From: lmh@iago.caltech.edu (Henling, Lawrence M.)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: A Response to the Flood FAQ
Date: 15 Dec 1992 21:12 PDT
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Distribution: world
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In article <1992Dec15.191142.2201@aurora.com>, isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak) writes...
> 
>Wayne Folta has responded to my flood FAQ by email, raising many points--
>I'll forego responding myself.  The >>quoted parts are from the flood FAQ.
>All of the >quoted material which follows is from Wayne.
>----------------------
 Well, I will jump into this mess and comment briefly on one point:
> 
>>   How could a one-year flood deposit the following: "In Yellowstone Park
>> 	there is a stratigraphic section of 2000 feet exposed which shows 18
>> 	successive petrified forests.  Each forest grew to maturity before
>> 	it was wiped out with a lava flow." [J. Laurence Kulp, quoted in
>> 	Strahler, _Science and Earth History_, pp 221-224.]
> 
>This is an easy one. These are not 18 separate petrified forests, but the
>repeated, rapid, cataclysmic deposits of trees from elsewhere. The "trees"
>found are in fact tree stumps, without extensive roots or branches. It is
>well-known that tree stumps that are ripped up in floods often are deposited
>roots-down. (For example, this month;s Science magazine shows such an effect
>from a huge flood in Washington. Gish and company have also found the same
>sort of event at Mt. St. Helens.)
> 
 This month's Science journal (4 Dec 1992, Vol 258) has a number of good
articles on previously unknown earthquake(s) in Seattle 1000 to 1500 years
ago. The only photograph of tree stumps is Fig 1 on page 1620 captioned
'Drowned snags extending above surface of Spider Lake at low-water level,
September 1992.' The text refers to these as 'bark-free trunks of separate
standing dead trees (snags) ... died within a year of being drowned behind
a rock-avalanche dam.'
 Obviously these trees died in place and were not uprooted and deposited
roots-down as the Creationist claims. 

 For those interested, the articles are:

Perspective  

Paleoseismology: A Search for Ancient Earthquakes in Puget Sound
John Adams, pp 1592-1593


Reports

Abrupt Uplift Within the Past 1700 Years at Southern Puget Sound, Washington
Robert C Bucknam, Eileen Hemphill-Haley, Estella B Leopold  pp 1611-1614

A Tsunami About 1000 Years Ago in Puget Sound, Washington
Brian F Atwater and Andrew L Moore  pp 1614-1617

Paleoearthquakes in the Puget Sound Region Recorded in Sediments from
Lake Washington, USA
Robert E Karlin and Sally E B Abella  pp 1617-1620

Prehistoric Rock Avalanches in the Olympic Mountains, Washington
Robert L Schuster, Robert L Logan, Patrick T Pringle  pp 1620-1621

Tree Ring Correlation Between Prehistoric Landslides and Abrupt Tectonic
Events in Seattle, Washington
Gordon C Jacoby, Patrick L Williams, Brendan M Buckley  pp 1621-1623


 All of these reports are a bit dull and boring - the authors insistence
on documenting and providing supporting evidence for their claims seriously
hampers the flow of the narrative. There are over 130 footnotes in little
print and far too many numbers and graphs for easy reading. Also too much 
emphasis is given to such highly speculative and unsubstantiated techniques
as radiocarbon dating, tree ring counting, and magnetic susceptibilty
measurements. You are much better off just reading talk.origins.

larry henling  lmh@shakes.caltech.edu
Newsgroups: talk.origins