Presentation Notes-EIMP.txt EARTH IMPACTS AND NOAH'S FLOOD Based on Papers from the International Conference on Creationism, August 1998, by Wayne Spencer. Done with Corel Presentations. "Catastrophic Impact Bombardment Surrounding the Genesis Flood" (pp 553-566, ICC Proceedings 1998) "Geophysical Effects of Impacts during the Genesis Flood" (pp 567-579, ICC Proceedings 1998) Wayne Spencer is a former secondary science and mathematics instructor and now works in computer technical support and software training. He earned a B.S. in Physics from Kansas State University in 1982 and an M.S. in Physics from Wichita State University (in Wichita, Kansas) in 1994. He has been very active in creation ministry and has published papers in various creationist publications. See his internet Web site for more information on his background and on his creation materials. WEB URL: http://creationanswers.net E-Mail: w.spencer@attbi.com Write to: Creation Education Materials, P.O. Box 1818, Arlington, TX 76006 1. Title Slide 2. Earth Impacts and Noah's Flood Wayne Spencer, M.S. Physics This slide lists titles of the papers from the International Conf. on Creationism (ICC). To obtain the conference proceedings book, write to Creation Science Fellowship, Inc., P.O. Box 99303, Pittsburgh, PA, 15233 See also Wayne Spencer's paper in the 1994 ICC proceedings, "The Origin and History of the Solar System". The following information builds on and extends the work in this solar system paper. 3. The Impact Extinction Hypothesis--Alvarez See Science, Vol. 208, Number 4448, June 6, 1980, pp 1095-1108. * Suggested impact of a 10 Km diameter asteroid occurred 65 million years ago, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. * Evidence cited in this paper was mainly a high concentration of irridium and other metals in a clay layer in Italy found at the boundary between Cretaceous and Tertiary rock. 4. The Impact Extinction Hypothesis--Alan Hildebrand See Geology, vol. 19, pp 867-871, 1991. * Hildebrand proposed that the Chicxulub structure in Yucatan was the "dinosaur killer" asteroid impact. * This impact was said to be large enough to cause global extinctions, mainly because of the dust ejected into the atmosphere and its environmental effects. 5. Is one impact enough? * Research since 1980 shows that the atmospheric effects of the dust would last about 3-6 months, not years as suggested in the Alvarez paper. * Scientists have criticized the Alvarez hypothesis by pointing out that extinctions in the fossil record would have taken place over thousands or millions of years. (See Michael Rampino quote reference for slide 7.) 6. Iridium: Impact vs. Volcanism * Both Creationists and Evolutionists have pointed out that Iridium can come from volcanism instead of from impacts. * Amounts of other metals, like Arsenic and Antimony, at the K/T boundary matches the concentrations found in Earth's mantle better than meteorites, implying they may be from the Earth's interior not from impacts. * Since Iridium can come from either impacts or volcanism, high concentrations of Iridium alone is not a reliable indicator of an impact. It takes other kinds of evidence to really know that there has been an impact from space. [On arguments for a volcanic origin of iridium, see the following: 1) Charles Officer, Victims of Volcanoes, New Scientist, Feb. 20, 1993, pp 34-38. 2) Charles Officer and Charles Drake, Terminal Cretaceous Environmental Events, Science, Volume 227, No. 4691, March 8, 1985 3) Michael Oard, The Extinction of the Dinosaurs, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol. 11, No. 2, 1997, pp 137-154.] 7. Extinctions--Michael Rampino QUOTE: "Accumulating paleontologic evidence suggests, however, that many of the extinctions at the end of Cretaceous time were not sudden, sharply defined events, but were continuous over a period of several million years." Michael Rampino, GSA Special Paper 190, (1982), p 455. 8. One Impact--Virginia Morel QUOTE: "Ironically, as more scientists satisfy themselves that an impact did occur, other researchers have begun raising tough questions about whether that impact packed enough punch to make the dinosaurs disappear." Virginia Morel, How Lethal was the K/T Impact?, Science, Vol. 261, Sept. 17, 1993, pp 1518-19. 9. Impacts & the Noahic Flood * Several creationists have suggested that impacts occurred during the Flood. * Earth must have been subjected to the same bombardment as the Moon and Mars. (Note this is indicated by the size-frequency crater distribution, the number of craters as a function of size. This is shown in the ICC 1994 paper on the origin of the solar system as well as other researchers.) [See R.A.F. Grieve, and M.R. Dence, The Terrestrial Cratering Record, II, the crater production rate, Icarus, Vol. 38, 1979, pp 230-242.] * The impacts may have been at the onset of the Flood, then dropped off in frequency for some time. * Could the effects of such an event be consistent with the Genesis account of the Flood? 10. Impacts during Flood--Michael Oard QUOTE: "Impact craters are common on the inner planets and our moon, which implies that the earth probably was bombarded at some time in the past. We find very few impact craters on the surface of the earth, indicating that catastrophic meteorite bombardment would have occurred either before the Flood or during the Flood. If the pre-Flood was a time of climatic and geographic stability, it is doubtful that the meteorite bombardment was before the Flood. The only possibility left is that the event occurred during the Genesis Flood." CRSQ, Vol. 31, June 1994, p 12 (letters section) 11. Constraints on an Impact Bombardment * A bombardment during the Creation week is problematic * It must explain the number of craters on the Moon * It must be a survivable event for Noah and the animals on the Ark. * It must fit the Biblical Chronology of the Flood 12. Impacts & Planet Earth * All objects in the inner solar system, with the exception of Venus, have an abundance of craters. * Earth, the Moon, & Mars all show the same mathematical power law relationship between the cumulative number of impacts and the crater diameter. The cumulative number is the total number of impacts, formed over all time, in a certain area of the surface. [See R.A.F. Grieve and M.R. Dence, The Terrestrial Cratering Record II: The Crater Production Rate, Icarus, Vol. 38, 1979, pp 230-242.] * This implies Earth was struck by the same population of objects as our Moon. 13. Impacts on Earth--Tentative Estimates * 10 to 20 thousand impacts, of all sizes, may be a reasonable tentative estimate * The number of impacts producing global effects could be about 40 to 100 * Only Noah's Flood could wipe out so many craters 14. Impact Bombardment on Earth * Impact sites are found from Precambrian rock up in the geologic column * Astroblemes (remnants of craters) are found in all types of rock, including Flood sediments (as well as igneous and metamorphic rock and post-Flood strata) * Impact ejecta may exist in Precambrian rock and is definitely found in ocean sediments 15. Earth Impacts & the Geologic Column Totals in "age" categories, two data sets, Grieve-88 pts (1982) and Norton-51 pts (1994) Sources for this data: Grieve, Richard A.F., The record of impact on Earth: implications for a major Cretaceous/Tertiary impact event, Geological Society of America Special Paper 190, 1982, pp27-8. Norton, O. Richard, Rocks from Space: Meteorites and Meteorite Hunters, Mountain Press Publishing Co., Missoula, Montana, (1994) Age in Millions of Years ago (Ma) 16. Earth Impacts & the Geologic Column Earth astroblemes counted in Cenozoic, Mesozoic, Paleozoic, and Precambrian rock strata. 121 data points from geologist Richard Grieve of Canada (evolutionist and well known for his research on Earth impact sites). Note that there is much more Mesozoic and Cenozoic strata near the surface on the continents than there is precambrian rock. Data from Geological Survey of Canada, 1998; from Canadian Geological Survey Web site http://gdcinfo.agg.emr.ca/crater/world_craters.html 17. Earth Impacts & the Geologic Column Equal "time" periods, 50 million years each. These 50 million year "periods" do not represent real time periods in my opinion, but are only used for comparison and analysis purposes. Data from Canadian Geological Survey Web site listed above 18. Geologically Recent Impacts The Quaternary part of the Cenozoic period, last 2 Ma Notice the difference between the Grieve data of 1982 and Grieve from 1998. There have been many astroblemes discovered in strata considered geologically recent, from 1982 to 1998. This is due to the availability of the recent rock for study. 19. Terrestrial Indicators of Impact 1) Shock metamorphic minerals (shocked quartz, coesite, stishovite) 2) Shatter cones 3) Crater or ring structures in the rock strata (also scarps, fractures and fault structures) 4) Shattered rock breccia (may include "jumbled" and metamorphosed rock) 5) Melt glasses in crater floor area (very uniform composition, volume of this is related to crater size and impactor energy) 6) Meteorites (Note that meteorites may not be located at the impact site) 7) Tektites (depends on their composition, some tektites may be of a volcanic origin) 8) Magnetic or gravity anomalies (Chicxulub structure is an example) 20. Shock Metamorphism * Extreme pressures cause atomic rearrangement within the rocks crystal structure * Parallel fracture lines, called lamellae, ar formed which make a "V" shape in the rock. * Impact shock lamellae form very regular crossing parallel sets in a microscope thin section. (Note that some volcanic processes form shock lamellae also, but volcanic shock pressures are far less than impact shock pressures and the lamellae are not nearly so regular and parallel for volcanic shock lines. The angle of the "V" indicates something of the intensity of the shock pressures.) * Streaked maxima are produced in X-ray diffraction patterns * Shatter cones are a macroscopic form of shock 21. Map of World Impact Sites, 1998 Provided courtesy Geological Survey of Canada, R. Grieve. 22. Ejecta: Impact vs. Volcanism * Impacts can loft particles much farther & higher than volcanoes * Some tektites appear to be of impact origin (based on composition being like meterorites or like asteroids) * Tektites are often found near craters * Tektites containing stishovite and coesite are also found in sea floor sediments (with volcanic ash) [See B.P. Glass and Jiquan Wu, Coesite and shocked quartz discovered in the Australasian and North American microtektite layers, Geology, Vol. 21, May 1993, pp 435-438.] * Volcanic tektites are of different composition than impact tektites, containing volatile materials such as water and various gases, for instance. * Other spherules have been found in ocean sediments which match the trace metal content of meteorites. [See R. Ganapathy, D.E. Brownlee, and P.W. Hodge, Silicate Spherules from Deep-Sea Sediments: Confirmation of Extraterrestrial Origin, Science, Vol. 201, Sept. 22, 1978, pp 1119-1121.] 23. The Sudbury Impact Structure--Ontario * Found in extensive layers of igneous and metamorphic rock 2.5 Km in thickness * Evidence includes shatter cones and shocked quartz * Crater floor has very thick layers of homogeneous melt material * Layers of large boulders up to 100 meters in size! * Rim diameter estimated at 220 Km (137 miles) * Kinetic energy 8.6 X 10^30 Ergs. Object diameter 10 to 15 Km, speed possibly 20 Km/second. (The object could have been smaller if it were traveling faster, and vice versa.) 24. Sudbury: Modified by the Flood * Uniformitarian age of the impact itself believed to be 1.85 billion years ago * The depth of melting estimated at up to 35 Km * Hydrothermal deposits of Pb, Cu, Zn ores from waters passing through breccia layers below * One layer near the surface contains carbonaceous material, possibly of organic origin (possibly from living things) * 850 meters thickness of turbidite deposits after the impact * 600 meters thickness of shales and siltstones after the impact [See D. Stoffler and A. Deutsch, et. al., The formation of the Sudbury structure, Canada: toward a unified impact model, Geological Society of America Special Paper 190, 1982, pp 188-190.] 25. The Bible and Impacts * The Bible appears to mention impacts related to future judgement events in Revelations 8 and 9. [See Rev. 8:8 for example on a "huge mountain, all ablaze" falling into the sea.] * Isaiah chapters 13 and 34 say in the future the Sun and Moon will be darkened and that the "stars will fall from the sky." * The Bible does not rule out divinely arranged impacts in the past that accompanied God's judgement. (Note that there are many details on how the Flood occurred that are not mentioned or explained in scientific terms by Genesis. It is quite possible that impacts occurring during the event were not considered worth mentioning in the writing of Genesis.) 26. Impacts are only part of the story! * Impacts cannot cause everything in the Flood * Impacts will not be the end of the world; God has another plan he has told us * Suggesting that impacts triggered some processes in the Flood does not mean God did not intervene supernaturally in the Flood in some way. * Many processes which occurred during the Flood are not described in the Genesis account. 27. Important Questions * Why does Earth have so few craters compared to the Moon, Mercury, or Mars? * How many actual impacts occurred on Earth? * Why are Earth's largest craters so much smaller than those on the Moon or Mars? * Could impacts have triggered some processes of the Flood? * What would be the effects of the vast quantities of dust lofted into the atmosphere? * Are the atmospheric effects in conflict with the Flood chronology in Genesis? 28. Earth Impacts: Options for Creationists * The bombardment was not a natural result of the formation of the solar system, as in the evolutionary view. * The so-called "late-heavy bombardment" would be too severe for any life to survive, so it could not be during the Creation Week. * The present rate of impacts is too slow to explain solar system evidence in less than 10,000 years. * Therefore, the impacts occurred in a short time and most of the craters were destroyed by the Flood. 29. Earth vs. Moon--the Number of Impacts * 10 to 20 thousand may be enough to explain the actual observed craters on the Moon, though this needs further research. * Some estimates of the number of craters on the Moon may be too high due to the assumptions inherent in lunar crater statistics * Based on the number of large lunar impacts, 40 to 100 may be a reasonable tentative estimate for the number of Earth impacts which formed craters at least 60 Km diameter 30. Impact Effects--Regional vs. Global Regional: * Ejecta-rocks, tektites * Earthquakes and tsunami waves * Unusual winds and atmospheric density flows * Acid rain * Minerological changes in the Mantle Global: * Rain (vaporized water) * Low light levels due to ejected dust * Cold temperatures * Atmospheric blowout 31. Cratering Mechanics * The kinetic energy of the impacting object is the important parameter in crater calculations. If a speed is assumed the mass can be calculated * A given projectile will produce a crater roughly 5 to 6 times larger on the Moon than on the Earth, due to the difference in gravity. (This is for large craters, not necessarily all sizes of craters.) * Thus a 300 Km crater on the Moon corresponds to a crater 60-70 Km diameter on the Earth. * The Aitken impact basin on the Moon (2,500 Km diameter) would correspond to 400 - 500 Km diameter on Earth. 32. Rapid Break-up of Preflood Supercontinent The Catastrophic Plate Tectonics Model of Noah's Flood * The Preflood ocean floor sank under the continent. From supercomputer simulations of Dr. John Baumgardner, Los Alamos) * This may have pulled the supercontinent apart in a matter of weeks during the Flood. * This period of continent motion would be accompanied by reversals of Earth's magnetic field due to turbulence at the Earth's core. 33. Catastrophic Plate Tectonics and Impact Effects Conditions for initiating subduction * The ocean lithosphere must be more dense than the continental lithosphere * Something must breakup the preflood supercontinent * Something may have stimulated two mineral phase changes in the mantle, at 410 and 660 Km depth 34. Impact Shock Waves in the Mantle * The silicate minerals in the 400 to 660 Km depth region undergo a transition to higher density crystal structures (olivine to perovskite) * A shock wave of 10^7 to 10^8 Pascals is necessary at 660 Km depth to stimulate the atomic rearrangement * One large impact would not produce this change in a large enough volume of the mantle to effectively start the subduction mechanism QUESTION: How big of an object (the impactor) would be able to produce this change at 660 Km depth? 35. Shock Waves in the Mantle Application of the research of Dr. H. J. Melosh The green line in the following graph (next slide) is a reproduction of a chart by Melosh, showing the pressure produced by the impact shock wave as it proceeds down into the mantle. The yellow line shows how the shock pressure would drop off in the important 400 to 660 km depth region. 36. Graph -- Peak Pressure with Depth Impact shock pressure in Pascals vs depth in Km. Shows two power law relationships that shows how rapidly pressure dies off with depth as the shock wave travels through the mantle. 37. Shock Pressure in the Deeper Mantle Extrapolating Melosh's work to greater depth * The next graph shows shock wave pressures for several sizes of impactor objects. * The larger the object or the greater its speed, the greater the pressures produced in the mantle. * The blue line is the pressure for a 5 km diameter object. An object like this could cause the mineral crystal change at 660 km depth. * The red arrow shows the 660 km depth point. 38. Graph: Shock pressure & impactor size vs. depth A 5 Km diameter impactor would have enough energy to produce enough pressure at 660 Km depth to cause the minerological crystal change that would help trigger subduction of the preflood ocean lithosphere 39. Impacts are HIGH energy events * Energy in the Krakatoa volcanic explosion: 10^24 Ergs or 10^17 Joules. * Largest Nuclear weapons test: 2.5 X 10^24 Ergs (58 Megatons, Soviets, 1961) * Kinetic energy in a 1 Km diameter rocky object: 4 X 10^27 Ergs. * The energy fractures and melts rock, forms the crater, vaporizes all of the object and some of the target material. 40. Ocean Impacts and Rain * The large impacts could vaporize 10^15 to 10^18 Kg of water! * Scripture appears to suggest 40 days of especially intense or widespread rain followed by 110 more days of more limited rain. (See Genesis 7:11 and 8:2) * The impact bombardment could help explain the initial 40 days of intense rains. 41. The "Dinosaur Killer" * A 10 Km diameter object would have an energy of 10^29 Erg (2.5 million megatons of TNT or 250,000 Mt. St. Helens eruptions) * The Alvarez extinction mechanism relies mainly on the environmental effects of the ejected dust--cold and darkness primarily. * The dust causes the stratosphere to be heated and the surface temperature drops * Other local and regional effects are possible A note regarding the Chicxulub impact site, in Yucatan. Recent research has apparently resolved a long-standing controversy about the size of the Chicxulub crater. The original "transient crater diameter" has been revised down to about 100 Km. Over the years many other estimates have been given, ranging from around 200 Km to 300 Km. The smaller size of the crater makes its global climatic effects even more limited and inadequate for causing global extinctions. Thus in recent years, scientists have suggested many additional effects of the impact that may have adversely affected life. These additional effects, such as an atmospheric heat pulse, global forest fires, and other effects, are local or regional in scale, not global, so they could not cause global extinctions. Furthermore, in a global Flood context for various reasons, some of these effects would be lessened or rendered insignificant. [On the size of the Chicxulub impact, see Jo Morgan, Mike Warner, et. al., (Dec. 4, 1997), Size and morphology of the Chicxulub impact crater, Nature Vol. 390, pp 472-476. See also reference to Melosh at end of this file, in same issue of Nature] 42. Atmospheric Effects of the Dust * The atmospheric effects must be evaluated Biblically * Judging the biological consequences is far more uncertain than the physical effects of impacts * One impact may not be able to disperse the dust throughout the atmosphere rapidly enough (i.e. less than one day) * Coagulation and density flows would tend to move dust to the surface rapidly 43. Atmospheric Effects: One impact versus many * Serious biological consequences depend on the dust remaining in the atmosphere for long periods * Many impacts simultaneously would be more effective in dispersing the dust ejecta * A bombardment event with many impacts could do what evolutionists have unrealistically proposed that one impact would do 44. Sedimentation and Coagulation * Studies indicate dust from one 10 Km impact would remain in the atmosphere 3 to 6 months * The greater the density of the dust, the more efficient is the coagulation, causing particles to settle to the surface faster * The mass of dust in the atmosphere does not affect the time of fall strongly * Dust would remain in the atmosphere about the same time if there were many impacts [On the physics of the atmospheric dust, see O.B. Toon, J.B. Pollack, and T.P. Ackerman, et. al., Evolution of an impact-generated dust cloud and its effects on the atmosphere, Geological Society of America Special Paper 190, 1982] 45. Atmospheric Water * The simulations do not account for the effects of large amounts of water vapor * Water vapor from ocean impacts would certainly supersaturate the upper atmosphere * As the atmosphere began to clear, water vapor could produce a greenhouse effect * Thus, water vapor could moderate the dropping temperatures at the surface [See Steven Croft, A first-order estimate of shock heating and vaporization in oceanic impacts, Geological Society of America Special Paper 190, 1982] 46. Effects of the Bombardment 1) Within one day, dust is distributed throughout the stratosphere 2) Ocean floor subduction would begin 3) Intense rains would fall 4) Volcanic eruptions 5) Light levels would drop (lasts 4 - 5 months) 6) Temperatures would drop at the surface 47. The Flood Chronology Time periods involved in various Flood events * Flood onset to Ark resting on Mt. Ararat. . . . . . . . . . 5 months (Darkness, cold temperatures, impacts during this time) * Other Mountains visible as Noah looked out from the Ark. . .7.5 months (Sky largely clear by this time, but still cold perhaps) * Other Mts. visible to the Olive leaf . . . . . . . . . . . .47 days (Olive tree grows during this time) 48. A Survivable Event * A major impact bombardment appears to be possible within the Flood Chronology * This bombardment is less severe than the "late heavy bombardment" suggested by evolutionists 4.5 to 3 billion years ago. * Noah and the animals could survive as long as no large impacts struck too close to the Ark. Note that I would say it is not inappropriate to suppose God protected the Ark to some degree. But, it is very unreasonable to suppose that the Moon received thousands of impacts while the Earth only received 150 or so. 49. Conclusions-1 * Today there is evidence for over 150 probable astroblemes on Earth * One impact of a 10 Km diameter object would not cause GLOBAL extinctions. Many of the severe effects would be local or regional in scale. The global effects would be due to the dust lofted into the atmosphere. The atmospheric effects of this dust would not be long-lived enough to cause extinctions in a global sense. Though it could certainly cause some extinctions among animals that only live in an area close to the impact. * It is possible that an impact bombardment began with the onset of the Flood and continued after the Flood for some time. * Volcanism was occurring concurrently with impacts. This is indicated by the presence of volcanic ash in ocean sediments where impact ejecta has been found * Creationists must consider the effects of impacts in Flood models. Several creationists are now publishing technical papers related to impacts and cratering, such as geologist Carl Froede, physics professors Don DeYoung and Danny Faulkner, S.R. Steele, and Thomas Fritzsche (minerologist). 50. Conclusions-2 * Many impacts could have occurred during the Flood, but the Flood destroyed many craters. * An impact event could help explain the 40 days of intense rains at the beginning of the Flood. * Shock waves in Earth's mantle could induce a mineral change that could trigger ocean floor subduction as in Catastrophic Plate Tectonics. * Low temperatures and light levels may not be too severe for those in Noah's Ark Recent sources on impacts and cratering (since 1998 ICC): Faulkner, Danny, (1999), A biblically based cratering theory, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp 100 - 104. Fritzsche, Thomas, (1998), The Impact at the Cretaceous/Tertiary Boundary, In Walsh, R E. (editor), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, Technical Symposium Sessions, Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, pp 553-566. Froede, Carl R. Jr., and Williams, Emmett L., June 1999, The Wetumpka Impact Crater, Elmore County, Alabama: An Interpretation Within the Young-Earth Flood Model, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 36:1, pp 32-37. Melosh, H. J., (Dec. 4, 1997), Muti-ringed revelation, Nature Vol. 390, pp 439-440. Spencer, Wayne, 1998, Earth Impacts and Noah's Flood: a resource guide for educators and researchers, Creation Education Materials. (This book contains transparency masters for this presentation as well as a complete listing of the Earth crater data sets I have used.) Steele, S. R., (March 1999), The Upheaval Dome Impact Site: Flood Model Interpretations, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 35:4, pp 236-237.