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Rapid Rifting in Ethiopia Challenges Evolutionary Model
ICR News ^ | Brian Thomas, M.S.

Posted on 11/18/2009 9:13:37 AM PST by GodGunsGuts

Volcanic activity in 2005 accompanied the formation of a deep, wide rift in Ethiopia on part of the 4,000-mile-long north-to-south trending Great Rift Valley fault. Studies show that the injection of mantle material that “unzipped” the earth along the fault operated the same way as similar material does in less-accessible undersea rifts. Scientists knew that rifts were formed in this manner, but the suddenness of this one’s formation astonished them...

(Excerpt) Read more at icr.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: africa; belongsinreligion; bible; catastrophism; catholic; christian; christianity; christianright; creation; ethiopia; evolution; evolutionnotscience; genesis; geology; god; godsgravesglyphs; intelligentdesign; judaism; notasciencetopic; propellerbeanie; religiousright; science; spammer
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To: GodGunsGuts
Of course there's a simple explanation for this: the expanding earth hypothesis (see http://www.expanding-earth.org/, for example). The only problem with that theory is that, if true, it means that the earth will explode relatively soon. As did the protoplanets that once orbited between Mars and Jupiter, and the even more ancient one beyond Neptune (see Dr. Tom VanFlandern's MetaResearch site for more compelling information on the Exploding Planet Hypothesis).

The only good news? “Relatively soon” in geological terms can be a very, very long time. Unless 2012 really does bring us to the end of time!

Booga booga.

21 posted on 11/18/2009 10:01:04 AM PST by earglasses (I was blind, and now I hear...)
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To: GodGunsGuts
I can only imagine the effects of the sudden weight of water had upon various parts of the earth though Ps. 104:8 briefly describes it. But here is a rift opening up daily it seems.

Talk about people drifting a part! This rift is opening up quicker then the Incredible Hulk's shirt seams.

However there is a bright side to this: This would be a good time to buy beach front property while it's cheap.

22 posted on 11/18/2009 10:02:16 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: OldNavyVet
Other than that, contrary to popular belief, ostriches do NOT bury their heads in the dirt in order to not see things they do not want to see.

And it isn't just how they “see” things, it is, by their own words, how they describe them.

The Big Bang, thought by many Christians to be evidentiary support for the Biblical concept of the universe having an actual physical beginning (many thought the universe eternal), has been described by Creationists as “evolutionary Big Bang theory”, because it contradicts their timeline. I don't remember Astronomers factoring in Biological evolution through natural selection of genetic variation into their tabulations; but there you have it.

23 posted on 11/18/2009 10:05:29 AM PST by allmendream (Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be RE-distributed?)
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To: GodGunsGuts

More creat BS. The San Andreas Fault in the 1906 quake. moved about 10 feet.

None of this is new. More crap.


24 posted on 11/18/2009 10:06:31 AM PST by Wacka
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To: HamiltonJay

Isn’t uniformitarianism declaring that all changes occur in a slow uniform pace? Whatever we see happening now can be extrapolated for all periods of time, right?!

Not based in reality but that’s OK since it fits w/ the evolutionary paradigm.


25 posted on 11/18/2009 10:12:45 AM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: Pistolshot
We read of flood and destruction in Mayan records, Egyptian records, Chinese and Hindu stories, Icelandic and Nordic sagas, Babylonian epics, Native American lore, polynesian, Eskimos and Mongols, the list is endless.

You left out New Orleans.

26 posted on 11/18/2009 10:15:42 AM PST by OldNavyVet (Don't drink the Koolaid.)
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To: OldNavyVet

Since we are dealing in the historical sciences, we are also dealing with multiple competing hypothesis. As such, we now know that massive trenches can open up in a geologic blink of an eye; which, as the article points out, weakens the uniformitarian gradualism of Charles Lyll, and stengthens the catastrophic plate tectonics model (based, as it is, on a young, universal flood model).


27 posted on 11/18/2009 10:15:49 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: GodGunsGuts
Scientists knew that rifts were formed in this manner, but the suddenness of this one’s formation astonished them...

Scientists seem to be easily astonished and astonished by an awful lot.

I guess that means that they don't know as much as they think they do.

28 posted on 11/18/2009 10:41:40 AM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: ElectricStrawberry
...because one specific thing may happen quickly does not mean that other entirely different things do as well.

Nobody said it did. What is showed is that you can't count on everything happening the way it was once thought to.

It casts doubt on previously held assumptions, making them less tenable for support of any theory.

29 posted on 11/18/2009 10:51:19 AM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Yollopoliuhqui

Well, interesting that they all have Flood accounts.

It could be because they are all based on the same event.


30 posted on 11/18/2009 10:52:39 AM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom

LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!


31 posted on 11/18/2009 10:53:34 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: OldNavyVet

Interesting that you take an evos word for how creationists *see* things.

Do you always go by rumor and word of mouth?

Or did you ever think of checking with creationists themselves instead of accepting a biased take on something?


32 posted on 11/18/2009 10:54:24 AM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: BrandtMichaels

Nope, lets assume we have periods that are 10 times that amount and periods that are 1/10th that amount, hell even 100 times that amount.. you still don’t get to 6000 years, its laughable. My statements didn’t require absolute uniformity, they pointed out that if you had averaged movements of the highest amounts ever seen, its still 14+ MILLION YEARS.. some years you might get many times this amount of movement and other years likely fractions of it... but if you use the higest ever recorded to date as the average, you still get 14 Million+ years. Even by a factor of 10 you are at 1.4 Million years, hell a factor of 100, is still 140,000 years.. there is no way you get to the foolish earth is 6000 years old nonsense.

I’m using the largest movement recorded to date and extrapolating it out.. if you want to talk uniformity, you’d have to average that 2.25 inches per month against all the months over the last 100+ years of directly observable data, and millions of years of extrapolated data, we have data on the rift valley movements of micrometers per year of exact and estimates. None show any sort of plate movement anywhere on the earth that measures anywhwere close to 100 miles + per month.

Hell even if we have movements 10 or 100 times the largest amount recorded for periods of time, you still can’t get plates moving from rift to subduction over thousands of miles in MONTHS.. its laughable.

I’m actually given your argument the benefit of the doubt by using this first observed highest ever recording the average over time. When in reality the movement over time on average has been much much smaller than this when averaged out.

Plates don’t move thousands of miles in months, lets imagine if we will the forces along the subduction zone if a plate was SUBDUCTING at a rate of 100 miles per month.. which is the rate the theory you are trying to defend would require to move from rift to subduction in MONTHS even over the shortest distances between undersea rifts and continental plates.

Sorry, but there is no way you get to a few thousand year old earth by any reasonable analysis of any known observable facts.


33 posted on 11/18/2009 10:54:37 AM PST by HamiltonJay
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To: GodGunsGuts
Since we are dealing in the historical sciences

I'd classify Evolution as a scientific account of a system of natural phenomena; aka "history."

Creationism, however, is neither science or history; it is a doctrine without allowance for skeptical or scientific questioning.

34 posted on 11/18/2009 10:58:20 AM PST by OldNavyVet (Don't drink the Koolaid.)
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To: HamiltonJay
Whatever ideas one has has about the age of the earth, this rift that formed is unlike anything expected by the researchers. And it has been much faster than 27 inches a year. Here are some of the comments from the PsyOrg, 11/2/09 article:

“The new study, published in the latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters, suggests that the highly active volcanic boundaries along the edges of tectonic ocean plates may suddenly break apart in large sections, instead of little by little as has been predominantly believed........

Seafloor ridges are made up of sections, each of which can be hundreds of miles long. Because of this study, we now know that each one of those segments can tear open in a just a few days.”

It seems that though the normal opening up of areas like the Great Rift Valley are rather slow, volcanic activity can speed up the process over a great distance to just days.

So calculating the pace of a tortoise is fine unless he is punted some distance along every so often.

35 posted on 11/18/2009 10:58:50 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: HamiltonJay
Sorry, but there is no way you get to a few thousand year old earth by any reasonable analysis of any known observable facts. That won't stop them. Who says they analyze or even know how to analyze anything? Their answer: God did it! The bible told me so!
36 posted on 11/18/2009 11:00:32 AM PST by Wacka
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To: HamiltonJay
Sorry, but there is no way you get to a few thousand year old earth by any reasonable analysis of any known observable facts. That won't stop them. Who says they analyze or even know how to analyze anything? Their answer: God did it! The bible told me so!
37 posted on 11/18/2009 11:00:50 AM PST by Wacka
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To: GodGunsGuts
It demonstrates numerically how earth’s ocean plates moved rapidly across the earth’s surface and were recycled into the earth's interior in mere months, rather than the millions of years assumed in the evolutionary model.

Utter nonsense. This is the kind of stuff that makes Bible believers (like me) seem foolish.

38 posted on 11/18/2009 11:11:15 AM PST by onedoug
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To: GodGunsGuts

Thanks for the ping!


39 posted on 11/18/2009 11:12:47 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: GodGunsGuts; BrandtMichaels

Darwin wrote to Lyell in excitement of witnessing a massive earthquake in Chile and seeing the ground rise over 10 feet instantly – as evidence of uniformitarianism. This is what uniformitarianism predicts – known forces, like earthquakes, moving the earth little by little, 10-20 feet at times. This rift is about 20 feet at its widest. If it were, say, 20 miles wide, or 200 miles, than maybe ‘catastrophists’ would have a point.


40 posted on 11/18/2009 11:14:30 AM PST by goodusername
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