Fire Breathing Dragons

Radioactive dating:
You don't measure the amount of radioisotopes in a rock. You examine the rock for crystals. You isolate the crystals and measure them. The crystals used are certain types that show no effects of metamorphic activity, chemical activity, or other events that result in an exchange of ions. I have a number of zircon crystals I collected and these crystals all show what is known as Metamictization. Zircons are often used in dating.

There is another dating technique called thermoluminescent dating. it has been used in many places and is also a short term dating method. Like C14 it cannot go back in time too far. It has been used to date sediments and pottery.

Apparent age theory:
The apparent age theory I call the hoax theory because if god made light he also made light in transit to give us the idea that the universe is 13 billion years old. He created a world which has geological features that are older than 25,000 years just counting varves. He created fossil corals that suggest that the year had over 400 days in it. He created shells that also perpetuate the hoax that there were hundreds of days in the year. He created magnetic reversal evidence even in 50,000 year old fire pits. We could make this longer I suppose.

The curious issue here is that in the 1500s, there was a debate about fossils being created by the devil to trick man. It seems that to me that the apparent age claim has god now in the position of tricking man.

I loved reading about the snake fossil find. I remember the snake possibly feeding on crocodiles. That's a snake to wary of!

Originally posted by stereologist

I had to learn about metamictization. Just for reference: An example of a metamict mineral is zircon. The presence of uranium and thorium atoms substituting for zirconium in the crystal structure is responsible for the radiation damage in this case. Unaffected specimens are termed high zircon while metamict specimens are termed low zircon. Specimens falling between the two extremes are termed intermediate. " Why would you find different levels. If Earth is X million years old, shouldn't everything been decaying or changing at a constant rate during a constant time?

I see why thermoluminescene isn't relaible for long time periods. Determining when a "zeroing" event happened might be difficult.

As far as apparent age being God hoaxing man, if God was trying to trick you, He wouldn't have written Genesis and other protions of the Bible that record His acts. We have rocks and minerals in all stages of decay. That wouldn't be true if we had a "Big Bang" and have been evolving (devolving thermodynamically) ever since.
My thought is that we take facts and then apply what we believe to it and come up with a theory - whether it's evolution of creation. If you like watching "who dunnits" there are lots of false trails and opinions. Crime shows figure out the villian within the hour. Scientist have no final authority, it's an ever learning and evolving thing. I love science, I love the complexity of live and the interconnectedness of the ecosystem and the solar system. With the huge amount of complexity, diversity, and balance, I find evolution mathmatecally impossible and not a logical conclusion.

O.k. now I do believe in Dragons and all, but when did medieval knights battle the Dragons outside of a story book????????????????????

reply to post by Truent2


Well, they had to fight something. The only large mammals native there are bears and deer. Bears can be pretty vicious if you attack them, but it's also a know species. The only other place we hear of dragons is China. So how would have medival knights heard of them? And Chinese dragons are water creatures. If it's just a figment its pretty coincidental.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


I can imagine a dragon eating leaves early in the morning wich goes into a second stomach(cows have 3 stomachs) and produce methane.
At that point all he have to do is rubbing his teeth together and ignite the methane.

reply to post by zachi

Zachi you've showed me a lot of things, too. I always appreciate being shown new ideas and testing my understanding of the world around us. Which you do very well. Thanks.

The specimens of zircons I collected were in the Monteregian hills east of Montreal, Canada. They are Silurian age or later zircons. The reason I say that is that the hills are intrusions that passed through layers of rock containing Silurian fossils. The wild part of this event is that the melt that came up included a lot of uncommon elements. The minerals that crystallized out of that melt are unusual. The oddest came from the interaction between the limestone blocks and the melt. Here the chemistry formed minerals many of which are known only from the Monteregian hills. These zircons are maybe in the range of 430 million years old. They happen to be high in zirconium. I looked it up. I had no way of knowing. I rely on the experts from McGill and other Montreal universities who spend a lot of time in the mines collecting and finding new minerals.

I like your notion of false trails. There have been plenty in science from the idea that the world was a flat square to the idea of phlogiston. And I certainly agree that science evolves through the discovery of new and interesting results.

Do you find the fact of evolution impossible or the theories of evolution impossible?

reply to post by zachi


Don't forget the aurochs. These were large cattle that went extinct. They were large with huge horns.

Aurochs

reply to post by stereologist


Wow! Those Aurochs are interesting. I could make quite a rib-eye out of him.
What I find implausable are the odds of such great complexity evolving.
Consider that amino acids are all left-handed. Chirality is hard to expalin. www.darwinismrefuted.com...
Or, how does man learn to speak? They psycolinquistic process is a mystery to this day.
Or. the bombadier beetle discussed earlier in this thread.
en.wikipedia.org...
How did symbiotic relationsips form?
www.ms-starship.com...
How can the clownfish come in contact with the stinging tentacles of the sea anemone and not be harmed?
A favorite creationist argument is this: "If you found a watch on a beach, you wouldn't wonder how it evolved, you would wonder who made it?"
One more question concerns bent strata. How did that happen?
www.examiner.com...
Enjoy!


[edit on 6/17/2010 by zachi] Sorry typos


[edit on 6/17/2010 by zachi]

reply to post by zachi


That bent strata site has to have been written by the biggest doofus. The number of huge mistakes in there are amazing.

1. The rock that is in the photo is not a sedimentary rock. It is a metamorphic rock. Did the person writing this know that? I don't think so. It appears that the person has no idea how geology works and made things up a they went along.
   
2. They claim quite incorrectly that these are a problem because only local floods could produce these. Floods do not produce these metamorphic rocks.
   
3. To dispute the metamorphic claim they invoke lava. Well lava is only involved with contact metamorphism.
   
4. This doofus goes on to say "Water helps to cement the different sediments together". That's wrong. What cements the clastics together is: calcite, hematite, and silica. These are the primary "glues" that bind clastics together.
   
5. Next he claims that a pluton must be responsible for metamorphic events. Only true in a few cases.
   
6. The experiment "you can do at home" has nothing whatsoever to do with metamorphic processes. This is the sort of demonstration done by an idiot for idiots. Why? The conditions of the experiment do not reflect the conditions of the rocks.
   
7. Then there is the claim that floods bend rocks. That's a fool's claim. Floods do not bend rocks. They do not bend sedimentary layers. Look at the debris left over from a flood and show me where any layers are left. A flood leaves behind a debris field of mixed materials, not layers of sorted material.
   

What this idiot does not know is even the basics of sedimentary processes and metamorphic processes.

1. A rock by definition is something made of minerals.
   
2. You can examine minerals and determine the temperature of the rocks. For example, there are 3 minerals andalusite, kyanite, and sillimanite are all similar. They have the same chemical composition, but different crystals. Determining where the different minerals are found tells a geologist the direction of the temperature and pressure gradients.
   
3. Did you know that the layers in a metamorphic rock are often due to the metamorphic processes and are not related to the original layers of the sedimentary rock?
   
4. ... We could go on, and on about this, but ...
   

The author of the web page is a blithering numb skull pin head, and needs to open a third grade science book on geology and learn the basics before writing such junk.

reply to post by stereologist


Wow! I’m glad you debunked that article. I like rock collecting, but I’m not so good at stratigraphy.
Here is a site that has more understanding of evolution.
creationwiki.org...
About ¾ of the way to the bottom is a title: Out of place layers
See what you think of this site.

Seems like you have an interesting job. I thought you might be a stereo enthusiast of a sun lover. www.nasa.gov...
I am an interpreter, so the developement and use of language is of interest to me.

I think you may be correct Zachi, it's obvious to some
that the subject of fire-breathing dragons is something
that warrants further probing.

I think it may be possible that these creatures may still exist
in the remote parts of China and I'll be looking forward to the
day when the 'Monster Hunter' series tracks one down.

With there unique compere, the gang and their state-of-the-art
equipment, I believe it won't be long before we're discussing
WHY the dragon defends itself with flames, and not how.

Great thread.

[edit on 18-6-2010 by A boy in a dress]

reply to post by zachi


I was a little, okay a lot over the top there. There are lots of problems with working on stratigraphy. Rocks get folded, fractured, changed by fluids passing through them, heat, pressure, recrystalization, and who knows what else. It's amazing. So of course there are going to be lots of issues that are poorly understood. What is weird is when someone decides that one of the most basic and common issues is not understood by geologists and decides to come up with an idea and proclaims it correct and hundreds of years of geological study is wrong.

I used to do quite a bit of collecting. I have a nice green piece of fluorite that I'd like ot learn how to cut into a lens. I have a few big specimens, but I think I like small pieces best. Any special interest you have?

An interpreter, wow. Thanks, pretty cool. Right now I'm doing software development and some math stuff.

I'll look for the out of place layers stuff later. It sounds really interesting.

reply to post by A boy in a dress

Thanks, I appreciate your comments. I hope they find one soon too. I would think fire is hare to fight. Most things just want the pain to stop if it's a burn.

reply to post by stereologist


I love rocks and crystals too. I just joined a local rock club and will learn how to do cabachon and gems soon. Opal is my favorite, but it's hard to work with. I have a large green fluorite heart. I enjoy amethyst too.
I love to garden and travel. Last year I checked out a Mayan pyramid and this summer I will checking out a volcano in Nicaragua.

Edit to add www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 6/18/2010 by zachi]

I took a look at the out of place layers and this is only one type of that event. A more interesting form is the recumbent fold. There are places where it is hard to tell what is going on due to the high degree of deformation, but the layers do have older material on top of newer material.

Although they only list a few examples, there are many thrust faults. Lots can be found out West. A good example in New England is the overthrust at Lone Rock Point on Lake Champlain.
Lone Rock Point geology
The darker rock is an Ordivician shale overlain by a Cambrian limestone. So the older limestone, possibly a dolostone, is over newer rock.

Recumbent Fold

Originally posted by Romantic_Rebel
I find the concept of breathing fire both implausible and irrational.

So if that beatle did that out of his face you wouldn't believe it ?

makes no sense...

He just listed how it could happen....apply that to millions of species we never were around to see exist and there is no doubt some species on this earth probably did something like that..

anything is possible....unless you limit your mind....then nothing is possible.

reply to post by LucidDreamer85


Remember that the material ejected by a bombardier beetle is boiling, which is well below the temperature of fire. It does take a leap to go from what is a hot to what can char flesh.

reply to post by stereologist


The recumbent fold is quite interesting. I wonder what causes it. Even the "simple" Synclinal folds makes me wonder what caused it. The picture on the web page looks to be only 8-10 ft. I thought such things happened over larger areas. Guess not.

Fire breathing and blister producing maybe a big difference temperature wise, but if you're hurting, it's not so important a distinction.

reply to post by zachi


Folds can be huge. Folds are often identified by their fold number. There are folds on folds. So the primary fold is F1. There are folds in there F2, then F3, ... The folds can cover huge distances.

What causes synclinal folds was a hot topic for ages. Until plate tectonics was discovered the idea was that continents were fixed. People were trying to figure out what forces were causing this up and down motion. When Wegener suggested continental drift he was met with opposition. There was good reason to do so. Many things did not work out. Besides at the time there was little known of 69% of the Earth, the ocean bottom. Later on the idea of plate tectonics was born. That idea also was disputed, but it won out because a lot of ideas that seemed separate such as tectonics, seismology, and volcanism came to have a common origin - plate movement. It's really one of the late and important realizations in science.

So what part of this fabulous Earth are you looking for rocks and minerals?