OK, I'll play along. Calcium carbonate formations can grow at very rapid rates. Did I miss something? I thought that this was old news to cavers. Haven't we all seen examples of calcite deposition over man made objects in caves? I am amused at the website, http://www.bible.ca/tracks/speleotherms-stalagmites-stalactites.htm, use of commercial cave guides as the source of their "scientific" information. There are quite a few discrepancies between commercial cave guide talks and reality. The age of formations is often one of the lesser ones, in my experience. Some commercial caves are more focused on entertainment than on education, and understandably so.
Caves are the generally the best preserving environments for paleontological material. Calcite one of the mechanisms as is burial by clastic sediment. I fail to see the mystery here or how this is linked (other than wishful thinking) to the age of the earth. Geologically, caves are very young features and are not much of an indication of the age of the earth. It kind of reminds me of a geography professor who, in addition to telling us that valleys don't form in granite, had written his own text (printed by that prestigious producer of high-end text books, Kinko's) in which he pointed out that carbon 14 to carbon 12 ratios have not been constant through earth's history. He then leapt to the conclusion that radiocarbon dating doesn't work and then made the very impressive leap to the conclusion that the earth is not as old as those profane geologists say it is. The minor leap is not supported because more complex equations can take into account the varying ratios among carbon isotopes. The major leap is truly impressive because carbon dating has nothing to do with the age of the earth. I may not current, but the last best estimate of the age of the earth is 4.6 billion years which is almost inconceivably older than anything that can be radiocarbon dated at less than 50,000 years. The age of the earth has not been estimated based on caves, their contents, or radiocarbon dating. If it were, it would be laughed at by everyone. Five orders of magnitude of time is way too much to extrapolate. A little refresher for those who have forgotten or were unfortunate enough to not be exposed. Darwin's theory of evolution disturbed quite of few people at the time of its publication. List of what reasons you will. Lord Kelvin (see Kelvin is Lord! - http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/ - Only Kelvin can preserve you from entropy), who studied thermodynamics and is one of the great historical figures of science, recognized that evolution was a viable mechanism. However, he believed that the earth was too young for evolution to have taken place. This is despite James Hutton's (the discoverer of the angular unconformity - now there is something that indicates a significant minimum age of the earth) statement that the earth "has no semblance of a beginning and no prospect of an end". And the work of Charles Lyell. Too bad these folks are not common topics around caver camps. He brought his scientific discipline to bear on the issue. His approach was to measure the amount of heat absorbed by the earth from the sun. He assumed that the earth had begun in a molten state and that it is still cooling. He also made measurements of heat flow. He made such measurements for 15 years and published his results in 1860, if memory serves me correctly. I don't know if that influenced Pete Lindsley's entry into caving after the Civil War or not. However, we all have had plenty of time to familiarize ourselves with his work. In any case, Kelvin had set out to prove that the earth was young. He assumed that the only two sources of heat on earth were residual heat from a molten state and heat from the sun. He also assumed that life could not exist on earth if the earth were molten. He took his 15 years of data, plugged it into thermodynamic equations with which he was quite familiar and that had been demonstrated to represent heat flux well, and back calculated to a molten state. He got an answer that was dissatisfying to everyone. It was too short for geologic models (James Hutton, Charles Lyell) or for biologists (Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace) and it was too long for creationists. His equation produced an age of the earth of 100 million years. Kelvin did not make any significant mathematical errors and his measurements have not been questioned. Yet his approach only yielded a little less than 1% of the age of the earth. He used a scientific approach to come at the problem from a different direction than geologists and biologists had and produced an interesting result. In the late 1800's, the first person to receive two Nobel prizes in science (who is worth looking up as this person is atypical is another important way, not just because of the receipt of two Nobels), made a discovery that was later found to account for the missing heat in Kelvin's assumptions. Now all of you have had the benefit of a modern education that has built on the cumulative knowledge starting at least with the Renaissance and will immediate realize what the source of over 99% of the heat on earth is that Kelvin was unable to include since it hadn't yet been discovered. Please keep in mind that there is a temperature scale named after Kelvin, because Kelvin recognized that relativism is a bad thing and leads people astray. He recognized that there is absolute temperature. Those who have succumbed to temptation and strayed from the path of righteousness and into the decadent and perverse use of relative temperatures such as Fahrenheit and Celsius, will have a harder time recognizing just how hot the earth is and how little difference in temperature the sun makes here at the surface of the earth. Now for those who are still scratching your heads about the source of approximately 99% of the heat on earth - if you can't recognize a simple thing like a heat source that provides 99% of the heat on your planet, perhaps you might have a little trouble recognizing evolution, which plays just as large a role in your lives. Some people measure success in dollars. The most profitable businesses today find their product using the tools of evolution. Which are the most profitable companies? Oil companies. Invertebrate paleontology is a key tool in oil exploration. Now if we can just get the educational system worldwide to quit teaching evolution, then we can finally rid ourselves of our oil dependance. Disclaimer: I am a professional geologist and a skeptic. My understanding of the world around me has been influenced by falsifiable theories, including the theory of evolution and the theory of gravity. I reserve the right to accept revised theories when there is conflicting or better data. If falsifiability cannot be applied to an idea, model, or theory, then it is a matter of faith, not science and should be treated as such. This is a simple test and is safe for home use by people of all ages who are compos mentis. Basic education should be learned in schools, from text books, scientific literature, and interacting with people who do research (including helping them). It should not be expected from a list server or the Internet in general. Philip L. Moss [email protected] On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 10:17:56 -0500 "Fritz Holt" <[email protected]> writes: I am waiting for a knowledgeable geologist or someone to tell us that these formations are not formed by the same minerals or in the same manner in which cave formations are formed. I�m sure that there must be an explanation why these formations grew at such a rapid rate. Fritz with questions.
