Slightly different evidence for an old Earth

Hey all,I'm finally back after being very, very sick with a chest infection... anyway, I posted this over at ChristiansUnite.com after being challenged about evidence for an old Earth. Here's the rough breakdown:

quote:

---

When I was doing a field study in Western Ireland, I had the fortune to examine a wonderfully complex geological area called Ballyferriter. In this area I saw at least five different environmental changes in a few square miles, as represented by the relevent geological formations. One formation caught my interest in particular - the central part of this formation consisted of about 30m of bright green mudstone, very soft and extensively layered, that contained hundreds of fossil beds, ripple marks and a type of cross-stratification that indicated a stormy environment.
It obviously represents a shallow marine shelf environment. The fossil layers alternated with the ripple marks and stratification, in a pattern that repeated itself throughout the formation. The fossils indicated a relatively still water setting, while the stratification indicated a storm setting. By conventional geology, this is nothing more than a changing environment pattern - but creationists interpret it as a result of the Flood.
So, during the Flood year (or whatever length of time it was), the environment changed several hundred times in this tiny, tiny section of Ballyferriter. Not only that, but the still water setting persisted long enough to allow vast networks of the trace fossil Chondrites to appear, which conventional geology considers to have happened slowly.
As well as this, the formations above and below this indicate a terrestrial volcanic environment, with desert conditions appearing briefly as well as rivers of various types. So, in the time of the Flood, the changes were absolutely radical in this area!
As if this wasn't enough, the area around Ballyferriter displays a completely different profile. Amazing, isn't it? Not to mention the incredibly complex faulting and deformational history of the area that shows a high level of displacement, overthrusting, and other features of an intense tectonic regime (It lies close to the Iapetus Suture; Joe Meert might know what I'm talking about).

​

The field evidence is very powerfully against the Flood. I'm not talking about research done by someone else; I studied this area from scratch, and this is what I found. It indicates millions of years, with no mention of a Flood - unless creationists suggest that god fast-forwarded every geological process during the time of the Flood.

---

My challenger said "Post something from talkorigins. I'm sure I can find a refutation." I decided to post something that would be a little harder to deny - field evidence that I collected myself. Unfortunately, I didn't get much of a response:

quote:

---

Conventional geology, which you mention in your post, has been corrected in the past. Perhaps you only think it is a desert environment. Trace fossils? How long does it take for a trace fossil to form? Why do you think this formation indicates "millions of years"? Is that what conventional geology tells you?

​

......

​

One has nothing to do with the other. The Flood was more than just a Flood. I don't need technical knowledge of geology to know and understand that. That much has happened since is also just an obvious observation. Again no technical knowledge of geology is required.

​

.......

​

That I don't understand the anomoly you posted, well that is testimony to my lack of technical knowledge on geology. That you won't take it up with professional geologists who are YECs gives me the feeling you would rather pick on people without geological knowledge than to try to find a real debate with someone who does.

​

.......

​

IRH IF you really want to debate someone on geology please find a geologist. I am sure you could go to AiG or ICR and take them to task. My interest in this debate is with biological evolution and I have little intereset in rocks & dirt.

---

Apparently ChristiansUnite.com is a little short on YEC geologists right now, so I'd like to open the floor to everyone here. I know the area intimately, and I can supply any details people might like to know - and I promise that every last word is true. I can quote the research papers of other Irish geologists who studied this area as well.Anyone?The Rock Hound

Hey, you guys should read the rest of the thread. It's a total no-brainer. You might even know the guilty party here - John Paul - he posted on EvC a while ago.Are there any creationists here who want to debate? Please?The Rock Hound

Bump...Doesn't anyone want to play? I can't believe that no creationist wants in here... or can I declare that the evidence points to an old Earth and has gone unrefuted?Any admin want to fill me in here?The Rock Hound

Dammit, if I ever see another thread about a young Earth I'm going to get really mad...I declare that the evidence here has gone unrefuted, and until it is the Earth is officially old.
The Rock Hound

Mike, if creationism can't work on a specific case then why should it be considered at all? It's more or less useless if it fails here. The evidence seems pretty clear-cut, even for a non-geologist - the environmental changes I saw in this small piece of land were too frequent to have occured in only 6000 years.If you want I can explain the more complicated stuff - it's all competely logical.I will go take a look at creationresearch.net but I doubt I'll get any takers.The Rock Hound

The main indicator that we look for is changes in sediment colour. Red means terrestrial, and green means marine, more or less - it's due to iron oxides and how they behave in and out of water. Other indicators are fossil assemblage changes (say from marine to terrestrial), and things like wave ripples or types of stratification.If a sequence of sediment changes from green to grey to red, that means that the sea level is falling and the environment is changing. It isn't really absolute but for convenience geologists divide sediments up into formations depending on their depositional environment.

This is going to take some explaining...I found a series of colour changes, from dark grey sediment (deep marine) up to very bright red (desert terrestrial). There aren't actually all that many different colours, but there were many many changes. By examining the changes I concluded that the sea level must have fluctuated several times.This wasn't a 'find' - this was a geological study of an entire area, something in the region of ten square kilometres. Overall I found around 15 different formations, each composed of ten 'members' on average (members are like a smaller subset of a formation, each of which indicates a particular part of the environment). The stratigraphy of the area was about the most difficult thing I'd ever faced.I should probably mention at this point that there were literally thousands of volcanic layers of different types interbedded in half of these formations as well.

I emailed a guy in creationresearch.net who said more or less that the idea of a flood causing everything was losing credit - instead they say a certain amount was caused by the flood, and everything else was caused by events since the flood.Unfortunately, that is also completely bogus. There hasn't been a volcanic eruption in Ireland for a lot longer than 6,000 years.Roxrkool summed it up pretty well - the features I saw took a long time to form, minimum tens of thousands of years. If you were just considering this one area maybe creationists could develop a workable theory - but this area is very different to the area next to it, and the next, and so on. The geology of Ireland is about as nasty as you can imagine and then some. For such a small island we have everything from some of the oldest rocks in the world right up to modern times. No single event could have created it all - and a 6000 year timescale is literally impossible.I really wish I could take you out and show you these formations, Mike, instead of just talking! It would make everything a lot easier to explain. Or I could post some of my field photos, how about that?The Rock Hound