Science, Creation & EvolutionFossilization rates and volcanic eruptionsIf you folks will allow me to inject a little science in here....
First of all, fossilization in terms of mineralization (as opposed to carbon sheets or imprints) is something we know literally nothing about. There have been NO successful attempts in any lab I am aware of in the scientific literature to fossilize something. We can, and do, get mineral accretions in somewhat short order, but we cannot get biolologic material to fossilize in terms of the material itself being replaced by minerals. And yet this is precisely what we see in petrified trees and many ancient bones!
We do know a few things about the process. It requires both rapid inundation and rapid drainage. That alone means Noah's flood was not responsible. The drainage was NOT rapid! It also requires some kind of highly mineralized matrix to be surrounding the biologic material.
Now we can repeat these steps in all manner of ways, and we still can't get anything to mineralize! It's weird, actually....
Personally, I don't think volcanoes are primary causative agents, although the ash from them, mixed with water upwelling from under the crust and therefore high in mineral content, may be something which enabled fossilization.
About trees/logs. They sure do sink! Up at Spirit Lake, at Mt. St. Helens, there is still, from what I understand, a remnant log mat from the forest that was destroyed and washed down into the lake. However, at the bottom of the lake, within the first months, were a number of trees. They tended to be the ones with large root sections attached, and sometimes still entangled in soil and rock. The interesting thing is that these trees sunk to the bottom and stayed there in upright or almost upright positions. Gradually the silt collected around them, burying them bit by bit. Above, the bark was rubbed off the tree trunks as they jostled together, became waterlogged, and sunk to the bottom in thick layers. Within a year it was starting to coalify.
Around both upright and prone tree trunks.
On the surface, originally, there were trees which did not sink right away, but were nevertheless floating in semi-upright positions, with one end pulled under by the heavier root end. Later these would sink. At a higher level of detritus than the first sinking trees. later others would sink. Each time, when the root system was still attached at all, the result would be an 'upright' tree, with its roots, or part of them, in the muck at the bottom.
When we see this type of thing in petrified forests, we are told that these are successive forestations, taking thousands, if not millions, of years to form layer after layer!
Baloney. We have a demonstration at Spirit Lake that this type of burial can be the result of one catastrophe and only a few years.
Whether or not the logs at Spirit Lake will fossilize, we don't know. But the process we have seen is remarkable and has changed a lot about the way we think of coal formation.
Diamonds? They can and do form quite rapidly under the right natural conditions.
Oil? May not all come from biologic remains.
Here are some links:
Spirit Lake:
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-157.htm -- article by one of the scientists who has kept an ongoing study of the area.
http://www.grisda.org/origins/10009.htm -- another article with some good photos
about diamonds:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1402.asp -- first of all, we are not really SURE how they are formed
http://www.mwtb.org/html/410700.html -- references to two geologists who present the fact that diamonds can be formed and brought to the earth's surface very quickly.
on oil formation:
Generation of methane in the Earth's mantle: In situ high pressure-temperature measurements of carbonate reduction
Henry P. Scott, Russell J. Hemley, Ho-kwang Mao, Dudley R. Herschbach, Laurence E. Fried, W. Michael Howard, and Sorin Bastea
PNAS published September 20, 2004
[Open Access: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0405930101v1.pdf]
Abstract: We present in situ observations of hydrocarbon formation via carbonate reduction at upper mantle pressures and temperatures. Methane was formed from FeO, CaCO3-calcite, and water at pressures between 5 and 11 GPa and temperatures ranging from 500°C to 1,500°C. The results are shown to be consistent with multiphase thermodynamic calculations based on the statistical mechanics of soft particle mixtures. The study demonstrates the existence of abiogenic pathways for the formation of hydrocarbons in the Earth's interior and suggests that the hydrocarbon budget of the bulk Earth may be larger than conventionally assumed.
>From the Conclusion: Methane is expected to form inorganically at
>mantle pressures and temperatures
from any carbonate species, such as FeCO3- siderite or MgCO3-magnesite, in the presence of H2O at oxygen fugacities near the wu stite-magnetite fO2 buffer. Such conditions may be widespread in the mantle and can be moderated by the presence of iron-bearing phases such as Fe2SiO4-fayalite, FeStroilite, or accessory minerals such as FeCr2O4-chromite and FeTiO3-ilmenite. Indeed, our analysis shows that methane production is thermodynamically favorable under a broad range of high pressure-temperature conditions. The calculations indicate that methane production is most favored at 500°C and pressures <7 GPa; higher temperatures are expected to lead to CO2 and CO production through a reforming equilibrium with methane. The wide pressure-temperature-composition stability field of methane documented here has broad implications for the hydrocarbon budget of the planet and indicates that methane may be a more prevalent carbon-bearing phase in the mantle than previously thought, with implications for the deep hot biosphere (25). In particular, isotopic evidence indicating the prevalence of biogenic hydrocarbons pertains to economically exploited hydrocarbon gas reservoirs, largely in sedimentary basins (2); these observations and analyses do not rule out the potential for large abiogenic reservoirs in the mantle. Moreover, the assumption that CO2 is the sole carrier of mantle-derived noble gasses (26, 27) should be reevaluated. Finally, the potential may exist for the high-pressure formation of heavier hydrocarbons by using mantle- generated methane as a precursor. [Ref 25 is to Gold, T. (1999) The Deep Hot Biosphere (Copernicus, New York).]
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Other reports of this research:
Petroleum under pressure
Belle Dumé is Science Writer at PhysicsWeb
PhysicsWeb, 14 September 2004 http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/8/9/9
Earth's mantle can generate methane
Untapped fossil-fuel reserves could be hidden deep within our planet.
Zeeya Merali
news@nature.com: 14 September 2004 http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040913/ ... 913-5.html
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