The age of the Earth debate began with much shorter time scales. Although Niagara Falls was not featured in the initial debate I think it is good to consider because the history of the falls is only about twice as old as biblical creation.
The river flows over an escapement with harder rock on top and a softer rock underneath. The water erodes the softer rock collapsing the top rock, so the edge of the falls gradually moves up stream. Geologists estimate the falls started 7 miles downstream, 12,000 years ago. Anyway, if you haven't been to Niagara Falls you should see it. Harry revtec at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "thomas malloy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <vortex-l@eskimo.com> > Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 3:33 AM > Subject: Re: WHAT'S NEW Friday, January 14, 2005 > > >> Unfortunately there are Christians who insist on a literal >> 6, 24 hour day creation, despite the fact that the Hebrew text can be >> read to mean either that or a preexistent Earth which had been >> rendered dead. While this sort of absolutism plays well with the >> Christian masses, it turns off many educated people. I regard this as >> the Christian version of political correctness. >> > > In spite of the various meanings for the Hebrew word for day, when the > author of Genesis wrote, "the evening and the morning were the first day, > the evening and the morning were the second day,.............", there is no > question that he intended us to understand that he was writing of literal 24 > hour days. Whether or not he was writing truth or falsehood is another > question. > > Could a God be powerful enough to make the universe in six days? Could he > do it six minutes if he really pushed it? Doesn't God own time? Perhaps > creation takes as long as it takes and God merely sticks whatever time label > he wants on it when he finishes. > > If the Vortex group woud be so kind as to grant me a few minutes to read my > following composition I would be pleased to have your comments. I believe > the contributors to Vortex-l are the most intelligent people I know and I > have high regard for the presentations and comments on all the subjects we > encounter here. > > > MY YOUNG EARTH OBSERVATIONS > > From the moment I heard of it, I wanted to see the Grand Canyon. My > favorite piece of music was the Grand Canyon Suite. I would often lay on > the sofa in the rec room and listen as I imagined being there. My school > library had a book on the Grand Canyon that I read twice. The school also > subscribed to Arizona Highways. I looked at every issue. > > When I was fifteen years old, a local business backfilled an area to extend > a parking lot. They used ash from a coal fired power station to fill the > area to over 10 ft deep. At some time later, a 20 minute thunderstorm cut > an 8 ft deep gully through the semi-stable ash. I walked through the gully > an hour after the storm. By that time, the storm runoff had slowed to a > trickle. What I saw was astounding! All of the features that make the > Grand Canyon instantly recognizable, to anyone who had merely seen pictures > of it, were laid out before my eyes in miniature with walls as high as I > could reach. I wish I had gone back with a camera. > > I finally got to see the Grand Canyon at age 40. It is so incredibly huge > that no photo can do it justice. After surveying its vastness for some > minutes, I became aware of what I was not seeing. The "mighty" Colorado > River was nowhere to be seen. Throughout the day, no matter which overlook > I looked over, I couldn't see it. Finally, near sunset, from one of the > most western overlooks on the South Rim, the late afternoon sun reflected > off a tiny ribbon of water way in the distance. "That's it?" I thought. > "That's the liquid agent that carried off dozens of cubic miles of rock and > earth?" > > The Colorado River may be a force to reckon with as one scoots along on a > raft, but it is insignificant to the point of irrelevance as viewed from the > canyon rim. If that is all that nature had to work with, then, I'm sure it > would take the Colorado River millions of years to move that much material. > But, the canyon wouldn't look anything like it looks now. I thought of the > mini-canyon from my childhood days. Normal rain did not hurt that parking > lot; it took a sudden downpour to form a vertically walled gully. > > The Colorado River flows within an inner canyon. A wide plateau forms both > the rim of the inner canyon and the floor of the outer canyon. The inner > canyon is by itself huge. The largest storm generated flood one could > imagine would not cause the river to overflow the inner canyon. So, what > force carved the outer canyon? Did the Colorado meander back and forth > across the outer canyon floor for countless eons before concentrating its > efforts to form an inner canyon? And, while the river was confined to the > inner canyon, what force would have removed a million plus years > accumulation of rubble falling from the walls of the outer canyon? > > It is clear that the Grand Canyon is shaped entirely wrong for a geological > feature that is millions of years old, that the outer canyon walls are too > steep, and the rubble field is too small. If the canyon was formed over > millions of years, the seasonal changes with countless freezing and thawing > cycles should have fractured and collapsed all vertical walls on a > continuous basis so that the canyon would be a large V shaped valley > composed of rock rubble at approximately 45 degree angle of repose. > > For the Grand Canyon to look the way it does today would require a fantastic > amount of water flowing for a relatively short period of time in the not too > distant past. An inland sea pouring across northern Arizona would be > enough. It is known beyond any doubt that the canyon rim itself was once > under water since this layer of rock, the white Kaibab limestone, is pock > marked with fossilized sea shells! But now, the rim is 7,000 feet above sea > level. > > On July 13, 1993, my wife and I were at Capital Reefs National Park, 120 mi. > northeast of the Grand Canyon. We were in a vertical walled canyon near the > trail head to Cassidy Arch. It was nearing sunset and windy. We had back > packs and intended to climb to Cassidy Arch and spend the night. While > contemplating the wisdom of this idea, I was staring at the far canyon wall. > Suddenly, tons of the canyon ledge fell away right before my eyes! Half way > down, the rock fall struck the canyon wall, shattering into a rain of > fragments, and leaving a white mark on the wall. As I scanned the far wall I > noticed numerous white marks. Yet, the rubble field was miniscule. If the > canyon in Capital Reef is another multimillion year old feature, what is the > chance that I would see a major rock fall during my 2 minutes of > contemplation? We decided to spend our anniversary in a motel. > > Canyon De Chelly, 150 mi east of the Grand Canyon is an even more extreme > example of this dilemma. Sheer vertical walls extend nearly 1,200 feet from > top to bottom with barely any rubble whatsoever. The stream that runs > through it can be crossed on foot without getting your ankles wet. De Chelly > experiences colder winter temperatures and more freezing cycles then the > Grand Canyon, yet practically nothing has been sheared off those cliffs by > any form of weathering. Can Canyon De Chelly be even thousands of years > old? > > I have been to the base of El Capitan in Yosemite; the rubble at its base is > unimpressive in size. The rubble at the base of Devil's Tower likewise > seems insufficient for a multimillion year old geologic feature. > > When Mt St Helen exploded, it generated a flood of mud and ash that formed a > canyon system out of the Touttle River Basin complete with vertical walls of > visibly layered rock all formed from mud and ash in a matter of days. If > you were to blind fold a geologist and transport him to the Touttle Canyon, > he would never guess that he was inspecting a geologic feature only 25 years > old. Layer upon layer of distinctive strata is visible. These varied > layers were deposited one over the other in time intervals of hours or even > minutes! Yet we look at other features on this planet and try to convince > each other that a contiguous strata could be deposited in a uniform manner > over millions of years. This is preposterous. There would be countless > floods, droughts, and earthquakes during tha huge time interval that would > interrupt the deposition. To have uniformity of deposition for even a year > would be highly unusual. > > Are geologists and paleontologists blind, or must they perpetuate the old > earth dogma to keep their jobs? How many important discoveries and > artifacts have been destroyed, reburied, or "filed" into oblivion in the > basement of some museum because the finder feared for his paycheck? > > It seems obvious to me that many of this planet's most striking features > must be of recent origin and must also have come into existence by the > action of tremendous amounts of water. Even Darwin conceded that fossils > only form during high rates of sedimentation, and that it requires the > assistance of much water. > > The evolution theory which espouses that features on this planet developed > slowly over millions of years cannot account for why these features have the > form we see today. Biblical history, on the other hand, provides the time > scale and the high powered erosive agent to generate such geological > formations that we presently enjoy visiting. > > Jeff Fink P.E. > >
