[_ Old Earth _] Coal and oil

[Cygnus]

Normally, bark loosens from fallen trees. But the raft in the lake is a tiny fraction of the trees that fell and were buried. And you won't see peat there, because it takes thousands of years to form. The "Mt. St. Helens Peat" argument is only a "just so" story, with no evidence to support it.

So, the way the bark has settled compared to fossilized bark in coal...being the same...is a just so story?

 

[Barbarian]

So, the way the bark has settled compared to fossilized bark in coal...being the same...is a just so story?

Yep.
Claim no. 1: The accumulation of bark at the bottom of Spirit Lake, which is called peat, demonstrates that peat can accumulate fast.

The accumulation of a thin layer of shredded bark at Spirit Lake is irrelevant to how peat is formed, because coal is rarely associated with the highly fragmented, angular volcanic debris that characterizes the material at Spirit Lake. Rather, coal occurs interbedded with either nonvolcanic channel sandstones, freshwater limestones, shales, and paleosols of riverine origin or cyclic sequences of sandstones, shales and marine limestones identical to those that comprise modern deltas and coastal plains (Flores 1981, Donaldson et al. 1985). Finally, the base of many coals lies directly on top of well developed paleosols, often called seatearths, seatclays and fireclays, that would be absent from the base of the Spirit Lake peat (Gardner et al. 1988, Joeckel 1995). It is extremely clear that the shredded wood at the bottom of Spirit Lake accumulated in a vastly different environment than currently known coals.

Claim no. 2: Swamp peat rarely contains sheets of bark because tree roots disintegrate and homoginize [sic] the peat.

The absence of bark in many peats reflects the abundance of other components (i.e., wood, foliage, roots, and pollen) accumulating to form a peat. The composition of peats varies so much that it is incorrect to make such generalizations. Also, the coalification, process by which peat is transformed into coal, will homogenize and destroy the identity of the individual components. Initially, microorganisms degrade plant material. Then, chemical processes convert the lignin of the plants into humic substances and condense these humic substances into larger coal molecules. All of these coalification processes serve to homogenize the former peat (Meissner et al. 1977). The presence of in place tree roots that have grown into and homogenized the peat would demonstrate the peat accumulated in place and not transported from elsewhere as the shredded bark found at Spirit Lake. Trees and other plants could not grow in and put roots down into material that accumulates on the bottom of a lake or other water body, mush less rapidly deposited sediments. Thus, claiming that peat has been homogenized by tree roots contradicts the claim that the peat accumulated at the bottom of some body of water. In fact, where the original texture of peat is preserved in coal balls from Midwestern coals, in place roots are not only present, but have clearly failed to homogenize the peat.

Claim no. 3: Spirit Lake peat is texturally very similar to coal.

This is also a false statement. The shredded plant material at the bottom of Spirit Lake that is being called peat has little if any resemblance to the peat found in modern peat swamps such as those in Indonesia that are considered modern analogues of the eastern United States' Pennsylvanian coals. It has even less similarity to coal.

It can be questioned whether peat is even the proper term for the shredded wood and bark found at the bottom of Spirit Lake. From the descriptions that Austin (1986) and other creationists have given of this material, it sounds likes a relatively unaltered layer consisting of fragments of ground up wood and bark of varying sizes. Geologists call such woody debris "coffee grounds." Coffee grounds consists of wood and other plant debris that have been carried out of the mouth of the delta, rolled around and fragmented by waves for while, and deposited as sand- to pebble-sized chunks of sorted plant debris on the beach, back beach, or abandoned channel areas. This material is called "coffee grounds" because of its visual similarity to coffee (black or brown little bits of wood). In ancient deltas, coffee grounds have accumulated within abandoned deltaic channels to form high-quality, but very thin, coals (Coleman 1982, p. 39). However, these coals, like the coffee grounds of the modern Mississippi Delta, lack the lateral continuity, paleosols, and presence of recognizable foliage or root material that characterize the widespread Pennsylvanian coal seams (DiMichele et al. 1986, Gardner et al. 1988, Wnuk 1989).

Claim no. 4: Only burial and slight heating is required to transform the Spirit Lake peat to coal.

This is another false claim that burial and slight heating will convert the coffee grounds that they call peat into coal. The conversion of this material takes considerable burial and time to convert to the quality of coal found in Pennsylvania. In the case of anthracite, very intense tectonic metamorphism is also needed for the conversion of this material into coal.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mtsthelens.html

Most creationists have abandoned that story a decade ago. Rarely see it come up any more, for there reasons mentioned above.

 

[brujaq]

Bill Nye the BS guy has lost all credibility on his teaching of layered petrified forests because of Mt St Helens proof .. And the man made global warming scam has about finished him off ... He should have more time to work on his marriage skills now ..

 

[Barbarian]

Bill Nye the BS guy has lost all credibility on his teaching of layered petrified forests because of Mt St Helens proof

Nye has pointed out that sediment can form layers rather quickly around trees. There are some forming like that near my house, where trees are being buried in sediment where they were covered when a dam produced a lake. Polystrate fossils being made. That was Nye's point.

And the man made global warming scam has about finished him off.

Yes, the Earth is getting warmer, and yes it is man-made. But Nye accepts these facts.

 

[brujaq]

Hahaha .. And you try to come across as informed .. Here's a hint, invest and buy heating fuel oil futures ..

 

[Pizza]

Were there coal and oil deposits before the great flood?

I believe so.

Oil was found in Pennsylvania and monopolized by old man Rockefeller having the market cornered then Texas sprung a leak then the middle East .

Not sure what your point here is.

Peak oil has been preached for the last 40 yrs to no avail but even deserted, depleted oil fields are being filled back up . Which leads to my question . Is oil and coal still being produced In Earth ?

I believe so and I have NEVER believed that oil and gas were strictly a product of decomposing animals and plants. And I'm an "old earther".

That whole "Peak Oil" baloney was just one more created crisis, like "the coming ice age", "global warming", "climate change", the "arms race", "nuclear winter", "aids", "the HP virus", etc.

I say yes and it is a direct result of the great flood

I do'nt see what flooding could have to do with it.