Researching Creation

LiveBlogging ICC - Pt 3

JB

Instead of giving a step-by-step overview of Steve Austin's presentation, I'll just give the highlights.  My fingers couldn't keep up with the typing last night, and I didn't follow all of the geology concepts.

Ths subject was on the "mudflow revolution".  The primary scientific paper he referenced was On the Accumulation of Mud which is summarized at both CMI and Creation-Evolution Headlines.

He also referenced the "Bedform Stability Diagram" which shows how different-sized particles behave underwater in different currents.  A form of the diagram is viewable here (on page 8 & 9), though it is much more complicated than the one he showed on his slide.

So, his points were:

  • planar laminae (i.e. layers which are horizontal) in mudrocks are traditionally thought to be the result of particles falling vertically out of water over long periods of time 
  • It was thought that silt and clay-sized particles would always form cross-lamination
  • It turns out that silt and clay-sized particles in water actually join together to form floccules
  • Floccules have the settling properties of sand-sized particles in currents
  • In the bedform stability diagram, at low currents ripples and dunes are produced, but at high currents planar accumulation can be shown
  • These laminae can accumulate at a rate of several millimeters per second
  • Therefore, the massive amounts of planar laminae in mudrocks can be explained through fast-moving currents.  This has the potential to changing the interpretation of 70% of the rock record.

He also pointed out an amusing story that as a graduate student, in order to get the laminae concept to work in the lab, they had to take mud, clean it, bleach it, and treat it with special chemicals before they could get it to form laminae by the traditionally conceived method :)

He also made several points about Kelvin–Helmholtz instability which went by too fast for me to understand.

He also suggested that Creationists should set up a racetrack flume for experimentations on this model.