Charles Spurgeon was one of the great preachers of the nineteenth century, and like many leading Evangelicals of that time, he had no problem with the idea of an old Earth. Today's Pyromaniac's blog has an excerpt from Spurgeon's book The Greatest Fight in the World. In this short section, Spurgeon attacks the scientists who …
Category: Geology
100 geological things to do
This meme was started by Geotripper, and I've seen it at Looking for Detachment and Clastic Detritus as well. The idea is to take a standard list, written by Geotripper, and highlight with bold the the things I've actually done: 1. See an erupting volcano 2. See a glacier [I've been on small glaciers in …
Deriba Caldera, Sudan
From NASA's Earth Observatory: Deriba Caldera, a volcano in the Darfur region of Sudan. This caldera was formed in a large eruption about 3,500 years ago. The geometry is a little more obvious in Google Earth: Like Crater Lake in Oregon, this caldera was formed by a massive eruption, likely followed by a partial collapse …
Pliocene and Quaternary sea levels
Tying into a post from earlier tonight: global Pliocene and Quaternary sea levels, from the US Geological Survey. The natural range of sea level for the past 3 million years is from a high of 35 meters above present sea level, to a low of 120 meters below present sea level: The +35 m value …
The Pliocene as a model for the 21st century?
The US Geological Survey has a news release regarding climate during the mid-Pliocene Epoch, between 3.0 and 3.3 million years ago: Getting Warmer? Prehistoric Climate Can Help Forecast Future Changes. Scientists used paleontological data (i.e. fossils) to reconstruct surface water and deep-ocean temperatures, as well as ocean circulation patterns. Here are some of the findings: …
Continue reading The Pliocene as a model for the 21st century?
World groundwater resources map
From UNESCO: Groundwater Resources of the World From the UNESCO press release: Despite its strategic importance, no global inventory of this resource had been compiled to date. Since 2000, UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme (IHP) has been participating in the establishment of a groundwater database. It is now presenting a detailed map of transboundary aquifers – …
Mars climate change recorded in rocks
Patterns in sedimentary layers on Mars could be the result of cyclical climate change caused by regular variations in the tilt of the planet's axis: Climate on Earth is controlled by similar cyclical changes in the Earth's orbit and axial tilt, which leads to alternating glacial and interglacial periods. LiveScience article: Mars Wobbles Created Climate …
Crater Lake geologic map
The USGS has released a new geologic map of Crater Lake, Oregon: A good geologic map is a work of art. Grace and peace
Francis Schaeffer on the age of the Earth
Francis Schaeffer on the age of the Earth: What does day mean in the days of creation? The answer must be held with some openness. In Genesis 5:2 we read: "Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created." As it is clear …
GeoEye volcano gallery
GeoEye is a company that owns Earth-imaging satellites and provides imagery for commercial and government clients. They have a set of image galleries with imagery of natural and manmade features. Here are a couple images from their volcanoes gallery: Krakatoa, Indonesia: Nyiragongo, Congo: If you've used Google Earth, you've probably seen GeoEye imagery, as Google …
Glaciers on Mars, part 2
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day: Radar Indicates Buried Glaciers on Mars. Explanation: What created this unusual terrain on Mars? The floors of several mid-latitude craters in Hellas Basin on Mars appear unusually grooved, flat, and shallow. New radar images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter bolster an exciting hypothesis: huge glaciers of buried ice. Evidence …
Glaciers on Mars?
Scientists have identified features that could be glaciers at mid-latitudes on Mars. If this interpretation is correct, then these could contain a significant amount of water ice at a considerable distance from the poles. LiveScience: Buried Glaciers Found on Mars There is a cirque-like feature in the foreground (the bowl-shaped feature facing the camera at …
Resurrecting mammoths
From LiveScience: Extinct Woolly Mammoth's DNA Mapped Scientists for the first time have unraveled much of the genetic code of an extinct animal, the ice age's woolly mammoth, and with it they are thawing Jurassic Park dreams. Their groundbreaking achievement has them contemplating a once unimaginable future when certain prehistoric species might one day be …
The future ice age
Irregardless of what we do to the planet now, the long-term climate prospect for sometime a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of years in the future is cold: Earth may face freeze worse than Ice Age. This is nothing new to geologists, recognizing that Earth is presently in a short interglacial period …
The Bible Rocks — Review by Dr. Peter Enns
A good review of Young and Stearley's The Bible, Rocks, and Time by Dr. Peter Enns, professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, can be found here. I haven't finished the book yet, but agree with Dr. Enns that "despite this blunt assessment of young-Earth creationism, the authors’ treatment of their opponents’ views are …
Oil, geologists, women
The November issue of GSA Today (from the Geological Society of America) has a graph showing the inflation-adjusted price of oil, the number of graduates in the geosciences, and the percentage of those graduates who are female: Black: price of a barrel of oil in 2007 US dollars Red: number of geoscience graduates (plummeted in …
Good observations
Scientists don't have to be right on everything to make a lasting contribution. Good observations tend to endure longer than interpretations. From Winter, J.D., An Introduction to Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology, p. 424. This is from Chapter 21: "An Introduction to Metamorphism," and referred to the 19th-20th century geologist George Barrow, who first described metamorphic …
Dinosaur footprints part 3
I wrote about dinosaur footprints a few weeks ago here and here. I had recently attended a young-Earth creation seminar where the speaker used very questionable examples of "human" footprints in Permian and Cretaceous rocks as evidence that humans and dinosaurs coexisted. Many of these "human" footprints turn out to be forgeries. A scientist can …
Xe Bang Fai River Cave, Laos
Take a look at the pictures of this cave at the National Geographic site. HT: Geology.com News Grace and Peace
Ice-free Arctic
I was watching CNN today (not something I normally do; I was standing in a line at the post office) and the story was about record melting of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. The prediction was that the Arctic could be ice-free in the summer within five years. And I was reading Geology.com News …
GeoChristian 