Re: Reply to James

Glenn Morton (grmorton@gnn.com)
Sun, 19 Jan 1997 19:00:45

>I was under the assumption that it was widely accepted that coal was
>composed of carbonized remains of great masses of plant remains. However,
>coal seams are regularly found interbedded with strata of shale,
>limestone or sandstone. Furthermore they are sometimes very thick and also
>are repeated dozens, sometimes scores, of times in a vertical section.

So how does your model explain the need for 24,000 feet of plant matter to
create that one 200 m thick coal seam in Russia? To prove your theory
correct, you need to not only show why the present view won't work but also
show that your model does. I can't see how you can pile that much organic
matter up to form that one coal bed.
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>
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>There is obviously no such phenomenon being produced in the present world.
>There are many existing peat bogs, of course, but none of these grade
>vertically downward into a series of coal seams. The uniformitarian peat-bog
>theory of coal seam origin seems quite unrelated to the real world.

You have an outdated view of what Geologists believe. They do not believe
uniformitarianism anymore (contrary to what you will always here).
Uniformitarianism is a recipe for a perpetual motion machine. We believe that
the earth conditions have changed due to several factors over geologic
history. First, the earth has cooled down and that has changed the rate of
volcanism. Second, the sun has become more luminous. Chemical changes have
taken place in the sea which means that different types of rocks were
deposited in the past. My former boss, a geologist, used to say that the
present is the key to the present.
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>A very obvious proof that coal beds must have been formed rapidly is the
>existence of "polystrate" fossil tree trunks, as well as other polystrate
>fossils (that is, fossils extending through several strata of coal and the
>other rock units) in the coal beds.

Can you provide a reference for the polystrate tree through several strata of
coal? I have never heard of this even in creationist literature.

And to Art Randy wrote:

Makes sense to me, my only point was that the flood model of coal
vegetation accumulation is much more realistic. The conversion of the
vegetation into coal, through adiabatic compression, heating, and shearing
stresses, is much more easily visualized in terms of catastrophism than
slow vertical accumulation of sediments.

glenn

Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm