Gamsfarm https://gamsfarm.xyz Fri, 28 Jul 2023 10:38:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Doggin’ Toadstool Geologic Park: Hike With Your Dog In Nebraska’s Badlands https://gamsfarm.xyz/doggin-toadstool-geologic-park-hike-with-your-dog-in-nebraskas-badlands/ https://gamsfarm.xyz/doggin-toadstool-geologic-park-hike-with-your-dog-in-nebraskas-badlands/#respond Fri, 28 Jul 2023 10:38:52 +0000 https://gamsfarm.xyz/index.php/2023/07/28/doggin-toadstool-geologic-park-hike-with-your-dog-in-nebraskas-badlands/ America’s badlands received their ominous name when early settlers found it

impossible to safely roll a wagon through the cracked lunar landscape in the Upper Midwest. Our most famous badlands are preserved in national parks in the Dakotas – and off limits to canine hikers.

To give your dog a chance to explore these unique lands of sculpted rock,

head south from the Dakotas to the lesser-known badlands of the Nebraska

panhandle. Here in the Gala National Grasslands you will find dog-friendly

Toadstool Geologic Park where the relentless tag-team of water and wind have

carved fanciful rock formations into the stark hills.

The “toadstools” form when underlying soft clay stone erodes faster than the

hard sandstone that caps it. You can hike with your dog on a marked, mile-long

interpretive loop that leads you on an educational adventure through these

badlands. Your dog is welcome on the hard rock trail but you can also explore off

the path for close-up looks in the gullies at fossil bone fragments that lace the

rocks and 30-million year-old footprints preserved in the stone.

There are some rocks to be scaled along the route but this ramble under

banded cliffs of clay and ash is suitable for any level of canine hiker. There is only

sporadic shade and seasonal streams in this ancient riverbed so bring plenty of

water for your dog, especially in the summer months. Take a break at the end of

the hike in the small fenced yard of the reproduced sod house beside the parking

lot.

For extended canine hikes, Toadstool Park connects to the world-renowned

Hudson-Meng Bison Boneyard via a three-mile trail. This archeological site seeks to

unravel the mystery of how over 600 bison died nearly 10,000 years ago in an area

about the size of a football stadium. Human predation is the leading suspect.

Toadstool Geologic Park is located 19 miles NW of Crawford, Nebraska on US

Forest Route 904 off State highway 2/71. The trail begins at the back of the six-

unit campground.

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Erasmus Samuel Amukun: Uganda Sprinter and Geologist https://gamsfarm.xyz/erasmus-samuel-amukun-uganda-sprinter-and-geologist/ https://gamsfarm.xyz/erasmus-samuel-amukun-uganda-sprinter-and-geologist/#respond Fri, 28 Jul 2023 10:11:38 +0000 https://gamsfarm.xyz/index.php/2023/07/28/erasmus-samuel-amukun-uganda-sprinter-and-geologist/ Erasmus Samuel A.O. Amukun was born on November 27th 1940 in Ngora in Kumi in Eastern Uganda. He is best known for his exploits as a collegiate and international sprinter and as a professional geologist. He represented Uganda at the British Empire Commonwealth Games, at the Olympic Games, and at the East and Central African Games. Amukun is also credited for having beaten Kenyan sprint legend and future Commonwealth Games (1962, Perth) double-sprint gold-medallist Seraphino Antao in a race.

In 1958, at the Commonwealth Games in Cardiff in Wales (July 17-26, 1958), teenager Amukun did not advance beyond the fifth of twelve preliminary heats in the 100 yards sprint. In the heat 5 he finished in 9.9 seconds, in fourth place. But his team-mate Benjamin Kiyini Nduga, who had finished ahead of Antao, qualified for and moved on to the semi-finals in which he would be eliminated. In the 220 yards, Amukun was second in the eighth (22.14) of nine heats of the preliminary round. Later, in the fourth of six heats of the quarter-final round for which he had qualified, he was eliminated after finishing third in 22.1. But in the 4×100 yards, the Uganda relay team which Amukun was part of, finished sixth in the finals (42.1). Also on the Uganda relay team were Ben Nduga, Ignatius Okello, and S. Bwowe. They had moved on to the finals after finishing in third place (42,47) in the first round which was a semi-final.

Amukun, aged 19, was the captain of the Uganda team at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. In the young Uganda team, Amukun was the youngest, and 21 year-old Aggrey Awori was the oldest.

On August 31st 1960, Erasmus Amukun competed in the fourth of nine heats in the first round series of the 100m in which the fastest three in each heat would move on to the next round–the quarter-finals. He finished third in 10.80, qualifying for the next round. Notably, in this first round, fellow Ugandan 21 year-old Aggrey Awori (Awoori) who competed in the third heat was eliminated after finishing fifth (11.09). Kenyan Seraphino Antao (10.64) comfortably finished first in the first heat of this preliminary round and thus moved on to the quarter-finals.

In the quarter-finals held later in the day, Amukun was placed to run in the third of the four heats. He would finish fourth (10.75), and become eliminated since he was not among the top three finishers in the heat. But this would be the fastest he would ever officially run in the 100m. Antao finished third in the fourth heat (10.61) and moved on to the semi-finals. On September 1st Antao finished sixth (10.72) in the second of two semi-final heats, and become ineligible for the finals.

The 200m competition was started on September 2nd, and Amukun was placed in the fifth heat of the dozen heats of the first round in which the top two finishers of each heat would move on to the quarter-final round. Amukun finished second (21.38) and moved on to the quarter-finals. This would officially be his life-time best in the 200m. Meanwhile, Antao won in the eleventh heat (21.44), easily making it to the next round.

In the 200m quarter-finals held later that day, Amukun was placed in the first of four heats. He finished fourth (21.47) and was eliminated from advancing to the semi-finals since he was not among the top three finishers in the heat. Also coming in fourth, but in the second heat of the quarter finals was Seraphino Antao (21.43) who was also eliminated.

Uganda also competed in the 4x100m relay scheduled for September 7th 1960. There were four heats in the first round, and Uganda finished in fifth in 41.90, but had already been disqualified. In some of the other heats, Poland and France were also disqualified. The Uganda relay team had also included Aggrey Awori, Jean Baptiste Okello, and Gadi Ado.

In 1961 at the East and Central African Championships at the venue Nakuru in Kenya, Erasmus Amukun had won in the 440 yards in 48.0 seconds. Samuel Amukun was also part of the Uganda 4×100 yards relay team that won in 43.1 in Nakuru.

Near the end of 1961, Amukun successfully completed the 2-year Cambridge Advanced Secondary School Certificate, majoring in the sciences, at King’s College Budo (Buddo) near Kampala where he resided in Mutesa House.

Sam Amukun competed in the annual IC4A (or ICAAAA, (Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America) which is a men’s competition held at different colleges every year. Amukun was then an undergraduate student at Colgate University in Hamilton in New York. At the IC4A in Villanova in Pennsylvania in 1964 at the end of May, Amukun won in the 100 yards in 9.7. It was a photo-finish with Villanova University’s Earl Horner, and it was decided that Amukun with his chest forward on the tape had won (Green 1964: 5).

At the summer Olympics held in Tokyo in 1964, 23 year-old Amukun would represent Uganda in the 200m, and in the 4x100m relay. Placed in the second heat of eight heats of the preliminary rounds, Amukun finished fifth (21.55) on October 16th and was eliminated since he was not among the top four finishers in the heat. Kenyan Antao advanced to the quarter-final heats after finishing second in the third heat (21.52). Antao would, in the quarter-finals, later be eliminated.

On October 20th, the 4x100m Uganda relay team consisting of Awori, Amukun, James Odongo, and Amos Omolo finished sixth (41.4) in the third of the three first-round heats; so the team did not advance to the semi-finals.

Revenge was sweet at the annual IC4A championships held in 1965 in Brunswick, New Jersey at the end of May. Here Horner of Villanova who had lost to Amukun of Colgate in the 100m in 1964, won in both short sprints, with Amukun finishing third in the 100 yards sprint. But earlier in the same year, at the beginning of May, the Ugandan Olympian had triumphed in both short sprints at the track meet whereby the Raiders of Colgate were pitted against Syracuse University (Orange) at the Archbold Stadium in Syracuse. Also, in mid-April at the Cornel University vs. Colgate meet, Amukun the meet record-holder was beaten into second place in both short sprints by Cornel’s Charles Blaugrund (9.9 in the 100 yards) second effort in the 100-yd. dash was enough to beat Colgate’s Sam Amukun, the meet record holder a favorite in the event. Amukun had covered the distance in 9.6 seconds the week before. In the 220 yard sprint, again Blaugrund (22.5) was followed by the Ugandan at the finishing line.

Just before Amukun died in 1998, aged 57, he was the exploration manager for Northwest Explorations, in Canada. Amukum obtained the bachelor of science degree in chemistry at Colgate in 1966 while on track-and-field scholarship. He would acquire the master’s degree in geology at the University of Manitoba in 1969. The title of his master’s thesis is: “Petrography of the Gold-Bearing Vein Rocks from Bissett Area, Southeastern Manitoba.”

Amukun returned to Uganda to work at the Kilembe mine of Falconbridge but fled to Canada with his wife in 1972 given the insecurity and unease about the dictatorial military regime of Idi Amin.

After his death it was chronicled that after leaving Uganda, for 25 years, Amukun worked as a field geologist for the Ontario Geological Survey, Noranda and Urangesellschaft, and later started his consulting business. In 1996, he joined Northwest Explorations and became exploration manager for the company’s Guyanese projects. He was a member of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, and the Geological Association of Canada.

Samuel Erasmus Amukun compiled and authored extensively and his books include: “Precambrian Geology, Little Marshall Lake Area” (1989), “Geology of the Klob Lake Area, District of Thunder Bay” (1984), “Geology of the Willet Lake Area, District of Thunder Bay” (1979), “Geology of the Tashota Area, District of Thunder Bay” (1977), “Geology of the Gledhill Lake Area, District of Thunder Bay” (1980), “Geology of the Conglomerate Lake Area, District of Thunder Bay” (1980), and “Willet Lake, Thunder Bay District” (1979).

Amukun had been married to Daphne for 29 years, and he was also survived by daughter Nasheba and sons Settu and Mwenu.

Works Cited

Green, Bob (AP). “Villanova is IC4A Titlist Again; G-Burg Entry Fourth.” Gettysburg Times, 1 June 1964: 5.

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In Microcosm Of Sand, Geologist-Writer Evokes The Entire Universe https://gamsfarm.xyz/in-microcosm-of-sand-geologist-writer-evokes-the-entire-universe/ https://gamsfarm.xyz/in-microcosm-of-sand-geologist-writer-evokes-the-entire-universe/#respond Fri, 28 Jul 2023 10:00:30 +0000 https://gamsfarm.xyz/index.php/2023/07/28/in-microcosm-of-sand-geologist-writer-evokes-the-entire-universe/ The word “sand,” much like the words “rock” and “dirt,” is a word one acquires very early in childhood. Sand, rock, and dirt are ubiquitous materials, the building blocks of our planet. We are confronted with them early in life and life requires of us that we know what they are.

Perhaps the most interesting of the three to the young is sand because it is both hard and yet it can flow like water, it is hard and soft, static yet mobile. Sand, the encyclopedias tell is a “naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles.” Even those who have not studied sand know that it comes in a variety of colors and in startling degrees of granularity, ranging from the almost talcum powder fineness of the orange sand of the Sahara to the much more gritty varieties derived from crushed coral which are so prevalent on the world’s beaches.

And now at last there comes a book devoted exclusively to sand, an extraordinary and delightful exploration of this strange corner of the mineral world. It is Sand: The Never-Ending Story by the British geologist Michael Welland, a masterful evocation of a much neglected and yet remarkable and omnipresent basic substance of our world.

From individual grains observed in minute structural detail under the microscope to the vast desert dunes which form like ocean waves on stretches of the Sahara Desert that can be seen from space, from the bottom of the world’s oceans to the landscapes of our neighbor Mars, from billions of years in the past to a future that stretches to infinity — Sand: The Never-Ending Story is an astonishing narrative that encompasses the whole universe in which we live, because practically everywhere in that universe is this stuff, this sand, one of nature’s most humble and yet most powerful and most omnipresent materials.

While this is a book by a professional scientist with a Ph.D. from Cambridge, the story is told with a dramatic sense of language and narrative more reminiscent of fiction and film. Welland is a gifted writer. Sand examines the science of sand, including the physics of granular materials generally, and yet the focus is always on the human context of sand, sand as a material we use every day. That, in the end, is what gives sand meaning in our human world. Interwoven with tales of scientists, sculptors, navigators, the story of sand is at the same time a story of environmental building and a tale of environment collapse, an adventure that stretches back to the beginnings of our planet as a place of solid materials yet a tale that encompasses also the mundane realities of a child’s sandbox in today’s back yard. That is because sand is all around us. Sand is a component of almost everything — it has made possible our computers, buildings, and plate glass for windows, toothpaste, cosmetics, and paper, and it has played dramatic roles in human history, commerce, and imagination. It is a component of concrete, and it is an artifact of weathering. Given enough time, the Rocky Mountains will turn to sand; indeed, the Alleghenies already have. Welland shows us that we can find the world in a grain of sand.

Though he is certainly first and foremost a professional scientist, no one is more fun to listen to as a writer of narrative nonfiction than Michael Welland. He is a born raconteur who might easily have become a writer of pulp fiction (or the owner of a British pub!) had he not chosen the higher calling of studying rocks. His narrative flows with the ease and grace of the best creative nonfiction, adapting many of the techniques of telling stories more typically associated with novels.

His fellow scientists have recognized the power of this book. Sand: The Never-Ending Story won the prestigious John Burroughs Medal in 2010 for the finest book that year about natural history (an honor Welland shares with Rachel Carson, Joseph Wood Krutch, John McPhee, and other luminaries of natural history going back to 1926).

Michael Welland has written an extraordinary book, perhaps even a timeless book that non-scientists can enjoy as much as professional geologists. Welland, who spent many years practicing geology in the United States, now lives in London with his wife and family where he is managing director of Orogen, a geological consulting company he founded, and a Fellow of the Geological Society.

Sand: The Never-Ending Story, 360 pages, is available in hardcover and paperback from The University of California Press.

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Developing Wellsite Geology Software https://gamsfarm.xyz/developing-wellsite-geology-software/ https://gamsfarm.xyz/developing-wellsite-geology-software/#respond Fri, 28 Jul 2023 09:52:10 +0000 https://gamsfarm.xyz/index.php/2023/07/28/developing-wellsite-geology-software/ Over the years I have been able to work on many different software projects. Some of these were stand-alone applications, others were client server applications that made good use of the local networks. A lot of Web development and working with Web technologies also played a part. All of these projects were challenging but not nearly as complex as the software industry with its myriad languages, technologies – its crazy jargon and seemingly endless acronyms. That was until now.

You see, now I have been immersed into the giant world of the oil and gas industry. They have their own languages and enough acronyms to make even a hardened software guy shudder. When you come across terms like datum, TVD (True Vertical Depth), mudlogging, RT (Rotary Table Elevation), MSL (Mean Sea Level), MDRT (Measured Depth from the Rotary Table), KB (Kelly Bushing), AHD (Australian Height Datum), plus many, many more – you have to stop and scratch your head.

Although being a specialist within the software industry with many years of experience and qualifications, it is much easier dealing with database tables with fields like FirstName, LastName, StreetAddress and Phone than it is with fields like Calcimetry_mg, AGSO_Id, iC4, LagDepthMD and Dolomite. If you are a geologist or work in the oil and gas industry then these terms may already be familiar to you. However, most people are absolutely flabbergasted when confronted by such terms. I know that I am.

When doing database mappings from one format into another, it is much simpler to look at FirstName and LastName fields in the source database and then see that they have to be concatenated in order to fit the single CustomerName field belonging to the destination database. This is not so easy when you don’t understand the geological meanings of terms and what they signify.

To some extent, you can still apply knowledge that you have from the software industry that does not have an immediate impact from any outside source. So, for example, you know how to setup Apache config files or modify IIS to configure the geology website and this requires no knowledge of wellsite geology terminology whatsoever. The knowledge of how to create a class and reference it does not change. There are many other aspects where your software, database and system skills are not impeded by the complexity of the field that you are working in.

All said and done, I am finding my introduction to the oil and gas industry not without incident and its fair share of activity. There is nothing sleepy about this industry as it seems to be a 24/7 worldwide operation and they don’t stop for weekends.

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The Genesis Flood and Geology https://gamsfarm.xyz/the-genesis-flood-and-geology/ https://gamsfarm.xyz/the-genesis-flood-and-geology/#respond Fri, 28 Jul 2023 09:41:13 +0000 https://gamsfarm.xyz/index.php/2023/07/28/the-genesis-flood-and-geology/ About the Earth

If you drew a straight line from the surface of the earth to its center, that line would be a little over 3,950 miles long. The crust of the earth is from the surface to 20 to 25 miles down. Immediately below the crust is what is called the mantle. The mantle is l,800 miles thick. It is then a little over 2,100 miles from the bottom of the mantel to the centermost point in the earth. That part of the earth is known as the core. Neither scientists nor any other men know anything for certain about the mantel and the core. There are many ideas and theories, but nothing has been learned by direct study, which is the only legitimate way that science can know, or honestly claim to know, anything for sure. Seismographs and other velocity-measuring equipment have given the basis for inferring certain things, which may or may not be correct; but nothing is known.

The Mantel and the Core of the Earth

The oldest accepted idea is that the core is an inferno of melted iron and nickel. A small bit more is known about the mantel, though not much. From what is known, the mantel is thought to be very dense, comprised primarily of silicates, rich in metals, and very vaguely described. Some earthquakes originate in the mantel. The magnetic field of the earth, it is believed, is caused by some unknown phenomena in the core. The deeper you go in the interior of the earth, the denser the material gets and the higher the temperatures rise, some think to as high as 2500 degrees Centigrade, squared!

Why are True North and Magnetic North Different?

There are Bible believing scientists who think that the mantel slipped on the core during the Genesis Flood. Definitive statements are impossible, however, due to the uncertain nature of information and understanding of the mantel.

The Earth’s Crust

Virtually all of the geological activity and changes that we can observe, and that have taken place in the history of the earth, have occurred in the crust.

Geological Evidences of the Great Flood

It would be quite impossible and impractical for us to attempt a thorough, much less exhaustive, examination of the geological evidences of great changes and then relate them to the Flood. No such thing is necessary, however, to make the points we want to make. Nothing in geology contradicts the Biblical account. And then, nothing but the Genesis Flood can really sensibly account for these phenomena. As you think about these things, there is a very significant and singular point to keep in sight. If one single example clearly denies the claims of uniformitarian evolution and historic geological time, then the whole theory is based upon a faulty premise.

World Class Testimony to the Great Flood

One of the clearest evidences of the Genesis Flood happening in just the way and the short period of time that the Bible says, is the enormous vertical build up of stratified layers in the Grand Canyon. In the Grand Canyon we have very high embankments comprised of one sedimentary layer on top of another. All of these are comprised of more or less of different types of soils and rocks.

The Preposterousness of Uniformitarian Fantasy

The uniformitarian evolutionary explanation, greatly simplified, is that these were done gradually over untold millions of years as the region, being a geosyncline plane, sank beneath the sea and received a strata layer, only to be heaved up by some force. It would then sink again in another few millions of years. Another evolutionary theory is or that these strata continued to pile up in place over a geological time period, only to be exposed by the gradual cutting down of a uniform river over millions of years. There are some other similar ideas too, but you get the picture.

The Atheistic Religious Bias of Evolutionists

These arbitrary and dishonest theories can only be believed by religious atheists who are so desperate to deny the Bible that they will grasp at any alternative. If one removed the religious zeal of these Biblical antagonists, no sensible scientist would ever believe for a moment such illogical and disreputable gobbledygook.

The Obviousness of the Biblical Record

The only sensible answer is the Great Flood. From the science of hydro-selectivity we know that when a current moves into a land mass it slows. The slower it gets, the smaller the particles of sediment that are released. When it makes land it stops; the current at this point is virtually motionless and the deposited layer is nearly undisturbed. The final load of sediment is deposited and the current moves back out to sea. During the Genesis Flood the waters were gradually rising on the earth for forty consecutive days until they reached the highest point. Great currents, carrying sediment loads from all over the earth, were being driven with great force and velocity in every direction. With this magnitude of speed and violence a good portion of the sediment remained in suspension. As the currents, from all parts of the earth, came into the land region of the Grand Canyon and stopped, they deposited one layer on top of another; each one different from the other. While the difference in stratification may give the appearance of widely separated time intervals if one looks at them from that bias, it is nevertheless exactly what we would expect to see in this area as a result of the Great Flood. Whitcomb-Morris state, in The Genesis Flood, page 153, figure 6: “According to uniformist concepts, numerous changes of environment, with great regional subsidence and uplifts, must have been involved, but this would appear quite impossible. The strata simply could not have remained so nearly uniform and horizontal over such great areas and great periods of time, while undergoing such epeirogenic movements. By far the most reasonable way of accounting for them is in terms of relatively rapid deposition out of the sediment laden waters of the Flood.”

Glaciation and the Flood

Another geological phenomenon which looks to the Genesis Flood for a sane answer is Glaciation. This not only includes the existing glaciers, but the legitimate evidences of those of the past. A very simplified explanation of the bases for the evolutionary and uniformitarian arguments of an ice age or ice ages over very long periods of time are what are called tillites and striations. Tillites are hardened tills. A till is sediment that has supposedly been left by a melting glacier or a layer or sheet of ice. Striations are long scratches, supposedly made by one glacier, containing rocks in its bottom surface, overriding another, separated by great periods of time.

They Became Vain in their Foolish Imaginations

This kind of an argument is almost undisciplined imagination. There are many things that can make scratches on the surface of a glacier, and there is nothing in either tillites or striations to say that they represent different time periods. There is a wild casting about in the worlds of Uniformitarianism and the Geological Ages for an answer to the Glaciation phenomena. The Genesis Flood allows for it very logically and completely.

The Rapid Birth and Death of Glaciers

The thermal blanket (i.e. the great water vapor canopy), surrounding the earth and holding in the heat and making the earth’s temperatures very warm and uniform, fell as great torrents of rain during the first forty days of the Flood. When this happened, all of the heat dissipated and the earth suddenly became very cold. To help this along, great volumes of rain were falling from heaven and the sun was virtually shut out. After the rain, a fierce wind began to blow all over the earth making a chill factor of many degrees below zero. Without the thermal blanket to keep the earth’s temperatures uniform, the Polar Regions suddenly became sub-zero–much colder than they are now–because there was no vapor canopy to radiate heat back to earth, and to keep it from escaping into space. The huge canyons in which the glaciers formed were made by turbidity flows as the torrential rains washed great depths of soil from the surface of the antediluvian earth. Turbidity flows are water currents loaded up with rocks, sands, soils, and debris. These turbidity flows have the ability to do tremendous amounts of geological work in very short periods of time, depending on their size and velocity.

The magnitude of them during the Flood is virtually unfathomable. In addition to this, there were violent earthquakes opening up great fissures in the rocks, and there were mountains being heaved up by tectonic activity, certainly containing cracks, seams, and fissures for rivers to run in and glaciers to form in. Many glaciers were formed in regions that rapidly became too warm to sustain them once the vapor canopy was built back up to a significant extent and the wind stopped. Almost immediately the atmosphere began to heat up again and the glaciers began to melt. A famous example would be the Merced River Canyon in the high country of Yosemite National Park in California. The so called tillites were the result of different currents flowing into these glacier canyons and being frozen, along with the soils and rock being carried as sediment. No doubt there was overriding and scratching as these various sheets of ice kept building on top of one another for forty days. When the glaciers started to melt, the hard tills were left as the sediment that was contained in that current. In places like Yosemite, the glaciers did not last too long because the region is not that cold. There are evidences of movement, polishing and scratching of ice and boulders, and there are many glacial tills. This again is what one would normally expect in a situation where a universal flood built up over forty days, depositing one current that froze into ice on top of another. Obviously there was movement going on in these areas.

The Canyon Came First and Then the Glacier

Clearly the glaciers did not make these canyons. The water flowed into the canyons that were made by turbidity flows, earthquakes, or heaving up of mountains, or else they were already there when the Flood came, though probably not in too many cases. The striations are the interaction between different currents forming different layers of ice, each carrying its own kind of sediment.

The Universal Flood Alone Accounts for Glaciation

Nothing but the rapid dissipation of the earth’s heat into a bitterly cold condition, the increasing waters of the flood, the different currents from different parts of the earth, and the rapid warming again when the great wind stopped and the canopy was to some extent evaporated back up by the great wind, can sensibly explain the glaciers. In that regard it must be stated that many of the areas where scientists had thought in the past that they had seen clear evidence of glacier polishing–principally in what are now regions of African, South American, and tropical regions, thus causing them to conclude a world wide ice age, are now thought to have been caused by great turbidity flows and not glaciers at all.

Coal Deposits and the Flood

The great coal deposits could only sensibly have been formed by the Genesis Flood. These are thick layers of rich vegetation deposited upon one another. This shows that the vegetation was much more luxuriant before the Flood, and that the Flood, along with layers of sediment, flowed this vegetation into the areas where it was trapped and buried. Some places there are many layers of coal, separated by layers of sediment. This is what one would naturally expect to find as a result of the Flood. As the waters rose higher different currents with different loads of vegetation and sediment layered one on top of another.

Diamonds Formed in Twenty-Four Hours by Heat and Hydraulic Pressure

Years ago Uniformitarians declared that it took millions of years for carbons to form, and particularly diamonds. This self-serving pronouncement was used for a long time to frustrate those who would believe in the Flood. But in recent years it has become common knowledge that carbons can form, even diamonds, virtually over night. Commercially produced diamonds for drill bits and similar applications, can be made in 24 hours with heat and hydraulic pressure. So, given the amount of heat and hydraulic pressure that was being built up in the earth’s crust during the Flood, the great coal and diamond beds could have formed in much less than 150 days.

The Greatly Increased Size of the Oceans and the Genesis Flood

Only the Great Flood could have raised the level of the ocean from 2000 to 4000 feet. This is what the geologic testimony shows rather clearly in some instances. Far out from the present shore lines, and down to depths of 4000 feet, there are river canyons where rivers once ran. Many of these subterranean rivers show evidences of having been formed by huge turbidity flows when the first waters of the Great Flood began to reach the ancient sea level.

Continental Shelves

And then there are the continental shelves, which demand an acceptance of the fact of a much lower sea level before the Flood. These mark the original boundary between the continental blocks and the original shore line of the oceans. Some of these shelves are hundreds of miles out to sea at present, with the average distance being around fifty miles.

Seamounts

A quote from Whitcomb-Morris in The Genesis Flood, page 124, under the heading, “More Water in the Present Oceans,” also serves to establish the point: “In past decades have been discovered great numbers of seamounts which are nothing but drowned islands out in the middle of the ocean. These are flat-topped, and therefore non-volcanic in formation, and are now in many cases more than 1000 fathoms below the surface. Yet they give abundant evidence of having once been above the surface (A fathom is six feet).”

The Geological Time Column Hoax

The method that uniformitarian evolutionists and historic geologists use for their dating schemes is illogical, contrived, dishonest, and subjective. It is tied entirely onto its own tail. It is circular reasoning in its most obvious form. It argues that the age of the rocks and the strata can be determined by the fossils, and that the age of the fossils can be determined by the age of the rocks in which they occur. But there are numerous places throughout the world, where the rock strata are out of order by the evolutionist’s criteria. If this where allowed to stand–as of course it does in fact–the evolutionary theory would have to be abandoned as being fatally flawed. But this theory, which has been proven fatally flawed some 7000 times since 1830 when it got started, shows amazing resiliency. Nowhere is this more evident than when they try to rationalize away the obvious geological contradictions that are found in many strata.

The Lewis Overthrust Fiasco

One of the famous examples is the so-called Lewis Overthrust in Glacier Park, Montana. The Lewis Overthrust, a block of rock that is supposed to have been thrust up and out over the shale deposit beneath it, is about 35 miles wide and 6 miles thick. According to uniformitarian evolutionists and their geologists this massive formation has ridden over the shale deposit below it for a distance of about 40 miles. The problem for evolutionists is very simple. This enormous mass of rock is so-called Pre-Cambrian limestone that according to them, is supposed to be about 500,000,000 years older than the rock on which it rests, which is a very thin layer of so-called Cretaceous shale. In an effort to avoid the obvious negating of their arbitrary dating theories, they have come up with this idea. But anyone with dull normal intelligence and no education at all could stand and look at this phenomenon and see the utter ridiculousness of it. How could eight hundred thousand billion tons of rock slide over a thin layer of soft shale for great distances without entirely obliterating the shale layer?

Peer Condemnation

According to Hubert and Rubey, in an article entitled “Role of Fluid Pressure in Mechanics of Overthrust Faulting,” published in the Bulletin of Geological Society of America, Vol. 70, Feb. 1959, pp. 126, “the condition assumed, the pushing of a thrust block, whose length is of the order of 30 km. or more, along a horizontal surface, appears to be a mechanical impossibility.” Dr. Walter Lammerts made a survey of the area in the early l980’s. His conclusion was: “At the actual contact line very thin layers of shale were present. This seems to clearly indicate that just before the Altyn limestone was deposited and after the tilting of the Cretaceous beds, a thin wafer-like 1/8th to 1/16th inch layer of shale was deposited…Likewise careful study of these intercalations showed not the slightest evidence of abrasive activity such as one would expect to find if these were shoved forward in between layers of shale as the Overthrust theory demands.” He goes on to echo Hubert and Ruby by saying that the over thrusting of the limestones “…appears to be a mechanical impossibility.”

Matterhorn and MythenPeak Problems

In other cases, these same evolutionists have the massive Swiss Matterhorn being moved upward and sideways for more than forty miles, in order to explain why it is out of place in the geological time column. But that is only a small thing when compared to the Mythen Peak of the Alps, which has a number of strata which are all out of order. Eocene is on the bottom, then Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. This is a contradiction of the geological time column’s fanciful dating of these rock formations. In order to try to work their way out of this embarrassing denial of their schemes, historic geologists have arbitrarily moved this mountain, in tact, thousands of miles from Africa into Switzerland! Well, now! Certainly the Genesis Flood did enormous geological work; but the movement of a whole mountain thousands of miles and set it down in perfect conform-ability with, and cemented to, the strata below it with no valid indication of its ever having moved? Hah! Divine intervention could account for such a thing, but certainly nothing that is reportedly held by evolutionists and historic geologists advances a valid answer.

When Liars Fall Out Among Themselves

These and many others, such as the Heart Mountain thrust plain, have caused the highly regarded evolutionist J. A. Jeltzky, in an article entitled “Paleontology: Basis of Practical Geochronology,” published in Volume 40, April 1956, by the Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, to admit: “The more amply proved and almost unanimously recognized impossibility of establishing any practically and useful broadly regional or world-wide geologic time scale of Pre-Cambrian time supplies conclusive proof that these phenomena are devoid of any general recognizable geologic time significance.” What did Dr. Jeltzky say? “The geological strata and other evidences do not mean a thing when it comes to determining how they got there and how long they have been there. It is impossible to make anything from the geological record that will establish times and ages that have any practical meaning whatsoever. This has been amply proved and has gained wide recognition.

This simply cannot be ignored any longer.” One of the most respected uniformitarian geologists of his day, Dr. Edmund M. Spieker, Professor of Geology at Ohio State University, confessed the failure of the geological record to support the geological ages theory when he wrote, in an article called “Mountain-Building Chronology and Nature of Geologic Time-Scale,” published by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Volume 40 in l956: “Does our time scale then partake of natural law? No…I wonder how many of us realize that the time scale was frozen in essentially its present form by 1840…? How much world geology was known in 1840? A bit of Western Europe, none too well and a lesser fringe of North America? All of Asia, Africa, South America, and most of North America was virtually unknown. How dared the pioneers to assume that their time scale would fit the rocks in these vast areas, by far most of the world. And in many parts of the world, notably India and South America, it does not fit. But even there it is applied. The followers of the founding fathers went forth across the earth in Procrustean fashion and made it fit the sections they found, even in places where the actual evidences literally proclaimed denial. So flexible and accommodating are the ‘Facts’ of geology.” Of course Dr. Spieker was not trying to do Creationist any favor and he would not agree with our views, but the confessions and admissions that he made are startling:

1. The geological evidences mean nothing in terms of a time scale.

2. This time scale was developed by Lyell and his followers who made it up arbitrarily without broad knowledge or significant evidence.

3. Since then men have blindly followed these ideas, which practice must be religion since it certainly does not follow natural law.

4. What historic geologists have come up with is not science at all but a willful bending of the evidence, even in areas where anyone can see that it does not fit, to make it conform to a preconceived formula that they are determined to protect at all costs.

5. And so the witness of the geological evidence, that many have thought clearly speaks to them of evolution, really says nothing to them at all because they are blinded by the brainwashing and indoctrinating they have had into their religious beliefs and have been fully committed, even against plain evidence to the contrary, that their beliefs are right. “How dare they do this in the name of science?” the good doctor chides. “My, my,” he mocks, “how easy it is to bend our theories and how easily they accommodate to every new and imaginary hunch. Such,” he says, in scathing tones, literally dripping with sarcasm, “are the ‘facts’ of geology.”

In conclusion to this article we quote again from Whitcomb-Morris, on whom we have relied often, though not exclusively, for much of technical information: “In the light of such frequent flagrant contradictions to the established geologic time sequences, in addition to the arbitrary methods and circular reasoning by which the scale itself has been established, and also in addition to the innumerable evidences of catastrophe, rather than uniformity, as the basic principle in the deposition and modification of the geologic strata, the writers feel warranted in contending that the data of geology do not provide valid evidence against the historicity of the universal Deluge as recorded in the book of Genesis.

It is thus legitimate to attempt a new interpretation of these data which will be in harmony with the Biblical account of the Creation and the Flood.” While it is not my intent to offer any apology or any new theories, I quote these things to show that, for scientists in the field, creationists and otherwise, the evidence of the geological phenomena in the earth today, not only does not deny, but supports the Genesis account of the Flood. And in any case it does not support and it does deny the historic geological-ages theory and uniformitarian evolution. For the honest seeker these are matters of the witness of nature to the truths revealed to us by the Holy Scriptures.

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