Topic: Columnar Basalt vs The Noachian Flood (56k warning, image heavy)

[Arcas]

Aerial lava flows can be distinguished from aquatic ones, due to the cooling effect of water. One particularly spectacular example is columnar basalt:
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/geography/hutton/basalt.jpg (warning, huge image)




It's typical for basaltic lava flows which cooled on dry land.
This means that such columnar basalt should not be found in strata which supposedly was laid down by the flood. But we do find it in a multitude of strata. E.g. there is such basalt in the upper cretaceous in the Yukon region.


These are some more examples of such basalt covered by some more sediments...too many sediments for it to be post flood, and it's clearly above anything that can be called pre flood:



Miocene basalt:






Huge but very cool:
http://www.cas.sc.edu/geog/gsgdocs/images/GSG_CD/ColunarJointing.jpg




Tertiary Columnar Basalt is found in The Giant’s Causeway, NE Antrim
(the brownish layer in particular)


Tertiary Columnar basalt is also found at Fingal's Cave off Mull (UK).

Neogene to Quaternary Columnar Basalt in Mongolia.

Carboniferous Columnar Basalt: Largo Law in Scotland

So all these strata were exposed to air when the lava flows formed, i.e. not they didn't form during a global flood.

[flibbertigibbet]

cool pictures, but umm... a good God-Fearing christian could explain that away if they wanted. just wait, you'll see.

[Aesir Yggdrasil]

Just wait, some else might even bring in 'Aliens' or 'Atlantis' to round things out a bit. Personaly I'm a fan of science, and it's nice to see nature at work.

[Muggins]

As a practicing academic geologist, I have met a few Young Earthers with a geological background, and the normal response is not to explain away radioactive decay (that's for incompetents, focused on Carbon 14 and not things like U/Pb, which, is after all, the source of the bomb that such fundamentalists often worship...), stratigraphic layering, or the difference between sub-aqueous and subaerial lave flows. Instead, you get something like "But God created the whole of the Earth on the first day".

I.e. God loves us so much he created an imaginary world of rational phenomena to keep us amused and at each other's throats....

James

[mrspungebob]

Hey, looks cool. Do you know why they take a hexagonal shape, instead of something else?

[Full Metal Geneticist]

Ooh pretty pictures. Ultimately the problem is understanding. If the public can't understand your idea then creationism makes sense. See any idea you produce can be ridiculed as creationists don't follow the norms of scientific scrutiny. For example if they use yours they would use fossil's at the surface owing to erosion and plate tectonics against you. To the public they would be winning cause your answer is "no thats not how it works" immediately alienating your audience. You can't debate them publically unless you can charm your way past them. Sadly most bioliogists are either chubby lab monkeys or far far away in exotic locales chasing after small animals with the kind of look on their face Steve Irwin normally has. The corpulent scientist is an easy target to dislike. The problem is there is no place where a creationist can be met with the full force of the utter injustice of sciience. They fight on their own grounds. After all who goes to see Kent Hovind apart from creationists? You can't argue to them. So we have to win our battles whole sale with news. I.e Go FIsh with Neck!

As a practicing academic geologist, I have met a few Young Earthers with a geological background, and the normal response is not to explain away radioactive decay (that's for incompetents, focused on Carbon 14 and not things like U/Pb, which, is after all, the source of the bomb that such fundamentalists often worship...), stratigraphic layering, or the difference between sub-aqueous and subaerial lave flows. Instead, you get something like "But God created the whole of the Earth on the first day".

I.e. God loves us so much he created an imaginary world of rational phenomena to keep us amused and at each other's throats....

James

I know the feeling! Hm... we must join forces to fight creationists and young earthers together as a team. Quick muggins to the science mobile (Spinning Logo). All we need is a spunky female side kick with a nice rack, maybe A good pair of bazooka's some jugs and maybe some hooters as the science cave really needs redecorating... 

[Killing Time]

[quote author=Godofsmallthingys link=topic=113464.msg1334791#msg1334791
I know the feeling! Hm... we must join forces to fight creationists and young earthers together as a team. Quick muggins to the science mobile (Spinning Logo). All we need is a spunky female side kick with a nice rack, maybe A good pair of bazooka's some jugs and maybe some hooters as the science cave really needs redecorating... 
[/quote]

Chuckle.
Us Scientists could definitely use a few new poster girls.

Lovely pictures, by the way Arcas. Really top drawer.
And the reasoning is sound as well.
But IDers and Young Earthists have never really been concerned with reason.

Hey, looks cool. Do you know why they take a hexagonal shape, instead of something else?

Most columnar jointing is hexagonal but it can also occur as 4, 5, 7 or 8 sided columns.
The hexagon is just an intrinsically stable system which emerges under such tensional regimes.
Can't quote the maths of the tip of my tongue but would certainly be able to hunt it down if you're interested.

Dizzy

[Muggins]

Chuckle.
Us Scientists could definitely use a few new poster girls.

Speak for yourself! My department is swimming in decent looking blondes at the moment (I get to be the lonely male senior, awaiting the awarding of the PhD).

[mrspungebob]

Can't quote the maths of the tip of my tongue but would certainly be able to hunt it down if you're interested.

Well, i guess its hunting time for you then

[Killing Time]

I'm on it.
Time me.

EDIT. OK....it doesn't seem to be anything more complicated than this.
The presence of hexagonal crystals of pyroxene (a significant component of basalt) within the lava promotes cooling joints to form in a hexagonal fashion.
Where significant pyrite is present (pyrite is a cubic mineral), four sided columns will form.

I assume that 5, 7 and 8 sided columns need either 5, 7 and 8 sided minerals to exist in abundance, which is unlikely since I can't think of any such minerals at all, let alone ones that are present in large quantities in a cooling basalt.....
OR, are caused by the combined effects of pyroxene and pyrite.

15 minutes

[Galderon]

cool pictures, but umm... a good God-Fearing christian could explain that away if they wanted. just wait, you'll see.

Here I are...

But as a more "radical" Christian I believe that the earth is much much older than the supposed 6000 years and there are a growing number of Christian scientists who are proving just that.
Also add that the Noah flood didn't cover the entire earth just a huge patch of what is modern day Europe and Turkey, there is a faciniting book called "Priveleged Planet" (sp) I recomend reading it.

[Muggins]

cool pictures, but umm... a good God-Fearing christian could explain that away if they wanted. just wait, you'll see.

Here I are...

But as a more "radical" Christian I believe that the earth is much much older than the supposed 6000 years and there are a growing number of Christian scientists who are proving just that.
Also add that the Noah flood didn't cover the entire earth just a huge patch of what is modern day Europe and Turkey, there is a faciniting book called "Priveleged Planet" (sp) I recomend reading it.

Obviously not a fundamentalist then. In truth, most geologists I know are Christian- there is nothing inherently contradictory about believing that God started the ball rolling, and set into motion the complex systems which have resulted in the world as we know it today. I tend to be agnostic: as long as God doesn't change the laws of nature that I depend on, then He and I get along. However, one single instance (a "miracle") of divine intervention breaking the rules of science, then I might as well back up and become an accountant...