Creationism, Myth and Catastrophism

[JP Michael]

Creation.com had an article on Ceres last week. I dared to post a comment, challenging them to try electricity as the cause of Ceres' so-called "cryovolcanism" and pointing out that Jacob Gable has already reproduced all kinds out outgassing phenomena in a vacuum tube using only electricity.

The response of Dr. Jonathan Sarfati is indicative, not only of what is wrong with the mainstream but also what has thoroughly infected creationist thought as well:

From to time, (sic) we have been asked about the electric universe universe (sic) theory. As I say to all the inquirers, CMI can't adopt maverick theories in operational science otherwise we would be fighting on two fronts, as explained in my paper on quantum mechanics. In particular, the electric universe universe (sic) theory handwaves to 'explain' phenomena that are explained fine with conventional operational science theories, not just quantum mechanics but also relativity, gravity, nuclear and particle physics, and even conventional electromagnetism.

He then went on a diatribe against Miles Mathis, apparently presuming that Mathis is the poster child of EU theory, perhaps based on prior interactions with EU inquiries.

It is everything I had suspected of CMI and worse.

[Lloyd]

7258

CREATIONIST BIAS
At least Creationists are a little more open-minded than is conventional science. Walter Brown and Mike Fischer are/were Creationists. Walter was very friendly toward electrical effects within the geological aspects of the cataclysmic events at least. He considered electrical forces to be responsible for radioactivity in Earth's continental crust, which I discussed here recently. Mike is fairly open-minded too. He considered Andy Hall's ideas to be implausible, and I tend to agree too, but electrical forces were involved in the cataclysms in other ways certainly. I don't rule out Andy's ideas entirely, just mostly for now, as I've also discussed here recently.

SATURN FLARE-UPS & COAL FORMATION
I've been reading some of Cardona's material on coal formation and he seems to have good evidence that most coal was formed from hydrocarbons that rained down through the atmosphere during cataclysms. The evidence does suggest that the hydrocarbons may have come from a Saturn flare-up and, since the sedimentary rock strata were obviously laid down during the Great Flood, and since coal seams occur within the strata at a number of places in the flood geologic column, it looks like Saturn may have flare up each of those times during the flood. The flood was apparently a 6 month or so event, which was likely caused by the Moon or some other body on an approximately month-long elliptical orbit around Earth and during closest approach, i.e. perigee, it raised tidal waves that deposited the strata. That was largely before the asteroid impact caused continental drift and mountain formation, so the flood occurred mostly on ground that was just above sea level, with very little high ground.

Creationists mostly seem to think coal formed from forests that were destroyed in the Flood, but Cardona gives good evidence that trees likely formed very little coal. There is said to be over one trillion tons of coal on Earth that is known. How many trees would have been needed to form that much coal? Could the supercontinent have had enough trees and other plants to form that much coal?

[JP Michael]

SATURN FLARE-UPS & COAL FORMATION
I've been reading some of Cardona's material on coal formation and he seems to have good evidence that most coal was formed from hydrocarbons that rained down through the atmosphere during cataclysms. The evidence does suggest that the hydrocarbons may have come from a Saturn flare-up and, since the sedimentary rock strata were obviously laid down during the Great Flood, and since coal seams occur within the strata at a number of places in the flood geologic column, it looks like Saturn may have flare up each of those times during the flood.

How do you explain the superabundance of fossils, mostly flora, present in coal? Leaves, pollen, bark chips, resins (which may contain insects as amber), etc, (but also shells and marine fossils!) everything we would expect if coal was compressed/buried botanical matter? It's clear that these were, at least in some proportion, living forests prior to deposition. There are significant fields of palaeobotany dedicated to identifying the plants and organisms fossilised in coal seams and their evidence cannot be lightly dismissed.[1]

Creationists mostly seem to think coal formed from forests that were destroyed in the Flood, but Cardona gives good evidence that trees likely formed very little coal. There is said to be over one trillion tons of coal on Earth that is known. How many trees would have been needed to form that much coal? Could the supercontinent have had enough trees and other plants to form that much coal?

Instead of being either/or, how about both/and? The extant biomass of the antedeluvian world was indeed buried and overlaid, but those forests' carbon biomass was augmented (and perhaps significantly) by significant quantities of hydrocarbons produced by the electric conflagration. The forests were burned with immense quantities of what Velikovsky calls naphtha, and then buried.

Oil, I think, is a different kettle of fish. I think it highly likely that oil (unlike coal) is a renewable resource being constantly generated in certain places in the earth crust where electric currents are producing abundant hydrocarbons (and perhaps, as Eugene remarks elsewhere, with the assistance of deep-rock microbes). Two significant areas where this seems the most prolific are the Middle East (esp. Saudi Arabia), and Venezuela, both locations sitting atop some very important tectonic plate junctures. The same can be said for Alaska.

I'm of the mind that the tectonic plate borders run along the most significant regions of global electric current: that's why abundant earthquakes and volcanism occur in these regions more than anywhere else, and that is why liquid hydrocarbons are found here in abundance more than anywhere else.

Cheers.

[1] E.g. "Bituminous coal is more metamorphosed and the plant parts are more flattened, but it is still possible to study plant fragments within the coal. Anthracite coal, the most highly metamorphosed type, is altered to such an extent that little of the original plant material is recognizable. Some coals can be thin sectioned for microscopic examination, and pollen grains, spores, and fragments of cuticle can be discerned. In other instances it is possible to coat the polished surface of coal with epoxy resin and etch it in a low-temperature plasma asher (Winston, 1989). Pieces of coal, or peels of the etched surfaces, can then be examined by light microscopy or SEM to determine the biological composition of the coal. This procedure makes it possible to quantify the plants in various types of coals in instances where coal ball permineralizations (see section "Cellular Preservation") are not available (Winston, 1986). Coal can also be macerated using chemicals that break down the solid coal and release the plant fragments. It is possible to recognize cuticle, pieces of bark, bits of wood, solidified resins, and especially spores and pollen grains in this type of preparation. Examination of these components allows one to determine the kinds of plants that were growing in the ancient swamps [[read: antediluvian world]] where the coal was formed." From Fossil Hunters.

[Lloyd]

7400

TARS BEFORE THE FLOOD

I just remembered that the Bible says Noah's ark was coated with pitch, to make it more water-proof apparently. Pitch is tar. So it seems that's evidence that tar existed before the Flood began. Maybe Saturn flare-ups occurred before the Flood and rained down bitumen or tar on occasion. I checked online and found this article.

The pitch for Noah’s Ark
https://creation.com/the-pitch-for-noahs-ark

It reminds us that tar can be produced from pine trees etc and that's how it was produced for many centuries. I don't consider the Bible to be infallible by a long shot, but I think it was mostly inspired by angels of God, but much has been misinterpreted.

TAR PITS
Reading some of Cardons's writings about coal and petroleum, I noticed he said the fossils in the La Brea tar pits are/were disarticulated and included plant fossils as well as a fair number of wooden objects made by man. And the bitumen or asphalt covers a wide area, much larger than the tar pits. He said the pits themselves were manmade from digging out fossils. So it's a much different picture than what conventional scientists make it out to be. There weren't tar ponds that animals got trapped in and then died and left their bones. Tar is a good preservative, but nothing but bones have been preserved there, along with plant and wooden remains. No skin, hide, hair, or body parts have been found. Since the bones are/were scattered around, he figured the dead skeletons were hit by a large tidal wave that piled the bones haphazardly in heaps along with the tar. Velikovsky and others have noted that bones of many animals have been found in caves and fissures in many areas. Tidal waves apparently did the same thing in those cases. Cardona says a Saturn flare-up caused the Earth's rotation to slow down briefly, which caused tidal waves. He said when the Sun has flares, Earth's rotation slows down slightly, then returns to its normal rate. If animals killed/drowned in the Flood/tidal waves remained in and on the water for a few days, the soft tissues would decay quickly or be eaten by small meat-eating marine life. I'd like to find out if the bones in the tar pits are usually broken or not. That would indicate possible or probable pounding by wave action.

This link https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mamm ... R220090220 is to an article about a mammoth skeleton found near La Brea about 80% intact, which seems to be an exception. It mentions a few other animal skeletons, but mostly just bones. The article at this link https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/501 ... a-tar-pits says 3.5 million fossils have been found there and the bones are well preserved.

INTERACTIVE WORLD FOSSIL MAP
https://paleobiodb.org/navigator/

[Lloyd]

7473

TAR PIT DECAY EXPERIMENT

Looks like Cardona was wrong that tar should preserve some body parts. See below. Uniformitarians expect that the conditions of the fossils were caused by normal, noncataclysmic processes in the tar pits, but that still seems unlikely. Let's look for what facts can be explained only by cataclysms and what can only be explained by normal conditions.

Quote from http://www.caitlinsyme.com/news-and-upd ... -tar-seeps
_They found that decay occurred surprisingly quickly and surmised that a rich bacterial community exists in the tar seep, ready and waiting to consume flesh. Their microbial tests showed the bacteria did not hitch-hike into the tar seep on the bobcat carcasses. We know that hundreds of petroleum-eating bacteria species already exist in the tar seeps - they produce the methane bubbles - but it now seems that there are bacteria living in these tar seeps that specialise in eating organic material.
_The authors conclude that modern bobcat limbs take around 2-3 months to fully decay in tar seeps. It appears that without the presence of the experimental wire cage, their bones would disarticulate (separate) after only a few weeks. The authors propose that the majority of decay and disarticulation therefore occurs at or just below the surface of tar seep, with single bones then being buoyed along by wind or water currents. The authors admitted that while these smaller limbs portions immediately sank into the tar, larger bodies may float at the surface while decaying with parts of the body exposed to the elements, and plan to conduct more actualistic experiments using whole carcasses in the future. I'd like to see more data on the temperatures of the tar seep, and how that might speed up or slow down decay depending on the types of bacteria present. Overall, this is a very thoughtful and interesting paper, so check it out (if you can get past the paywall).
_References
Brown, C., Curd, E., Friscia, A. 2017. An actualistic experiment to determine skeletonization and disarticulation in the La Brea tar seeps. PALAIOS, 32:119-124. http://palaios.geoscienceworld.org/content/32/3/119

Addendum
Dental Microwear Textures of Carnivorans from the La Brea Tar Pits, California, and Potential Extinction Implications
https://tarpits.org/sites/default/files ... no._42.pdf
In sum, dental microwear texture attributes that are most indicative of bone consumption (i.e., complexity and textural fill volume) suggest that carcass utilization by La Brea carnivorans was similar to comparable living analogs. Thus, in contrast to earlier studies, we see no evidence that large carnivorans were more stressed, or dietary resourcesweremoredepleted,justpriortotheextinctionevent

[Lloyd]

7600

COAL & TAR FORMATION WORKSHOP
I started a thread on that on my FutureSchool forum at https://futureschool.boards.net/thread/ ... n-workshop
I opened with this statement: I'm working on developing a holistic understanding of global cataclysms from the time of sedimentary rock strata formation to the present time.
At the end of the OP I said: I'll start with posting search results from the Catastrophism website at www.catastrophism.com/intro/search.cgi?zoom_query=
I posted my search results subsequently for:
TAR at https://futureschool.boards.net/post/50/thread
BITUMEN at https://futureschool.boards.net/post/51/thread
CHICAGO FIRE at https://futureschool.boards.net/post/52/thread
COAL at https://futureschool.boards.net/post/53/thread
The search results include several lines of context for each result, so they're often very informative. By the way, I often use underscore ____ before words that I want to find easily.

I'm doing all that there because I can edit the posts there any time, so I can keep improving drafts for a final posting.

CHICAGO FIRE
I included the Chicago Fire in my searches, because I remembered some TPODs that covered it and showed that the several major fires in nearby states on the days of that Chicago fire were likely caused by hydrocarbons that fell to Earth from comet Biela in October 1871. Even acetylene was said to have been very possibly one of the hydrocarbons that fell. So there's good evidence that hydrocarbons can fall from comets. I'm curious how close Biela must have come to Earth in order for the hydrocarbons to have fallen in such great quantities. Also, it appears that hydrocarbons may sometimes occur within the tails of comets, probably mainly after a comet breaks up, since Biela is apparently known to have broken up at that time. Maybe its encounter with Earth is what caused it to break up. If Saturn flare-ups were the source of comets, then they were also the source of some hydrocarbons. I'm curious as to exactly how the bituminous hydrocarbons would have fallen during the Great Flood, if that's what formed most of the coal beds. Since coal occurs at several levels in the flood geologic column, and the levels likely followed each other in succession about once a month during an orbiting body's perigee when it produced tidal waves on the flat supercontinent before mountains formed, it suggests that Saturn flared up during each perigee perhaps. Right? And Saturn apparently flared up last during the Younger Dryas cataclysms sometime after the Flood.

[nick c]

TPoD's mentioned in the above post:

The Comet and the Chicago Fire



Chicago Fire (2)

[JP Michael]

Part 3 was the most interesting one!

I'd not heard of that one before. Thanks!

And Lloyd,

I'm curious as to exactly how the bituminous hydrocarbons would have fallen during the Great Flood, if that's what formed most of the coal beds

You're still avoiding the issue of fossils in coal. They're abundant. It can be a case of both/and. Entire forests could have been burnt by fiery hydrocarbon infernos, and then extinguished and buried by a sudden tidal wave of sediment. This is why coal seams have both plant and marine fossils in them.

[Cargo]

Excellent deep dive in the archives. My personal TPOD folder only goes back to 2010.

[Lloyd]

7818

MORE CHICAGO FIRE

In my Chicago Fire post at https://futureschool.boards.net/post/52/thread I think the 9th search result is an interesting addition to the TPODs. Here's that result.
9. Cosmology And Psychology [Kronos]
... were raining fire. Some of the meteors rivaled Jupiter or Venus in brightness. One was reported to have been nearly as large as the moon. It was estimated that 10,000 flashed across the sky in an hour."(83) Astronomers soon came to recognize a periodicity to this cosmological phenomenon and also realized that the meteors had come from one point in the constellation of Leo. "This meant that the earth had collided with a vast swarm of meteors."(84) It has been suggested that the ____Chicago fire of 1871 as well as less publicized Midwestern and Farwestern fires were the result of a cometary flyby. "If the detritus from the ephemeris of one such as Biela's comet did impinge on our atmosphere, how much frozen methane or cyanogen would it take to set six states afire, in a path that took a southwest to a northeasterly direction about a thousand miles long by several hundred wide?"(85) As in other times, the twentieth-century has not been without its share of celestial excitement. On June 30


That's all there is from that search result, but I can look up more later since I have Kronos back issues. It's interesting that there were fires in the U.S. Southwest as well as in the Chicago area at the same time in 1871.

[Lloyd]

COAL FORMATION WORKSHOP

I worked on the Coal results post at https://futureschool.boards.net/post/53/thread and have it re-organized and ready for more editing.

I might learn something from all that material, like some coal was C14 dated to about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.

[Lloyd]

7926

COAL FORMATION WORKSHOP
https://futureschool.boards.net/post/53/thread

10. [EXTENSIVE DEPOSITION] On the Disproportion between Geological Time and Historical Time. Part Two - of Earth, Fire and Water [SIS C&C Review]
Bituminous ____coal predominates in the Upper Carboniferous, where it occurs extensively from Texas all the way to the Donetz ____coal basin, north of the Caspian Sea.

NOTE: Here's a good map of world coal deposits.
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/nature-e ... ection-4.5
Looks like the most coal is in northern Asia and eastern Australia.

80. [BURNING] Monitor [SIS C&C Review]
_Much of the mountainous country in northern China, from Manchuria to the Kazakh border, is covered in ____coal seams which lie close to the surface. These often ignite spontaneously and it is estimated that up to 200 million tonnes of ____coal are being incinerated each year [by wildfire].

52. [GEOLOGIC COLUMN] Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
_The greatest extinction? New Scientist 25.1.92, pp. 51-55 The geological boundary between the Permian and Triassic periods records the largest extinction the world has ever known, with 96% of all species disappearing in a catastrophically short time. The earliest rocks after the extinction are dull silty sediments which accumulated in deep water all over the world and indicate that the bottom fauna took a remarkably long time to recover compared to the open sea. A sudden alteration in the proportion of carbon isotopes indicates that there was massive oxidation of ____coal shales, which it is suggested was due to a large fall in sea levels which exposed the shales to erosion. The oxygen content of the atmosphere would have fallen drastically, causing the extinction of terrestrial vertebrates and eventually the seas became anoxic so both terrestrial and marine life perished by suffocation. The fall in sea level was followed by an even more spectacular rise in the early Triassic....

63. [STRATA] Basinger's Lecture on the Eocene Forests of the Canadian High Arctic [SIS C&C Workshop]
... High Arctic. The Eureka Sound Group is widely scattered in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Many areas feature a transition from black marine muds to basal volcanics, with deposits often right on top of Palaeozoic rocks. Fossil plants are most abundant in mid to late Palaeocene to possibly early Eocene strata. The botanist looks for ____coaly layers interbedded with 'rocky ribs'. In this region's early Tertiary forests, the Metasequoia was dominant. The plant community was akin to today's cypress swamp in Florida. Trees were deciduous, with the plants often forming ____coal deposits. Plant life was similar from Alberta to Ellesmere Island; there was remarkable uniformity on both sides of the Arctic Circle. Fossil plant discoveries included birch-like plants, members of the elm, walnut, sycamore, and ginger families, cedar, rare pines and horsetail ferns.

32. [THIN LAYERS] Reconsidering Velikovsky [SIS C&C Workshop]
_Saturday morning Milton Zysman and Peter von Bitter: Cyclothems
_Frank Wallace read a paper by Milton Zysman presenting the idea that cyclothems (complex, repetitive layers of sedimentary rock and ____coal belonging to the Carboniferous Era) are the result of annual depositions of melting water and particulate debris produced by retreating dirty continental ice sheets. Zysman claimed that each sedimentary cycle, usually composed of sandstone, clay, ____coal and shale (in ascending order), occurring in as much as 100 similar cycles, took one year to form per cycle, reducing the ages of these formations as much as 60 Myrs. He questioned whether these could have formed over a long period by sea or glacier; whether ____coal could have been organic in origin; the slow appearance of fossils, pointing out, amongst other things, that coal can form round trees. The theory of their extra-terrestrial origin had already been put forward a century ago by Ignatius Donnelly (in Ragnarok), who pointed out that the pebbles found in them were striated in a peculiar way which he attributed to their having been formed in a comet's tail. Geologist Professor von Bitter countered....

5. [THIN LAYERS; COMETARY] Society News [SIS C&C Workshop]
_Zysman dealt specifically with the Cyclothem, the enigmatic outcrop in the Carboniferous in which ____coal seams are found. The many repeated layers of shale, sandstone, clay, ____coal and limestone defy a uniformitarian explanation and Zysman is of the opinion that even Velikovsky's tidal wave explanation is not enough. ... Zysman's ____coal and all its associated layers is extraterrestrial material, churned in a comet's tail and deposited on Earth at the time of a catastrophic close approach during an ice age. Zysman was intrigued by the fact that these coal formations are like layer-cake, with their many repeated layers always in the same order and the total formation found in channels or basins in parts of the world which had been on the fringes of ancient glaciations. They appear to be nothing so much as sedimentary layers and could be considered as mega-varves (varves being the sedimentary layers laid down annually in glacial lakes during the summer melt). Cometary material deposited on immense glaciers would also be deposited in distinct sedimentary layers, according to density and seasonal temperature, in basins at the glacier's foot. Instead of repetition of layers, including one coal seam, being the result of thousands of years slow processes, Zysman suggests they were formed annually. This would explain the occasional find of whole tree trunks extending vertically through a coal seam, the fossil rootlets of young plants in the clay layer underlying the coal and fossils of species which remain unchanged throughout a period supposed to be of 160 million years duration. Both limestone and coal are orthodoxly regarded as of organic origin, so how does Zysman explain them? The so-called limestone cycle is not apparent today but meteors contain calcium oxide which readily hydrates and combines with carbon dioxide to form calcium carbonate which would be precipitated in warming summer waters. Coal was a hydrophobic gelatinous material which floated initially, later accumulating minerals and sinking, to stifle the new growth of young seedlings. The entire Carboniferous Era is just the record of one monumental event in Earth's history, an event which has occurred over and over, each time restructuring the Earth's surface, not only physically but chemically, and requiring a simultaneous drastic change in all life forms to be able to adapt to a completely new environment. An animated discussion followed but was curtailed by shortage of time. It was obvious that even for those used to accepting the idea of Velikovsky's massive extra-terrestrial catastrophes, a period of consideration would be needed in order to assimilate these far-reaching theories and give them due

>>>116. [YOUNG COAL] The Inexact Science of Radiometric Dating [SIS C&C Review]
_An interesting article on the basis and current position with regard to radiocarbon dating is that of W. F. Libby, Pensee Vol. 3 No. 2 p. 7 (1973). 39. C. Crowe (Nature 16.8.58) discovered that there had been a 10% change in C14 activity about 2,000 years ago following a 100% increase in the rate of C14 production. For the radiocarbon age of gaseous inclusions in Cretaceous strata see Radiocarbon Vol. 8 (1966). Gaseous inclusions in Eocene strata believed to be ca. 50,000,000 years old were dated to 30,000 years ago. (See same ref.) A Diprotodon jaw from Orroroo, South Australia was dated at 6,700 by radiocarbon techniques. The animal is thought to have become extinct many millions of years ago (Radiocarbon Vol. 5 (1963). Specimens of ____coal from Spain thought to be tens of millions of years old were radiocarbon dated to 5,025 and 4,250 years ago by Gifsur-Yvette testing labs. (Radiocarbon Vol. 8 (1966).

125. [C14 DATING] Scientific Dating Methods In Ruins [The Velikovskian]
_In the Antarctic Journal of the United States, W. Dort wrote that freshly slaughtered seals, when subjected to radiocarbon analysis, are dated at 1,300 years old. (5) In Science, M. Keith and G. Anderson wrote that shells of living mollusks were dated at 2,300 years old. (6) In The Physiology of Forest Trees, Bruno Huber wrote that wood from a growing tree was dated at 10,000 years old. (7) This is important because these living trees were growing next to an airport. The added carbon dioxide in the air produced by the planes' fuel exhausts made the living trees appear to be 10,000 years old. Velikovsky has suggested that all or nearly all the volcanoes on Earth erupted 3,500 years ago [4,300 years ago is much more likely], and this would have added enormous amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Any living plants or organic materials in or on the Earth would have taken in this extra carbon dioxide and, in so doing, would have made their ages much greater than they should have been. These are but a few examples of how wildly inaccurate the radiocarbon technique can be.

128. [C14 DATING] The Testimony of Radiocarbon Dating [Velikovsky Archive Website]
_On the one hand much radioactivity and radiation must have been engendered as the consequence of interplanetary discharges, and thus any organic material of a date after the catastrophe would appear disproportionately younger than the material from earlier periods. On the other hand, the general conflagration that accompanied the cosmic catastrophe must have caused contamination of the air by carbon from burning forests, and even more so by burning fossil carbon in oil and ____coal, besides the contamination of the air by the products of volcanic eruptions, which were simultaneous on all continents. Such intrusion of non-radioactive carbon into the atmosphere would have disturbed the C-12/C-14 balance in the sense of making any organic material that grew and lived after the catastrophe appear in the carbon test as older and belonging to an earlier age. Thus two phenomena of opposite effect have acted in the catastrophes, and depending on the preponderance of one of the two factors, the objects subjected to test would appear younger or older than their real age. Furthermore, carbon of extraterrestrial origin (ash and polymerized hydrocarbons) added a third factor, and its evaluation in the carbon pool as to its tendency to heighten or lower the radioactivity is hardly possible.

[Lloyd]

COAL FORMATION WORKSHOP (Continued)

20. [ALASKA] The Alaskan Jigsaw Puzzle [Science Frontiers Website]
_No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Alaskan Jigsaw Puzzle
_Present thinking is that this portion of the state was close to the geographic north pole during the late Cretaceous. But this is the period when the huge ____coal deposits were formed on the Arctic slope. Much of this ____coal comes from evergreens, which could not have survived in high latitudes due to the lack of sunlight.... (Anonymous; "Fragmented Alaska," Open Earth, no. 17, 1982.)

131. [WARM ARCTIC] Long Term Violation of Uniformitarianism Demonstrated by Fossil Discoveries in Polar Regions [SIS C&C Workshop]
_Evidence of warmer climates that once prevailed in the Arctic was brought to light in the nineteenth century with the discovery of ____coal in the Canadian Arctic Archipeliga. Some time later, remains of tropical vegetation were found in far northern Greenland which oddly has never been glaciated. In the early 1970's, dinosaur fossils were uncovered on the North Slope of Alaska.

26. [ANTARCTICA] THE LATELY TORTURED EARTH: PART VI: BIOSPHERICS: 26.Fossil Deposits [Quantavolution Website]
... Quantavolution.Org E-MAIL: contact@quantavolution.org TABLE OF CONTENTS THE LATELY TORTURED EARTH: Part VI: Biospherics by Alfred de Grazia
_CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX FOSSIL DEPOSITS
_ In coarse quartzose sandstones of stream channels of Antarctica's Transantarctic Mountains, fossil bones of the definitive reptilian genus, Lystrosaurus, were found. Deemed typical of Lower Triassic forms, it has been uncovered also in South Africa, India and China. In the sandstone, mudstone and white quartz pebbles are intruded along with the bone fragments. Logs and ____coal are at the same depth. Volcanic material is above and below. Remains of between 40 and 50 specimens are among the more than 400 specimens of other species in the same deposit.

30. [ANTARCTICA] No title [Aeon Journal]
_Interestingly, the National Geographic fifth edition "Atlas Of The World" on page 221 says, "The hypothesis that Antarctica was ... part of a supercontinent called Pangaea is supported by the discovery of geologic formations and fossils of extinct land plants and vertebrates that correspond to those on other continents. No landmass in Antarctica's present position could have supported the vegetation that has become the low-grade ____coal in the Transantarctic Mountains, perhaps the world's most extensive ____coal formation." A well-known Antarctic fossil plant is Glossopteris, a flora dating from the earliest part of the Permian but which had vanished by the Triassic. Glossopteris included bug trees with annual growth rings, an indicator of seasonality; these flora were fossilized into ____coal beds on several parts of Antarctica. Coal deposits, with Glossopteris leaves and conifer needles, have been found within 250 miles of the South Pole. I have demonstrated that polar latitude has in the geological past been a barrier to biological luxuriance ("Pliocene Antarctic," in AEON, Vol. 2, No. 1; "Anomalous Occurrence of Crocodilia in Eocene Polar Forests," in SISR, Vol. 14. Hapgood has very strong circumstantial evidence of a major Holocene warming in Antarctica which partly overlapped the maximal advance of the Wisconsinan Glaciation 18,000 bp. Warm climates in polar latitudes cannot be reconciled with uniformitarian geophysics; they point to global catastrophe of some sort.

138. [ANTARCTICA] The Afar Triangle As the Nether Reaches of Eden and Babel [Aeon Journal]
_But Velikovsky objected not so much to crustal movements themselves as to the uniformitarian gradualism of the usual drift scenarios. He also objected to specific points in those scenarios. (For example, how could there be ____coal deposits in Antarctica, if, as is usually supposed, Antarctica was already near the South Pole at the time those deposits were laid down?) The fact is that Velikovsky himself looked with some favor upon the idea of horizontally-moving continents. He often mentioned that it was he, long before continental drift became such a fad, who had stressed in conversation with Harry Hess how obvious it was that South America had once been joined to Africa.

145. [ANTARCTICA] Book Shelf [Aeon Journal]
_Since present-day mapping of the world's oceanic basins shows no trace of sunken continents, the most obvious land choice for a lost civilization is a relatively ice-free Antarctica. It has mountains and lakes, rivers and streams, fossilized forests and beds of ____coal and coral, all depicting a far more temperate, if not tropical, climate in a distant age that our dating methods have placed well within the paleontological epoch of mankind.

41. [POLAR] The Dinosaurs Of Winter And The Polar Forests [Science Frontiers Website]
_Coal beds are also known from Spitzbergen and Antarctica. The vision of dinosaurs roaming polar Edens evokes many questions. If the polar regions were indeed 10-20 C warmer than now, what could have survived at the Equator? ... This suggests that the biosphere recovered very well from the KTB catastrophe. Why, then did the dinosaurs succomb so completely? From Science Frontiers #75, MAY-JUN 1991.©

162. [ANTARCTICA] Discussion Comments From the Floor [Aeon Journal]
_ANTARCTIC ANOMALIES SPEAKER: IAN C. JOHNSON
_Conventional geological wisdom holds that Antarctica has been consistently icebound for the past 15 to 30 million years. When plate tectonics became widely accepted in the 1960s, continental drift placed Antarctica for a period of geological time in warm latitudes. Antarctica undoubtedly had a warm distant past, as ____coal seams running through the Transantarctic Mountains are some of the most extensive on earth. The new plate tectonics/continental drift paradigm featured Antarctica attached to South America and Australia during late Cretaceous and early Tertiary time 65 million years ago. Antarctica was a warm continent 70 to 40 million years ago, covered with forests and surrounded by tropical waters. Conventional wisdom seemed to receive confirmation with the discovery of the first bones of a land mammal (polydolopus) on Antarctica(1). An American research team headed by Dr. William Zinsmeister of Ohio State University made the discovery of animal fossils in March 1982 on Seymour Island, off the northeastern tip of the Antarctic peninsula about 800 nautical miles from the tip of South America. Jawbones and teeth of a small marsupial (polydolopus) were found earlier in South America, indicating that at some point the two land masses were joined together. Beginning in 1983, cracks started to appear in the uniformitarian model of Antarctic geology. The first evidence of climatic complexity came from microscopic fossils collected in 1965 at elevations 2100 to 2700 meters above sea level in the mountains of Antarctica.(2) Analysis of these fossils at Ohio State University surprisingly revealed the remains of marine creatures that lived 2 to 70 million years ago. To rule out rapid mountain building or a drastic rise in sea level, one has to resort to ice transport, but glacial sediment on the floors of nearby seas shows no evidence that Antarctica was free of ice during the recent part of the period represented by the microscopic fossils.

>98. [CO2; ANTARCTICA] Monitor [SIS C&C Review]
_Atmospheric Composition New Scientist 17.6.00, p. 19, 11.3.00, p. 23, 16.9.00, p. 10
_In the early days of the Earth, the Sun is supposed to have been cooler than it is now and there was not sufficient carbon dioxide to keep the planet warm, yet there was liquid water for early life to develop in. However, methane is another greenhouse gas and there is evidence that methane-producing bacteria were among the earliest forms of life. The atmosphere would have had to contain very little oxygen at the time, as this would react with the methane. By 300 Myrs ago [just thousands, not millions], however, isotopic measurements of carbon and sulphur in rocks of the period indicate that there was far more oxygen than at present, which explains how the giant insects and lush forests of the time could have existed. Why did it decline? Most of today's considerations are still about the warming effects of carbon dioxide. A recent analysis of organic sediment from the Pacific appears to confirm ideas that the Earth's temperature is strongly connected to carbon dioxide levels. These were both higher between 53 and 59 Myrs ago. A likely source for the carbon dioxide was widespread volcanic activity in the North Atlantic at the time, cause unknown. The subsequent drop in carbon dioxide levels may have been rapidly effected by a biological feedback mechanism whereby huge blooms of plankton absorbed much of the excess gas. Evidence for this is found in ocean sediments from the period. There is also evidence of 'the large-scale burial of organic matter on land and in coastal regions, with swamps and ____coal formation'. Both the onset of the high levels of carbon dioxide and the circumstances of its decline appear somewhat catastrophic.

[JP Michael]

Have to tip my hat to you, Lloyd. You've got a much better index of information than I do!

[Lloyd]

8309

Thanks, JP. I've been gathering and organizing info for a few years now.

COAL ANALYSES ETC

This workshop is for investigating how much of Cardona's Saturn Theory is correct and how much needs to be modified. So far, it looks like the main Saturn flare-up occurred some decades or centuries after the Great Flood at the Younger Dryas time about 4,000 years ago. There may have been flare-ups before and during the Flood as well, which could have produced much of the hydrocarbons that formed coal and petroleum (and natural gas?). Zysman seemed to suggest that some clay and sand etc may have rained down as well, but from comets that formed eskers through the ice sheet.

Anyway, here are some relevant search results on coal analyses and associations etc from https://futureschool.boards.net/post/53/thread .

>>>31. [CHEMISTRY; FORMATION] Letters [SIS C&C Workshop]
_ ... hydrogen and deposits its SiO2 as quartz or chert, plugging off its own conduit and creating explosive conditions. This is the set-up for volcanic explosion, which often blows out siliceous ash, the formerly deposited SiO2. It also transfers silicon for development of granite and may force the rise of mountains and the underplating of the mountain belt with siliceous (quartz-rich) rock to form a continental 'keel'. I think the loess is originally volcanic, being the explosion product after the deposition of silica from rising silanes. Curiously, ____coal can also be attributed to the hydrogen/silicon carbide reaction. After silane has fully reacted with water, its accompanying hydrocarbon gas along with hydrogen emitted by oxidation of silane in the absence of free oxygen, if able to rise further, will sooner or later encounter oxygen. If the oxygen supply is meagre it will all be taken up by the hydrogen, and free carbon in finely divided form will be released in the water produced by the oxidation of the hydrogen component. If peat and other terrigenous plant debris accumulations stand

2. [CHEMISTRY] Anhydride Theory: A New Theory of How Petroleum and Coal are Generated [Aeon Journal]
_From: Aeon V:2 (Apr 1998) Home¦ Issue Contents Anhydride Theory: A New Theory of How Petroleum and Coal are Generated C. Warren Hunt
_Does Coal Generate Methane? Or Does Methane Generate Coal?
_Abstract
_Methane effuses from Earth's interior and pervades crustal terranes of crystalline, volcanic, and sedimentary rock. The author advances the theory that the hydrogen, carbon, and energy provided by this methane are utilized by hyperthermophyllic bacteria and archaea to strip hydrogen from the methane, thusly generating petroleum and adding carbon in the ____coalification of peat. Alkane mixtures that make up petroleum from the stripped methane are "anhydrides." The "terminal anhydride," pure carbon, may be deposited as the added carbon that changes peat to ____coal in the ____coalification process, or it may be deposited in the absence of peat as veins of asphaltite in non-sedimentary terranes. Methane effusion from Earth's interior is a worldwide phenomenon of which hardrock miners and geologists are fully aware. Nevertheless, finding it in previously unsuspected places still evokes expressions that verge on wonder. For

6. [COOK; CHEMISTRY] A Life's Work? [SIS C&C Review]
_Chapter VIII considers evidence of fluid pressure in wells, a subject of crucial importance to catastrophists. As Cook notes, 'Abnormal and abnormally high pressures are common, particularly in new oil fields' (p. 167), yet these cannot be convincingly explained by orthodox theories of gradual formation and accumulation of oil and gas in permeable rocks. In chapters IX and X, it is argued that oil, gas and ____coal have been formed by sudden deep burial of organic material: animal life (primarily marine) for the first two and vegetation for the last. Coal, he says, is simply dehydrated wood, with the grade of ____coal reflecting the degree of heating and pressure it has undergone. By detailed analysis of the chemistry of ____coal, he demonstrates that only pressure and temperature are involved in the process, with time neither necessary nor relevant as a factor. He quotes an interesting case where pit timbers in a Pennsylvania mine which was

14. [TYPES OF WOOD IN COAL] Focus [SIS C&C Workshop]
_ ... Heiberg and Ellesmere Islands lie within the Arctic Circle, on the same latitude as northern Greenland and are at present wastes of permafrost, with the only vegetation ground-hugging and dormant during the four months of winter darkness. Thick layers of sands, silts and ____coals, said to be from the early part of the Tertiary Period (i.e., immediately following the extinction of the dinosaurs) have long been known from here and finds of fossil wood and stumps are not uncommon. The commonest types of trees which have fossilised associated with the ____coal seams are the dawn redwood and the swamp cypress (now only found in China), and these are taken to indicate that lowland swamps were common in the region. The total regional flora is described as 'incredibly pervasive': it grew throughout the far north. From this pattern of vegetation it is therefore inferred that the world was free of ice at this period and that the ____coal seams were formed in the usual uniformitarian fashion. The discovery in 1985 of the remains of a complete 'fossil' forest adds a new dimension

24. [FORMED FROM PLANTS] Pterodactyls in the Mesozoic: A Flap in Time [Aeon Journal]
_The fascinating Carboniferous Period was sandwiched between the Devonian and Permian during the latter, or "Upper" half, of the Paleozoic Era, where plantlife thrived almost uncontrollably, evidently laying down the thick ____coal seams and oil pools which we mine and exploit today. [3 This unruly and rampant growth in the warm greenhouse of the Mississipian and Pennsylvanian Epochs during the Carboniferous bespeaks massive amounts of carbon dioxide in Earth's early atmosphere to permit such frenzied photosynthesis. We shall, however, concern ourselves primarily with the Mesozoic Era, that itself is divided into the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous ("chalk-like") Periods, an era which was singularly and uniquely the Age of Dinosaurs. Here, too, substantive ____coal beds were

38. [ABIOTIC] Bookshelf [SIS C&C Review]
_The Deep Hot Biosphere by T. Gold 1999, 249 pp., $25 A book about iconoclastic scientist Gold's revolutionary theory of a robust biosphere deep within the Earth. Gold has long claimed that ____coal, oil and gas and life itself originate deep within the Earth.

27. [ARTIFICIAL COAL] Monitor [SIS C&C Workshop]
_"Lignin + Clay = Coal" source: NEW SCIENTIST 1.9.83, p. 623 Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy have recently been able to produce ____coal artificially by heating lignin (the substance that binds plant cells together) and various clays. The clays appear to catalyze the conversion of lignin to ____coal: low grade ____coal can easily be produced by such methods by heating at 300 F for as little as two weeks. High grade ____coals require longer heating. This research is a significant advance in our knowledge of how ____coal is produced. Previously

15. [CALCULATIONS] The Carbon Problem [Science Frontiers Website]
_The Carbon Problem
_The "carbon problem" seems to hit the scientific creationists the hardest, but it also has interesting implications for today's earth. Consider first where the carbon in the earth's crust resides: Petroleum 201 x 10^18 grams Coal 15 Limestone 64200 Biosphere 0.3 In this article, these figures are made more understandable by physical descriptions of some of the truly colossal deposits of oil, ____coal, and limestone. For example, in the Canadian Rockies, the Livingstone limestone was deposited 2000 feet deep on the margin of the Cordilleran geosyncline but thins eastward to about 1000 feet in the Front ranges. "...it may be calculated to represent at least 10,000 cubic miles of broken crinoid plates." Two implications are: Even if the earth's biosphere were completely converted into oil, ____coal, and limestone each year, the earth would have to be far older than the 6000 years desired by the creationists,

29. [ASSOCIATIONS] Physics, Astronomy and Chronology [SIS C&C Review]
_ ... of the history of the planet we should find a column of sediments averaging 150 km in height; however the sedimentary column is usually less than 1 km. In this column we find fossils and we are told that the simplest specimens belong to the earliest epochs and the more complex to more recent times. Yet such perfect columns do not really exist anywhere. In fact we occasionally find the order reversed with old rock on top of young rock (based on the fossil evidence). Associated with these "unconformities" is often a ____coal interface. Now ____coal is very interesting from the catastrophist's point of view. Together with fossils and petrified wood it is often found mingled with lava or iron-rich layers. Iron, in its turn, is generally associated with meteorites. A combination of iron catalyst, heat, pressure and vibration on vegetable matter produces fuel, oil or ____coal depending on whether water is trapped in the reaction or not. Heat seems to be the crucial factor in the production of fossils. As part proof of this heresy at this point in his

160. [SHATTERCONES] Oberg's Unscientific Method [The Velikovskian]
_ ... no hypervelocity motion employed, yet here the impact came from above, as with meteorites, with the points of the cones pointed downward, away from the force. This indicates that, if the force came from below, as the gas bubbling theory requires, it would produce cones with their apexes pointing upward-just like those found in what are supposed to be impact craters. With another similar test, he also formed cone structures in defiance of what impact theorists say is needed -- hypervelocity impacts. Bucher further presented shatter cones made of bituminous ____coal, which, of course, could not be explained by meteorite impact. He explained that high-pressure gas, impregnating the pores of permeable rock, will make rock so brittle that it will react to stresses by forming shatter cones. In essence, by straightforward geological and mechanical explanations and demonstrations, Bucher produced cones and presented shatter cones via recognisable geological forces. R. S. Dietz simply refused to accept Bucher's evidence and ignored these fundamental contradictions to the impact hypothesis, claiming that shatter cones could only be created by hypervelocity impacts

>49. [TREE RINGS] A World with One Season: Part II [SIS Internet Digest]
_From: SIS Internet Digest 2001:2 (Sep 2001) Home¦ Issue Contents A World with One Season: Part II
_DWARDU CARDONA continued his talk on A World with One Season focussing on tree rings, and whether they always point to there being seasons with which they are associated. Apparently fossilized trees do not always show tree rings. Carboniferous trees lack rings, as do trees found in ____coal swa[m]ps. Trees found in the Permian period, and also in Canada, Europe and Asia often have weak tree rings. South American trees often have strong tree rings. In the Triassic period, and in the Amazon, there are found a mixture of trees both with and without tree rings. Some tropical trees do not grow rings, some grow 3 or 4 rings per season. In the dry season, rings may be missing. What all this shows is that tree rings are not determined by seasons, but by water and growing periods. How did proto-Saturn warm its southern pole as effectively as it warmed the north polar region? One possibility