Why flood geology doesn't work, oil exploration as the example

I've been trying to keep away from debate on this thread, and I figured I'd eventually do some thinking about the evaporites question from a Flood perspective though I haven't done so yet. But your saying that of course evaporites must have been exposed to air because they did evaporate does make one wonder if that's necessarily how it always happens. Even exposed salt lakes aren't produced only by evaporation but partly by seepage into the ground. And water would be expected to seep down through the strata too. That's what leads to cementation of the rock as it carries the chemicals that bring that about. So for starters I'd question the need for exposure to air.

There is no other explanation that YOU can think of, RAZD, but never underestimate the creativity and critical thinking of a creationist.

Well, yes, of course, this is true of anything. The speed of light is a constant, unless it isn't. The Earth orbits the sun, unless it doesn't. Pigs can't fly, unless they can.So let the record show that you have as much evidence for an alternative method for producing evaporites as you do that pigs can fly.--Percy

No Faith, there is no explanation you can think of that doesn't involve magic behavior.Creativity yes, critical thinking no.Critical thinking means considering untested concepts to be opinions, assumtions and guesses, and ones that violate known behavior for no given cause to be fantasy or delusion.The magic behavior of water to sort layers and fossils to appear as if laid down over millenia and erode contrary to observed processes for example.You invoke magic and then try to pretend that it is rational and logical.The earth is billions of years old. Pretending otherwise is ... pretending.Avoiding the massive evidence of an old earth is not critical thinking.

I've never ever ever invoked magic, ever.I thought science was the process of rethinking things. So I'm setting myself the task of rethinking the salt deposits. It may take a while.Meanwhile there is good evidence that the earth is not billions of years old.

Salt is dissolved in water. When the water seeps into the ground it carries the salt (and other dissolved minerals) with it. To get crystals you need to remove water.

Science is the process of TESTING things not making up fantasies based on magical behavior. Indeed, it may take as long as a geological age ... Start a new thread and provide this purported evidence. Or deal with Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1 ...I consider anyone who believes in a young earth and does not deal with that thread to be delusional.

Salt lakes are produced by leaching salt from the ground and not by the reverse. That's not the only way to remove water from salt. The process Faith describes sound something like reverse osmosis. But that is not a possible explanation either.I can imagine, with some difficulty, that something deep underground might serve as a semi-permeable surface for reverse osmosis to occur at some high pressure place deep underground, but that imagining probably reflects my lack of knowledge of geology.As you've suggested, desalination by seepage cannot occur above ground with just atmospheric pressure to drive the process. Seepage is just going to pick up calcium, magnesium, etc. making the water hard.

Why, Faith? What is it that makes you wonder? Is it the pristine shores of the Dead Sea that makes you think there must be another explanation for salt deposits: Or maybe it's the absense of salt deposits at the Great Salt Lake that leads to speculations about other ways that evaporites form: Or maybe it's the beautiful salt-free lake at the Bonneville Salt Flats: Or maybe it's the minuscule dimensions of underground salt mines: You're not discussing or debating. You're just making expressions of faith, in essence saying, "I believe that one day evidence supporting my position will be found. I have no such evidence now, but I shall argue interminably anyway by simply stating this over and over and over again in a variety of ways."You never hear anyone else making equivalently empty arguments out of thin air, like, "Hearing that Jesus overturned the tables of the moneylenders at the temple makes one wonder if the temple wasn't necessarily in Jerusalem but in Mecca." If you don't have anything that makes sense and is supported by evidence could you just not say anything? Oh, and before you say it, stating that "I do too make sense and have evidence" is just an unsupported opinion shared by no one else.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Minor change.

Have you forgotten that you think other creationists are wrong? And you're once again making the specious argument, "I have no evidence or rationale now, but just you wait!"Please, enough. Yes, if you're right and we're wrong then you need to respond with evidence and explanations demonstrating that this is so, but you have to have them before you respond, not after. In debate there's no such thing as promising that someday you'll have them.--Percy

Well, I got the seepage idea from Wikipedia. Guess I'll have to stop relying on noncreationist sites.

Well I believe I proved it for the Grand Canyon-Grand Staircase area if nothing else. If it's okay with you to think there were something like 700 million years with no tectonic activity in that region then I guess my argument doesn't mean anything to you. Anyway I restated that argument at my blog. No interest in discussing it further here.

There's been no tectonic activity in my neck of the woods for at least 2 billion years. OTOH there is very clear evidence of an ice age some 12000 to 9000 years ago and also straightforward evidence of what hundreds of millions of years of erosion can accomplish.You are to be commended, Faith. You are diligent and hard-working but all in all when you are as wrong as can be in your premise, all that hard work comes to nought. It is EXACTLY as if I were to try and explain weather and climate on the premise that Harry Potter stories with witches and wizards are in fact real.

It would be a better idea to start understanding noncreationists sites, and stop making things up.There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the Wikipedia article on evaporites that indicates formation by seepage into the ground. On the contrary, the article mentions only one possible method of formation:

quote:

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Although all water bodies on the surface and in aquifers contain dissolved salts, the water must evaporate into the atmosphere for the minerals to precipitate. For this to happen, the water body must enter a restricted environment where water input into this environment remains below the net rate of evaporation. This is usually an arid environment with a small basin fed by a limited input of water. When evaporation occurs, the remaining water is enriched in salts, and they precipitate when the water becomes supersaturated.

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The only occurrence of the string "seep" in the article is:

quote:

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Thick non-marine deposits that accumulate tend to form where evaporation rates will exceed the inflow rate, and where there is sufficient soluble supplies. The inflow also has to occur in a closed basin, or one with restricted outflow, so that the sediment has time to pool and form in a lake or other standing body of water. ... Evaporite depositional environments that meet the above conditions include:
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Non-basin areas fed exclusively by groundwater seepage from artesian waters
Example environments include the seep-mounds of the Victoria Desert, fed by the Great Artesian Basin, Australia

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which refers to water seeping into the depositing environment slower than the evaporation rate.There's no way to form an evaporite by adding water.

Seepage does occur, but the salt would still be dissolved, it doesn't dry out on its own, normally it needs heat (sunlight) and a place for water vapour to go (atmosphere).