>
> I'll probably be criticized for saying this, but the more I read of
> Morris's writings, the less respect I have for the man. I honestly
>can't help believing that he knowingly perpetuates falsehoods for (in his
>mind) the cause of Christ.
>
> I think the YEC movement has a love-hate relationship with people
> like Steve Austin and Kurt Wise. On the one hand, they have legitimate
>PhDs in science which lends credibility to the YEC movement, but on the
>other hand they've started coming into conflict with the old guard people
>(like Morris) since they won't support some of the more questionable YEC
>apologetic arguments. Then Morris retaliates by essentially accusing
>them of flirting with atheism because they actually have the nerve to try
>to look at rocks (well, maps according to Glenn's post, they haven't
gotten to real rocks yet, but we won't quibble) to try to answer
geological questions. They should have just stuck with Morris's
interpretation of the Bible for answers.
>
For fairness, I need to point out that it was Woodmorappe who was
depending on maps. I think the fact that Austin and Wise lead yearly
expeditions to the Grand Canyon to show the laypeople how the canyon was
deposited and eroded in less than 5000 years qualifies as looking at real
rocks.
What I don't understand is how Austin and Wise can ignore the evidence
right before their eyes. (Background: the Esplanade Sandstone is the
uppermost member of the Supai Group. Thus the top of the Supai is the
Esplanade) Austin writes:
"Conformity Between Hermit and Supai--The boundary between the
Esplanade Sandstone (uppermost Supai Group) and the Hermit Formation was
interpreted as a regional unconformity, for over 50 years. Recent
analysis by Blakey suggests the boundary is conformable with only local
channeling of sandstones of the Hermit into the Esplanade. A boundary
that was once thought to prove significant time missing between strata
has now been reinterpreted."~Steven A. Austin, "A Creationist View of
Grand Canyon Strata," in S. A. Austin, editor, Grand Canyon: Monument
to Catastrophe , (Santee: Inst. for Creation Research, 1994), p. 74
What Austin is saying is that there is no erosion between the Hermit and
Supai therefore the depositional time was short. This is absolutely
wrong. McKee shows pictures of large erosional channels at the top of the
Esplanade Sandstone (and I have seen them with my own eyes in the field at
the Grand Canyon;even a geophysicist can look at rocks). Some of the
channel dimensions are:
channels deep wide
70 300
46 100
40 75
35 60-80
38 150+
15 100
There are channels 300 feet high and 70 feet deep at the top of the
Supai. see Edwin Mckee, "Erosion Surfaces" Supai Group of Grand Canyon,
USGS prof. Paper, 1173, p. 175
These channels are large enough to swallow entire neighborhoods.
What is even more disappointing is that Austin misses what Blakely was
saying. Blakey is saying that the erosion didn't occur quite as early
as previously thought. But it still occurred! This is like saying that
the car wreck didn't happen on June 15th, it happened on June 16th;
THEREFORE the car wreck doesn't exist!!!
Blakely writes:
"The nature of the upper contact of the Esplanade Sandstone with
the overlying Hermit Formation is part of a complex regional problem.
McKee examined the nature of the contact and concluded that overall
evidence suggested the presence of a regional unconformity. At many
locations, there is a definite transition between the Esplanade below
and the Hermit above. At other locations, the Esplanade is overlain by
an erosion surface with thrity to fifty feet (9 to 15 m) of local
relief. The Hermit overlies that surface. Still other locations
exhibit channeling into the Esplanade, but the channels originate from
within the Hermit and not from the base. This suggests that the erosion
surfaces formed after the deposition of the Hermit began."~R.C. Blakey,
"Supai Group and Hermit Formation," in S. S. Beus and M. Morales, Grand
Canyon Geology, New York, Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 159-161
In otherwords, the erosion was slightly later. Blakely does not say that
the erosion never occurred.
> Incidentally, placing the flood/post-flood boundary at the K-T
> boundary would have some interesting implications...
>
> - Dinosaurs died in the flood. This is the opposite of what other
> YECs like Ken Ham and Gary Parker claim (that dinos rode the ark).
>
> - All of the large extinct Tertiary-Pleistocene mammals (most
> people don't realize how many existed) somehow developed after the flood
(no earlier fossils) and then experienced the mother of all explosive
> evolutionary radiations.
>
Steve, you made this much more explicit than I did in my post. I have
collected the species and genera of fossil mammals. I am not finished at
the species level but in genera, the mammals really don't make much of an
impact until the Tertiary.
Period #mammalian genera
U.Triassic 4
L. Jurassic 1
M. Jurassic 2
U. Jurassic 40
L. Cretaceous 4
M. Cretaceous 1
U. Cretaceous 31
TERTIARY BOUNDARY Extant genera
Paleocene 213 0
Eocene 569 3
Oligocene 494 11
Miocene 749 57
Pliocene 762 133
Pleistocene 830 417
Present 1154 1135
This pattern as Steven points out, does not fit within a global flood
picture. In order to hold to a global flood position, one must never look
closely at the details.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm