Are Mountains the Result of a Duning Process?

[nick c]

I went looking for "Claude Schaeffer" and found this essay over at the Velikovsky website, and not much else. If you can suggest key titles, I will try to track them down.

Claude Schaeffer was a leading archeologist of the 20th C. He wrote in French and to the best of my knowledge has never been translated to English. He directed the excavation of Ugarit (Ras Shamra), from 1929 until 1982, as well as other sites in the Near East.
He came to the conclusion from his stratigraphic analysis that the ancient near east civilizations were simultaneously destroyed more than once by natural catastrophes. He was not aware of Velikovsky or his work, having published his Stratigraphie comparee et Chronologie de l'Asie Occidentale in 1948, before Worlds In Collision, 1950. Schaeffer never speculated as to the cause of the catastrophes but the obvious compatibility with V's thesis led to correspondence and meetings between the two.
Here is a summary of his work:

The passing of Claude Schaeffer marks the end of a chapter in the heroic age of Near East archeology. His discoveries at Ugarit are epoch making: bridging the gap between Mycenean Greece and the ancient West Semites.

http://books.google.com/books?id=iA057C ... 22&f=false

and:

STRATIGRAPHIE COMPAREE ET CHRONOLOGIE DE L'ASIE OCCIDENTALE: IIIe ET
IIe MILLENAIRES (OUP: Oxford & London).

In this book, Claude Schaeffer, 20th century's most eminent French
archaeologist and excavator of Ugarit, Enkomi and Malatya, analysed
and compared the stratigraphies and destruction layers of some 40
important excavation sites of the Near and Middle East.

http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc022497.html

Nick

[starbiter]

Hello Nick C: Glad to see you here. I've enjoyed your posts in the past. Do you have any thoughts on my improbable model?

Hello again Lloyd: Shock Dynamics is not my cup of tea. It doesn't seem to mesh with what i know of mythology. It would cause flooding, but not the pattern of duning followed by flood and then repeated. This seems to be your passion. I strongly suggest you start a thread on the forum to fully present the details. For now i'm trapped by duning. I don't see you changing sides.

I was hoping for comments on hydrology preventing mountains. Anybody. Tiny little streams flow at the base of large canyons of Granite and Basalt. With the time line we catastrophists share there would be no time for erosion. My model has the canyon being prevented by wind blown material being flushed away during duning. Water is great at removing sediment. Not so good with rock. Even Sandstone. According to the Geologists at Canyonlands the rivers remove the areas that were Siltstone and Mudstone. The areas that were dunes are almost impervious to erosion. It's the undercutting of the dunes by the removal of sediments that puts the Sandstone Dunes in jeopardy.

Another point about the Petrified Dunes around Canyonlands. According to the geologists the Rock Dune would be impossible without mountains of earth being piled atop the dune. Miles, literally.. Then the material above the dune needs to leach into the dune while heating and squeezing it. Now this is the good part. In an area that seems to be predisposed to accumulating dirt the process miraculously reverses itself. All the way down to the sleeping dune. It's all removed. Above the petrified dune all of the miles of magic earth are gone. I have visions of Geologists sitting around at night getting really drunk. They have to reconcile what's actually in the desert. Apparently there are no limits with this drunken process. Miles of earth accumulating and disappearing. No problem. Mountains moving 50 miles across the desert, no problem. And my favorite, multiple volcanoes vanishing. No trace. No problem. There doesn't seem to be anyone to keep them honest. I should confess, most of my model was formulated under the influence of Chardonnay.

Flippant, michael

[nick c]

Hi Michael,
Excellent work, beautiful photos.
The sharp features, tortured canyons, and jagged mountains of the western US have the look of recent catastrophe. I have no doubt, there are not any forces in operation today that can account for those landscapes, even granting the assumption of unlimited timescales. After reading Earth In Upheaval almost 40 years ago, I could never look at the mountain ranges, canyons, cliffs, etc. without imagining the awesome forces that must have tortured our planet and reshaped it's surface in what was geologically only yesterday. With the arrival of the Electric Universe the reshaping of the surfaces of terrestrial planets has been given a plausible explanation.
The dynamics of encounters between planetary sized bodies would no doubt have a multitude of effects involving: electrical discharge maching, exchanges of material, displacements of the hydrosphere and atmosphere, tectonic stresses and adjustments, and probably other things we have not even considered.
I think that Lloyd and yourself probably agree about much more than you disagree, at least in the "big picture." The debate is in the details.

Just East of the above mountain i met a Smelter who tried to remove Gold, and Silver from Ore using Plasma and accidentally produced Granite, Schist, Basalt and all the types of rock found on the planet. He is re-doing the experiments and i'm semi-patiently waiting for the results.

Fascinating. Experimental duplication of that process would be an eye opener for geologists!

This is a great thread, you're work is appreciated.

Nick

[Kapriel]

Just FYI:
There is a 45-min. documentary program on Velikovsky's "Worlds In Collision" that can be watched free on google-videos here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 4841359869#

It's old, maybe filmed in the 70's (my guess), but it's good because it reviews the basics from Velikovsky's work. There are other videos linked on the page, too.

On a tangent note: I didn't know Worlds in Collision was found open on Einstein's desk when he died. Or is this an urban legend? Anyone know?

[starbiter]

Hello Kapriel: http://www.varchive.org/bdb/main.htm These are the correspondence between Dr. V and Dr. E. They start of cold but warm up beautifully.
http://www.varchive.org/bdb/iwould.htm This one is quite good. Dr. V goes EU.

Thanks for the kind words Nick. A read Earth in Upheavel around the same time as you. Dr. V suggested i subscribe to Pensee. Thanks to Dave Talbott i had my mind blown. I had a chance to hear Dr. Velikovsy defend himself and Ralph Juergens lay out what became EU. Lost touch for a while until Holoscience and Wal came along. We are very lucky. Have you ever thought about how special these people are in the history of the planet? I pinch myself. Life is good.

Lucky michael

[allynh]

Just FYI:
There is a 45-min. documentary program on Velikovsky's "Worlds In Collision" that can be watched free on google-videos here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 841359869#

Awesome videos. It's that kind of thing that I hoped was available. Of the links listed, these are the two big videos I like.

This is a good summary of the book from Horizon.

Worlds in Collision: Immanuel Velikovsky - 45 minutes
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 4841359869#

The modern introduction to this one seems like a backhanded slap from the CBC, then you watch the video itself and it's okay. It is a cleaner version than the one at http://www.varchive.org/bonds/bonds.htm

Immanuel Velikovsky The Bonds of the Past - 55 minutes
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 1362502849#

Then you have Sagan misrepresenting Velikovsky's proposed orbits. Sagan made no attempt to honestly show what Velikovsky's said. After watching the two videos above, the Sagan clip stands out as shocking.

Cosmos: "Velikovsky"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MlN7iVIuhk

I have got to get Mathematica and start playing with it to model both Velikovsky's proposed orbit and the Saturn Event.

Thanks...

[starbiter]

http://www.grazian-archive.com/quantavo ... s/va_1.pdf

The Velikovsky Affair is a wonderful book. The parts by Juergens are my favorite. It's the first book i read concerning the Dr. I wasn't smart enough to understand Worlds. After reading The V Affair i was forced to try WiC again. After the second reading of Worlds in Collision i started to get a feel for the big picture and requested an audience with Dr. Velikovsky. During our second meeting he granted me permission to do a documentary. I wanted to save the world with the truth. I wasn't able to raise the money and the Dr. passed away. The CBC documentary is quite good and didn't change the world very much. I doubt if i would have done anything better. I like seeing a young Dr. CJ Ransom.

The horrible things people hear about Dr. Velikovsky are rarely anything but lies. On the other hand his name is toxic in academic circles so most people need to keep an arms length approach to avoid contamination. A close association means you spend all your time defending the lies.

When i stumbled on Holoscience it took my breath away. I got it. At least after the second reading. But the part about Velikovsky really pissed me off. I felt Wal gave V a backhanded compliment. He said Velikovsky was essential to the program, but had been shown to be wrong on history.

http://www.holoscience.com/synopsis.php?page=3
"Since then sceptical scholars have shown Velikovsky's historical perspective of cataclysmic events to be wrong. However, his basic premise of planetary encounters has been confirmed and the details fleshed out to an extraordinary degree."


I sent Wal an email and i was snippy [some things never change]. I assume Velikovsky made mistakes. He took on so many issues head on and made so many predictions based on the eyewitness accounts. The odds were against him maintaining a 100 percent score. I've been looking for flaws from the beginning. My point to Wal was this. If Velikovsky had a problem with Wal's work, Velikovsky would have given very specific points. And then supplied footnotes. Wal didn't. To my amazement i heard back from Wal a few weeks later. He said after some consultation the best case against Velikovsky was that Tuthmoses III was not Shishak. This was Velikovsky's position. I went to SIS which seems to be the best source of information on Myth. They try to be fair.
http://www.holoscience.com/synopsis.php?page=3
Two thirds of the way down in the link they deal with the issue.

6.3 Ages in Chaos Revisionists.
Revisionists in this group are those working on the basis that Tuthmoses III was Shishak (T3=S). This was the basis of the revisions of Velikovsky and Courville, and the T3=S equation retains significant support among others.

Tony Chavasse has completed a revision based on T3=S, in part by preferring Josephus and Whiston's Biblical dates to those of Thiele. By dating Solomon to 1050-1010 his revised chronology retains Manetho's dynastic sequence, with overlaps in places, from D18 through to D26. He has then gone on to use this chronology to identify in detail a number of catastrophe cycles of 30yr and upward duration. These cycles point to another major event in the 'Typhon series', caused by impacts with extraterrestrial material, occurring again in 2011. He is now devoting much effort to creating an awareness of this, so steps may be taken to mitigate the effect of the pending impact.

Michael Reade, after his ground-breaking, and as yet largely unchallenged analysis of the Ninsianna (Venus) Tablets and 'Star Ceilings' found in Egyptian tombs, has identified an 'Era of Disturbances' around the approximate dates 880-740BC. He continues to work on historical synchronisms around this era, and is quietly confident a solution will gradually emerge which confirms the T3=S equation, although he accepts this may take some time to achieve.

Jan Sammer was at one time a researcher for Velikovsky, and like Eddie Schorr amassed a lot of evidence against the myth of the Greek Dark Ages. He has recently made a huge contribution to the revisionist's cause by helping to make much of Velikovsky's unpublished work available in 1999 via the Internet. In a note near the end of Velikovsky's paper on applying radiocarbon dating, he has drawn to our attention to the publication, in a Canadian Medical Journal, of the first known independent radiocarbon dating of the linen wrapping of a mummy firmly dated to the reign of Setnakht. The date obtained was 345BCE +/- 75yr.[27]

Dale Murphie is an Australian, and a long time scholar of ancient history. While his revision has not yet been published, his papers so far clearly show support for the T3=S equation. In a recent paper in AEON, he has also shown that the archaeological evidence from Timna can be interpreted as offering support to Velikovsky's placement of Ramesses III. In a paper in C&CR 1998:1 he suggests that it is wrong to assume that Manetho's dynasties should automatically be read as being in chronological order. He promises soon to rekindle belief in Ramesses II = the Biblical Necho, and Ramesses III = the Nectanebos of Diodorus, as first proposed by Velikovsky in Rameses II and His Time and Peoples of the Sea. While hoping this may not prove 'a bridge too far', we all look forward to his next publications.

6.4. More Radical Revisionists.
For this group, either Shishak, as dated broadly by the Thiele chronology, is identified with Egyptian kings before Tuthmoses III or after Ramesses VI, or both the Egyptian and OT chronologies are revised downwards, which in turn redefines the Shishak placement.

I came away from reading this thinking the issue is still in play. No knock out punch. Velikovsky could be wrong on this point. But if someone unfamiliar read Wal's comment, the impression is Velikovsky was discredited. He didn't know his subject. I don't feel that's the case. A small point maybe. I tell many, many people to read Holoscience. Number one on my list. If they read that V's historical ideas have been shown to be flawed they won't be able to embrace his work fully, and that would be sad. I warn people about this point. In the big picture these points are like the dot above an i, or crossing your t. My point is, if you hear negative things about Velikovsky, try to keep them in perspective. The vast majority of the work seems sound, IMHO. If he has made mistakes, they were honest mistakes. A translation problem can occure, new information can come to light.

Wal's biggest fan, michael

[starbiter]

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UT ... 5&t=p&z=10

I can't cut and paste the PDF. Sorry. The second page on the right discusses an interruption of the Saltation Process. This is when blowing sand reaches a speed of 3/MS. The bouncing of the particles is reduced and the Electrical Charge of the sand is reduced. They think this lack of bouncing is the result of the sand becoming suspended in the air. It's now flying. There would still be some bouncing i suppose, but the bouncing is reduced. This opens up some interesting possibilities. The winds during the Plague of Darkness were of major hurricane strength, if not greater, from the West. I've pondered whether charged particles would be more attractive to dry land than water. This might explain the mountain chain from Alaska to Chile.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&hl= ... 38&t=p&z=2

But if the sand is flying a charge differential might not be required. The distance between Asia and the Americas is over 5000 Miles in most places. With little in between the continents, the amount of particulates arriving at the American West Coast could be greatly enhanced by sand being suspended. Anything rising from the coast would begin the process of duning.

A quick digression. The coast might be somewhere other than where we find it today. The survivors claim it went beyond the Continental Shelf.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&hl= ... 82&t=h&z=8

The Los Angels Basin would have been a drainage.

The Redondo Trench, off of Redondo Beach, is over a mile deep in places.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&hl= ... 8&t=h&z=11

This was also the area being inundated by Sloshing Oceans full of sediment.

End of digression.

So the process of duning begins. If the process runs into water the duning stops and sedimentation begins. Duning would be faster than sedimentation because of the flying sand. The San Joaquin valley was submerged. The waterline of the San Joaquin was the West Side of the Sierra.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&hl= ... 64&t=p&z=7

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&hl= ... 91&t=p&z=9

Everything West of the East Face of the Sierra is Windward. The East Face is the Slip Face.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&hl= ... 8&t=p&z=11

The river running East to West in the middle of the map prevented accumulation causing the canyon.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&hl= ... 5&t=p&z=10

I'll add an image at the end, of the Slip Face. I'm standing East Of Alabama Hills looking West toward Mount Whitney. The East Face is similar to the Petrified Dunes, just bigger and made of Granite. It's one piece that runs from South of Whitney [around Lone Pine] to around Bishop in the North. I hope you can make sense of the different faces. If not please ask for a clarification.



Hoping this is lucid, michael

[Kapriel]

Seismic activity still happens all along the Pacific coast. The active zone just scooted over so now it runs parallel to the mountain chains, rather than beneath them.

Mountain building continues...

[ancientd]

Dearest Starbiter

I feel moved to come to Wal Thornhills defense n this matter of Velikovsky.. Wal went to Melbourne uni slightly before myself and as he tells me V was paramount in him ,if you like, rebelling against the status quo of academic paradigms that then,as now, ruled much of the education system and scientific community. I personally interviewed him in my film ''Baalbek city of the thundergodsd'', which immensely touches on the Velokovskian influence. In this he totally acknowledges the role Velikovsky palyed as a pioneer in the electric universe realization as against the minute influence of gravity ( although obviously connected )and secondly acknowledged the part that Velikovsky pioneered in realizing the chaotic part planets played in mankinds destiny. I quote a small part of the narrative

Interview with Physicist Wal Thornhill regarding Velikovsky and the development of the Electric Universe

Peter :''As a Plasma physicist what is your view on Velikovsky’s books.
Wal I think he nailed some important truths. Certainly I think he nailed the planets as the cause of cataclysmic events on Earth. But as importantly he perceived the truth of the electrical universe which touches on all parts of the solar system down to mankind’s history and evolution''.
He also goes on to talk about the part played in influensing Einstein and the revelation of Jupiter's electro magnetic nature which he convinced Einstein of in a very practical way via new facts that came to light from space exploration in their time.I will send you a DVDcopy of this interview with Wal if you like . email p.jupp@ ugrad.unimelb.edu.au. Wal actually like yourself has talked to Velikovsky. I think the point is that Wal ( if I may be so bold Wal) sees him as a powerful pioneer but the conundrum has now moved on. I personally believe that Velikovsky with support from such meticulous researchers as Jan Samner was so incredibly ground breaking that he requires no defence. But I am always reminded of the story of creative genius. First they are ridiculed. Then they are copied and then the truth becomes mainstream and the people say "oh we new that all along"( or roughly that)


all the best Peter Mungo Jupp

[starbiter]

Mungo Dude: Your defense of Wal is greatly appreciated, but not necessary. It was not litely that i signed my name as his biggest fan. It was from the heart. The fact that he got back to me is soo cool. He has continued to answer my questions. If i were religious i would say i'm blessed. Velikovsky and Thornill have recognized me and answered my questions. Step back and think of that.
It's just the wording of the synopsis on Holoscience i have issues with. I'd prefer the latest info, even if unflattering. links to the latest debate. No holds bared. Saying V was wrong["Since then sceptical scholars have shown Velikovsky's historical perspective of cataclysmic events to be wrong"]may prevent someone from reading everything available. Even Ages in Chaos, Peoples, and Ramses, all of which made my eyes bleed. There should not be any barriers. Just encouragement. But keep looking for problems, and see if you can reconcile them. If not, run away. I've been able to reconcile so far. It's really interesting.
I'll continue to warn the people i send to Holoscience about not disregarding the good Dr. This is my habit.
Wal is the Dude.

Kindest regards to my Velikovsian Friend, Student of Wal, michael

[webolife]

Starbiter,
I appreciate what you are trying to say about duning, but it still seems as though you have causation reversed in many cases. Any traveler through passes or hiker of mountain trails with even the most elementary understanding of geology can show you time after time the interplay [eg. interbedding] of basalts and sedimentary rock, such as sandstones [incl. shales, slates], and especially limestones... in most mountain ranges this interplay brings in plutons, ie. intrusive igneous formations, as well. Also you suggest that river systems determine mountain topography, but just the reverse is true... mountains force a tributarial watershed while plains force a meandering or spreading system. Of course the converse is also true, eg. erosion cuts deep valleys while deposition produces a delta or lichtenberg stream shape. What we see in the geologic record [based on the analysis of sediment flow, thickness, bedding planes, etc.] is that formerly the topography on earth was virtually mountainless. I am not saying that wind plays no part in geology, of course this is not true. But when it comes to analyzing a mountain system, there is pressure, heat, folding, volcanism, erosion, flooding, and metamorphism happening throughout in a a mixture of processes that only occasionally demonstrate duning processes. A primarily sedimentary plateau on the other hand can show much evidence of duning, both wind and water current originated. The process you seem to be missing in your analysis is uplift, which results from both isotatic forces and horizontal pressures due to continental drift. You also seem to exclude the catastrophic possibility that all of the abovementioned processes may have been shaped while they were still in their infancy... eg. the Grand Canyon may have been carved by regional [largescale] runoff before the various layers were completely solidified... again no great "geologic time" involved... duning is just not what we see in the mountain core regions... but is a bigtime player in the sedimentary plateaus.

[ancientd]

Isn't it time for the Devil's advocate? An observer of Lichtenberg channelling sees that it starts with a thick part and develops a myriad of tentacles. Now most people obviously observe that water cuts the steams from the highest to the lowest point with thin streams flowing into ever larger rivers and even causing a change in pathway with oxbows etc.
However I'm really starting ( from practical observations) to believe that river systems may of started at the coastline and be etched uphill by some form of massive electrical discharge. Then water naturally flowed gravitationally down an existing channel .Perhaps this same discharge could even produce the coastline with it's incredible and puzzling concentration of sand and evenly sized pebbles. Witness the number of half moon bays that rivers flow into. These seem like half craters and to me seem very hard to explain there formation. I no longer believe that wave action caused the original beach and sandy dune deposits. In many coastal areas the etching through high basalt, limestone, concretized sand dunes and granite just doesn't make sense even if the ancestral rivers were so called ice age melt'' which it is surmised ( if you believe in the ice age ) were much more corrosive than present day sysstems ( this theory is cited to explain just about every geographical anomaly ( even Velikovsky used it) ).
I know we traditionally have electric discharges flowing from high points to low but could an Earth driven Telluric current of travelled uphill and produced electrical etching as the mythology of many races tells. From the double headed serpents to the twin crocodiles to the rivers of fire that built mountains and created rivers.. ???

[starbiter]

Morning Webo: We agree completely on sedimentary plateaus. I should probably just say goodbye now. But no. Thanks for giving me so many things to answer. You give me something to push back against. Priceless. Thanks.

I don't know where to start. I'm on the forum assuming the vast majority are EU Catastrophists. I think that's safe. If your not an EU Catastrophist you belong on a Darwin Uniformity forum. The catastrophist model gives us a 12,000 year time frame for mountain formation. No more! Maybe less. I don't know the details of the break-up of the Saturnian System. The break-up might have been the beginning of the mountain building process, or the bulk of the mountains occurred during the Venus-Mars period. What ever happened during the break-up of the Saturnian system would be covered by the Venus/Mars events.The Venus/Mars events occurred between 7000 and 3500-2800 years ago. If this is the case you must throw away your Mainstream Geology Textbook. It's better to start over. Using the 1,000,000,000 year model with a maximum 12,000 year time frame seems like a stretch. Even with a billion year time frame the mainstream model seems flawed to me.

If you're an EU Catastrophist then you should be familiar with Dr. Velikovsky. If not, your totally unqualified to discuss this. Re-reading is almost necessary. Agreement is not required, but a familiarity is. I've asked the inside members about their problems with Dr. V. It seems to be a matter of 1500 years. Maybe 3500. Instead of 1495 BCE for the Venus events, it's as early as 5000 BCE. Other than that, instead of Venus being the main force, it might have been Marsas the agent. That has no bearing on my model. Same with the date. 5000 BCE still works nicely. There might be details like an observation from the break-up of the Saturnian system attributed to Venus. This doesn't affect my model. The point here is, if what is described in Worlds in Collision actually happened, as i said before, my model is inevitable. It's based on the observations of the witnesses.The mainstream model explodes. I hope i can help you to see what i see. My photographs really don't do it.

Your mention of the Sedimentary Plateaus is Germaine to all this. The process is out in the open. It's there to see. The hydrology controls everything. It's plain to see the formations are created around the river system. As plasma is scalable, so is geology. The mid size mountains share the same patterns as the Sedimentary Plateaus. So do the big boys. The Rockies and Sierra have the same patterns. The mainstream textbook has such different explanations for the different types of mountains, and they all look the same. As Geologists have told me, "they look the same because that's how nature works". That kind of thinking will keep you right 100 percent of the time. That's how nature works.

Our views on the role of water during this process are mirror opposites. I have river/drainage systems preventing accumulation during duning. This would be a rapid process. You have water eroding canyons of very hard rock that would require millions of years.
Your model invokes "pressure, heat, folding, volcanism, erosion, flooding, and metamorphism". Again, millions and millions of years. The intrusion of Granite requires millions of years for the mountains of dirt surrounding the Granite to erode away.


You mentioned formations with layers of basalt and sandstone. Some of them are 100 miles long. The basalt would need to flow over a round object without filling in the valley right next to the round object for 100 miles. Many of the round objects are 1500 feet tall. I can't understand a basalt flow like this.


Any uplift i've seen is over large areas, not individual mountains.


You may wish to return to the mountains with an open mind. Take a fresh look if you care to.


Concerning my comment on the necessity of reading Dr. Velikovsky. I'd like to put the question to the core members of the group. Can you be a Catastrophist without reading Worlds in Collision. I find the two incompatible. Without this minimum effort, any hope of communicating this would be futile.

Thanks for allowing me to answer your questions, michael

[starbiter]

Morning Ancientd: Concerning the rivers as Electrical Excavation remnants, i suppose it's possible. Being stupid myself, i try to keep things simple. If water is flowing it will seek out the lowest point. That's what i see. Rivers at low points. Then it appears a current of some sort ran through the system turning the surrounding area into something resembling pottery [rocks]. The mineral water in the system would make the process more likely to have occurred in this order, i think. I'd like everything to be as EU as possible. I'm an advocate. But if a simple explanation is possible it requires our attention. So if the rivers are the result of Electrical Excavation i'd think it was really cool. But my money is on the less appealing simple model, sadly.

Pimple on the ass of Thornhill, and proud of it, michael