to conclude with a high degree of certainty that we are counting annual layers.

Based on this experience and the science of ice flow and formation, we can at least do estimates based on depth for the deepest part of sheets where layers may be difficult to distinguish. For example, if we get N years of "countable layers" at the top of a core and have only gone through a fraction of the total depth, we can reasonably suggest (although perhaps not prove) that the sheet is several factors of N older.

[otseng]

How do you know the layers are not annual but are individual snow fall events?

I'm only going by what the caption says. "Snow pits dug into the surface snow show layers caused by individual snowfall events."

What I'm disputing is the assumption that layers are always annual. If layers are not annual, several of the methods of dating (visual counting, isotopes) would be in error.

If this photo is from close to the surface, it is possible and perhaps likely that they have kept track of the annual layers as the fell for several years. I mentioned this before.

Being "possible and perhaps likely" would not be sufficient evidence that this happens.

See http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~www-glac/datering ... tint_e.htm for an image including very deep visual layers together with accompanying data from two chemical tests.

I'm not sure how they know that layers are annual. It seems to be an assumption in the article.

I would agree, and the sources Ive cited allude to this, that when compression makes the layers too thin, one will lose the ability to visually distinguish layers and may lose the ability to distinguish them chemically and by other means.

It would seem reasonable to me that if layers are thinner, it would harder to distinguish the layers than the thicker layers.

To reiterate, it is the combination of methods checked against each other, including the use of marker events like volcanic eruptions, crater impacts (like the 1908 impact in Russia), ongoing observation as layers form, etc., that allow us to conclude with a high degree of certainty that we are counting annual layers.

I would agree that we can use known events to give a more accurate date. I would be interested to see if they count the layers and use marker dates to arrive indepedently at the same time.

[Scotracer]

How do you know the layers are not annual but are individual snow fall events?

I'm only going by what the caption says. "Snow pits dug into the surface snow show layers caused by individual snowfall events."

What I'm disputing is the assumption that layers are always annual. If layers are not annual, several of the methods of dating (visual counting, isotopes) would be in error.

Whilst it is a valid dispute, it has been accounted for...

From an older post by micatala:

Throughout each year, layers of snow fall over the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Each layer of snow is different in chemistry and texture, summer snow differing from winter snow. Summer brings 24 hours of sunlight to the polar regions, and the top layer of the snow changes in texture"not melting exactly, but changing enough to be different from the snow it covers. The season turns cold and dark again, and more snow falls, forming the next layers of snow. Each layer gives scientists a treasure trove of information about the climate each year. Like marine sediment cores, an ice core provides a vertical timeline of past climates stored in ice sheets and mountain glaciers.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Featur ... _IceCores/

They can show whether or not the layer formed at certain times of the year, so they can tell the difference and work out if they are annual layers or not.

[nygreenguy]

What I'm disputing is the assumption that layers are always annual. If layers are not annual, several of the methods of dating (visual counting, isotopes) would be in error.

And do you really, HONESTLY believe that these people, who spend their lives doing such work, with thousands of peer-reviewed papers, somehow may have overlooked this methodological error OR is the more likely scenario that you really dont know what these scientists do and how they do it?

Im guessing the latter, and Im more than happy to put myself in that group as well.

[nygreenguy]

Please remember I was suggesting plausible hypotheses, not putting forward any data on broken sequences. Please also remember I alluded to a difference between tree rings in actual wood versus fossilized trees. Perhaps I should have clarified that in the scenario I was hypothesizing, the "wood tree rings" go back 10,000 years. Then, there are fossilized rings which would in many cases be much older. The break is between the wood rings and the fossilized rings.

I guess what we need is an explanation based on standard science as to why what I would call "wood rings" (which could be from live or dead trees) don't take us back further than 10,000 years. My guess is that the wood simply decays by that time if it is not already undergoing a fossilization process.

Can I ask if nygreenguy can shed any light on this? As I recall, you have some experience with dendrochronology. Am I off base in my speculations concerning how far back wood rings go and whether the first "break" is between wood rings and fossilized rings?

Well, it all depends on the species. The further we go back, the harder it is to find wood which meets the requirements needed to do proper ring reading. We need to find species which all have undergone similar conditions and are intact. When you go back that far, it becomes difficult simply because old things rot! I think the 10,000 break is with actual wood, or pre-fossilized and not any true fossilized wood.

But remember, my experience is with the technique, not the history/theory/etc...

[micatala]

How do you know the layers are not annual but are individual snow fall events?

I'm only going by what the caption says. "Snow pits dug into the surface snow show layers caused by individual snowfall events."

What I'm disputing is the assumption that layers are always annual. If layers are not annual, several of the methods of dating (visual counting, isotopes) would be in error.

But this is very unlikely since the different methods use different annual phenomenon. Temperature and light vary annually. So does the chemistry of the air and the snowfall. How would all of these go wrong at the same time to produce the same number of multiple layers in a year? What you are suggesting is that all of several clocks would have to go haywire at the same time and in the same way.

If this photo is from close to the surface, it is possible and perhaps likely that they have kept track of the annual layers as the fell for several years. I mentioned this before.

Being "possible and perhaps likely" would not be sufficient evidence that this happens.

Well, if you are suggesting that scientists have not done this then you are suggesting in effect that they are pretty dim-witted. Wouldn't checking annual layers as they form be among the first things you would do to check if your other dating techniques were reliable???

See http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~www-glac/datering ... tint_e.htm for an image including very deep visual layers together with accompanying data from two chemical tests.

I'm not sure how they know that layers are annual. It seems to be an assumption in the article.

I addressed this elsewhere, and scotracer has also alluded to this. I'll post more below.

To reiterate, it is the combination of methods checked against each other, including the use of marker events like volcanic eruptions, crater impacts (like the 1908 impact in Russia), ongoing observation as layers form, etc., that allow us to conclude with a high degree of certainty that we are counting annual layers.

I would agree that we can use known events to give a more accurate date. I would be interested to see if they count the layers and use marker dates to arrive indepedently at the same time.

Here is another article. THis again shows some of the means by which scientists determines if the layers are annual, and check that the dating is reasonable within margis of error.

Natural Resources Canada scientist Christian Zdanowicz uses glacial ice cores to study past climates, and has collected evidence from Mt. Logan in the Yukon and Ellesmere Island in the Arctic, among other places.
Glaciers form in locations where the temperature remains below freezing year round. When snow continues to accumulate, the deeper, buried snow becomes compressed and turns to ice. Glaciers, or ice sheets, can represent thousands of years of accumulated ice. This ice contains a record of what the climate was like when it was formed.

What can ice cores reveal? The structure of the ice itself, such as crystal size, orientation, density, and amount of air trapped, can tell us about the climate conditions at the time the ice was formed. For example, ice formed by snow that fell under very cold and dry conditions will contain a lot of air bubbles trapped in it. On the other hand, ice formed when there is some amount of melting in the summer will typically be denser and contain much less air trapped in it.

The water molecules that form the ice are made of oxygen and hydrogen atoms. These atoms naturally exist in different forms, called "isotopes", which have slightly different atomic weights. Because of this, these isotopes do not quite behave the same way when, for example, water vapor in a cloud condenses into ice or snow crystals. The proportions of lighter and heavier isotopes in the snowfall are determined by many factors, including where the clouds containing the water vapor formed and the air temperature at the time the snow falls. We can measure the variations in isotope abundance in ancient ice layers using a mass spectrometer. In this way, we can reconstruct past variations in ambient air temperature, or water vapor source, or both.

The ice also "traps" all sorts of atmospheric constituents in it. Air bubbles, for example, can be extracted from the ice and analyzed to find out how much carbon dioxide or methane was in the atmosphere thousands of years ago. There are also many other air constituents preserved in the ice, some natural, and others, in more recent ice, due to man's industrial activities.

All of the following can be found in ice cores:



mineral glass particles (called "tephra") from volcanic eruptions.
pollen grains from distant plants and trees
ash from forest fires
dust blown from distant deserts
sea spray from the Ocean
soot from coal-burning plants
trace metals from metallurgical smelters
acids from sulfur gases emitted by energy-producing plants and vehicle exhaust
radioactive particles from surface nuclear tests
extra-terrestrial dust
particles produced by cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere
bacteria
How do scientists know how old the ice in the core is? It is possible to estimate the approximate rate at which snow layers are being buried and compressed in the glacier, and therefore predict their approximate age as a function of depth. This can be achieved by using a mathematical model which includes data such as the geometry of the glacier, its thickness, and the average snowfall rate.

Just as with tree-rings, scientists can count ice layers back in time. This is only possible under certain conditions (e.g., no summer melting, abundant snowfall) which are not found on all glaciers. If these conditions are right, we can detect seasonal or yearly variations in the density, the structure, or the chemistry of the ice which allow us to resolve individual layers back in time.

"Time markers" can tell exactly what the age of the ice in a certain layer. For example, if tephra (glass) from a volcanic eruption of known historical or pre-historical age is found , scientists know that the ice layer that contains it was formed in that particular year. There are also climatic events, for example the end of the last ice age, ~11,500 years ago, that leave a very distinct "signature" in the chemistry and the isotopes of the ice.

By combining all the methods described above, we are usually capable of establishing a "time scale" for ice cores that is correct within a certain margin of error. The deeper the ice and the further back in time we go, the greater the uncertainty on the age of the ice. In Canadian ice cores, it is typically very difficult to establish a good time scale for ice older than about 15,000 years.

In Canadian cores, it seems we can date back accurately to 15,000 years, giving just by this data that lower bound on a flood.




From http://www.visitandlearn.co.uk/TopicalF ... fault.aspx which takes us back to the Antarctic.

One way of dating ice in a core is to count the layers laid down annually, but in the Dome C core, they are too thin to distinguish. So, researchers have used markers such as dust, gas and electrical conductivity in the ice to match different layers to known events that have already been dated, such as volcanic eruptions or ice ages.

The results have confirmed that the first 3140 metres of the core date back 750,000 years. The next step is to check that all the layers of the core are still in chronological order. If they are, scientists are suggesting that the deepest ice could be up to a million years old and may prove invaluable to discerning future trends for our climate.

But already examination of this mammoth ice core by EPICA scientists has revealed that over the last 800,000 years the Earth has, overall, been a chilly place. Interglacials - or warm spells - have come every 100,000 years and have generally been short-lived.

Over the last 400,000 years, interglacials have lasted about 10,000 years, with climates similar to our present one. Before that, they were less warm, but lasted slightly longer

This addresses what scientists do when the layers are too thin. Note again the use of markers of known events. To deny the accuracy of this is to deny the accuracy of all the other dating methods used to date the known events. Keep in mind some of the known events are within recorded history.

[micatala]

otseng wrote:

Quote:
If this photo is from close to the surface, it is possible and perhaps likely that they have kept track of the annual layers as the fell for several years. I mentioned this before.

Being "possible and perhaps likely" would not be sufficient evidence that this happens.

Well, if you are suggesting that scientists have not done this then you are suggesting in effect that they are pretty dim-witted. Wouldn't checking annual layers as they form be among the first things you would do to check if your other dating techniques were reliable???

Well, going several extra miles to establish the reasonableness of my assumption, here is a first example of scientists doing ice observations as the layers form.

http://iahs.info/redbooks/a054/054023.pdf

Now, this is in China in at a glacier where melting occurs. They seem to be looking at a number of features of the glacier including how the ice forms and how it moves. They are not, that I can see, checking to see if dating techniques are detecting annual layers accurately as they are marking the layers as they form with a thin layer of sawdust. However, it does show scientists, and this is in the 1950's, doing "as they form" observations of layers.


In this article, the difficulties and great lengths scientists go through in studying the in situ formation of sea ice are discussed. If scientists are spending this much effort to determine how sea ice is forming under sea shelves which are in accessible to direct observation, is it reasonable to think they are not doing much easier real-time observations of layers on the surface, especially when they would be so incredibly useful AND easy to do?

More on sea ice formation.



And here is an excerpt from a book, authored by Crary and Mellor, on snow and ice studies. This page specifically mentions observations in the Antarctica of ice layers as they form in regions where melting may occur. The page discusses the Ross ice shelf.


From the same book, we have another even more relevant article.

Here, we see an abstract which indicates a study using stakes as in the China article above but in the Antarctic. They specifically intend to measure over a specified area the annual snow and ice accumulation.

The studies mentioned in this book were from the 1960' and 1950's.



Clearly, scientists have been doing the kind of studies I indicated they were "probably or likely" doing for decades. I think it is quite reasonable to conclude they are, as we speak, observing layer formation year by year and checking their dating techniques against these.

[otseng]

Let's try to resolve the basic issue of layers.

From all my readings, ice core dating assumes that each layer is annual. In micatala's post, he referred to Don Lindsay's website. His website also confirms that each layer is assumed to be annual.

So, now we have a way to answer the basic question: how many layers per year? And the answer turns out to be: one.

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/crea ... nnual.html

But evidence is that layers are not annual. So, would we agree that each layer is not annual?