Continuing with one
of our readers questions sent in about our articles regarding the Land of
Promise being in South America and the configuration after the destruction
mentioned in 3 Nephi:, and continuing from the last paragraph of the previous
post:
Secondly, when the mountains
rose to great heights at the time of the crucifixion, we do not know exactly
where that was in relation to the River Sidon; however, it is likely that all
rivers that were once in the Land of Promise, after the rise of the Andes, were
altered to some degree to then flow either west to the Pacific, or east to the
Amazon (Brazil) and then to the Atlantic, or in a few cases, north to what is
now the Caribbean.
In addition, the continental
divide in southern Peru, western Bolivia and northern Chile and Argentina
splits and forms a double divide, forming a closed drainage area into the
Altiplano region. Thus it would be difficult and meaningless to start
speculating on a particular mountain and how it was configured at this time to
effect the River Sidon or any other river or body of water in the Land of
Promise. The rising of the Andes effected Lake Titicaca in the time of man as
evidenced by the fact Titicaca was once at sea level as we have shown in these
posts from time to time, specifically Puma Punku and Tiahuanacu, where docks
and wharfs were built, now many miles from any sea.
High Valley lakes trapped when the Andes rose with no outlets to the
sea
In addition, rivers that once
flowed into the East Sea before the Andes rose, could have been diverted with
the rising of the mountains into high valleys forming lakes with no outlets,
much like Titicaca. Or lakes with several outlets with minimal exchanges that
do not reach the sea.
Thirdly, the River Sidon was not
just to the east of Zarahemla, but in the borders of the Land of Zarahemla to
the east, and we do not know how large an area the Land of Zarahemla consisted
of before or after the changes in 3 Nephi. But I suspect that was some distance
between the city of Zarahemla and the eastern border of the Land of Zarahemla.
Comment: “3) The City of Moroni was by the East
Sea (Alma 50:13). During the destruction of the Crucifixion, one of the cities
that was sunk was Moroni (3 Nephi 8:9, 3 Nephi 9:4,7). Many cities were
rebuilt, but the cities that were sunk could not be rebuilt because the water
was still there. (4 Nephi 1:9) This means that they were not sunk by rain
water, otherwise the water would have dissipated. They weren’t covered by a
tsunami or the water would have receded back to the ocean and these cities
wouldn’t have remained under water. The cities would have had to either fall
into the ocean or the water of a large lake (that was big enough to be
considered the sea) would have had to rise up to sink the cities (probably
through some volcanic/tectonic event). Either way, the water was still there
after the Crucifixion. How does this fit with your theory of the Andes rising
up to displace the East Sea?”
Response: First of
all, the Andes did not rise out of the East Sea, the Andes rose as a result of
two tectonic plates slamming into one another, which is how mountains are
formed (see the previous diagrams). In this case, very suddenly and very
catastrophically as noted by all the damage. As the Andes came up, the water
then known as the East Sea receded across the rising continental shelf as it
was tipped to the east and drained into the Atlantic. In the Amazonian area
(Brazil), that land did not rise that high and much of the water was trapped in
various low areas across what is now the 2.7-million square mile Amazonian
Drain Basin, which covers 40% of Brazil’s total geographical area, and floods
during half of the year as more water is added from rains and snow melt in the
Andes, that flows into the already saturated basin that is contained by the two
large stable masses of Pre-Cambrian rock, the Guiana Shield or Highlands to the
north, the Central Brazilian Shield or Plateau to the south, and the Andes
Mountains to the west.
As the mountains rose
suddenly, many water sources were trapped, later to run off toward the sea to
the west, or to the east in the Amazonian River Flood Plain or into Patagonia.
Geologists have drawn maps of these eastern seas and how they were altered when
the continent titled upward from the tectonic subduction to its present form.
Left:
Born 4 years after Joseph Smith, Darwin was 26 when he was in South
America; Middle: Darwin at 50; Right: Darwin at 76.
Charles Darwin, not
my favorite source of anything, on his voyage of the Beagle to South America in
1834-35 (part of a voyage that lasted 6 years), confirms that Argentina indeed
was completely inundated at one time, as also were Uruguay, Paraguay, and the
southern half of Chile. One of his discoveries of this information was along
the Atlantic coast of Patagonia (lower Argentina), where he found white beds of
seashells including giant oyster shells measuring 12 inches in diameter along Blanco
Bay in the areas of Punta Alta, Mount Hermosa and Fort Argentina in October
1832.
Darwin concluded that
“the entire coast of Argentina from Rio
Plata to the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego had been underwater and raised in
mass within the period of the seashells” he had found (Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle, London, Dent &
Sons, 1906, pp162-163). Later, the Beagle sailed up the Chilean coast where
Darwin made a trip to the foot of the Andes near Valparaiso where he saw “great beds of shells which stand above the
level of the sea and were burnt for lime, not too far from Santiago and 160
miles north of Talca, on beaches 1300 feet higher than the present beach, some
embedded in a marine mud.” He wrote in his journal, “The proofs of the elevation of this whole line of coast are unequivocal”
(Darwin, Beagle, p242).
After traveling
through the Portillo pass to Mendoza, Argentina, he recorded that a few miles
north of Mendoza “at an elevation of about seven thousand feet, I observed on a
bare slope some snow-white projecting columns. These were petrified trees,
eleven being silicified, and from thirty to forty converted into coarsely
crystallized white calcerous spar…and required little geological practice to
interpret the marvelous story which this scene at once unfolded.” At first,
Darwin was so astonished that he could hardly believe his eyes. “I saw a spot
where a cluster of fine trees once waved their branches on the shores of the
Atlantic when that ocean, now driven back 700 miles, came to the foot of the
Andes” (Darwin, Beagle, pp318-319).
Darwin also explored
the Argentina-Uruguayan pampas (pampa)—a vast, extremely flat, 300,000 square
miles of treeless plain stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Andes
Mountains—as he moved northward along the Parana River from Buenos Aires to
Santa Fe, about 290 miles northwest of Buenos Aires, and almost due west of
Salto, Uruguay. There he found “beds containing sharks’ teeth and seashells”
indicating that the sea had once reached northward at least as far as Santa Fe.
Much like the Amazon
Basin, during the rainy season, flooding occurs over the pampas for thousands
of square miles, leaving in its wake vast swamps.
The Argentine Pampa in summer and winter. It
is flat for as far as the eye can see—at one time it was all under water as
well as all the land south of there
Emeritus Professor
Gilbert James Butland of Australia, claims from his studies that “there is little doubt whatever that a
considerable area of the plains of South America, between the Andes and the
Brazilian plateau were geosynclinal,” an outdated term involving vertical
crustal movement that has been replaced by plate tectonics. However, the fact
that geosynclines develop along a passive margin of a continent and is found
throughout southern South America also suggests that it was at one time
underwater. As Butland adds, “although most of the Chaco is comparatively
unknown, the general nature of the sediments consists of clays, sands, and
mudstones for a considerable depth.” In fact, the eastward flowing rivers can
be considered as the continuing deposition on a filled-up gulf (Butland,
Department of Geography, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales,
Australia).
As one can easily
see, the central part of all of South America is almost completely flat, in
many parts barely above sea level, and all shows geologic signs of once being
underwater.
The
Gran Chaco Boreal, to the west and north of the Pampa covering Paraguay and
part of Bolivia and Argentina, is also an extensive 250,000 square mile flat
area that floods nearly six months of the year following the rainy season, once
known as Chiquitos
(See the next post,
”The Changes Found in 3 Nephi – Part III,” for the rest of the questions and
answers, and a continuation of the last answer in the previous post)
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