Geology Lesson
Firstly - my bad - the time it would take isn't 2 million years but 14 million years.
Now, to settle any people who have any problems at all about the idea of erosion eroding the continents below sea level.
The ocean floor is blanketed by a thick layer of sediments. This layer is thickest near the coninents and thins out as you head out to sea. A lot of the sediment is from precipitated solids in the oceans, but most is stuff that has been eroded from land. The average thickness of the sediment layer is about 640 metres. The generally accepted maximum average thickness is 900m.
The volume of sediments in the ocean is therefore 0.9km x 223 million km² which is about 200 million cubic kilometres of sediment on our ocean floors. The density of this sediment on average is 2.3g/cm³. This comes to a total mass of about 820 quadrillion tonnes. That's 820,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes. The total volume of the continents above sealevel is about 30.7 cubic miles with a mass of about 383 quadrillion tonnes. That's slightly less than half the mass of the sediments in the oceans. In order to produce those sediments about twice as much continent than what we presently have above sea level must already have been eroded.
Studies of modern rivers across the world have shown that about 20.2 billion tonnes of sediment are added to the ocean from rivers every year. They also deliver about 4.6 billion tonnes of chemicals every year. Also, melting icebergs add about 2.2 billion tonnes of sediment, water seeping out from under the continents adds about 0.47 billion tonnes, seashore erosion - 0.28 billion, dust blown from land - 60 million, and sea spray takes away about 0.29 billion tonnes of sediment.
In all, about 27.5 billion tonnes of sediment are taken from the continents and added to the ocean floor every year.
At the present rate of erosion that would have taken 14 million years.
The ocean floor is assumed by evolutionists to be about 1 billion years old. At present rates that means that about 27,500,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes of sediments should have been deposited.
Some people think that "uplifting" of the ocean floor would fix this as it would return the sediments to the continents they came from. However, sediment levels on continents are about the same depth as on the ocean floor (about 600 - 900 metres) However if the oceans had been being uplifted for the last billion years (thus returning the missing sediments to the continents) then the depth of continental sediment should be about 32km deep. It isn't. That can be seen by the fact that we don't have to make our way down a 32km high cliff to go to the beach.
The other theory used by evolutionists uses the tectonic plate theory, and says that the ocean floor (along with its sediments) must plunge down into the mantle at plate boundries thus destroying both itself and the sediment. Uniformitarian evolutionist geologists have estimated that this would happen at the rate of about 2.75 billion tonnes of sediment per year. However that is only one tenth of the rate at which sediment is being deposited. Therefore this doesn't account for where that sediment goes.
Those are the only 2 models accepted by geologists today.
However, should you choose to argue that the continents are being uplifted and this counters erosion, here you go: Firstly, this isn't uniform across the continents. In fact in some places the Earth's surface is subsiding. But let's assume that the evidence was miraculously wrong, and the continents were uniformly rising out of the Earth. In the places where this has been observed, it happens at aboout 2 - 3cm a year. The approximate surface area of the continents is about 95 million km². This means that in terms of volume, about 2,900 cubic kilometres of rock are added to the continents every year. However, given that 27.5 billion tonnes of sediment are taken from the continents every year, this means that about 120 million cubic kilometres are being eroded per year.
The continents, in spite of any upward thrust, are losing at least 25 million cubic kilometres of volume per year. That's 25 million cubic kilometres that slips beneath the waves for good EVERY YEAR.
So eat your heart out.
Now, to settle any people who have any problems at all about the idea of erosion eroding the continents below sea level.
The ocean floor is blanketed by a thick layer of sediments. This layer is thickest near the coninents and thins out as you head out to sea. A lot of the sediment is from precipitated solids in the oceans, but most is stuff that has been eroded from land. The average thickness of the sediment layer is about 640 metres. The generally accepted maximum average thickness is 900m.
The volume of sediments in the ocean is therefore 0.9km x 223 million km² which is about 200 million cubic kilometres of sediment on our ocean floors. The density of this sediment on average is 2.3g/cm³. This comes to a total mass of about 820 quadrillion tonnes. That's 820,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes. The total volume of the continents above sealevel is about 30.7 cubic miles with a mass of about 383 quadrillion tonnes. That's slightly less than half the mass of the sediments in the oceans. In order to produce those sediments about twice as much continent than what we presently have above sea level must already have been eroded.
Studies of modern rivers across the world have shown that about 20.2 billion tonnes of sediment are added to the ocean from rivers every year. They also deliver about 4.6 billion tonnes of chemicals every year. Also, melting icebergs add about 2.2 billion tonnes of sediment, water seeping out from under the continents adds about 0.47 billion tonnes, seashore erosion - 0.28 billion, dust blown from land - 60 million, and sea spray takes away about 0.29 billion tonnes of sediment.
In all, about 27.5 billion tonnes of sediment are taken from the continents and added to the ocean floor every year.
At the present rate of erosion that would have taken 14 million years.
The ocean floor is assumed by evolutionists to be about 1 billion years old. At present rates that means that about 27,500,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes of sediments should have been deposited.
Some people think that "uplifting" of the ocean floor would fix this as it would return the sediments to the continents they came from. However, sediment levels on continents are about the same depth as on the ocean floor (about 600 - 900 metres) However if the oceans had been being uplifted for the last billion years (thus returning the missing sediments to the continents) then the depth of continental sediment should be about 32km deep. It isn't. That can be seen by the fact that we don't have to make our way down a 32km high cliff to go to the beach.
The other theory used by evolutionists uses the tectonic plate theory, and says that the ocean floor (along with its sediments) must plunge down into the mantle at plate boundries thus destroying both itself and the sediment. Uniformitarian evolutionist geologists have estimated that this would happen at the rate of about 2.75 billion tonnes of sediment per year. However that is only one tenth of the rate at which sediment is being deposited. Therefore this doesn't account for where that sediment goes.
Those are the only 2 models accepted by geologists today.
However, should you choose to argue that the continents are being uplifted and this counters erosion, here you go: Firstly, this isn't uniform across the continents. In fact in some places the Earth's surface is subsiding. But let's assume that the evidence was miraculously wrong, and the continents were uniformly rising out of the Earth. In the places where this has been observed, it happens at aboout 2 - 3cm a year. The approximate surface area of the continents is about 95 million km². This means that in terms of volume, about 2,900 cubic kilometres of rock are added to the continents every year. However, given that 27.5 billion tonnes of sediment are taken from the continents every year, this means that about 120 million cubic kilometres are being eroded per year.
The continents, in spite of any upward thrust, are losing at least 25 million cubic kilometres of volume per year. That's 25 million cubic kilometres that slips beneath the waves for good EVERY YEAR.
So eat your heart out.
posted by David | 12:54 pm
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