Dear Edge;
quote:
Hmm, nothing global yet, so what's the point?
We have been discussing islands showing signs of having been raised in recent history. In my original post on this I posted the following link to a site with a list of raised coral islands. Their list includes islands from around the world. The majority are found in the Pacific, which is to be expected since it covers half the globe.
http://www.unep.ch/islands/Tityper.htmTheir listing is incomplete in that it doesn't include volcanic islands with raised shorelines. So even as extensive as their list is, it covers only part of the evidence of raised islands.
On the flat topped sea mounts called guyots, if they had slowly subsided due to lithospheric cooling, the coral would have easily kept up with the slow rate of descent and we would have a coral island today instead of a deeply submerged sea mount. Only if they had been rapidly submerged far faster than coral can grow, would we find guyots on the ocean floors. Most guyots and sea mounts are found in the Pacific, but there some in the Atlantic ocean as well. There are a group of sea mounts that are know 1 km underwater off New England that were recently and suddenly submerged. Here is a link on this.
New England Seamounts Once Near Surface The information on the site is from Heirtzler, J.R., et al; "A Visit to the New England Seamounts," American Scientist, 65:466, 1977.
Since the above evidence is found through out the oceans of the world, and since islands only occur in water, I don't know how you can get more global than this.
On expected sea mount elevations, I am invoking the normal theories of sea floor spreading and cooling, with the addition of large swings in ocean volume due to ice sheet formation. The sea mounts and particularly the guyots, are too old and cold to have been significantly affected by elevation changes due to changes in local pressure on the lithosphere. In most cases these former islands were beneath the waves even at the height of the last glacial advance and hence did not experience a pressure differential due to a change in sea level, only a even increase in pressure that resulted in an even depression. Which is why these areas were pushed down along with the surrounding sea floor with little or no uplift. Which is why I would not expect the find the pattern you suggest. As for a 70-year old theory, relativity is older, do you have a problem with it as well? Old theories that are still cited have stood the test of time and form the foundation of modern science. To challenge a theory just because it is old, would be to challenge the very progression of scientific advancement of building on the past.
On islands (and seamounts) being attached to a relatively rigid oceanic crust, under Darwin's reef or atoll theory, over time the island sinks. This sinking is due to local cooling, which results in local sinking, it doesn't pull the whole ocean floor down with it. So the rigidness of the oceanic crust is very 'relative' since the crust around a volcanic oceanic island is the most flexible part of the crust of the earth.
Since you keep making the claim that I have not posted any evidence of a global deluge, I thought I would post some evidence I recently read in a book I got from the library that is old enough that the copy right has expired. The book is called "Scientific Confirmations of Old Testament History" by G. Frederick Wright D.D.,LL.D.,F.G.S.A. 1907 2ed. pages 241-248. At the time this book was written, there was some interest in what they called "Rubble Drift" which would today be called a turbidite; a sediment deposited from a turbidity current. The author way back in 1907 correctly surmised that it was a sudden end of the ice age combined with shifts in relative land and sea elevations caused by the transfer of the weight of water in the ice age on the crust of the earth, resulted in a global flood. I particularly like his statement on page 367 about how the deluge occurred. "We judge from these conditions that the submergence took place slowly and continuously."
I. The Rubble Drift, or Head.-At numerous
places over the southern counties of England and on
the south side of Dover Strait at Sangatte, near Calais,
in France, there are deposits of angular gravel bearing
no relation to the present drainage systems of the coun-
try, and containing palreolithic implements and the
bones of extinct animals associated with prehistoric
man. This drift is found as far inland as the vicinity
of Oxford, and at an elevation on the Cotteswold Hills
of about nine hundred feet.
A typical illustration of this deposit is to be found
at East Brighton, the great watering-place of Southern
England, where it can be still studied to an excellent
advantage. The deposit is here eighty feet thick, and
the surface forms a continuous slope with the chalk
cliffs, rising into the interior. Formerly the deposit
extended a considerable distance into the sea, but the
larger part of it has been eroded by the waves. The
accompanying illustrations will aid in conveying the
important facts. At the base of the rubble drift there
is an old sea-beach, now elevated fifteen or twenty
feet above the reach of tide. This can be seen along
the coast for a distance of a mile or more, resting upon
a rocky foundation.
The superincumbent mass of the deposit must have
accumulated in very peculiar circumstances. It has no
regular stratification. An unstratified mass of sharp
angular flints and chalk fragments constitutes the sur-
face. Below this there is a series of irregular lenticulaT
masses, of the same character, containing fragments df
the Tertiary rock which surmounts the hills in the near
vicinity. Projecting from the face of the cliff of this
material as it is exposed are large blocks of this Ter-
tiary sandstone, either angular or with angles but
slightly worn. One of these measured by Professor
Prestwich was 8X2X2 feet. The deposit shows clear
marks in some places of rapid and tumultuous accumu-
.lation, while in others there is seen the fine lamination
produced by tranquil water action and deposition. " But
there is an entire absence of any of the effeets produced
by continuously running water, nor is the angle of
bedding of the mass such as would be formed under
~ subaerial conditions by rubble falling over the top of
the cliff, which would lie at a much greater and more
uniform angle; " In this deposit are found numerous
mammalian remains characteristic of post- Tertiary
times. Among them were those of species of elephant,
rhinoceros, reindeer, hippopotamus, horse, hog; and ox
The elephants' teeth and the bones in general are in
such a perfect state as to show that they could not
have been transported for a long distance. They
showed signs of fracture, but not of wear.
The rubble drift at Brighton is only one instance out
of more than twenty in Southern England carefully
described by Professor Prestwich. Prominent among
the places are Dover and Folkstone, Eastbourne, Bir-
ling Gap, New Haven, Port'Slade Station, the Sussex
Coast Plain, Hayling Island, the Isle of Wight, Isle of
Purbeck, the Isle of Portland, the South Devon and
Cornish coasts, the north coast of Cornwall and Devon,
the Somersetshire coast, the lower Severn, Swansea,
.Gower, and Pembrokeshire.
An important observation relates to the blown sand,
.or old dunes, which in various places occur between the
rubble drift and the raised beach, especially on the
north coast of Cornwall and Devon. These indicate
that, after the old beach had been elevated, there was
a considerable pause in the earth movements, sufficient
to allow the accumulation of extensive dunes. Then
followed the depression during which the rubble drift
,accumulated upon the top of the dunes. The existence
-of these dunes between the raised beach and the rubble
.drift indicates that the subsidence of the land preceding
:the accumulation of the rubble drift was rapid. Other-
wise the waves of the ocean would have leveled and
obliterated the dunes.
The rubble drift differs in important respects from
all ordinary gravel, such as is found along river courses
or on the beaches of oceans and lakes, in
( I) The angularity" and sharpness of the harder
constituent debris. Evidently the material has been
moved but a short distance; since both the fragments
of stone and the fractured bones retain their sharp
angles.
( 2) A second peculiar characteristic is that the
material is all of local origin, and is derived from the
higher grounds of the immediate vicinity. A signifi-
cant fact, also, in connection with this, is that the drift
is arranged around the base of the higher land, as if
it had been swept in all directions from it, yet so far
from the base that the agency of distribution could not
have been running water. In some cases, as on the
South Downs, at Port Slade, west of Brighton, this
extends from two to five miles over a comparatively
level surface. The material, however, is not collected
in deltas, as would be the case if it were transported by
small streams, but is pretty equally distributed around
the base; nor does it have any regular stratification, as
would be the case if it had been transported by ordi":
nary water action.
( 3) There is a total absence in these deposits of
marine and fluviatile shells. This has ordinarily been
taken as conclusive evidence against the origin of these
deposits during a period of submergence. In the opin-
ion of Professor Prestwich, however, it is simply evi-
dence of the brevity of the submergence, the time of its
continuance having been too short to permit the estab-
lishment of colonies of shell-fish of any description.
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