Wednesday, August 23, 2017

What Do We Know About Noah’s Flood – Part I

One of the issues that is often lost on the casual reader of not only this site, but of any Land of Promise writing, ideas, beliefs or theories, and that is the connection between known events and so-called “supposed events.” As an example, scientists often ignore the reality of a universal Flood, and in so doing, neglect, along with most people, to take into account the effect such an event would have on other scientific calculations and so-called systems and concepts, such as the proposed and often accepted Geologic Time Scale (which now sits at 4.55 billion years for the Age of the Earth) and its various divisions, the Eons, such as the Precambrian and the Phanerozoic, and Eras, such as the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic, along with their numerous Periods and Epochs. 
   How these things come about is often fascinating, but almost always unknown and not understood by the scientists because of their close-minded approach to areas outside their ideologies.
Left: Rajdeep Dasgupta; Right: Megan Duncan, researchers at Rice University

According to Rajdeep Dasgupta professor of Earth Science, and part of the Rice University petrologists that conducted an eventful study sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Deep Carbon Observatory, describing how fossilized carbon—the remains of Earth's earliest single-celled creatures—could have been absorbed and locked deep in Earth's interior at a time when atmospheric oxygen rose dramatically. The paper appeared in the journal Nature Geoscience.
    As he stated: “It's an interesting concept, but in order for complex life to evolve, the earliest form of life needed to be deeply buried in the planet's mantle.” But how one might ask, did it get there? To understand that we need look at Dasgupta’s added comment: "The mechanism for that burial comes in two parts. First, you need some form of plate tectonics, a mechanism to carry the carbon remains of early life-forms back into Earth. Second, you need the correct geochemistry so that organic carbon can be carried deeply into Earth's interior and thereby removed from the surface environment for a long time."
    Science does not understand how that happened, only that it did. Referred to as the "great oxidation event," a steep increase in atmospheric oxygen that is well-documented in countless ancient rocks, the event is so well-known to geologists that they often simply refer to it as the "GOE." As stated in the article “Early organic carbon got deep burial in mantle,” in Earth History-Geology, “Despite this familiarity, there's no scientific consensus about what caused the GOE."
Cyanobacteria, believed by Science to have become the first microbes to produce oxygen by photosynthesis

For example, scientists claim to know that the Earth's earliest known life, single-celled cyanobacteria, drew down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and released oxygen. But the appearance of early life has been pushed further and further into the past with recent fossil discoveries, and scientists now believe that cyanobacteria were prevalent at least 500 million years before the GOE.” Cyanobacteria, which was formally known as “blue-green algae”—receiving their color and hence their name from the bluish pigment phycocyanin, which they use to capture light for photosynthesis, but can also be red or pink from the pigment phycoerythrin—which form stromatolites and lack membrane-enclosed organelles.
The claimed sudden increase in oxygenation of the Earth in both the GOE (Great Oxidation Event) and NOE (Neoproterozoic Oxygenation Event)

According to co-author Megan Duncan (shown above), who conducted the research for her Ph.D. dissertation at Rice, “Cyanobacteria may have played a role, but the GOE was so dramatic—oxygen concentration increased as much as 10,000 times—that cyanobacteria by themselves could not account for it. There also has to be a mechanism to remove a significant amount of reduced carbon from the biosphere, and thereby shift the relative concentration of oxygen within the system.”
    Dasgupta and Duncan found that the chemical composition of the “silicate melt”—subducting crustal rock that melts and rises back to the surface through volcanic eruptions—plays a crucial role in determining whether fossilized organic carbon, or graphite, sinks into the mantle or rises back to the surface through volcanism.
    This is also a process that would have occurred from a universal Flood that submerged every living thing on Earth, and through the subsequent division of the land mass, caused the very conditions—deep burial, subduction of rock, melting beneath the surface and volcanic eruptions—that would have met Duncan’s scenario. So let us take a look at the events in conjunction with the Flood and the buildup of the ice sheets known as the Wisconsin and Fennoscandia.
    According to Melvin A. Cook, in Prehistory and Earth Models (The Book Service, LTD, Random House/Penguin, 1966), “There are two great land masses formerly covered with ice which suddenly lost their ice caps and began rapidly to uplift in order to restore isostasy (vertical balance). These land masses comprising a great half-moon shaped, glacial denuded (“shield”) zone in northeastern Canada and another one in Europe and Asia called Fennoscandia”—from Fenno-Scandinavia (Scandinavian and Koala Peninsulas, Karelia, Finland and Denmark).
Ancient Fennoscandia covers today’s Scandinavian peninsulas, Finland and Denmark

As Cook adds, “Both of these land masses began to rise (following sudden denudation of ice) at precisely the same time and have followed identical land-rise curves ever since.” This is detailed by Geodesy and Geophysics work of Dr. Weikko A. Heiskanen and Dr. Felix A. Vening-Meinesz (The Earth and it Gravity Field, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1958).
    Now, regarding the ice sheets and their formation, an issue lost on many scientists and the general public as a whole is that whenever a large land mass overlaps or even extends well into polar regions of the earth, ice can do nothing else but grow on it—obviously, ice caps cannot grow on deep oceans even in polar regions because they are eroded too rapidly by convection of warmer water beneath them. Thus, when stabilized and insulated by land masses, they always grow under a terrestrial polar environment simply because condensation (ice and snow) greatly exceeds vaporization, melting and iceberg sluff-off. In fact, contrary to popular belief and the pseudo-science of "global warming," the ice caps are growing thicker as evidenced by satellite (European Space Agency CryoSat-2 satellite),
Dr. Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF), and Ted Maksym of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, the latter conducting a study in which he sent an underwater robot into the depths of the Antarctica sea to measure the ice, which showed that the ice is actually much thicker than has been predicted over the last 20 years. Actually, "Global sea ice is at a record high," another key indicator that the water beneath the ice caps is either growing colder or at least maintaining its long-time cold temperature, growing ice as it has done for millennia.
    As Cook adds: “When these ice sheets (of the Wisconsin glaciation) were building up, the primordial continent (Pangaea) at high latitudes, both north and south, was subsiding regularly under ever-increasing polar ice loads while at lower latitudes it was uplifting. The total load eventually exceeded the strength of the continent and suddenly ruptured it from pole to pole.” Panageoa, by the way, was considered the supercontinent of all the earth (“Pan” means “all, entire, whole,” and Gaia” means “Mother Earth, land”). The concept that the continents once formed a continuous land mass was first proposed by Alfred Wegener, the originator of the theory of continental drift, in his 1912 publication The Origin of Continents (Die Entstehung der Kontinente).
In fact, the name "Pangea" (German: Pangäa) occurs only once, when Wegener refers to the ancient supercontinent as “"Schon die Pangäa der Karbonzeit hatte so einen Vorderrand … " meaning “Already the Pangea of the Carboniferous era had such a leading edge…” (The Carboniferous era is claimed to have covered a 60-million-year-span between the Devonian Period and the Permian Period).
    We might insert here an understanding of the times involved, since we have discussed the difference between ancient time in a claimed balance of radiocarbon frame and the factual unbalance time (see “Understanding Equilibrium,” in Chapter 2-RadioCarbon Dating, Scientific Fallacies & Other Myths) in which the Earth exists, and according to Melvin A. Cook, “By taking into account the unbalance of radiocarbon, this date is actually brought into line with Biblical history wherein continental shift occurred near the time of the Flood and “in the days of Peleg.”

(See the next post, “What Do We Know About Noah’s Flood – Part II,” for more on what we know and don’t know about Noah’s Flood and the aftermath)

10 comments:

  1. A few days ago Del did a post about South America. I thought it would be interesting to read the dedication prayers of different temples (lds church temples.org) to see which ones referenced descendents of Lehi. I noted that descendants of Lehi were mentioned in South America and Central America but none in The few North America temples I looked up (including Detroit and Palmyra for the Great Lakes theorists). I did not review all temples. I also looked to see anything around the Malay peninsula but I don't think there any temples in that area yet.

    Lima Peru. 86 Hinckley. We are particularly mindful this day of the sons and daughters of Lehi. They have known so much of suffering and sorrow in their many generations. They have walked in darkness and in servitude. Now Thou hast touched them by the light of the everlasting gospel. The shackles of darkness are falling from their eyes as they embrace the truths of Thy great work. Surely father Lehi has wept with sorrow over his posterity. Surely he weeps today with gladness, for in this holy house there will be exercised the fullness of the priesthood to the blessing, not only of those of this and future generations, but also to the blessing of those of previous generations.

    San Paulo Brazil Kimball We thank Thee that Thou didst bring Father Lehi and his family to this land of promise and Thou didst establish Thy people, the Nephites and the Lamanites and their Book of Mormon.

    Quetzaltenango Guatemala 2011 Uchdorf Thou kind and gracious Father, our hearts are filled with gratitude for Thy remembrance of the sons and daughters of Lehi. Thou hast heard their cries and seen their tears. Thou hast accepted their righteous sacrifices.
    We thank Thee for the sacred record of Lehi, Nephi and Jacob, Alma and Mosiah, Benjamin and Mormon, and of Moroni. We thank Thee for this voice that has come from the dust to bear witness of the divinity of Thy Beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

    Santiago Chile. Bless Thy work upon this great continent of South America which is part of the land of Zion.

    San Paulo Brazil Kimball We thank Thee that Thou didst bring Father Lehi and his family to this land of promise and Thou didst establish Thy people, the Nephites and the Lamanites and their Book of Mormon.

    Tonga 1983 Hinckley We thank Thee for the coming forth of the Book of Mormon with its record of the forebears of the people of Tonga.

    Trujillo Peru. 2015 Uchdorf We thank Thee for the sacred record of Lehi, Nephi and Jacob, Alma and Mosiah, Benjamin and Mormon, and of Moroni. We thank Thee for this voice that has come from the dust to bear witness of the divinity of Thy Beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

    Guatemala City Guatemala 1984 Hinckley We thank Thee, O God, for lifting the scales of darkness which for generations clouded the vision of the descendants of Lehi. We thank Thee for the wondrous light of the gospel, restored in this dispensation through the instrumentality of Thy servant Joseph Smith, whom Thou didst ordain a prophet to the nations. We thank Thee for the glorious vision given him in the opening of this dispensation. We thank Thee for the restored record of our ancestors, the record of Lehi, Nephi and Jacob, of Alma and Mosiah, of Benjamin and Mormon and Moroni. We thank Thee for this voice which has come from the dust to bear witness of the divinity of Thy Beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

    Guadalajara Mexico 2001 Hinckley none
    Kona Hawaii none
    Bogota columbia 99 hinckley none.
    Cochabamba Brazil none
    Guayaquil Ecuador none
    Detroit Michigan none
    Palmyra NY none
    Malay peninsula- no temple as best I can tell

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    1. Bangkok will be the first LDS temple in Southeast Asia. It was announced a year or two ago, so I'd guess it will be completed in a few years.

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  2. @ David K,

    Very interesting. Thank you for that information.

    I attended the last dedication session of the Tucson, Arizona Temple and I do not recall Lehi, Nephi etc mentioned.

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  3. I just came across something very interesting. I've searched on and off for some time to see if there was any evidence of ancient weapons near any proposed Hill Cumorah sites. Mormon 6:9 "And it came to pass that they did fall upon my people with the sword, and with the bow, and with the arrow, and with the ax, and with all manner of weapons of war."

    Del and Venice Priddis have both proposed the Cerro (Hill) Umbabara in northern Ecuador as possible sites.

    I searched to see if ancient weapons had ever been found near Umbabara. I came across a book written in the late 1800's - an English explorer named Edward Whymper. Travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator. He explored the Andes mountains of Equador. He found "embarrassingly" many stones shaped like stars that were apparently the heads to battle axes. "They were everywhere between Ibarra [a town at the base of Hill Imbabura] and Riobamba [a town south of Imbabura near Quito]". "Though many [local] persons were aware of the existence of these stars in stones, noone seemed to possess the least idea that they were so numerous, and so widely dispersed".

    Here is a link to the book:
    https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.39000005982462;view=2up;seq=264;skin=mobile

    and here is a link to a picture of the ancient stones:
    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Drawings_by_Edward_Whymper#/media/File:Stone_stars_Equador.png

    I see you can also buy the book at amazon.

    If you would like, email me (david_kane6979@comcast.net) and I'll email you a word file where I copied and pasted and highlighted the most relevant sections of the book. I couldn't figure out (until I was almost done) how to copy the text other than as an image so I just put images in a word document.

    Here's the most interesting pages: 248,249, 258-265 (includes pictures of many other stone tools - some may have been weapons), 268, 137.

    The book discusses why he believes the stones are ancient. It also mentions a skull they found with a fractured head and that "among the fractured skulls that were found many seemed to have been broken by some such weapons". This skull came from a man "beyond middle age with considerable muscular development".

    Similar weapons to these have been found throughout Peru, though never any in nearly such magnitude as this location in ecuador.

    The last page referenced is unrelated but interesting. Shortly before Edward went to Ecuador there was a large volcanic eruption. He interviewed people there and they told him the ashes shot up and then went where the wind blew them and by mid day it became so dark one man could not see his door even though he was right in front of it and another man said he could not see his hand in front of his face (Del has done a post in the past showing how the 3 days of darkness may have been from immense volcanic ash).

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    1. I agree this is a great find! The cost on Amazon of the book is as low as about $8.

      These stars seem to be the same as those from the Inca weapon called a Macana.

      "The weapons the Incas used in their arsenal is what you would expect. But one weapon, the Macana, is not. It’s design is unique to the Inca and is made to maximize the potential of breaking the bone."

      https://www.quora.com/What-kind-of-weapons-and-tools-did-the-Incas-use

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macana

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    2. So then eRichard are you implying that these weapons although use do or copied by the Inca actually have their origin predating the Inca?

      I think the original battle ground surface of 400ad for the Nephites and 400bc-600bc for the Jaredites is found at least several feet below the surface if not deeper. Was any digging done to find these weapons I guess is the question.

      It would be interesting to conduct a dig at the proposed battle sites.

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    3. I definitely believe that any weapon the Inca had probably existed before they came to power.

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  4. Great Work David K! This is an exciting find.

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  5. Just a note. As I understand it, there are about 18,000 members in Thailand, and have been baptizing about 200 per month since the end of 2013. The Temple announcement was on April 5, 2015 in General Conference, along with new Temples for the Ivory Coast and Haiti—the announcement came after nearly 50 years of the time the Church began in Thailand, from Elder Matthew Cowley of the Twelve opening the Hong Kong Mission in 1949, and the dedication of Thailand for the preaching of the Gospel occurring in November 2016. The Temple will be the first in Thailand as well as the first in Southeast Asia. It is one of 29 new temples either in construction or announced. At the moment, there are 1.08 million members in Asia. At the moment there are four Stakes in Thailand with very few members and no missionaries in Southern Thailand, with a small group of members meeting each Sunday in Phuket. However, the missionary program and the Church is quite strong in Bongkok. It might also be of note that on May 31, 2016, Vietnam officially recognized the LDS Church.

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  6. Great link erichard: fun to see these star stones with the wood handle.
    https://www.quora.com/What-kind-of-weapons-and-tools-did-the-Incas-use

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