Through The Sandglass

From India to France

 Indian artist Sudarsan Pattnaik and his tribute to those killed in the attack on  Charlie Hebdo, courtesy of Agence France-Presse and Asit Kumar.

 

Lying vehicles

It has become a sarcastic proverb that a thing must be true if you saw it in a newspaper. That is the opinion intelligent people have of that lying vehicle in a nutshell. But the trouble is that the stupid people -- who constitute the grand overwhelming majority of this and all other nations -- do believe and are moulded and convinced by what they get out of a newspaper, and there is where the harm lies. (Mark Twain, 1873)

The laurels on which I was complacently resting after my fervent New Year’s wish for Earth Science Literacy have instantly withered, and my understanding of the heroic – if not futile and stupid – nature of my wish cruelly underlined. I reproduce for you below, essentially in its entirety, a piece published on Tuesday by one John Trumbo of the Tri-City Herald in the State of Washington. This was taken up by a number of newspapers, both online (the sadly misnamed “Seattle Post Intelligencer”) and hardcopy. And it appeared as news. Read this and weep – scarcely a sentence goes by that does not include utter, mind-boggling-numbing, lying, rubbish. I despair.

Richland man sees sandstone proof of global flood

WEST RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) — A swirling, twisting sandstone formation in northern Arizona is evidence of Noah's flood, says a West Richland man who recently visited the unusual geologic phenomenon.

Greg Morgan, a nuclear safety engineer at Hanford, said he was amazed to see sandstone resembling waves, whirlpools and reversing currents that appear to have been frozen in place.

Morgan's photographs of The Wave and his article, "Flood Currents Frozen in Stone," are in the latest issue of Answers magazine, a quarterly publication of Answers in Genesis, a Christian creation research organization based in Petersburg, Ky. The nonprofit organization's 70,000-square-foot facility also houses the Creation Museum.

Mike Matthews, editor of Answers, said the way the layers of sandstone came to rest at Paria Canyon "fits with the viewpoint that these are flood layers."

But the strongest evidence of a global flood is in the sandstone itself, he said.

"It's that the layers themselves have been traced out worldwide, even to Europe and the Mideast," Mathews said.

The Wave at Paria provides a little more -- what Matthews called important "signature details."

Morgan, who is a mechanical engineer and worked in the aviation industry before coming to Hanford, said he was shocked when he first saw a picture of The Wave because it contradicted his original thinking about an ancient Earth and evolution.

Morgan, who became a Christian as an adult and takes the Bible literally, said the convoluted formations at Paria Canyon forced him to consider there must be another explanation.

"There are no broken rocks. All of this happened when it was still mud," Morgan said.

Morgan first visited The Wave at Paria Canyon in 2008 and again in September, each time taking many photographs he later could study.

The whirlpools suggest the stone was flowing, as if it was a slurry of sand that suddenly froze in place, he said.

"This is excellent evidence for Noah's flood. It is far better than what anyone believes for an ancient Earth," Morgan said.

The formation itself is classified as Jurassic Navajo Sandstone, and according to conventional "old Earth" geology, was formed 200 million years ago when seasonal winds laid down the layers to create the dramatic land forms.

Morgan explains it differently in his article for Answers magazine.

"Creation geologists believe huge sand waves were piled up and laid down deep under the ocean water. The fast currents then created tell-tale features, known as cross beds or 'striations,' with the steep cut-offs we see today," Morgan wrote in support of a global flood event.

The article also mentions that the sand at The Wave has been identified as having come from the Appalachians, about 1,800 miles to the east.

Moses' account in Genesis of Noah's flood describes a worldwide inundation that covered even the tallest mountains.

Morgan, who initially thought The Wave was just an example of water and wind erosion cutting through many layers of sandstone, says the evidence at Paria Canyon shows "what Moses wrote was true."

"I may be the first among creation geologists to openly promote this as evidence of Noah's flood," he said.

If such a cataclysmic flood event deposited the twisted layers of sand and whirlpools that later were to turn to stone, then how did the flood currents frozen in stone become exposed in a waterless desert?

Morgan believes a second flood catastrophe -- perhaps similar to the Ice Age floods that scoured Eastern Washington thousands of years ago -- unleashed icy waters that ravaged the Southwest, as well.

That would account for the rapid erosion in Paria Canyon and in the Grand Canyon, which is about 70 miles south of The Wave, he said.

"About half the people I've talked to say, 'Yeah, that's proof the Earth is young,' " Morgan said.

Andrew Snelling, who has a doctorate in geology and is a content editor for Answers magazine, said two items of evidence at Paria Canyon point to a massive flood event.

One concerns analysis of grinds in the sandstone at Paria, which match mineral sources in the Appalachians. It would take a lot of wave action to move sand that far, he said.

And the sheer size of the Paria sandstone cross beds, at more than 100 feet thick, would need a massive wave -- a tsunami-sized wall of water -- in order to be laid down as they are. Snelling said such a wave would have to be twice as high as the bed of sand it deposits, which is on the scale of a global flood.

"The volume of sand we see out there is enormous. We don't see anything like that happening today," Snelling noted.

Mr. Trumbo, you are welcome to get in touch with me – or any other professional geologist - should the bizarre notion of adding a counter-argument disturb your intellectual complacency.

A different "beginning" - and a short, off-piste, rant

Sir Laurence Dudley Stamp (my previous post) must be turning in his grave. It's ironic that, shortly after my modest proposal on the inspirational potential of a book for young scientists, I came across a different kind of inspiration - and this book, sadly, is definitely in print. You would think that a browse of Amazon's list of bestsellers in the category Professional Sciences - Earth Science - Geology might be the place to discover some gems of geo-writing, suitable for inspiring young minds. And, even allowing for the mysteries and opacity of Amazon's ranking system, it is. But, high up there in the company of John McPhee, Steve Gould, Richard Fortey, and Simon Winchester is, incredibly, the book illustrated above, In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, now in its eighth glorious edition. Walt Brown, Ph.D (in mechanical engineering) is the father of "hydroplate theory" - a lunatic explanation for everything, the main proposal being that monumental volumes of water erupted out of "the mid-ocean ridge" to form the earth as we know it today. And this happened - you've guessed - 6,000 years ago. Here's a graphic illustration of this event:

 

 New evidence shows that the earth has experienced a devastating, worldwide flood, whose waters violently burst forth from under the earth’s crust. Standard “textbook” explanations for many of earth’s major features are scientifically flawed. We can now explain, using well-understood phenomena, how this cataclysmic event rapidly formed so many features. These and other mysteries, listed below and briefly described in the next 11 pages, are best explained by an earthshaking event, far more catastrophic than almost anyone has imagined......

And here's the introduction to one chapter:

The Origin of Ocean Trenches and the Ring of Fire

SUMMARY: Deep folds, up to thousands of miles long and several miles deep, lie on the floor of the western Pacific Ocean, in an area centered directly opposite the center of the Atlantic Ocean. The plate tectonic theory claims that plates drifting on the earth’s surface dive into the earth and drag down the folds. Fifteen reasons will be given that show why this idea cannot be correct.

Now this is unfortunate, since supporters, wanting to have their cake and eat it , have latched on to recent reports in the scientific literature that de-watering of subducted material leads to large volumes of hydrated mantle to interpret this as evidence of subterranean oceans and thus proving hydroplate theory; they are clearly unaware of what hydrated minerals are - there is, after all, a lot of water in gypsum, but gypsum sure as hell (oops) is not water. 

There are, of course, many well-considered detailed refutations on the web of hydroplate theory - let's face it, it's not tough. I will simply leave this by saying that I have no objection to anyone self-publishing complete rubbish, but this stuff should never be listed under "science" of any kind unless it's a subcategory titled "fantasy." I'll leave you, without comment, with the words of one "editorial review" of this fine book, and I promise to return calmly to my usual theme in the next post.

The single most useful resource I know of on origins, bar none .... If I had to send my child off with only two books, they would be the Bible and In the Beginning. (Dr. Kent Davey, Senior Research Scientist, The Center for Electromechanics, University of Texas).

[p.s., the subtitle of this post derives from my wife's habit of going on a random walk in a supermarket - she describes herself as going "off-piste" and her husband as becoming "piste-off"]