(Someone needs to teach them how to do math)
The floodwaters (above) of the Canyon Lake Spillway along the Guadalupe River in Texas were moving at 107,000 ft3/sec (normal 175 ft3/sec). After the waters receded, carved bedrock was the result of the rushing water (below).
(As a note the speed of sound is 1125 feet per second)
36 comments
I love this little nugget too.
Millions of years of erosion by the Colorado River was once the standard explanation for the formation of Grand Canyon. Even some evolutionary geologists reject that view today, attributing the Canyon’s formation to many catastrophic floods.
Erosion doesn't work that way... Even water jet machines have to use abrasive particles to cut through metal, and rock being blasted by water would certainly not be smooth like... wherever you're talking about.
Also, ft ^ 3 / second is flow rate, not speed.
"The floodwaters (above) of the Canyon Lake Spillway along the Guadalupe River in Texas were moving at 107,000 ft3/sec"
With God, anything is possible. Even the completely stupid.
Actually, it was about 70,000 cubic feet/sec, and the gorge it cut was only about 30-40 feet below the previous stream levels (the Grand Canyon is 150-200 times that depth). Cutting through the first few dozen feet is easy, due to exposure and weathering of the surface rocks.
That's cubic feet per second, not feet per second, so the speed of sound is utterly irrelevant. No Mach 90 floods!
Actually, 107,000 cu ft/sec isn't that much. Mississippi River = 450,000 cu ft/sec. Amazon River = 7,734,000 cu ft/sec. So that's not enough to blast giant canyons open. And I found those numbers in about 45 seconds of Googling.
Sigh. Feel free to take a high-pressure hose to a mountain, attempt to carve out a large canyon (hell, I'll even settle for a 10 foot deep, 10 foot wide canyon), and then let us know if you still think that a single flood could create vast canyons.
I love this argument. Mainly because whoever came up with it has apparently never even seen the grand canyon and most importantly its surrounding area.
The grand canyon itself is a beautiful example of erosion. However if this mystical flood, and this particular torrent of water did actually occur on the supposedly then flat plain, you would be left with an extremely wide dispersion of water. Which roughly mean that it would go everywhere else and not carve a canyon at all.
In order for their distorted logic to work, you wouldn't need a flood, you would need god himself standing there with a pressurized water cutter. Of course even this crazy idea would result in a straight canyon and not the naturally curving one that exists today.
How does one actually stomach coming up with theories like this.
The St. Clair River, near to my house, flows at 182,000 cu ft/sec through a channel about 800 feet wide at it's narrowest point. The overriding geological structure here is of limestone and clays, similar in hardness to the sandstones of the Grand Canyon area. I have not seen any evidence of canyon forming.
Further, if it were feet per second you were referring to, then at 107,000 ft/sec the water would be moving at greater than 57% of lightspeed.
BASIC PHYSICS FAIL!
Erosion doesn't work that way... Even water jet machines have to use abrasive particles to cut through metal, and rock being blasted by water would certainly not be smooth like... wherever you're talking about.
Not quite true - I believe you can machine using just water if you do clever things with cavitation.
I don't know that much about the Guadalupe River, but there is actually pretty good evidence that most of the Columbia River basin is the result of a similar, rapid change in drainage when most of lake Missoula poured into the Pacific at the end of the last ice age. I'm not saying that this explains every canyon of course, but its just really fun to think about.
What scares me is, I have one of AiG's books, and this isn't nearly the stupidest I've heard from them. Apparently, they've revised and expanded the delightful bit of fundie idiocy that is the Answers Book. The older edition I have has 10 questions (starred below). The new one has:
1. Is There Really a God?
And a bonus chapter! How to Use Dinosaurs To Spread the Creation Gospel Message
I didn't realize it was possible to add that much stupidity to one book in only 20 years.
the speed of light = 983 571 056 feet / second
so even if that was feet/sec, you guys with the 60% c BS still fail.
Tell me..AIG..if the WORLD WIDE flood waters were so powerful to act like a pressure washer that could cut through miles of rock and make the rocky mountains..THEN WHY THE FUCK DID IT HAPPEN ONLY THERE AND NOT THE ENTIRE EARTH!?!?
Honestly, sometimes I think these AIG people know they are full of shit but keep doing it for money.
Shame on you, the L, for giving them money.
Unless you stole it, or it was a gift. That would be fine.
Cubic feet that is. "Moving at" is not something that should be put before a volumetric flow rate. And it's still a FAIL, because 107,000 ft^3 isn't that much... a larger river carries that volumetric flow.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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