webolife wrote:Gary,
The cirque geology you observe in the Olympics is fairly well understood by the dynamics of weathering and erosion from ongoing glacier formation. At the head of the glacier, the ice "eats" away [by alternate expansion/contraction] at the sides of the mountain producing amphitheatre shaped "cirques" ultimately carving the summit back to the "horn" shape so well exemplified by the Swiss Matterhorn.
Webolife, two things:
1) My understanding (such that it is) is that weathering tends to soften things, not sharpen them, and at a glance I'd have to categorize the Matterhorn as "sharp" (as opposed to the Appalachian Mountains in America, which are old and soft). That’s hardly a scientific opinion, I realize, and I’ll readily admit I’ve done no experiments to back this up, but isn’t that the general understanding?
2) Regarding the Matterhorn specifically, I’ve read from several sources that the “horn” itself is not native to the (immediate) area – that it rests on dissimilar strata and was either moved to its current location by glaciers (one view, the accepted view), or thrown by EM forces (another view, and one I think likely while acknowledging that it is not a proven fact). Also, the horn is upside-down, i.e. the geologic column of fossils is reversed, with the oldest on top and the youngest on bottom.
This may be neither here nor there regarding your comment about the Olympics, and I apologize if my comment is a moot side-issue to yours, but you had previously said:
webolife wrote:Gary,
I'm warming slowly to the concept of electrical cratering, but mega-auroral or EDM excavation of mountain ranges does not appeal to my sense of Occam. I think it does a disservice to the unifying power of EU to push its extreme characteristics beyond the range of observability.
I think the key issue here is “…beyond the range of observability”. I know there is no need to lecture you about “scaling” – I’m pretty sure you’re clear on the subject. But like it or not, we happen to be living in a NON-mega-auroral, NON-EDM excavating age (at least locally). This may skew the application of Occam’s Razor.
I mean, if we spent out lives dodging auroras randomly flashing into arc mode, and seeing asteroids blasted from space before they ever got close to the atmosphere, and had to have the concept of “glaciers” patiently explained to us since we’d never heard of such things, the supposition that glacial weathering COULD produce cirques would garner Occam-inspired gut laughter. We don’t live in that world, obviously, but I propose to you that since we have reproducible experimental reasons for believing such phenomena are well within the bounds of the “historically possible”, and that the application of Occam is so individually subjective, that it would be inadvisable to dismiss “mega-auroral or EDM excavation of mountain ranges” as failing the “simplest explanation” test. It might actually BE the simplest feasible explanation, if all things are actually considered.
Personally, I start with the assumption that all solid bodies in the universe (and I include stars and gas planets in that description) are "essentially fulgurites", and work backwards from there. So I’d naturally ask “why should I believe that such-and-such a geologic structure was created by something other than EM forces, since the whole planet was? Or: Why consider glaciers in this particular case when we have a simple EM explanation already built in?” I’m not saying “Glaciers” is the wrong answer – I’m not saying glaciers didn’t carve Hurricane Ridge – I’m saying I’d personally want some pretty strong evidence if I was going to override my tendency to naturally attribute its formation to EM forces.
That’s “bias”, I admit, but I don’t think it is an unreasonable one.
Occam's Razor operates within the bounds of the assumptions of its wielder.