Greater Houston Creation Association
Creation News
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Acquiring and Distributing Knowledge Regarding God's Creation
Webinar Meeting: April 15, 7 pm
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The Navajo Sandstone - A Flood Deposit ?
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Last month GHCA hosted Mr. Raymond Strom presented his talk “Coconino Sandstone – A Flood Deposit”. Strom is President of Calgary Rock and Materials Services and he serves as the geochemist for a team of geologist lead by Dr. john Whitmore studying the Coconino Sandstone. The Coconino part of the project has been completed after a decade of work. Now they have started to work on the Navajo sandstone which raises some similar questions. So, lets take a review of what we learned about the Coconino and why it is a flood deposit.
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The Coconino is famous and controversial. It is conventionally claimed that crossbedded sandstones like this are formed from a windblown desert sand dune environment being turned to rock by minerals in water infiltrating the sand. The growing leeside face of the dune makes angled lines or crossbeds in this kind of sandstone. By studying the rock grains and minerals as well as the crossbedding one can learn a lot about the conditions that made the rock.
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The Coconino is one of the largest crossbedded sandstones covering parts of 14 states. In some places in Idaho and Utah it is more than two thousand meters thick although in most places it is tens or hundreds of meters thick. Many conventional geologists are convinced that the Coconino Sandstone is the result of millions of years of desert sand dunes. However, crossbeds can also form underwater.
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Sand waves are generated by fast moving water currents and have many characteristics similar to windblown sand dunes. Most people have seen the ripple that occur in the sand or silt at the bottom of streams or storm drainage systems. These underwater sand waves can be even larger than the sand dunes in a desert. One good example is the sand waves outside the entrance to San Francisco Bay. These particular sand waves are up to 10 m high and 220 m between crests.
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Many features of the Coconino indicate these are marine sand waves. The rock layers above or below the crossbedded sandstone is commonly a marine sediment. It is also common that at the lateral boundaries the sandstone interfinger with marine sediments. The boundary with the Hermit Formation below is a sharp and flat contact for mile after mile. Such extensive flat bounding surfaces are common in marine settings but not in in desert sand dunes.
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When thin slices of this rock are examined under the optical or electron microscopes, x-ray diffraction and other modern analytical methods, more evidence is found that can only occur in a marine environment under water. These include mica grains or flakes which cannot survive desert windblown impacts. K-feldspar is softer than the quartz sand grains but is often found to be more angular and this can happen only under water.
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There is also large dolomite clasts far from any source rocks. The presence of dolomite beds, ooids and cement in many areas is indicative of marine processes and not windblown desert processes. Further, Dr. Whitmore’s team found similar features in some other “ancient” Permian sandstones around the world.
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Also the range of crossbed dip angles is larger for marine crossbeds than desert sand dunes. Although there are many factors involved geologist expect crossbed angles of 30 to 34 degree angles near the top of windblown sand dunes. However, marine crossbeds can have lower and broader range of values.
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When geologist have published all of their measurements and plot how many measurements occurred near each value they always get a broad distribution of dip angles. This chart is the data published by a conventional geologist in 1938. Note that out of 189 data points only two are typical of windblown sand dunes. A number of other geologists have since reported similar data. The Whitmore team also reports similar data. This kind of distribution is more consistent with underwater sand waves than desert sand dunes..
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In a few places in the Coconino, the sand waves have been folded back on themself forming “parabolic recumbent folds”. These recumbent folds only occur under water and most likely under fast moving water.
All of this is also consistent with a fast, complex, and sometimes chaotic flood process on a very large scale. The large extent of the Coconino suggests at least a continental scale. The great range of thickness in the Coconino suggests complex, high speed and high energy deposition and subsequent erosion processes. That is consistent with the YEC concept of a worldwide flood that destroyed a previous world environment and laid down much of the geology we see today, all in less than a year. But yes, there are still many questions to answer yet. Will continuation of this research find similar evidence in other sandstones?
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On April 15 the GHCA will have the privilege of hosting geochemist Raymond Strom, President of Calgary Rock and Materials Services. Mr. Strom will speak on the work that is beginning on the Navajo Sandstone. The Navajo is also big and important. It contains a number of know mysteries that have never been solved. I suspect that Whitmore, Strom and the other research team members will have substantial success because they do not have a closed mind regarding the Biblical narrative. However, there is likely to be some surprises for all and that makes for an adventure in discovery. They are committed to following the evidence wherever it leads. Join us at 7 pm on 4-15-21 to start on another amazing adventure in discovery.
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Don’t miss this presentation! It is on the cutting edge of creation science presented by one of the research team members who was personally involved in doing the work. There will be a question and discussion time at the end. Forward this announcement to your skeptical friends, geologists and other scientists, or church leaders. We welcome the questions and comments of all whether they agree or not.
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For geologist and other technical people here are links to the most recent free access publications from this research:
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Sincerely,
Frank Mayo, President
Greater Houston Creation Association
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Houston Science & Culture Network
Houston chapter of the Discovery Institute's division of Science and Culture.
Tour calls out false claims. See also the link to Tour's response to critics.
Life's Origin: Lab + Information = Mind
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San Antonio:
The San Antonio Bible Based Science Association (SABBSA) usually meets the second Tuesday of each month, 7:00 p.m., at Faith Lutheran church just south of the corner of Thousand Oaks and Jones Maltsberger. More info is at www.sabbsa.org.
Dallas-Ft Worth:
The Metroplex Institute of Origin Science (MIOS) meets at the Dr. Pepper Starcenter, 12700 N. Stemmons Fwy, Farmers Branch, TX, usually at 7:30 pm on the first Tuesday of each month.
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Examples of Important YEC Scientific Evidences
Some major examples of physical evidence we point to include:
- Remains of original soft tissue still found in dinosaur bones. Along with that tissue is C-14 that would decay completely away in less than a hundred thousand years, a tiny fraction of the dinosaur fossil's supposed age.
- For many years geologists have found C-14 in fossil carbon throughout the fossil record. So, the entire fossil record is less than 100,000 years old.
- The origin of the information and molecular machinery in the first living self-reproducing cell remains a complete enigma for biologist and biochemists.
- In the origin of the universe, big bang theory is being recognized as a dead end by increasing numbers of secular scientists. The hypothesized inflation has nothing to start it, drive it forward, or stop it. Without inflation fatal flaws appear with the absence of predicted antimatter, magnetic monopoles, or any means for the whole universe to come to the same precise background temperature. Then the formation of the first stars is as enigmatic as the origin of the first biological cell. Dark matter and dark energy are as enigmatic as the galactic motions they are needed to explain.
At the root of all standard science are many assumptions that may be quite incorrect. At the top is that there is no God. Another is that present process can be used to explain everything in the past. When we look at a canyon we are taught to assume the river at the bottom cut the canyon. But perhaps tectonic events made the canyon and there is a river at the bottom because water always flows downhill. At the root of big bang theory is a pure assumption that has been named the "Cosmological Principle". Perhaps inaccuracies there are responsible for the big bang's multitude of problems.
There is more about the role of assumptions in science found on our website here. There are many more resources on young earth and young universe evidences here.
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