Plate Techtonics!

[Nyril]

Several years ago (more then one, less then ten thousand) the idea that the Earth was not the center of the Universe was high in the ranks of things we argued about. Neatly behind that would be the age of the Universe, age of the Earth, the Earth goes around the sun, Earth is flat, etc. In time, a number of these ideas were accepted by pretty much everyone. By that I mean that I doubt even YEC will argue the point that the Earth is the center of the Universe and in addition to being flat also has the sun and everything else revolve around it.

On that line of thinking, I'd like to ask what you think of plate tectonics in that regard. It isn't brought up much on these boards, but because it neatly explains how we get fossils and strata on opposite sides of the Ocean all neatly lined up (such as the shore between Africa and South America), I imagine there must be some controversy surrounding it.

So, plate tectonics, is it like the Earth being round, or closer to evolution in terms of the amount of public debate surrounding it?

[YEC]

jose:Two questions: Magus, Nyril, and John--what evidence can you offer to show that rocks can bend? YEC--what evidence can you offer to show that rocks can never bend, even at high pressure and temperature?

jose, It's quite obvious that the rocks..mountains...in the picture were never at the deep depths way underground exposed to the enourmous heat and pressure that you claimed formed them.

Still lets say they were....where is all of the solid rock that used to be creating all that weight and pressure that should be sitting on top of the exposed rock pictured in the photo?

Did it simply erode?

[YEC]

John S,
is anyone denying that thrust don't occur? Perhaps you are.

Your failuure, especially the links you presented really don't talk of the subject. If they actually do it would have been nice if you quoted from that portion of the text so it could easily be found...but as I said, i looked and found nothing about folding rocks.

It talked about thrust..so what?

As an experiment.....find a long flat rock and bend it into an "S"...lets see what happens.

[Jose]

Thank you, John. Thank you, YEC. You've provided some very good answers.

To summarize:

• ...While this folding was occurring, quaternary conglomerates were being deposited. This indicates the rocks those conglomerates were being derived from (which include some of the same Tertiary formations as in the fold) were fully lithified.
  
  Reference:
  Namson, J. S., and Davis, T. L., Seismically active fold and thrust belt in the San Joaquin Valley, central California. 1988. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 100, 257-273.
• Shortening and thickening of metropolitan Los Angeles measured and inferred by using geodesy. By Donald F. Argus, Michael B. Heflin, Andrea Donnellan, Frank H.Webb, Danan Dong, Kenneth J. Hurst, David C. Jefferson, Gregory A. Lyzenga, Michael M.Watkins, James F. Zumberge, published in 1999 in Geology, v. 27, 703-706.
• Those folds occur in mountains, and while the mountains were being formed (and therefore while the folds were being formed) clasts of rock (like river cobbles) were being eroded from them.
  
  http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/lewis/#strength
  
  This is a clear indication that the folded rocks were hard. How are you going to erode river cobbles from layers of loose mud and sand?

Your failuure, especially the links you presented really don't talk of the subject. If they actually do it would have been nice if you quoted from that portion of the text so it could easily be found...but as I said, i looked and found nothing about folding rocks.

It talked about thrust..so what?

As an experiment.....find a long flat rock and bend it into an "S"...lets see what happens.

Just for laughs, I've highlighted in blue the publicly-accessible reports that include the hard data. (You'll note, YEC, that I did not highlight the "highly biased evo-wacko talk.origins link--I highlighted only the hardcore references.) What we seem to have here is:

• data to support the bending and folding of rocks, complete with measurements that demonstrate it occurring
  vs
• failure to acknowledge that the data address the topic, and an irrelevant obviousity that humans can't fold rocks, inasmuch as we cannot achieve the temperatures and pressures that occur geologically.

It is pretty clear that for this particular discussion, John wins. Geological forces fold rocks, after the sedimentary layers have solidified. Still, I'm intrigued by the thought processes that lead to the different interpretations. John seems to use the same geeky style that I use--look at the data, correlate it with data from elsewhere, cogitate about the best-fit explanation. YEC seems to prefer the much less geeky, much more common, and much more intuitive style of common sense. "I can't bend a rock, so, it's obviously impossible for enormous pressures acting over long times to bend rocks." This is a perfectly logical extrapolation from personal experience--and is exactly the way the authors of the bible thought when they told, and then wrote, their explanations millenia ago.

The interesting thing here is not so much that the common sense approach doesn't buy the hard data. It's that it fails utterly to recognize that the data are data. Common sense seems to overrule mathematical and diagrammatical thinking for many people.

If we don't like the answer--that rocks can fold--we should use scientific reasoning to counter the scientific data. The scientific approach, in arguing against the data, would be to say something like "yes, these are the data we observe; but you have overlooked X, Y, and Z..." where X, Y, and Z are additional data that force a re-examination of the interpretation. Perhaps, "I can't fold a rock" is such additional data--but it isn't comparable to the measurements that show the LA basin is moving and folding. It's a much weaker force, acting over a much shorter time-frame. It's a real puzzle how to illustrate to everyone--not just to us geeks--what the real data are, and how their interpretation makes sense.

[YEC]

jose...read the article, it's only speculation. In other words it's believed that hard rocks fold because...we all know a flood never deposited the soft sediment and hydroplates never moved at rapid rates to fold the still soft sediment....so the rocks HAD TO HAVE BEEN HARD.

Sheeze jose...present some proof rather than these assertions.

Answer my question...where did all the layers upon layers of strata go that was once on top of the mountain in the picture I presented?

It's obvious it was there...that is according to your weak argument...because the strata was once several miles underground when they were folded by the intense pressure and rock melting heat as the continents slowley..but surely...folded them...then pushed them up above the surface.

So once again, provide a workable, demonstratable model that makes the once there strata...VANISH

[MagusYanam]

creep, in geology, slow downslope movement of particles that occurs on every slope covered with loose, weathered material. Even soil covered with close-knit sod creeps downslope, as indicated by slow but persistent tilting of trees, poles, gravestones and other objects set into the ground on hillsides. The most important process producing creep, aside from direct gravitational influences, is frost heaving: as interstitial water freezes, surface particles are forced up and out perpendicular to the slope; when let down by melting, these particles are drawn directly downward by gravity and are thereby gradually moved downslope. Other processes involved are the wedging action of root growth and the wetting and drying of soil layers.

The uplift that likely caused this formation would have given the proper gravitational inducement for creep to work. Other than that, yes, erosion does also work. One thing that the encyclopaedia didn't mention is that creep can even work on rocks such as marble - if you've ever been to New Orleans, there are marble benches (just to give one example) that have actually deformed over time due to lack of ground support (much of the ground is unstable).

By the way, I'm beginning to notice a pattern here - YEC acknowledges something as 'fact' only when it supports his or her particular worldview, but when it seems to go against it suddenly becomes an 'assertion'. Hmmm... interesting.

YEC, a bit of cautionary advice. Ignoring the empirical data is not exactly considered good form if you wish to lend your weltanschauung any scientific credibility.

[YEC]

You evos do know there is a major differance between a slight bend in a park bench or pane of glass than a folded rock?

[MagusYanam]

The differences between a warped park bench made of rock and a folded rock in situ as described here mainly centre about the intensity and the duration of the stresses at work on them and the conditions under which they are applied. In this case, the warped park bench is cold and at one bar of pressure, the stress being applied externally over a period of no more than, oh, a couple hundred years, whereas the folded rock in situ was probably under stress for millions of years at pressures and temperatures greatly in excess of those at work on the park bench. One might think that the results of such conditions would be much more drastic on the rock in situ than on the park bench, wouldn't you agree?

So...

In other words it's believed that hard rocks fold because...we all know a flood never deposited the soft sediment and hydroplates never moved at rapid rates to fold the still soft sediment....so the rocks HAD TO HAVE BEEN HARD.

... um, no. Flood theory has nothing to do with it! Creep, even in durable rock such as marble, is an observed phenomenon and thus - follow the logic - empirical fact! How one chooses to interpret this fact is another matter, but you are not strengthening your position by ignoring the fact and thinking that mainstream acceptance of this fact stems from some kind of prejudice against flood theory!

[YEC]

... um, no. Flood theory has nothing to do with it! Creep, even in durable rock such as marble, is an observed phenomenon and thus - follow the logic - empirical fact! How one chooses to interpret this fact is another matter, but you are not strengthening your position by ignoring the fact and thinking that mainstream acceptance of this fact stems from some kind of prejudice against flood theory!

Observed phenomenom? Surely you jest.

Empirical fact???? Where is the evodense? Show me where it is happening, show me where it is not assumed, asserted..or retract your statement as wishfull thinking.

[Jose]

jose...read the article, it's only speculation. In other words it's believed that hard rocks fold because...we all know a flood never deposited the soft sediment and hydroplates never moved at rapid rates to fold the still soft sediment....so the rocks HAD TO HAVE BEEN HARD.

Sheeze jose...present some proof rather than these assertions.

Answer my question...where did all the layers upon layers of strata go that was once on top of the mountain in the picture I presented?

It's obvious it was there...that is according to your weak argument...because the strata was once several miles underground when they were folded by the intense pressure and rock melting heat as the continents slowley..but surely...folded them...then pushed them up above the surface.

So once again, provide a workable, demonstratable model that makes the once there strata...VANISH

Well, let's see. There are two major points here that are worth noting. The first, as I have said before, is that there seems to be a difference of opinion as to what constitutes "evidence." It would be very interesting to do some kind of national survey, and find out what percentage of people, and of what religious views, consider direct measurements that demonstrate a fact to be mere "assertions." Certainly, there are members of my community who consider nothing to be "fact" unless they can find it in the bible--including things like whether today is a good day to wash the car. They open the book, and read until they find some indicator, such as "go ye immediately ... " which they take as the True Message that today really is the day.

The second point is that this question of "missing strata" seems to apply equally to normal geology and to flood geology. The "relative time scale" of geological strata is fact, in that strata can be correlated world-wide according to those fossils that they contain and regional overlap. Even the flood model posits that trilobites are at the bottom because they sank quickly, and mammoths are at the top because they either floated, treaded water, or ran to the tops of the mountains before being drowned. Thus, there should be the same types of rocks, of the same relative age, on the surface everywhere--except for where they were eroded away, or where the mountains were uplifted above sea level, so no further sedimentary deposition could occur.

I think that it is easier to account for the rock types at mountain tops by standard geology than by flood geology, because standard geology imposes no external constraints upon when the rocks were uplifted, or how long they have had to erode. By contrast, the flood model constrains uplift to during the flood, before the water receded, but after the sediments had been deposited. This makes it very hard to imagine how so many different mountains can have such different types of fossils on their tops--from hallucigenia (Burgess Shale) to trilobites (the Uintas) to dinosaurs (Colorado Plateau) to bats (Florrisant).

What is the Flood Model's explanation for these wildly different fossil types in mountains that, according to the model, were uplifted at the same time?

[MagusYanam]

Observed phenomenom? Surely you jest.

Empirical fact???? Where is the evodense? Show me where it is happening, show me where it is not assumed, asserted..or retract your statement as wishfull thinking.

Well, my statement was definitely not wishful thinking (why should it be?) and I will most certainly never retract it. So that leaves me with one choice: here goes.

Using the variable rates of relative movements between two sides of a fault, as evidenced by fault slip or tectonic creep, the basic average recurrence estimates can be obtained which may be applied in understanding future behavior of the different segments of a fault. The basic assumptions of this approach are that slip on a fault is accomplished by the sudden strain released by the rocks during earthquakes, by gradual slow tectonic aseismic creep, or by a combination of the two processes. It also assumes that in areas of the fault where aseismic creep occurs, strain energy is released gradually. In such areas large catastrophic earthquakes of magnitudes 8 or greater cannot take place. However, along segments of the fault that display little or no creep, very strong earthquakes can occur. Dr. Robert A. Wallace of the U.S. Geological Survey has used effectively such methods for establishing slip rates along the San Andreas fault, where an empirical relationship between probable Richter~magnitudes and creep rates has been established.

Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis wrote this in a paper presented to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and UNESCO fifteen years ago to detail progress in earthquake and tsunami prediction. He has a Ph.D. in marine sciences from the University of Delaware, as well as some specialised education in geology from MIT and the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics. Though he acknowledges that earthquake prediction is largely statistical and therefore not very accurate, the underlying science is regarded as sound.

I would say that, since creep rates are regarded as factual (enough at any rate to be evidential) amongst the experts in the field (my father included), they may be regarded as factual by non-experts. As much so as the earth moving around the sun (though I'm certain not many of us here are astrophysicists).