None of this excludes the possibility of exotic electrical action, it just doesn't require it...
Well of course it's always good to have challenges to any idea, especially one that claims to put the standard model of geology in grave doubt. I don't want to go off half-cocked to our local university geology department with ideas that can be shown to be preposterous, and be made to look a total fool. However, I think, as the saying goes, "look after the small stuff, and the big stuff will take care of itself", that the small stuff, the odd, very localised formations that, to me, defy a simple mechanical model based on the known properties of the rock, the abrasive properties of wind, water, sand and rock, will show that these features could not have formed given even millions of years of a gradualist model.
What has happened here is that geologists have looked at the big picture (I'm using Vancouver Island with this scenario) and reasoned that the deep canyons and valleys must have been formed by glacial action, and for that amount of material to have been removed, to such depths, there must have been X depth of ice sufficient to provide the pressure needed for the mechanism to work. The smaller features are just odd, random side effects of the main mechanism.
I propose we instead start with the smaller scale observations, and study how they could have formed, given the known properties of the materials involved. Computer simulations should be able to model these much smaller scale features quite easily, and be able to say if it is even possible for them to have been formed by any known process, and if so, how long it would have taken.
I'd bet that they could not produce the observed features with any amount of tweaking of the model, and that anything that came even close in form would require inordinate periods of time. My confidence in this matter has been boosted by having access to a retired field geologist with many years of experience, who can not offer any conventional explanation for some of the features I have pointed out to him, particularly in regards to the apparent age of the features, as they all have, geologically speaking, a very recent appearance. If the small stuff can not be explained with any degree of certainty, then surely we have to question the model of the big stuff. I'm not saying the Earth has never undergone even prolonged periods of cold, and we still have ice fields and glaciers on Vancouver Island, but rather that the ice was never so thick, and that it's movement so slow, perhaps even stationary, that the accepted erosion models could not possibly work.
I think your estimates for the rate of wear by wind and water are hugely off the mark, webo. In my own, small, seasonal creek, there is one small section in the V at the base where it is pillow lava bedrock on one side, and a 6 inch thick conglomerate capping on the bedrock on the other side. A 4 inch diameter rock is protruding almost half way out of the conglomerate, exposed to the water flow, but in 30 years there has been no apparent change in the conglomerate, the rock is no more exposed than it was when I first looked at it. This is in the very bottom of the creek, and the water moves very quickly through what is only about a 6 inch wide constriction. Also, I have been visiting some of the same beaches for over thirty years, and there has been no noticeable change to the rocky outcrops, either in the basalt or the often sharp edged sandstone and conglomerates. I do realise that time and my memory may factor into my perceptions though!
My next proposal, though perhaps not fully original, as finno pointed out with his mention of Keijo Parkkunen, extends the tornado model to the formation of the boulders found in the creeks and rivers. I do not know if Parkkunen did propose such, perhaps finno could provide clarity there?
As opposed to large areas that seem to have been transformed by electricity and heat, the V shaped canyons would seem to have been torn out by an electric tornado. I have been doing some field geology, starting with my own relatively small creek, but it seems even the larger ones adhere to the same pattern. The V shaped creek bed, the almost vertical, rounded outcrop side walls, angular blocks and plates of rock that look like they have been ejected from the side walls, and the roundish pebbles, from 1/4 inch to a couple of feet diameter, of a wide variety of colour and crystal size, some having so smooth a surface they suggest vitrification.
Where the V becomes less pronounced, the valley exhibits lumpy outcrops, so there is a stepped appearance, and higher up still, the edges become sharper and the shapes more angular.
Totally covering the stepped outcrops at the lower reaches is a very fine red-ish powder, devoid of organic material, apart from about 4 inches at the surface, from organic decay of the forest flora. In the dust there are pebbles and rocks from tiny to perhaps 8 or 10 inches in diameter, and the dust almost completely hides the underling rock, filling the steps so it appears to be just a dirt slope. Further up there is less of the pebble and rock containing dust, and the outcrops are more visible. Traversing the creek bed, the amount of dust and debris gets progressively less, the pebbles smaller on average, and maybe a couple of hundred yards from the creek, we are back to the bare, mound shaped bedrock. It looks to me then, much like the debris field from a tornado, where the dust is lofted to great height, while the larger objects fall out of the funnel much nearer to the point of contact.
I would have to say that it appears the pebbles and even the larger boulders, are the material that was originally a hill, melted and sucked out, shaped in a plasma/current pinch, and hurled up and away, and falling back with a reduction in both size and density of components as you get further from the creek. The angular nature of the outcrops and rock faces higher up suggests that a strong electric field caused separation along existing planes in the rock, formed in the cooling of the originally molten bedrock. The angular blocks also exhibit no change in colour or crystal size from the original rock surrounding the area, so little or much less heat was involved. In the bigger creeks or rivers, there are sometimes thousands of boulders lying in long pools along the water course, of a great variety of colours and textures. The standard model has these as being pushed down the coast by glaciers, becoming rounded over very long periods, and then being trapped in the creeks and rivers as the glaciers retreated and the Island rebounded, offering an explanation as to why the boulders are found almost to the very highest elevations.
At first glance it appears the same characteristics just scale up with the size of the creek or river canyons, including the average size and quantity of the boulders and the lateral extents of the dust and rock coverage. It would seem that the boulders are formed in a pinch at the base of a vortex where the energies are at their most powerful, and that the size, shape, colour and crystal size variations are due to the time spent in the pinch and the nature of the energies at any given moment during the process. The rocks which conventionally require a formation at great depths and pressures may have formed almost instantly.
The largest boulders remain in the creek, or close by, while the smaller ones are flung further away, and the fine dust travels the furthest. Yes, it is only conjecture, but just the fact that this fine dust is still present in large amounts on very steep slopes would indicate a very recent origin with minimal washing away considering this is a temperate rain forest with seasonally heavy downpours. I obviously need to perform more field work to see if the model is consistent, but it at least seems plausible, to my mind anyway.
Whew. Hope that all reads OK.
In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. -Buckminster Fuller
