Hydrologic Evidence for an Old Earth

In the now closed topic YEC Problem with Science Above and Beyond Evolution, several areas of discussion were ended when the topic exceeded 300 posts. Among these areas were the implications the YEC belief system would have on hydrogeology. To return to the debate, please refer to the following two posts: And, in response to another post from Faith and to clarify: To me, the hydrologic evidence of an old Earth is beyond logical refutation unless one is going to assert Last Thursdayism from an intentionally deceptive deity. Does anyone disagree?This is intended to be the first in a series concerning what sciences are negatively affected by a YEC belief system. Further explorations will include, but are not limited to, genetic bottlenecking due to the Flood and Noah's Ark story, the clear differences in species lumped together as kinds, and the melting of the Earth under the laws of physics due to condensed volcanic activity and/or meteoric impacts. Edited by Admin, : Shorten link.

To put it as simple as I can, there is only so much water one can push through a given type of rock at one time. This can be measured, and has been countless times in laboratories and on-site. The time it takes to push the water through lateral hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles of rock is often longer than 6000 years, in some cases even millions of years. Therefore any water in a given confined aquifer (which means no other significant source of water) must be thousands or even millions of years old unless it was created with the false appearance of age. Therfore either the Earth is at least millions of years old according to hydrology or the water was created with the false appearance of age, hence Last Thursdayism. Edited by anglagard, : clarity

The push is water in the recharge zone being absorbed. Actually to be more accurate, the water is also pulled by gravity. The water can only be pushed or pulled as fast as the properties of the rock allows.

Yes solid (or in the case of the Mohorovic discontinuity, plastic) rock exists down to the liquid outer core of the Earth. Water is usually contained in the pores of rock to some degree as deep as the deepest well. This is far deeper than any action of water could scour from the surface in 150 days as water can only hold so much rock before it falls out of solution, which even if it did would create a single worldwide layer of rock after consolidation.{ABE} Of course only the chemical precursors to most rock can go into solution. Only a few rocks with lots of air in the pores, like pumice, actually float.{ABE2} Also, if the floodwaters contained all the rock, even if down a mile or two, it would have been mud at best, not floodwater. It still would have made one continuous flat geologic formation, after settling. I thought it was Noah's flood not Noah's mud.Edited by anglagard, : clarityEdited by anglagard, : No reason given.

You probably posted this before my edit. If the rock did not pre and post date the flood, and the flood held all that rock in suspension, it would have been Noah's mud not flood. One homogoneous body of water at one time precipitates one type of rock. A global flood does not and can not create streambed deposits here, wind deposits there, and limestone deposits over there.

Thats not the idea, the idea is that several miles of rock magically turning to dirt, because of the flood means the flood is at best mud, not water.Water and rock does not act in the manner which you would require in order to assert that all aquifers, no matter how deeply buried, were created in some global flood.{ABE - How does rain, or indeed being under miles of water cause miles of rock to erode in 40 days? magic?}My assertion still stands, either hydrology provides yet more evidence for an old Earth or one must believe in Last Thursdayism.Edited by anglagard, : Just saw silly assertion

To me and the majority of people who have studied the geosciences it computes a lot better than claiming rain and ocean currents erode miles of rock in less than a year.{ABE} What erosion at the bottom of the ocean anyway? the amount of energy required to use water to erode miles of rock at the bottom of the ocean would have sent the Ark into orbit (at a molecular level}.Edited by anglagard, : ocean bottom erosion

Naturally I disagree. The alleged flood could not have eroded miles of rock down in such a limited time period according to the way things work on Earth unless there was some form of magical divine intervention. Therefore aquifers do not contain flood water due to exposure to flood water because of erosion. Conversly, the alleged flood could not have deposited all aquifers after the flood because such waters would have to carry huge amounts of physically and/or chemically suspended solids that would have then created water bearing formations to the depth of several miles, unless such suspended solids were magically introduced through divine intervention. In other words the suspended solids could not have come from flood erosion of preexisting rock, therefore many if not most aquifers both predate and postdate any alleged flood. Thus, any alleged flood had no effect upon existing aquifers under any flood scenario using the principles of physics as currently are easily demonstrable.To put it plainly, there is either the science of hydrology as understood today or there is the positing of divine intervention outside of the laws of physics, which is a form of Last Thursdayism.Hydrology, by using the physical properties of aquifers, invalidates a young Earth.

Thanks, was hoping people would open my link concerning hydrogeology, but placing the example where everyone can see it sure works better.My example in the OP, if I remember properly, was through the Abo Formation (remember that one well from field camp in the Zuni Mountains), a combination of clay and sand, so its transmissivity was far slower than an average sandstone (which transmits faster than almost all rocks short of gravelly conglomerates). Thats why it took water over 800,000 years to travel some 200 miles in my example.

Then how did such a flood affect aquifers that already existed several miles underground under several miles of rock?And where did such miles of sediments that supposedly made aquifers come from after such an alleged flood? A worldwide flood where the water comes from magic and goes away by magic is not in any way remotely normal physical conditions. Also you are in direct contradiction to another assertion in the same post: In one year, all historic volcanoes erupted, all historic earthquakes occured, and you call that normal? I call that an atmosphere too posionous to sustain any multicellular life. Additionally eroding sediments at the bottom of the ocean (which is what all the Earth would have been if covered by water) is not possible according to any normal physics. Ocean bottoms are depositional, not erosional, environments. I am quite familiar with AIG and ICR as I often use them to refute even wilder YEC claims. Have you done any examination of any physical science at all?I also have seen in this forum how you are continuously bringing up PRATTs in order to sidetrack logical discourse. Haven't you discussed flood geology prior to this thread, which BTW is supposed to be about hydrology?

These are good questions. Someone more clever than I called geology a study of time and pressure, since time does not appear to be in dispute, it must be pressure.Yes, rock deeper than around 5 miles or so is solid (except for the semiplastic Mororovic discontinuity) all the way down for 1800 more miles until one hits the liquid outer core. Actually the rocks on the continental crust are underlain by relatively impermeable basalt, which in turn is underlain by really impermeable Peruskovite? & etc. mantle rock which is only seen on the surface as the rock that makes up Kimberlite pipes. The phase changes are due to pressure and temperature. Essentially the pressure and temperature preclude voids and indeed eventually even pores at great enough depth (Hollywood notwithstanding). You are most likely referring to a surface aquifer rather than a confined aquifer. In a surface aquifer, the force of gravity, expressed directly and through the force of water on top of any given volume of water essentially forces such water from rainfall to follow the path of least resistance. Therefore it follows any cracks, fissures, more porous areas, etc. and tends to pop out along the sides and especially at the bottom of a given hill, like a spring, after rainfall.Since the counterresitance in an unconfined aquifer due to air at the outlet is vastly less than the combined force of water already there along with pressure due to depth of a saturated confined aquifer along its lateral length until its outlet, the water moves much faster in an unconfined than confined aquifer. You nearly answered your own question. Confined aquifers are underground, below and above impermeable layers. The pressure, while not totally precluding voids, essentially squeezes them out of effective existance. The water in the rock, having 2000 times the density of air and being less compressible, does a much better job of not collapsing. One exception is limestone, which often forms caverns due to acidic water absorbing CaCO3 on its way. But is is important to remember, even in the case of caverns, the surrounding rock is still rock and holds up the water from moving rapidly. Think of it this way, which is harder, water or granite? Water creates voids underground only through chemical reactions, not simple pressure because what is replaced by pressure has nowhere to go while dissolved carbonates in solution go where the water goes. It keeps going until the water becomes less acidic and can no longer hold the carbonates in solution. The short answer is no.Actually the Abo formation had cracks that were sealed by deposits of carbonates caused by the action of water running through them. This in turn sealed off any conduits for water, rendering their effective hyraulic conductivity much less than originally was present.Look at roadcuts through some sedimentary rock, you will notice on close examination all kinds of cracks sealed up by carbonate deposits because of the water that had already run through in the past. The very act of water running through such conduits seals them off when the water becomes less acidic and deposits carbonates. Once again limestone may provide exceptions to the rule when acidic water is involved. Also remember roadcuts are near the surface and tend to show such sealing action, deeper rock is under much greater pressure and would have less voids, if any.Lastly, it is important to remember that the travel time that water may take through an aquifer is directly measured by dying water or doping it with a radiactive isotope and pumping it down a well and then seeing how long it takes to show up in a well downstream so to speak. This measurement tells one how long it takes water to travel in a given aquifer in a rather direct manner.This is the simplified basic narrative and may not correctly address all the complexities actually involved so anyone with more insight may want to refine the concepts further.Hope this helps.

True, it has nothing to do with any worldwide flood. What it does is provide a minimum age for the Earth which is much greater than 6000 years, although much less than the 4.5 billion found through isotopes and cosmology. Also true, but taken together with all other geologic findings, they sure provide a lot of mutually supporting evidence concerning past conditions.

What I meant was science does not prove things, it provides theories supported by overwhelming evidence. Therefore I agreed the term prove is unwarranted but unfortunately I was not clear about my exact meaning. Of course I know the past is the key to the present and therefore agree with your post.

A somewhat cataclysmic event, volcanic eruption with an accompanying lava flow of impermeable basalt, has created vastly more confined aquifers than such events ever destroyed.

I do not agree with you that the past is a helter skelter of anything and everything anyone says it is, regardless of evidence to the contrary, that can't be understood except by misreading an obvious parable. I do agree that science does not prove, it creates theories based upon overwhelming evidence. It is so improbable to say worldwide and simulataneous earthquakes affected all geologic formations that it approaches impossibility as .999999999999 approaches 1, as there is absolutely no evidence, and indeed a huge amount of counter-evidence. But one can't completly rule out Last Thursdayism, is that what you are arguing for?Edited by anglagard, : sp.Edited by anglagard, : clarityEdited by anglagard, : more clarity