dence has been found for large-scale watery erosion and deposition on Mars (Zuber, 2018), including river deltas consistent with rivers running for less than 2,000 years. Perhaps the same heating event that cracked the crust and formed the massive volcanoes also melted and released enough water vapor to create an atmosphere to produce rain and catastrophic flooding on Mars (Samec, 2014). Planets and moons with weaker gravity than Mars, such as the Moon and Mercury, would not have been able to retain a viable atmosphere long enough for liquid water to produce similar effects on their surfaces. 5. Cryovolcanism on Pluto The recent flyby of Pluto by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft surprised secular scientists when they discovered evidence of recent cryovolcanism on its surface. So far from the sun, and so many billions of years after they believed it formed, there should not have been enough heat retained within Pluto to enable cryovolcanism. Again, a pulse of accelerated radioactive decay could supply this energy. 6. Decay of Lunar Magnetic Field There is a notable correlation between the decline of the magnetic field of the moon as measured in the remnant magnetization of surface rock and the radioisotope “age” of those rocks (Humphreys, 2014). If there was an independent way to measure how much the rate of radioactive decay was increased, we could determine how fast the magnetic field decayed. Fortunately, the formation of radiohalos on Earth gives us an approximate measure of decay acceleration, approximately 10 to 20 million years’ equivalent per day, or 4.5 billion years equivalent in roughly one year (Stenberg, 2012), if the same decay pulse the affected the Earth also affected the rest of the solar system. In this scenario, it appears as though the decay of the moon’s magnetic field occurred during the space of only one year or so. Such a rapid decay would require a massive heating event that heated and melted the core, and also generated enough turbulence inside the lunar core to not only generate what appear to be extreme, two order of magnitude swings in the magnetic field strength (Humphreys, 2014), but also cause enough turbulence such that the induced electrical current decayed relatively quickly. Using an estimate of present core turbulence intensity will underestimate this. Secular researchers studying the data from Japan’s SELENE lunar mission were indeed surprised to discover evidence that there remains to this day a very soft or molten layer near the moon’s core (Harada et. al., 2014), which is consistent with the hypothesis that it heated and melted recently, since it has not yet had time to fully cool off. 7. Isotope Ratios and Fission Tracks on Lunar Rocks are Evidence of Radioactive Decay Lest someone postulate a different energy source for this apparent pulse of heat on the moon and elsewhere, it should be pointed out that the rocks we returned from the moon and analyzed contained ratios of parent and daughter isotopes that are consistent with about 4.5 billion years of total nuclear decay equivalent on the moon. Furthermore there were some fission tracks found in some lunar rocks, which is again consistent with actual nuclear decay having taken place on the moon, since spontaneous fission is one common form of radioactive decay and would likely also have been accelerated along with alpha and beta decay. D. Implications of Heat from Accelerated Nuclear Decay Throughout the Solar System 1. As noted above, the thermal expansion cracks of the moon and Mars give us a means to estimate the total thermal expansion of those bodies in a relatively short period of time, sometime on or after Creation Day 4, and the amount of heating needed is remarkably close to the amount of heat generated by the equivalent of 4.5 billion years worth of nuclear decay of the radioactive isotopes on those worlds. The large-scale volcanism of those worlds lends further weight to the idea that a large amount of internal heating has taken place there. And several other phenomena in the solar system are also consistent with that hypothesis. 2. One final major feature of the rocky planets and moons still needs to be considered: could the ubiquitous craters in the solar system have also formed as a result of internal heating caused by accelerated nuclear decay? Maar craters on Earth were formed by steam explosions and can reach over 5 km in diameter. The basic cause of these explosions is the right combination of heat, pressure, and a volatile substance that can very quickly change from a supercritical fluid or liquid to a gas. On Earth, for acknowledged maar craters, this substance is usually water. The pressure is due to the weight of the overlying rocks. So as this heated water makes its way toward the surface, at some point the pressure from the overlying rocks becomes just slightly less than the vapor pressure of the water. Once the top of that pocket of water crosses this line, the entire pocket will flash to steam almost instantaneously. The amount of hot fluid will determine the size of the explosion and subsequent crater. How big could maar craters get? If there is a sufficient quantity of hot, pressurized, supercritical water, heated by a pulse of accelerated radioactive decay, could even the largest craters in the solar system have been formed by steam explosions? III. CRATER FORMATION A RESULT OF ACCELERATED NUCLEAR DECAY A. History of the Crater Debate 1. Most Early Creation Scientists Believed In A Volcanic Origin of Craters Most early scientists (who were almost all creationists and believed in a global Flood) believed that the craters on the moon and elsewhere were formed by internal, volcanic-type processes. One of the first scientists to consider the origin of the moon’s craters, Robert Hooke, writing in the 1600s, considered the possibility of an impact origin. He believed that a volcanic origin made more sense after he observed that boiling alabaster produced crater-like formations, also akin to volcanic craters (Hooke, 1665). Most scientists for the next 200 years agreed with his view that the craters had a volcanic origin, an opinion strengthened by periodic reports of molten lava visible on the surface of the moon (Shoemaker, 1962). The list of names of scientists believing the craters to be volcanic in origin is long: Astronomer William Herschel, his son Astronomer Sir John Herschel, Selenographer J. F. Julius Schmidt, Geologist J. Elie de Beaumont, Volcanologist G. Scrpoe, Geologist James Dwight Dana, Royal Astronomical Society Fellow Edmund Neison, Geophysicist Stjepan Mohorovicic (son of Moho Discontinuity discoverer Andrija Mohorovicic) are a few of these. Sir John Herschel noted the strong STERNBERG Craters and cracks 2023 ICC 16
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