Real Science Friday: New Island, Old Look

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Stripe

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Not only did I not "reject the same process being able to operate on Earth," I gave you an example of it. Stop playing games. Surely you're sharp enough to realize that just because something can happen a certain way doesn't mean it had to happen that way every time.

You said, "everything you've been agreeing to suggests a slow Grand Canyon origin and a fast Martian canyon." I said I reject that idea.

And you yourself acknowledged that the shape of the canyon will depend on the rate of the water flow; perhaps it's no accident that you have stubbornly refused to comment on the meandering nature of not only the Grand Canyon, but also the much larger system of which it is part. Instead, you've focused on one small stretch in the middle, presumably because it is the straightest bit you could find, even though you then admitted that whatever water might have been responsible for that short wide bit could not have been responsible for the Grand Canyon itself!
Whatever caused the short wide bit would have had a tremendous impact on everything else under it. It is my understanding that a large water source will start out strong and slowly taper off. This piece of common sense explains both features we are referring to.

And though you won't say why you acknowledge that, isn't it because the Grand Canyon is just too meandering to have been formed by a single short blast of fast-moving water?
The meandering features were formed by slower moving water. The wide and straight parts were formed by a large influx of fast moving water. In progressing from the large volume to the no volume we see today the flow of water also went from fast to slow.
 

fool

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[/B]
You said, "everything you've been agreeing to suggests a slow Grand Canyon origin and a fast Martian canyon." I said I reject that idea.


Whatever caused the short wide bit would have had a tremendous impact on everything else under it. It is my understanding that a large water source will start out strong and slowly taper off. This piece of common sense explains both features we are referring to.


The meandering features were formed by slower moving water. The wide and straight parts were formed by a large influx of fast moving water. In progressing from the large volume to the no volume we see today the flow of water also went from fast to slow.

Excellent observations Stipe.
Keep in mind the ice ages thingy.
When they melt water flow increases dramaticly.
When they're in the middle of an ice age there might not be any flow at all.
The great lakes used to drain to the Mississippi. Not anymore.
Try this, get some lumber and make a shallow box. Fill it with sand and tamp it down real good.
Then start introducing water, play with the angle of your landscape, vary the amount of water and the speed at which you introduce it.
See what conditions you need to reproduce each of the canyon examples.
You could even use some ice for an ice age model.
Perhaps some pebbles of varous sizes mixed into the medium would be interesting as well, like little suprises that the water has to deal with.
 

Stripe

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Been there, done that. Can't upload any of the pictures at the moment.
 

Stripe

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Yup. If you start with a full bucket of sand and water then release the water through a hole at the lower end then you get something like what we are discussing with the Grand Canyon.

The experiment I did only went to that step (bit of fun for the kids), but I guess a slower moving stream could generate the meanders within the large scale structure.
 

fool

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Yup. If you start with a full bucket of sand and water then release the water through a hole at the lower end then you get something like what we are discussing with the Grand Canyon.

The experiment I did only went to that step (bit of fun for the kids), but I guess a slower moving stream could generate the meanders within the large scale structure.

So in the GC we have evidence of different types of erosion, some slow low volume and some that appears to be rapid high volume.
 

aharvey

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You said, "everything you've been agreeing to suggests a slow Grand Canyon origin and a fast Martian canyon." I said I reject that idea.
... despite the fact that the Grand Canyon meanders and the Martian canyon doesn't. See, that's the problem.

Whatever caused the short wide bit would have had a tremendous impact on everything else under it.
And above it? The whole region has the same look to it. You just picked out the straightest bit, whose edges, I can't help but observe, are still pretty uneven.
It is my understanding that a large water source will start out strong and slowly taper off.
So now you're saying that it was in fact the same water source that caused both your "high velocity" short wide bit and the meandering Grand Canyon?

By the way, your little stretch is narrower "upstream," where the flow would have been stronger, than it is downstream (but still in the "high velocity" zone). Is that what usually happens? I'm not sure what to expect. This seems to me to be an awfully wide and low "rim" for a large volume of water to suddenly punch through.

Also, your figure cuts off an interesting bit of terrain. Go back and look at the region northwest of the top of your blue line. It rather strongly suggests that the high velocity water that you need to carve your short wide canyon made a nearly 90-degree angle turn just before it blasted through that "straightaway."
This piece of common sense explains both features we are referring to.
No, actually, you need to do the explaining. That is, you need to take this piece of "common sense" and use it to explain the specific features of the region under discussion. Or regions, in this case. E.g., where's the Grand Canyon-like meander downstream of the Martian canyon that your common sense predicts?

The meandering features were formed by slower moving water. The wide and straight parts were formed by a large influx of fast moving water. In progressing from the large volume to the no volume we see today the flow of water also went from fast to slow.
Okay, I think we've reached some sort of limit here. It's not at all clear how your simplistic explanations could begin to account for the specifics of this situation, e.g. the length, breadth, depth, and complexity of the various regions (i.e., the short wide bit, the regions upstream from it, the Grand Canyon itself), their proximity, their angular arrangements, etc., nor does any of this justify your insistence that the same scenario (a short burst of lots of fast moving water) could produce such completely different results as the Martian canyon and the Grand Canyon region. But it's like pulling hen's teeth to get you to move beyond the "common sense says it should all work and it's silly to think otherwise" phase. How you think that this is a more rigorous approach than the actual gathering and explicit interpretation of data used by geologists in these cases is beyond me.

I do have a non-scientific puzzle, however. Though you haven't said so explicitly, this specific, local event with the vast amounts of fast-moving water is part of The Global Flood, right? If so, which end of the Flood are we looking at here: the arrival of the Flood waters or their departure?
 

fool

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AHarvey;
I am also having trouble visualizing this.
The GC is wide at the spots where you stop and take pictures.
And narrow up at the current source.
In order to model the GC in the format I descibed with some soil and water what combinations of tilt, volume, frequentcy, would we need to use to reproduce our little hole in the ground?

Also, while out researching this matter I found out that the water isn't as important as the sediment in the water because that's what really does the eroding.
So, that crystal clear mountain stream isn't doing much but that turbulent brown river is like a ribbon of liquid sand paper.
But then.
There's a point at which there's too much sediment and it falls out and protects the bottom, so there is a "sweet spot" for maximum erosivity.
Some times you're depositing, and some times you're eroding.
Sometimes you're not doing anything but talking to a couple of guys about how the Grand Canyon got formed.
 

Stripe

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... despite the fact that the Grand Canyon meanders and the Martian canyon doesn't. See, that's the problem.
Not a problem at all. Remember how every canyon is a product of three things? Rocks, Water and Gravity. Mars has no water. Earth does. Of course Earth is going to show the products of extended periods of water flow from the rivers we have today. Of course Mars will not have those features.

And above it? The whole region has the same look to it. You just picked out the straightest bit, whose edges, I can't help but observe, are still pretty uneven.
Below, vertically.

So now you're saying that it was in fact the same water source that caused both your "high velocity" short wide bit and the meandering Grand Canyon?
I'm saying the water changed. The water that originally carved out the canyon disappeared. What is left is only there because we have a water cycle. Not the same source of the original deluge.

By the way, your little stretch is narrower "upstream," where the flow would have been stronger, than it is downstream (but still in the "high velocity" zone). Is that what usually happens? I'm not sure what to expect. This seems to me to be an awfully wide and low "rim" for a large volume of water to suddenly punch through.
Oh, please, aharvey. Go do the sand and water experiment.

Also, your figure cuts off an interesting bit of terrain. Go back and look at the region northwest of the top of your blue line. It rather strongly suggests that the high velocity water that you need to carve your short wide canyon made a nearly 90-degree angle turn just before it blasted through that "straightaway."
You're right. Haven't noticed that before.

No, actually, you need to do the explaining. That is, you need to take this piece of "common sense" and use it to explain the specific features of the region under discussion. Or regions, in this case. E.g., where's the Grand Canyon-like meander downstream of the Martian canyon that your common sense predicts?
There's no water cycle on Mars to provide rivers to generate meanders. The only source of water we have is the proposed dump that carved the canyons.

I do have a non-scientific puzzle, however. Though you haven't said so explicitly, this specific, local event with the vast amounts of fast-moving water is part of The Global Flood, right? If so, which end of the Flood are we looking at here: the arrival of the Flood waters or their departure?
Departure. The flood left lakes on continental USA and they burst their banks a long time after the flood proper had finished.
 

fool

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Not a problem at all. Remember how every canyon is a product of three things? Rocks, Water and Gravity. Mars has no water. Earth does. Of course Earth is going to show the products of extended periods of water flow from the rivers we have today. Of course Mars will not have those features.


Below, vertically.


I'm saying the water changed. The water that originally carved out the canyon disappeared. What is left is only there because we have a water cycle. Not the same source of the original deluge.

Oh, please, aharvey. Go do the sand and water experiment.


You're right. Haven't noticed that before.


There's no water cycle on Mars to provide rivers to generate meanders. The only source of water we have is the proposed dump that carved the canyons.


Departure. The flood left lakes on continental USA and they burst their banks a long time after the flood proper had finished.

Those deep canyons that run from NY to LA are suposed to be 10 miles deep?
And they're suposed to be fault lines?
And the edges are eroded?
We might have to whip out the wandering pole thingy of science.......
 

aharvey

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Not a problem at all. Remember how every canyon is a product of three things? Rocks, Water and Gravity. Mars has no water. Earth does. Of course Earth is going to show the products of extended periods of water flow from the rivers we have today. Of course Mars will not have those features.
So then, um, "of course" the Grand Canyon looks the way it does as a result of an extended period of slow moving water flow, and "of course" the Mars canyon looks the way it does as a result of a brief burst of intense water flow?

Below, vertically.
No idea what this means.

I'm saying the water changed. The water that originally carved out the canyon disappeared. What is left is only there because we have a water cycle. Not the same source of the original deluge.

Oh, please, aharvey. Go do the sand and water experiment.
I think you're missing my point. This "bank" that was breached by your biggo lake is rather extraordinarily thick and shallow to be suddenly burst. The water's going to start flowing over the top long before enough pressure can build up to rupture the "wall." But this may be moot. See next comment.

You're right. Haven't noticed that before.
Give it a bit of thought. It does seem to create problems for your scenario. Indeed, I don't see how you can consider the two walls you've outlined in blue to be remnants of the breached "bank" of a huge lake when the area just "lakeside" of those banks (e.g., around Page, Cedar Mountain, Big Water) are the same height (and apparently the same plateau!) as the "banks" that supposedly bounded them!

There's no water cycle on Mars to provide rivers to generate meanders. The only source of water we have is the proposed dump that carved the canyons.
Hmm, so you're saying that the two canyons look different because one was carved by a sudden burst of fast moving water and the other was carved by long term exposure to slow moving water...?

Departure. The flood left lakes on continental USA and they burst their banks a long time after the flood proper had finished.
What's "a long time" to you when describing post-Flood geologic changes? A year? A hundred years? A thousand? Was most of the geologic rearranging (i.e., what conventional types would attribute to plate tectonics) done by the time the Flood receded? Other than lake draining effects, of course. Any idea how widely this lake extended in other directions?

Speaking of which, did this only happen on the continental USA? Or were there, as seems logical to me, lots of megagigantic lakes left behind all over the various continents?

Sorry for the "flood" of questions, but there's really very little out there on this.
 

Stripe

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So then, um, "of course" the Grand Canyon looks the way it does as a result of an extended period of slow moving water flow, and "of course" the Mars canyon looks the way it does as a result of a brief burst of intense water flow?
No. They both look similar (macro scale) because of a big flow. They look different (meanders) because of the presence of a water cycle on Earth.

When I said, "Below, vertically" that was because I said "below" in a previous post and I think you took it as meaning "downstream" when I meant literally "below".

I think you're missing my point. This "bank" that was breached by your biggo lake is rather extraordinarily thick and shallow to be suddenly burst. The water's going to start flowing over the top long before enough pressure can build up to rupture the "wall." But this may be moot. See next comment.
The bank was formed by the deluge. Previous to that it wouldn't have been a wall. There would also have been lots of sediment on top of the hard rock layers we see today. All this initial barrier that caused the deluge was conveniently destroyed. Apart from what was left behind and is now the big funnel shape we see.

Give it a bit of thought. It does seem to create problems for your scenario. Indeed, I don't see how you can consider the two walls you've outlined in blue to be remnants of the breached "bank" of a huge lake when the area just "lakeside" of those banks (e.g., around Page, Cedar Mountain, Big Water) are the same height (and apparently the same plateau!) as the "banks" that supposedly bounded them!
Have you read Walt's ideas on this?

Hmm, so you're saying that the two canyons look different because one was carved by a sudden burst of fast moving water and the other was carved by long term exposure to slow moving water...?
:chuckle: Not quite. I'm saying they look different because after they were both formed by a large influx of water one had a water cycle in operation to keep feeding it water and the other did not.

What's "a long time" to you when describing post-Flood geologic changes? A year? A hundred years? A thousand?
A couple of thousand or more.

Was most of the geologic rearranging (i.e., what conventional types would attribute to plate tectonics) done by the time the Flood receded?
Yes.

Other than lake draining effects, of course. Any idea how widely this lake extended in other directions?
Grand Lake.

Speaking of which, did this only happen on the continental USA? Or were there, as seems logical to me, lots of megagigantic lakes left behind all over the various continents?
Sure.

Sorry for the "flood" of questions, but there's really very little out there on this.
:)
 

Stripe

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Are there any other places on earth where the Flood caused this? Seems to me that there ought to be other spots with similar topography.
Why? If what you say is true then there aren't any other spots like this no matter what idea you say formed it.
 

Stripe

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Here's an interesting one. A meandering river within a meandering river.

More evidence for a large water flow dwindling to a smaller one.
 
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