Article 53265 of talk.origins: Newsgroups: talk.origins Path: klaava!news.funet.fi!sunic!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!sdd.hp.com!sgiblab!sgigate.sgi.com!olivea!charnel!rat!mimbres.cs.unm.edu!bbx!anewton From: anewton@bbx.basis.com (Allen J. Newton) Subject: Re: WHY Re: Age of the Earth Message-ID: <1994Jan24.190936.6392@bbx.basis.com> Reply-To: anewton@alturia.abq.nm.us Organization: BASIS Int'l, Albuquerque NM USA References: <2hr9mv$kp3@gap.cco.caltech.edu> <2hrapd$nlr@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 19:09:36 GMT Lines: 151 In article lindsay+@cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay) writes: > >In article <2hrapd$nlr@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, >William H. Jefferys wrote: >>Note how the pattern duplicates it self, but reversed left-to-right, >>on the other side of the midocean ridge. The top to bottom of the >>diagram could easily be over 1000 miles. > >Let me re-emphasize that. As I said, I helped do some of the original >data reduction on this. Once, I reduced a data tape to a plot of the >magnetic field along our trans-Atlantic flight. I then folded the >plot in half, and held it up to the light. The two halves fitted each >other with uncanny precision: it was absolutely dramatic. The two >halves are *not* so simple that this is some sort of accident. > >The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a known volcanic region, just happened to be >exactly on the fold. A coincidence? Yeah, sure. > >Arguments about the reversals not being reversals, are irrelevant. >The data reduction that I did, did not make any assumptions about >that. The data is just what the magnetometer measured, and is not >constructed out of some geological theory or other. The data >reduction was just that - reduction: mathematically defensible >averaging, so that an entire tape could be expressed on a graph whose >length was less than the length of the flight path... > >Can someone assure me that samples from the various magnetic regions >have, indeed, been dated? I would assume so, and I'm pretty sure >that I would have heard about it if the dates *weren't* nicely >sorted, youngest near the Ridge, oldest near the continents. >That's the falsifiable prediction from the magnetic data. Great, I believe you. However, I believe you interpreted the data you gathered incorrectly. You claim that the data shows you that the magnetic field on the ocean floor reverses in spots due to flips in the Earth's magnetic field as those spots formed, do I have this right? And this based on your magnetometric measurements? Now we're into one of my areas of specialty. I assert that there are no actual reversals of the magnetic field, based on the following, and that if you look at the original data, you'll see that it backs this up. In electronics, there is an effect called induction, which is caused by a conductor cutting across magnetic lines of force. The effect is a difference of electrical potential between the two ends of the conductor (EMF or voltage). In a closed circuit, voltage causes current to flow. Any change of current causes a counter-EMF which opposes the change. A magnetometer is a device which energizes a coil with an alternating magnetic field (via alternating current) and registers any variations in the expected current (i.e. no magnetic field at all would produce no change in current in the field, but the presence of a magnetic field would cause the current to vary between the positive and negative cycles). When measuring VARIATIONS in field strength, the magnetometer is usually calibrated to use zero as the 'standard' or background field strength (i.e. the Earth's magnetic field), which obviously is not zero gauss. But that's not relevant to the effect which I'm describing. The best way to describe this would be to illustrate it with an experiment anyone can do at home (note, none of this I'm describing in this post is theoretical, it's practical). If you make a DC electromagnet (by wrapping insulated wire around an iron core, say, a 6 inch nail, and connecting to a battery), place a compass OVER the coil, the compass will point to the "North" pole of the electromagnet. If you move the electromagnet AWAY from the compass, it will return to the Earth's north magnetic pole. For the best dramatic effect, line up the electromagnet's north pole with the Earth's, and place the compass over it (ensuring that you didn't get the EM poles reversed). What would you expect from just turning off the electromagnet? Would you expect the compass to continue pointing toward Earth North? I suspect your average person unfamiliar with electrical principles to guess that it would, after all, it seems reasonable. So try it! Is that what happens? No! What does happen? The pointer jerks RAPIDLY toward the south, and then returns to the north. Why? "Any change in current produces a counter-EMF [voltage] which opposed the change" (I think it's called Henry's Law, but I'm not great with names). In this case, the change in current was from "on" (whatever value results from dividing the voltage of the battery by the sum of the resistance of the wire and the internal resistance of the battery) to zero amps. This generates a voltage spike on the coil of the opposite polarity, but MUCH greater magnitude, which momentarily creates a magnetic field in the opposite direction. [This is the same principle that causes car engines to run (diesels excepted), BTW] I believe you'll find the magnetometer readings bear this out. An interesting falsification of this would be to have whatever aircraft (say, perhaps a helicopter) STOP in the middle of one of the reversals and see which way the compass is pointing. If it returns to North, then that point does NOT represent a place where the magnetic field of the material (basalt) is actually reversed with respect to the Earth's present magnetic field. If it remains pointing South, then it is. Just because a MOVING magnetometer indicates field reversals does not indicate that the Earth's field is reversed, but the counter-EMF could be (and we assert IS) causing a field reversal in the pickup coil[s]. There is no dispute that the magnetic anomalies exist, that they're centered over the mid-Oceanic Ridge, or that they're roughly symmetrical -- the Ridge itself is largely bi-symmetrical. The dispute is that any part of the ridge is magnetized in the opposite direction of the Earth's current magnetic field and therefore being used as "proof" that the Earth's magnetic field undergoes periodic reversals (there IS other evidence of that, I'm just saying the anomalies of the Ridge do not contribute to that). A typical graph of the anamolous readings would look like this: | | **** | * * | *** * * *** | ** * * * * * * ** | ** * * * * * * * * ** |* ** * * * * ** *** | ** ** *** | ** | | | | | +----------------------------------------------------------- 0 gauss (But more sinusoidal, obviously) If you draw a line through the sine waves, you'll get an 'average' intensity at the point of the anomalies (which would be slightly higher than the normal field intensity of the Earth), but it isn't zero (i.e. no magnetic field), and at nowhere on the Ocean floor has there (to my knowledge) been discovered any point where a stationary North-pointing compass would point South. And the measurements over the Ridge certainly don't indicate that. I asked earlier for any references to anything which would contradict that. Since none were offered, I presume that there aren't any. I hope this description has been helpful toward understanding what the magnetic anomalies are, how they affect the equipment which measures them, and how that data has been misinterpreted in the past. >-- >Don D.C.Lindsay Carnegie Mellon Computer Science -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Allen J. Newton (anewton@alturia.abq.nm.us) Article 53318 of talk.origins: Path: klaava!news.funet.fi!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!lerc.nasa.gov!nova.sti.nasa.gov!skates.gsfc.nasa.gov!jgacker From: jgacker@news.gsfc.nasa.gov (James G. Acker) Newsgroups: talk.origins Subject: Re: WHY Re: Age of the Earth Date: 25 Jan 1994 16:25:43 GMT Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- InterNetNews site Lines: 152 Message-ID: <2i3h67$rnj@skates.gsfc.nasa.gov> References: <1994Jan24.190936.6392@bbx.basis.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6] Allen J. Newton (anewton@bbx.basis.com) wrote: : In article lindsay+@cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay) writes: : >Arguments about the reversals not being reversals, are irrelevant. : >The data reduction that I did, did not make any assumptions about : >that. The data is just what the magnetometer measured, and is not : >constructed out of some geological theory or other. The data : >reduction was just that - reduction: mathematically defensible : >averaging, so that an entire tape could be expressed on a graph whose : >length was less than the length of the flight path... : > : >Can someone assure me that samples from the various magnetic regions : >have, indeed, been dated? I would assume so, and I'm pretty sure : >that I would have heard about it if the dates *weren't* nicely : >sorted, youngest near the Ridge, oldest near the continents. : >That's the falsifiable prediction from the magnetic data. It's better than that. See below. : Great, I believe you. However, I believe you interpreted the data you : gathered incorrectly. You claim that the data shows you that the : magnetic field on the ocean floor reverses in spots due to flips in : the Earth's magnetic field as those spots formed, do I have this : right? And this based on your magnetometric measurements? : Now we're into one of my areas of specialty. Which, unfortunately, is clearly not geodynamics. : I assert that there are no actual reversals of the magnetic field, : based on the following, and that if you look at the original data, : you'll see that it backs this up. Sorry, you're in error. The reversals were found before the anomalous magnetization of the ocean floor was found. [electronic irrelevance deleted] : There is no dispute that the magnetic anomalies exist, that they're : centered over the mid-Oceanic Ridge, or that they're roughly : symmetrical -- the Ridge itself is largely bi-symmetrical. The : dispute is that any part of the ridge is magnetized in the opposite : direction of the Earth's current magnetic field and therefore being : used as "proof" that the Earth's magnetic field undergoes periodic : reversals (there IS other evidence of that, I'm just saying the : anomalies of the Ridge do not contribute to that). Not the way it happened, sorry. [more deletia] Newton then asks for contradicting references, and says presumptuously: : that. Since none were offered, I presume that there aren't any. Read on. Seems like Mr. Newton (no relation to Isaac, obviously) needs to be brought "up to speed" on plate tectonics and magnetic reversals. Riffed from the pages of _New Scientist_, 30 October 1993, which ought to be up-to-date: "Bringing it all together" (sidebar) "In September 1963, the paper by Fred Vine and Drummond Matthews wove three different strands of thought, all current at the time, into a single elegant hypothesis. First, measurement of the direction of magnetisation of _young_ lava flows had shown that the Earth's magnetic field has reversed in direction periodically in the past, so that the north magnetic pole became the south magnetic pole, and vice versa." (Editor's note: Measurements of a lava flow in the northwestern U.S. actually showed a reversal "in progress", i.e. the lava was flowing and crystallizing during a reversal, and successive crystallizations show a changing magnetic polarity. Now back to our article.) "Careful dating of the lava flows was allowing the construction of a reverse timescale, showing a characteristic pattern of switches -- 22 in all over the past 4.5 million years. (MILLION, not BILLION!) Secondly, proponents of continental drift had begun to argue, following the lead of Arthur Holmes of the University of Durham and Harry Hess of Princeton University, NJ, that continents drift apart as oceans expand, and that the expansion might be happening at mid-ocean ridges. Thirdly, magnetic surveys off the Pacific coast of North America showed that the Earth's magnetic field is distorted by striped anomalies running parallel to sections of mid-ocean ridges. Vine and Matthews suggested that if new ocean crust were being created, it would be magnetised alternately, in one direction and then in the opposite direction, as the Earth's field reversed; they claimed that the strips of crust of alternative magnetisation would produce the observed anomalies. If so, then the pattern of anomalies should be a mirror-image on each side of a mid-ocean ridge, and the pattern should correspond to the pattern of the reversal timescale." (Editor's note: already established INDEPENDENTLY) "If, in turn, that could be demonstrated, then not only would the creation of new crust be certain, but measurement of the rate of creation would be made possible, BECAUSE THE DATES OF INDIVIDUAL MAGNETIC REVERSALS HAD BEEN ESTABLISHED ON LAND. Using a magnetic survey of the Juan de Fuca Ridge, off western North America, Vine and Tuzo Wilson of the University of Toronto demonstrated that all of these conditions could be met and, in 1965, they were able to make the first estimates of how fast the crust is created. Within a few years, the principle had been extended to other oceans and to older crust, and ocean floor spreading was established. In 1967, the theory was expanded into the broader concept of plate tectonics. Dan McKenzie of the University of Cambridge and Bob Parker of Scripps showed how the northeast Pacific mid-ocean ridge could be seen as the result of the movement of rigid plates of the solid outer layer of the Earth, which is known as the lithosphere, over the softer interior. This idea was extended to the whole Earth over the next year. In September 1968, Bryan Isacks, Jack Oliver, and Lynn Sykes of LDGO completed the picture by adding the latest information from earthquakes to the global story. In the course of these five years, a new quantitative, predictive model of earth sciences had been developed." Two final notes (my own): 1) Long hiatus periods in reversals are well-correlated with periods of basaltic flood volcanism (Deccan and Siberian traps are examples). 2) There is no need to dive in "Alvin" to the Mid-Ocean ridge to see the lava formations of a spreading center. Pillow lavas can be found in the Blue Ridge Mountains, an ancient spreading center. Flood theorists who might explain that these formations formed underwater as volcanism occurred during the flood are invited to explain how the entire basaltic formations weathered to metabasalt "greenstone" subsequent to the Flood, with modern- day weathering rates in effect. =============================================== | James G. Acker | | REPLY TO: jgacker@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov | =============================================== All comments are the personal opinion of the writer and do not constitute policy and/or opinion of government or corporate entities. Article 53358 of talk.origins: Newsgroups: talk.origins Path: klaava!news.funet.fi!sunic!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!news.umbc.edu!eff!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!nntp.club.cc.cmu.edu!cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!lindsay From: lindsay+@cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay) Subject: Re: WHY Re: Age of the Earth Message-ID: Sender: news@cs.cmu.edu (Usenet News System) Nntp-Posting-Host: tezuka.rest.ri.cmu.edu Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon References: <2hr9mv$kp3@gap.cco.caltech.edu> <2hrapd$nlr@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu> <1994Jan24.190936.6392@bbx.basis.com> Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 19:28:52 GMT Lines: 71 In article <1994Jan24.190936.6392@bbx.basis.com>, Allen J. Newton wrote: >Great, I believe you. However, I believe you interpreted the data you >gathered incorrectly. You claim that the data shows you that the >magnetic field on the ocean floor reverses in spots due to flips in >the Earth's magnetic field as those spots formed, do I have this >right? And this based on your magnetometric measurements? I get the feeling you think that there were some sort of blips, "What was that!??" as we flew over a spot. No. There were regions mucho miles long that were clearly a region. Then we'd fly into a different region. We're talking a propeller plane - a DC-6 - chuffing along at 500 feet. We're talking regions that took minutes or an hour to cross. I can't remember by now if we took a reading every second, or even faster, but it certainly wasn't slower. When I graphed the result, the graph showed these huge, obvious regions, with relatively abrupt transitions from region to region. >Now we're into one of my areas of specialty. I'm not so sure about that. It's been 25 years, but I seem to recall that our magnetometer used some phenomena from nuclear physics. It *wasn't* some great big coil and a D'Arsonval meter movement, thank you. >Any change of current causes a counter-EMF which opposes the change. I seriously doubt that this is relevant. Our magnetometer was sufficiently sensitive that (when we chose) we could measure the height of the ocean waves below. (Back on land, we used filtering to remove that high-frequency signal component from the data.) We calibrated it in a special shack, built with wood and nonferrous nails. When I worked in there, I had to take off my shoes, and my glasses, and my pants. This so that as I moved around, I wouldn't be moving ferrous metal around. We calibrated the overall flight system regularly, because simply leaving the aircraft parked overnight, could change the measurable anomaly due to the aircraft body itself. >A typical graph of the anamolous readings would look like this: > >| >| **** >| * * >| *** * * *** >| ** * * * * * * ** >| ** * * * * * * * * ** >|* ** * * * * ** *** >| ** ** *** >| ** >| >| >| >| >| >+----------------------------------------------------------- 0 gauss > >(But more sinusoidal, obviously) No, it doesn't look like that, and it's less sinusoidal, not more. Perhaps you should grab one of the books we've recommended and actually look at some actual data. >I hope this description has been helpful toward understanding what the >magnetic anomalies are, how they affect the equipment which measures >them, and how that data has been misinterpreted in the past. No, it hasn't, it didn't, and it hasn't been. Respectively. -- Don D.C.Lindsay Carnegie Mellon Computer Science