Wegener and Evidence for Continental Drift

Postulating a mechanism means nothing. You have to have evidence for that mechanism in order for it to be considered. Wegener's ideas of continental drift were rejected because he had no evidence of any mechanism that could drive continents through rigid oceanic crust. He had evidence that the continenets had moved, but no evidence for how they had moved.Baumgardener is in somewhat the same boat. He has postulated a mechanism for how the continents could have moved in a very short period of time, but he has no evidence for that mechanism. And his position is far, far weaker than Wegener's, because he also has no evidence for the phenomena for which he's proposed a mechansism. In other words, not only is his mechanism mere unsupported postulation, but so is his phenomena of rapidly moving continents.But this still drifts from the thread's topic. You claimed there is evidence for the flood. As I mentioned above as Admin, Wegener could point to similar flora/fauna and geology on continents on opposite sides of the Atlantic. What evidence can you point to for the flood?--Percy

Which "various sets of data" does it explain? That was the point of much of my message: Baumgardner has no data. He has no data because he isn't explaining data, he's explaining Genesis.Baumgardner needs data indicating that the continents moved rapidly, minimally miles/year. Where is that data?There is solid evidence that the continents moved very slowly, centimeters per year:

1. Radiometric dating of seafloor. The seafloor is very young near mid-oceanic ridges where seafloor is produced, and it is very old, sometimes as old as 200 million years, just before it sinks into subduction zones. The progression from young to old is gradual and continuous across the seafloor.
   ​
2. Seafloor sediments. The depth of seafloor sediments gradually increases with increasing distance from mid-oceanic ridges, and the depths correspond to existing sedimentation rates.
   ​
3. Age of seafloor sediments. The radiometric ages of seafloor sediments correspond to those of the underlying seafloor, and becomes gradually younger with decreasing depth of sediment, with the top layer of sediment being nearly contemporaneous.
   ​
4. Magnetic seafloor striping. The alternating magnetization of the seafloor into stripes provides another age confirmation through correlation with other paleomagnetic data.

All we're asking is that you produce your flood scenario evidence for rapidly moving continents.By the way, you've misunderstood PaulK's original point about Wegener. The reason scientists sought a mechanism for moving continents was because of the evidence uncovered by Wegener that the continents had moved. Presumably Baumgardner sought a mechanism for rapidly moving continents because of the evidence that the continents had moved rapidly. We're claiming there's no evidence for rapidly moving continents, and you're claiming there is. All you need to do to settle this discussion in your favor is produce the evidence.--Percy

But this thread is about evidence. It originated with the Grand Canyon thread where at one point while defending your young canyon views you alluded to Wegener, and PaulK explained that while Wegener had no process, he at least had evidence. You don't even have evidence. You replied that you'd be happy to prove him wrong, and hence this thread. But we're still waiting for your evidence.--Percy

You've pegged my dissembling meter.You are trying to rewrite the history of this discussion, so let me state what happened even more clearly. You compared your current lack of evidence to Wegener's lack of evidence. PaulK pointed out that Wegener didn't lack evidence, that he actually had plenty of evidence. What he lacked was a process by which continents could sail through rigid seafloor. PaulK went on to point out that you not only lack a process, but that unlike Wegener you even lack evidence. You said you would prove him wrong. All you have to do to do that is provide the evidence.So, where's the evidence?--Percy

Sorry, TC, I thought you were misunderstanding on purpose. If you want, reread my Message 33 again because it explains the actual point at issue.It seems that you're trying to figure out how you're misinterpreting PaulK when he says, "Flood geology is not just lacking a mexhanism it is also lacking the evidence which continental drift had at the point Wegener proposed it." Here is as clear a re-expression of that statement as I can devise: In other words, PaulK was definitely *not* saying that flood geology is inconsistent with the evidence available to Wegener. It is, but that's not what PaulK was saying. If you have any doubt just read Message 1 of this thread where PaulK says, "So are you going to prove that Wegener did not have significant evidence?" He asks this question because since flood geology has no evidence (at least none that you've presented so far), the only way you could be anywhere close to being right about having more evidence for flood geology than Wegener had for continental drift is if Wegener also had no evidence.I'm taking an equivalent but complementary approach. The other way that you could be right is if you had more evidence for flood geology than Wegener had for continental drift at the time that he proposed his ideas.So where's your evidence?--Percy

It should be of great concern to you that evidence for an ancient earth can be stated in simple sentences in short messages while your evidence requires an entire textbook. I'll bet not many books have been written where reviewers weren't able to succinctly summarize the key points in no more than a few pages, and usually much more briefly. If you can't briefly summarize your evidence here, how in the world are you going to summarize it in your textbook's introduction, or even create a table of contents?In other words, I again sense dissembling.--Percy

Hi TC,This is a reply to all your recent posts. Sure it is, because Wegener already had evidence for an ancient earth. The way to look at flood geology is that it has negative evidence, because not only does it have no positive evidence, but to accept it requires ignoring known evidence, such as radiometric, paleomagnetic and stratigraphic data. Let's ask ourselves what kind of evidence would we expect to find if CPT were the more accurate model. Let's say the flood and CPT took place about 5000 years ago when Pangaea split into all the modern continents. So almost all the sea floor was formed very quickly around 5000 years ago, except that formed during the past 5000 years. We should therefore find a major line of demarkation on the sea floor corresponding to about 5000 years ago, with seafloor older than 5000 years having the appearance of very rapid formation, and that younger than 5000 years having the appearance of very slow formation.The current rate of sea floor formation is around 4 cm/year, so 5000 years of sea floor formation corresponds to about 200 meters from the oceanic ridges. So about 200 meters from oceanic ridges, give or take a 100 meters, the sea floor should contain a major discontinuity in its nature. No such difference has ever been reported.Let's now consider the sediment on the Atlantic sea floor between the mid-oceanic ridge and North America. If all but the 200 meters closest to the mid-oceanic ridge formed at roughly the same time about 5000 years ago, then the depth of sea floor sediment should be roughly the same for the entire distance up to within 200 meters of the ridge. But we instead find that the further you venture from the ridge the deeper the sediments become, indicating that increasing distance from the ridge corresponds to increasing sea floor age with a longer available timeframe in which to accumulate sediment. The sediment depth increases very gradually with no discontinuity 200 meters from the ridge.If most of the seafloor formed 5000 years ago then we would expect the sedimentary layers on the sea floor to date no older than 5000 years. What we instead find is sedimentary layers dating back not only 5000 years, but 10,000 years, 20,000 years, a million years, even a hundred million years. Not only that, but the age of a column of sediment increases gradually with depth, just as expected if the sediment was deposited over millions of years.So I have considered three pieces of evidence you would expect to find if CPT were the correct theory: a discontinuity 200 meters from oceanic ridges, a uniform sedimentary depth on the sea floor, and radiometric dates younger than 5000 years. In all cases we already know the answer. There is no discontinuity 200 meters or so from any ridge, sedimentary depth increases gradually and uniformly with distance from the ridge, and much of the sea floor is very old.--Percy

Hi TC,It amazes me that you never seem to tire of arguing for positions that have no evidence.How are you going to convince anyone that radiometric data should be ignored if you have no evidence for accelerated decay?How are you going to convince anyone that CPT is a viable option if there is no evidence for it? I never mentioned "the pre-flood oceanic lithosphere," but as long as you mention it, let me comment: All of it destroyed? Not even a teensy-weensy bit left over anywhere? Why, how convenient! And your evidence for this? Ancient sunken ships are nearly always found partially buried in sediments. 5000 years of sediments is plenty. You need better colors for your map of sediment thickness, because most of the depths are all the same color, and it's giving you the wrong impression of sediment thickness. Here's the link again: The problem is that most of the sediment depths in your depth key are the same color, mostly turquoise or red. Most of your map is turquoise, which ranges from 200 to 1000 feet, so naturually it looks to you like much of the sea floor has the same depth of sediment. The truth of the matter is that sediment depth increases gradually with increasing distance from oceanic ridges. Sediment depth does increase dramatically near continents - it's because of runoff and river deltas. Look at the heavy red at the delta for the Congo river, and if the Amazon and Mississippi were shown there'd probably be a lot of red there, too. And sediment depth *is* influenced by oceanic currents and distribution of flora/fauna. But in general sediment depth increases with increasing distance from oceanic ridges where sea floor forms, and this contradicts CPT. That's just it, TC, there is no discontinuity. If CPT were true then you would expect the sea floor that formed rapidly during CPT to look dramatically different from the sea floor that formed extremely slowly over the past 5000 years. What we see is that the sea floor has no sudden discontinuities at a 5000 year distance from oceanic ridges worldwide.I'm not surprised that I'm not convincing you. As I've told many others, you really shouldn't expect to convince anyone here. That's just not something that happens very often. But I am very surprised at your lack of concern about your inability to not only produce any evidence for your views, but not even postulate any evidence that we should search for that would show that CPT is the correct view.Come on, TC, think. What realistically obtainable evidence should we look for that if it were found would indicate that CPT is a more accurate description of the natural world than PT? I gave you three examples, but you don't like them because they all favor PT. So, come on, give us one of your own.--Percy

Percy is arguing no such thing. Do you know what "exponential" means? The word you're looking for, or at least the word that is correct, is "linear". Assuming that on average over the past 5000 years sedimentation rates have been relatively constant, sedimentation depth would have increased linearly with time and with distance from the ridge, not exponentially.But I understand your point nonetheless, which is that sediment rates in mid-ocean near oceanic ridges are so low that after 5000 years there would not be any measurable sediments. There are several problems with this position:

• While there may be little to no sea life on the sea floor at great depths in mid-ocean, all kinds of sea life live in the upper layers. The excretions and corpses of this sea life all descend to the sea floor as sediment. Except where deep sea currents scour the sea floor, there *will* be sediment, even after only 5000 years.
  ​
• Sediment depth *does* increase with increasing distance from the oceanic ridge where the sea floor is created. There are other factors, sure, like ocean currents and variable flora/fauna concentrations, but in general sediment depth increases with increasing distance from oceanic ridges. This contradicts CPT.
  ​
• There should be a significant difference in the structure and appearance of sea floor formed at the rate of miles/day as compared to that formed at the rate of a few yards/century. We see no such difference, and this also contradicts CPT.

Moving on: You must have me confused with someone else, TC, because you've never presented any evidence for any of your positions that I'm aware of, and so I've never had the opportunity to tell you that your evidence is not "unequivocal", or any other name for that matter. You keep harping on this "unequivocal" point in the rest of your message as an excuse to not address any of my points, but if you do a search across all forums for "unequivocal" for user "Percipient" you'll see I've never used the word in discussion with you.So come on, TC, address the issues. What evidence do you have supporting accelerated decay? What evidence do you have supporting CPT? What evidence should we look for that would lend support to either of these ideas?--Percy

There are a couple of ways to answer this. One is simply to ask what could possibly prevent sedimentation from occurring everywhere in the deep ocean, including near the oceanic ridges. The sediment would come from organic remains from the higher layers and from any particulate matter that happens to fall, perhaps blown from the continents.The other way to answer this is to simply provide the information. This is from an elementary geology textbook called The Earth's Dynamic Systems by W. Kenneth Hamblin, page 333: This tells us that on average there should be around 5 cm of sediment at the 5000-year distance of 200 meters from the ridge, and that the depth of this sediment should decrease as you move toward the ridge, and increase as you move away from the ridge. The sediment becomes linearly deeper with increasing distance from the ridge, until you get near enough a continent for continental runoff to be a factor, at which point sediment depths increase dramatically. This is precisely what PT predicts.CPT, on the other hand, predicts that sedimentation depth should increase linearly with distance from the ridge up until the 5000-year distance of about 200 meters, and after that should be a constant depth of about 5 cm, since that's all that has time to accumulate in 5000 years. This is absolutely *not* what we find.Here's more evidence for PT from the same page: This northward migration of the chalk line would not have time to happen in the CPT scenario, because there's far, far, far too much chalk to be accounted for by only a year's worth of plankton. Plus the sedimentation is fine grained, which couldn't happen on a sea floor moving at the rate of miles per day, plus the massive heat outflow would have boiled all the plankton, anyway.Another piece of evidence supporting PT is guyots. The sea floor sinks as it moves away from the ridge because as it cools it becomes increasingly dense. Guyots are volcanic islands that are eroded flat on top over time, then as they move further from the ridge and the sea floor on which they stand sinks their tops sink beneath the waves. The CPT scenario provides no time for the erosion of the flat tops on guyots. How can you deny that sedimentation depth increases with increasing distance from oceanic ridges in the first part of your message, then accept it and claim CPT supports it here. This is just as contradictory as your other nonsense about mid-ocean sediments coming primarily from continents that John picked up on in Message 55.Anyway, the Post #53 that you claim is by you is actually by PaulK, but looking over your posts I can see no explanation for how CPT accounts for this. Could you please explain it again? Including how fine grain sedimentary structure could have been laid down during a violent catastrophe, how so much biomass could have been living at the same time during a single year, how the different sedimentary layers could contain different fossil groups, and how the layers date older the deeper you go? And please don't just post a list of assertions, please support each argument with evidence. Elaborate on this? TC, this is just common sense. The effects of a motion carried out very rapidly are far different from the same motion carried out very slowly. Imagine the difference in effect if you extend your fist to someone's nose at the rate of 1 inch/second, and then do it again at the rate of 1000 inches/second. It would be a dramatic difference in outcome, wouldn't it? Well, same for almost anything else. If the sea floor was at one time produced at a rate of miles/day then it should have a very, very different appearance and structure from sea floor produced at a rate of a few yards/century. What kind of differences should we look for, TC?You're arguing very strangely. Instead of putting your energy into figuring out what evidence should exist and then seeking it out, you instead put all your energy into denying that any evidence for CPT exists. If there's no evidence for it, TC, then you can't know that it ever happened.A world formed by CPT should contain evidence for CPT and look very different from one formed by PT. The reason PT is the accepted view is because a world formed by PT should contain evidence for PT, and that's exactly what we find, copious evidence for PT. Where's the evidence for CPT? Can you show me how to be clairvoyant, too? Or are you a seer and soothsayer now? Arguments should be made in the messages themselves, you can cite your article in support if you like. Please describe your Venusian evidence for accelerated decay. Well, first of all, I think it's your job to develop the evidence supporting your views. You're the CPT expert, not me.But second of all, I've already given you evidence you should look for if CPT is the true explanation. Most of the seafloor away from continents should have a very shallow sedimentation depth averaging around 5 cm, because most of the sea floor is only 5000 years old. There should be a line of demarkation about 200 meters from all oceanic ridges - closer to the ridge the sedimentation depth should increase linearly, and further from the ridge the depth should be constant. We should not find any radiometrically old layers anywhere, not in the oceans and not on continents. Faunal fossil distributions in oceanic sedimentary layers should all reflect life that existed within the last 5000 years, nothing before that. We should not find progressions of fossils and should not find layer upon layer of fossils reflecting life that not only no longer exists, but doesn't even appear to have any living relative. Guyots should not exist, and submerged volcanic islands should all still have intact cones. And last but not least, all life on earth should now be extinct as of about 5000 years ago.--Percy

You're using the wrong pronoun - it is *you* who has to get the data. In my opinion it would be a poor investment of time looking for this non-existent discontinuity. A sedimentary discontinuity within a couple hundred meters of ocean ridges would be big news. If it existed it would have been ferreted out long, long ago by those Creationists who follow the technical literature, and would now be trumpeted by every Creationist organization and be common knowledge to all Creationists as the best (and only) evidence available supporting flood theory. You have an insurmountable problem either way:

1. If the rapidly moving continents generated little or no sediment, then most of the sediment on the sea floor was deposited after the flood and should have an average depth of 5 cm. This is not what we find.
   ​
2. If the rapidly moving continents generated much sediment, as you're now arguing, it would increase in depth with distance from the ridge as you say, but it would be very coarse-grained since it's origination was catastrophic, and it would therefore be clearly differentiated from the 5 cm of organics and clay deposited above it over the past 5000 years. This is not what we find, either.
   ​
   And it goes beyond that. The organics in the layers laid down during the flood year should all have the same date of 5000 years ago, with only the top 5 cm showing a progression through 5000 years on up till now. This is not what we find, either. What you instead find is sediments increasing gradually in age with increasing depth till they finally exceed the limits of C-14 dating and other radiometric methods have to be employed.
   ​
   And there's more. To the extent you find fossils, you should find a jumble of fossils all mixed up with no organization as organisms meet their end in many ways at many different times during the flood year consistent with a catastrophe. This is not what we find, either. We instead find an organized progression of fossils that correlate with layer and radiometric age.

Your have a tendency to grasp at arguments of convenience without regard to consistency with your prior positions. You yourself have presented information contradicting this claim when you posted the link to your sediment depth map (http://www.promisoft.100megsdns.com/evcforum/sedthick.jpg). It clearly shows sediments increasing in depth with distance from oceanic ridges. Certainly there are irregularities and local conditions, but the trend of increasing depth of sediment with distance from the ridge is well known and is stated clearly in any elementary geology textbook.You are once again trying to argue the position of absence of evidence for CPT. You're in effect saying, "It would be nice if ocean currents and local conditions hadn't made such a hash of sedimentary depths that it's impossible to figure anything out." But this is not the case, and you know this because when it suits you argue the other way. As explained before, the thickening is linear, not exponential.And your repeated claim that mid-ocean sediments come largely from continents is incorrect. While currents and turbidity can cause continental runoff to find its way to mid-ocean and make contributions to pelagic sediments, they are a minority contributor once away from continental shelves. The contradiction in Message 54 is there for anyone to see: John picks up on the contradiction in Message 55, so you claim in Message 56 that you meant something different, but only compound the problem by making further misstatements, such as this now disproven statement about sediments near the ridge being immeasurable in 5000 years: Where is this data you kept claiming you were looking at until someone provided actual data indicating you were once again talking through your hat? And the statement about 5000 year old sediments being immeasurable is worse than the earlier one, because if it's not possible for pelagic sediments to accumulate measurably in 5000 years near oceanic ridges where the welling of warm water from the ridge encourages life in the waters above, then if the sea floor really formed during the flood year then it isn't possible for pelagic sediments to have accumulated measurably anywhere in the world. You're again choosing an argument of convenience inconsistent with your position. An animal that dies in a catastrophe because he's buried in sediment or a cliff-face collapses on him is not dying from "environmental stress." You're forgetting that you're talking about a catastrophe.You also appear unfamiliar with what is actually found in the sediments. Near continents where there's copious life on the sea floor we find progressions in the layers of the same animal type changing modestly from layer to layer in a manner consistent with evolution and inconsistent with the randomness of a sudden catastrophe. Skepticism about, or rejection of, evidence is only justified when there is countervailing evidence, but you've been unable to offer us any evidence for a young earth. When presented specific evidence for an ancient earth, such as radiometric dating, you express completely unjustified skepticism, and then go on to propose additional processes, such as accelerated decay, for which there is also no evidence. This kluge tower of unsupported proposals is completely unnecessary since Genesis is not a scientific account. You once again explain your CPT flood scenario, for which you have no evidence, by proposing a process, rapid cooling, for which you also have no evidence. On the contrary, your task is very simple. Based on the extreme differences between the PT and CPT scenarios, postulate what evidence would be present for one and not for the other. Then seek out that evidence. This is very simple, but so far you haven't even identified the evidence you should be looking for.Your Venusian evidence for rapid decay doesn't even qualify as good science fiction, and you're once again offering arguments of convenience inconsistent with your other arguments since you describe time periods of millions of years rather than the mere thousands of your other CPT arguments. You have to make up your mind whether you're going to interpret Genesis literally or not. If you really believe Genesis says the universe is only 6000 years old, then you can't offer evidence that's millions of years old.I think you misinterpreted most of the sentences in my last paragraph - it was just a brief recapitulation of earlier points expressed in terms of the evidence you would expect for CPT. They weren't intended as new points, but you seemed to be trying to force novel interpretations upon them. Let's just drop that part since you already addressed the same points earlier in your message.I appreciate that you conceded some validity on a couple points, guyots and the equatorial chalk line, but if you accept this evidence then you must place it into a consistent framework that you can describe for others in a way that they can understand and find persuasive. So far all you're doing is convincing people that you hold your views very firmly out of all proportion to supporting evidence.I have the 4th edition of The Earth's Dynamic Systems. Just look in the index under "Ocean floor", subtopic "sediment on".It always feels like Christmas when I reply to your posts - when I spell check my reply, your quotes light up in red.--Percy

I'm going from memory, but I believe the average time is around a half million years between reversals. I found a diagram in a geology book listing recent reversals:Years Ago
=========
700,000
1,000,000
1,100,000
1,800,000
2,000,000
2,500,000
3,000,000
3,100,000
3,350,000--Percy

Most of the replies to you say basically the same thing, so there's no need to go on a "posting rampage" upon your return. A single post addressing the significant points would be fine.--Percy

Hi TC, welcome back! You write much more, but this is sufficient to indicate that you've misunderstood how evident and distinct the discontinuity would be. It wouldn't be subtle but prominently obvious. It couldn't possibly be missed. If it were there it would have been seen long ago. The discontinuity would be particular clear on sonar depth soundings. It doesn't show up because it isn't there.Here's why the discontinuity would be so large. Mid-ocean sedimentation rates are about 1 cm per thousand years. That means that only 5 cm of present ocean sediment can be have occurred in the 5000 years since the flood. The remainder of the great depths of ocean sediment, at least a hundred feet in much of the ocean away from ridges and in many places nearly a thousand feet, must have originated during the flood. The sediment is deepest nearest the continents where the sea floor is oldest and received sedimentation for the entire flood year, but it should be recognized that runoff from the continents could only have occurred during a short period of the flood year between when it began to rain and the later submergence of the continents shortly thereafter. Once submerged, runoff from the continents would have ceased.Sedimentation rates during the flood year would have had to have been enormous in order to deposit such great depths of sediment. For a sedimentation depth of 100 feet, a fairly small depth, sedimentation rates would have to have been a few inches a day. Water would have had to have been in vigorous movement to transport sediment at that rate, and the sediment would have had to have been very large grained to fall out of such turbulent water. Because the sediment is largely due to large tectonic movements and large basaltic production at oceanic ridges, the sediment would have only a small organic component. Sedimentation depths should be largest near the areas of greatest disturbance, which would be at oceanic ridges and subduction zones.Once rapid tectonic movement ceased the remaining large grained particles would rapidly fall out of the oceans as sediment. This includes near oceanic ridges, one area of maximum disturbance. Sedimentation rates would suddenly decline from inches per day to centimeters per millennium.The above discussion leads to these conclusions:

1. At a point a couple hundred meters from oceanic ridges the discontinuity between feet of sediment to an inch or so of sediment should stand out prominently, but no one has ever reported such a discontinuity. The transition between the flood and post-flood period would not be gradual because the transition was not gradual. The sudden halt of rapid tectonic movement would bring a sudden end to rapid large-grained sedimentation.
   ​
2. Across much of the ocean floor there should be another discontinuity between the top few centimeters of fine-grained sediments containing a fair amount of organic material and the remaining many feet of sediment which should be large grained and largely absent of organic matter. We instead find no discontinuity, and the sediment is for the most part fine-grained with a large organic component.

Moving on: There is no evidence for the flood. I know that you advocate rapid tectonic movement, rapid cooling, rapid decay and rapid magnetic reversals, but not only is there no evidence for any of these, there is no evidence for the flood, and so no need for you to speculate about them.Since Wegener's evidence is a topic of this thread, it is appropriate here to point out here the dramatic difference in evidence between Wegener and your scenario. Wegener had the following evidence showing that the continents had once been joined (this comes from Upheaval from the Abyss: Ocean Floor Mapping and the Earth Science Revolution):

1. Similar animal and plant species, such as marsupials in both South America and Australia.
2. Similar fossils, such as found in South America and Africa.
3. Similar geologic layers, such as an extension of the Appalachian mountains in Scotland
4. Fossils found where similar organisms can't exist today, such as tropical plants found in Antarctica and on Arctic islands.

Based upon this evidence Wegener was able to argue that, as implausible as it sounded, the continents had moved over time. Given the strong evidence, it made sense to seek a mechanism which could move continents.Now, if you had any kind of evidence for the flood at all then you could reasonably argue for your other claims of accelerated physical processes. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that the evidence for the flood was strong. For example, let's say that the ocean floor sediment was predominantly large grained, largely absent of organic matter and with a sediment depth discontinuity about 200 meters from ocean ridges, but that all our other evidence was the same. In other words, the radiometric dates of geologic layers, the magnetic reversal data, the distribution of fossils, and so forth were all the same, but that the ocean sediments were strongly indicative of a recent global flood. We would have to try to reconcile this conflicting data, and in this case it would make sense to explore the possibility of accelerated processes.But the ocean sediments are not large grained, and you have no evidence for a recent global flood, and you therefore have no justification for exploring or advocating accelerated physical processes, nor any evidence of them anyway. This is the same type of argument that you made earlier, which I didn't quote, that you don't see why sediments should appear differently depending upon whether they were deposited rapidly or slowly. We've been over this ground before. Things which happen rapidly leave different evidence from those which happen slowly. As I once argued, if you extend your fist to someone's nose at the rate of 1 inch/second, and then do it again at the rate of 1000 inches/second, the outcomes will be dramatically different. Fine grained particles stay suspended in turbulent water, so fine grained sediments indicate still water. Large grained sediments indicate turbulent waters, larger particles like pebbles, rocks and boulders indicate very rapidly moving water such as might occur with a flood in a narrow channel.The same is true of fossil distributions. The fossil distribution in sediments deposited over hundreds of millions of years would look dramatically different from the distribution in sediments set down over the course of only a single year. What we find is that fossils differ increasingly from modern forms with increasing depth. A corollary would be that the greater the distance in time between layers the greater the difference in fossils. You can only make a statement like, "Alot of what we see in the cambrian we still see hundreds of millions of years later," if you are ignorant of the fossil record. Even other Creationists realize how different the lifeforms in different eras are. Probably no species survived the Cambrian by hundreds of millions of years, and very few genuses, possibly none. Even more important, each era subsequent to the Cambrian produced new species not found in the Cambrian. You won't find any dinosaurs or reptiles or mammals in the Cambrian. You won't find any dinosaurs or mammals in the Devonian. You won't find any but the tiniest of mammals in the Jurassic. And the reason you don't find them is because these creatures did not exist when the sediments were formed.Think about it, TC. It would only take finding mammals in the Cambrian to prove evolution (and much of geology) wrong. Nothing like this has ever been found. Mammals dominate the globe, yet not a single mammal appears in the lowest layers. Not a single mammal anywhere around the globe just happened to die or been sick just before the flood and so been unable to escape to higher levels. For the flood to have happened you would you need the fossil distribution to look much different than it does. It isn't possible for a flood to produce the organized fossil distributions that we actually find.Different processes produce different evidence. You can't sidestep this very obvious truth. The way science chooses between two points of view is to figure out what evidence would be different if one view held and not the other, then search for that evidence. We've all already given you many, many ways in which the evidence would be different than what we find had there been a global flood, and in each case the evidence indicates there was no flood. Uh, because you said "exponential" again? I try to avoid becoming personal, but if you're going to ask why I brought this up then I have no choice. Face it, TC, you are not a model of consistency, nor do you have a photographic memory. You often repeat mistakes and forget what you once seemed to understand (just look at your statement about the Cambrian above). Don't expect other people to read your mind and figure out where you merely misspoke and where you have fallen back into an old and erroneous understanding.I'm just going to pass by the "you said"/"did not" parts about continental sediment appearing far from continents. Suffice it to say that several people thought you were saying this. Is this the anonymous data referred to earlier in your message? Please make it easy on people and provide a link to messages. No one paid any attention to your data in Message 74 because you never provided any context. All you said about it was, "From the data that I had presented earlier," which isn't any information at all. So I went back through the thread, TC, and guess what? Those images don't appear in any message earlier in the thread. When you said you presented this information earlier, did you mean in another thread? Do you think we're mind readers, TC? Are you beginning to see the advantage of focusing your efforts onto fewer messages? More quality, less quantity?Anyway, there are two reasons why I can't completely address the point that I finally understand you've been making about the randomness of sedimentation depths. First, you provided no context for your images. Second, your images have the wrong scale for 200 meters from the ridge. They provide no information whatsoever for sedimentary depths that small or that close to the ridge. About the smallest depth that can be represented on your charts is a meter, about 20 times too large, and the smallest distance from the ridge is maybe a half kilometer, about two and a half times too large.But anyway, the discontinuity you're claiming wouldn't be there because of local variation would most certainly be there despite any local variation. It's appearance will vary according to local conditions like depth, currents, latitude, local flora/faunal populations, but the discontinuity will be there. Except that it's not, because there was no flood.I feel it important to note that you are once again arguing along the lines of, "Aw, shucks, we sure wish there was some kind of evidence that would help us distinguish between modern geology and flood theory, but by-dang-it we keep getting confounded in every direction we turn." You don't make a real compelling case that you're interested in finding evidence. Well now you're just being obscurantist. Do you want to have a reasonable discussion or are you just determined to be difficult? Organisms which die in catastrophes are not experiencing environmental stress. People who drown or are crushed in avalanches do not die from environmental stress. The sediments off many coast lines are very deep and very old. For example, the sediments off the Atlantic coast of the United States go back to the Jurassic era at the bottom of the sediment column. As I said earlier, near continents where there's copious life on the sea floor we find progressions in the layers of the same animal type changing modestly from layer to layer. Perhaps you misunderstood this last part. The changes accumulate over time, remember, even though the change between consecutive layers is small. And the changes are sufficiently small that a flood could not possibly differentiate. Plus different layers far apart contain creatures that are the same in size, shape and weight but are nonetheless different creatures. And we see this progression through all the millions of years of layers in a manner consistent with evolution and inconsistent with the randomness of a sudden catastrophe.About your Venusian evidence, sorry, TC. It reads like science fiction hash to me. I'm not going to give it the dignity of a reply, and I've spent more than enough time on your unsupported assertions already. Plus , it's just a lengthy multi-paragraph cut-n-paste from your webpage. If you want to try to summarize clearly and distinctly in just a few sentences in a message here then I'll be glad to respond to that. So tell us the evidence that indicates to you, hints to you in some way that there are deeper mysteries out there? Please don't repeat your, "Well I have evidence, its vague and alluring to the highest degree, explained in section 3.2 of my article." Tell us your evidence, TC, straight out, right here. Yes, TC, it probably would be a waste - w-a-s-t-e! --Percy[Edited to fix typos and a couple poorly expressed phrases. --Percy][This message has been edited by Percipient, 06-24-2003]

Still never satisfied with the right words when the wrong words are available, huh, TC? You meant to say that you're following my advice, not taking my word.I think you're understanding of what IrishRockHound and John have been saying is becoming more and more confused, and after staring at what you said for ten minutes I still despaired of ever sorting it out.While replying to John you said: This is incorrect. Please do not attach my name to your positions. What is it about Creationists that they keep claiming support from people who disagree with them?Regarding your diagrams, we have already established they don't contain relevant data. There was no need to include them in a message yet again. You're not responding to what I said, which was that the discontinuity would be between feet on the one hand and centimeters on the other. In fact, my Message 53 begins with a lengthy explanation for why the discontinuity would be so large. Allow me to summarize. With continents moving at miles per day and sea floor being produced at the same rate the seas would have been very turbulent and held huge amounts of sediment throughout, including near oceanic ridges. In such turbulent waters only large grained particles would fall out as sediment to the sea floor. Once continental movement slowed to its current rate and the seas settled the large grained sediment would have quickly fallen to the sea floor, including at the oceanic ridges. It would be feet deep. New sea floor produced after the flood would accumulate sediment at the current rate of 1 cm per thousand years. Hence, if the flood actually happened we would observe the following:

• A discontinuity in sediment depth of feet on one side and a few centimeters on the other closer to the ridge.
  ​
• A thin veneer of fine grained sediment atop deep large grained sediment throughout almost all sea floor around the world.

But this is not what we find. We instead find that fine grained sediment, in essence muck, extends for hundreds of feet, depth dependent upon distance from oceanic ridges. This isn't a rebuttal but merely a description of your hypothetical scenario for which you've as yet produced no evidence. However, if you wish to insist on this scenario then it implies this sedimentary evidence would be present close to continents:

1. The deepest sedimentary layers should contain the detritus from runoff from the continents prior to their submergence. There should never be any evidence of sea floor life like clams and crabs and so forth because there was no time for them to inhabit the newly created sea floor. Organic content, other than that flowing off the continent, should be low since the new sea would be largely uninhabited. It should not be surprising to find the remains of many land animals washed off the continent.
   ​
2. The next higher sedimentary layer should be the result of turbulent water caused by accelerated continental drift and the seismic activity you insist happened. Organic content should be low.
   ​
3. The next higher sedimentary layer should contain the drainage from continents as they reemerge from the waters.
   ​
4. The highest sedimentary layer would be a thin layer formed during the past 5000 years since the flood, depth dependent upon local conditions but averaging around 5 cm, and having high organic content.

But the sedimentary layers near continents bear no resemblance to this. How many times does this have to be explained to you, TC? We've gone over this before. The point I made was an old one we already spent too many messages explaining to you. The point was about the amount of evidence Wegener had for his theory versus the amount of evidence you have for yours. He had plenty, you have none.Your claim is that the Wegener evidence I cited is completely compatible with your theory, and if this is true then it fully explains why you have no evidence. You have to find evidence *for* your theory that is *not* evidence for current theory, and this means you have to figure out what evidence would be present were your theory true and current theory false, and then you have to go forth and find that evidence. You have to figure out the ways in which the world would be different if your theory were true. Your lack of evidence combined with your inability to even postulate what such evidence would be tells us that you adhere to your theory for non-evidential, ie, non-scientific, reasons.About your geomagnetic reversal speculations, you have two independent variables (time dependent rate of continental movement and time dependent rate of magnetic reversals), so unless you can find a dependent variable or two no data will help you. I don't know what you're missing here, but this is simple logic. Mammals in the Cambrian would be evidence that mammals lived at the same time as Cambrian creatures, which is just what you believe but have no evidence for.--Percy