Earth's Surface Formed Recently

[webolife]

I've been to Devil's Tower. There is little doubt about its lava plug nature from a geologic inspection of the base structure and materials. And the photo shows the natural cooling formation of the columnar basalt grading upward to the vesicular material at the top. It sits in the middle of an alluvial plain. For the same reason as the Washington Scablands, I believe D.T. to have been aided in its erosion by being relatively fresh and hot causing steamblasting to aid in the removal of the surrounding cone.

[norpag]

The Electric Universe Paradigm contains many interesting ideas - particularly at Galactic and Cosmological scales which are deserving of serious scientific consideration.
Unfortunately all the total nonsense on this thread re the recent age of the earths surface - electrical scarring etc make the E U concepts seem ,by association ,to belong to the Lunatic Fringe and will retard the consideration of of these concepts by any scientist with even a rudimentary acquaintance with geology .

[601L1n9FR09]

Hey Webo, D.T. is not basalt it is phonolite porphyry. The columns are huge by comparison to basalt. Anyhow I am totally lunatic fringe on the geology of that entire region so I will leave my interpretations to your imagination.

JD

[Steve Smith]

Don't worry 601Lin9FR09, I'm glad to be on the lunatic fringe with you. I'm sure that norpag will find today's Picture of the Day equally distasteful. I think I've heard or read some version of his words dozens of times over the years. This latest ad hominem logical fallacy is nearly identical to one that was emailed to me directly.

I find it interesting that conventional geologists can't agree on how Devil's Tower was formed. It's one of my favorite geological formations, along with the Brandberg Massif.

[GaryN]

Unfortunately all the total nonsense on this thread re the recent age of the earths surface - electrical scarring etc make the E U concepts seem ,by association ,to belong to the Lunatic Fringe and will retard the consideration of of these concepts by any scientist with even a rudimentary acquaintance with geology .

Are you such a scientist norpag? If so, I have a number of questions for you that I have not been able to find anwers to.

[norpag]

Gary N
Yes I have a PhD in geology. These days you can find answers to most conceivable questions with a few minutes on the Web via Google. But I will play along for a bit- whats on your mind?

[GaryN]

Thanks norpag. Firstly I was trying to locate, if they exist, any supercomputer simulations of mountain building. I have been looking at the Olympic Mountains in Washington state, which are not volcanic in origin. I see subduction and upthrust mentioned, but I find it hard to imagine upthrust producing the razorback ridges and the many pointy peaks. I'd imagine rock cracking and crumbling under such stresses, but not forming the features seen.

If you tell me it is wind and water erosion, I'd need a lot of convincing, as even on much lower peaks it will be found that vitrification has occurred, and that the material is glass like, very sharp edged, very hard and brittle. One piece I have had examined, not by a PhD mind you, has been identified as silicon dioxide, but from the person who acquired the sample, it appeared like it had flowed and slumped. If that is the case, then surely the temperature would need to be higher than for any types of magma I have seen mentioned, and for that to have occurred at the tips of mountains seems very unlikely without a sustained heat source. I have found locally (Vancouver Island) an area where the hillsides are peppered with outcrops that look to have exploded, and lightning would be my guess, but the size of some of the chunks would mean lightning of a magnitude never recorded since Colonisation, but are mentioned in First Nations legend, though not easily datable.
I'm still very much an amateur in all this, but I find it very interesting, and have been looking into some of the writings of Stanislaus Meunier, who I presume you are familiar with.
A Popular science article:
Effects_of_Lightning_on_Rocks_and_Soil
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_S ... s_and_Soil
Anyway, having a well qualified geologist around might keep some of us lunatic fringers on the straight and narrow, so hope you'll stick around!

[norpag]

For a review of Olympic Mountains see http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricula ... 20Trip.pdf
Just eyeballing the picture it looks like a typically glaciated mountain range.
There are well documented rocks formed by lightening strikes - they are called fulgarites see ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgurite
Note their usual size.

[webolife]

601L1n9FR09 -- You are of course correct that Devil's Tower is composed of phonolite, not basalt. My statement was intended [albeit poorly worded] to compare the columnar jointing of the cooling process of the D.T. formation to that of the columnar jointing in [e.g.] the basalt formations of the Columbia Plateau. I observe that of the different explanations for D.T.'s formation only one is actually that of the volcanic plug. Here again I was over eager in my attempt to be brief -- I can go along with the explanation of the Tower as being instead the "stalk" of a laccolith, however the amount of additional erosion needed to account for this makes the catastrophic nature of that process even more immense.

This conclusion is of course offensive to our newly enjoined doctor of Geology, but hey welcome to the discussion, friend norpag. I was conventionally trained in geology myself, so I know from whence you philosophically come to us. I invite you to explore [if you haven't already] our several threads on the issues [some of us] feel controvert the findings of conventional dating methodologies and the standard model of stratigraphy, superposition, etc.; and feel free to pose challenges and questions regarding why many of us feel that recent crustal formation is scientifically supportable. We are not of just one mind around here concerning all of the hows of catastrophism, but you will find that we are thoughtful and open to a variety of causes not found in the standard think tank from which you drank your PhD. Of all the geology minded folk that regularly contribute to this forum, I am possibly [or at least am often accused of being] the most "standard" in my outlook, albeit my persuasion has become quite strongly catastrophic over the last nearly 40 years of study. As I said, stick around and pose your challenges and questions, and don't be afraid to open your mind a wee bit.

[Lloyd]

Web said: Tower as being instead the "stalk" of a laccolith, however the amount of additional erosion needed to account for this makes the catastrophic nature of that process even more immense.

* You don't think Devil's Tower is a lava plug in a former cinder cone volcano? If not, why?

[webolife]

Read the full dialogue. I am inclined toward the belief it is a lava plug, but open to the possibility of it being a laccolith, due to it's porphyrin nature.

[GaryN]

Hi norpag, haven't found any super computer simulations yet, but this page has some simple simulations and animations, but they seem to require a pre-existing landform.
http://wn.com/lundbekegholm
Personally I think many explanations are backwards. With cirques for example, I see them as snow and ice collecting in previously formed excavations from very intense electrical and plasma activity towards the peaks, which are naturally more attractive to electrical potentials. And if erosion is powerful, why does the bottom lip of most circques still exist? Surely the erosion would at least have cut a deep drainage channel, if not have completely obliterated the lower lip.


This image from the Andes is somewhat more extreme than the Olympics, and at the top right there appears to be an Extreme Cirque. I see it as more as an electrode erosion.

Bigger:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/.a/6a00d8341 ... 285970b-pi

Mountain glaciers that are carving a horn, which is a peak shaped into a spire by glacial erosion.
Mount Assiniboine, Canadian Rockies

http://www.geology.wisc.edu/courses/g11 ... s/horn.jpg
Where are the lateral scars from the glaciers cutting into the slopes? Even long glaciated valleys seem to show no lateral erosion.

Obviously we see very different reasons for these features, and I'm doubtful you will ever even consider alternatives to the standard model. Becuse I had not been blinkered by the standard explanations before coming accross the EU and it's alternative explanations, I find it easy to consider alternatives, and electricity and plasma seem to offer a much more logical expanation.
Oh, wait, I'm a (non PhD) electrical/electronics dude...
http://www.delcaminoequestrian.com/imag ... lynets.jpg

[norpag]

Gary N There is no evidence whatsover that glacial landforms ,which have been studied for generations ,are the result of electrical discharge. It is this sort of fantasy thinking that brings the EU paradigm into disrepute.
Y'all would do well to concentrate on astronomy and cosmology where there are clearly Birkeland currents , Z pinches and other plasma phenomena which actually exist in the real world outside of your head.

[starbiter]

Gary N There is no evidence whatsover that glacial landforms ,which have been studied for generations ,are the result of electrical discharge. It is this sort of fantasy thinking that brings the EU paradigm into disrepute.
Y'all would do well to concentrate on astronomy and cosmology where there are clearly Birkeland currents , Z pinches and other plasma phenomena which actually exist in the real world outside of your head.

Hello norpag: The real world would not include most of the explanations being taught in geology classes today. Ultra high pressure metamorphism seems like a good example. Dolomite and missing volcanoes are other examples.

michael steinbacher

[GaryN]

Well, if you dont like the electrical explanation for mountain forming and shaping norpag, what about canyons, like the Grand one?

Have you watched the free videos, The Lightning-Scarred Planet Mars?
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_T6__JDeyw
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-qrnsh83f4
At least have a peek outside of that little academic box you seem to inhabit, some fresh ideas might do you good.