function of time. As described in Baumgardner (2018b) this is accomplished by specifying rotation poles for each of 11 different continental blocks for each of 10 separate time intervals. Each rotation pole is a vector in space with three components (x, y, z) that specifies the rate of displacement of the rigid block over the surface of the sphere during the time interval. As might be surmised, obtaining those rotation poles guided by the paleogeographic maps is a moderately tedious process. Fig. 4 provides snapshots from the resulting time history. Green regions denote continent, while blue regions correspond to deep ocean. The continental configuration for the time of 0 days corresponds to Pannotia at the onset of the Flood, while the continent configuration at a time of 90 days corresponds to Pangea. The primary difference between Pannotia and Pangea in this model is the location of the land area that today corresponds to eastern Asia. In Pannotia this land area adjoins Gondwana along its northeastern boundary. In secular continent motion histories this land area is also similarly adjoined to Gondwana, but splits away in multiple, successive slices that migrate northward and coalesce to become eastern Asia. In our treatment we omit the complexity of the multiple slices, and instead combine those slices into a single block. Again, by assuming the latitude difference between Pangea and Pannotia is the result of true polar wander, Pannotia and Pangea, apart from eastern Asia, are essentially identical in their locations on the earth. This simple assumption eliminates the vast amount of plate motion and ocean floor subduction required by the secular models for Pannotia to be transformed into Pangea. E. Generation of the tsunamis As discussed earlier, we conclude that large tsunamis were the means by which the high water speeds for sustaining the high rates of erosion and sediment transport and deposition during the Flood were generated. For the example case to be shown later in this paper, zones of subduction are chosen to lie along three great circle arcs. These zones are divided into 40 distinct segments, averaging about 1,250 km in length. Subduction is assumed to be occurring at an angle of 60° into the mantle along each of these segments with the surface speed of the subducting plate assumed to be 2 m/s for the initial 150 days, after which it drops to 1 m/s until 180 days, and then to 0.5 m/s. While the subducting and overriding plates are locked, the seafloor in the subduction zone is assumed to be moving vertically downward at a rate of 0.866 times the assumed surface plate speed because of the steady sinking motion of the subducting lithospheric slab. Each computational time step, corresponding to an interval 90 s or 1.5 minutes, one of the 40 segments is allowed to unlock and slip, allowing the bottom of the subduction zone trench to rebound to its nominal, undepressed height. Each individual segment therefore slips every 40 x 1.5 = 60 minutes. The amplitude of the rebound of the trench bottom is 6,235 m (2.0 m/s x 0.866 x 3,600 s). This impulsive uplift of the segment of trench bottom initiates a tsunami that travels across the 4,000-m deep ocean at a speed of about 200 m/s. Note that tsunami wave speed is given by (gh)1/2, where g = 9.8 m/s2 is the gravitational acceleration and h is water depth. The generation rate of one tsunami every 1.5 minutes is equivalent to 960 per day and 144,000 over a time span of 150 days. Initially the water is assumed to be at rest with its surface at sea level. F. The imperative of supernatural cooling of the ocean lithosphere during the Flood In his very first paper on catastrophic plate tectonics Baumgardner (1986) stressed that conductive cooling of the entirety of today’s ocean lithosphere within the Biblical time frame lies outside the known physical laws and therefore almost certainly points to God’s intervention in the laws of nature during the Flood cataclysm, as implied in 2 Peter 3:5-6. Subsequent 3D numerical modeling of the rapid plate tectonics of the Flood dealt with this issue simply by assuming a large value for rock thermal conductivity that allowed the earth’s surface layer of rock to conduct heat at a suitable high (but physically implausible) rate (Baumgardner 1990; Baumgardner 1994). That approach in effect inserted God’s intervention for cooling the newly forming ocean lithosphere, at the rate required by the Genesis text, into the numerical calculations. For this present study it is helpful to address the requirement for enhanced cooling of the ocean lithosphere in a more explicit and quantitative manner. Assuming the rate of creation of new ocean lithosphere at spreading ridges matches the rate of subduction of ocean lithosphere, the rate of creation of new ocean floor is the product of the total length of active subduction zones and the average plate speed. Estimating the total length of active subduction zones during the Flood to be 50,000 km and the average plate speed to be 2 m/s, we obtain an estimate for the rate of creation of new ocean floor to be (50,000 km) x (0.002 km/s) = 100 km2/s or 8.64x106 km2/day. This yields an estimate for the total amount of new ocean lithosphere formed during the 150 days of the ‘prevailing’ stage of the Flood (Genesis 7:24) of (150 days) x (8.64x106 km2/day) = 1.3x109 km2. Note that this total far exceeds the total surface area of the ocean basins, which is about 70% of the earth’s surface area. The latter number, given by 4πre 2, where r e is the earth’s radius, is (4 x 3.14) x (6,370 km)2 = 5.1x108 km2. The area of the ocean basins then is 70% of that number, or 3.57x108 km2. Note that at a rate of 8.64x106 km2/day, the entire ocean bottom is subducted and replaced with new hot ocean floor after only (3.57x108 km2) / (8.64x106 km2/day) = 41.3 days into the Flood. The elevated temperature profile of thin, newly formed ocean lithosphere makes it effectively unsubductable. Were hot lithosphere to cover the entire ocean bottom, subduction would cease and the CPT process would come to an abrupt halt. This illustrates the imperative of a vast amount of active supernatural cooling of the ocean lithosphere during the Flood. The question then arises, was this lithospheric cooling uniform in time as has been assumed in previous numerical simulations, or was it possibly pulsed in time? We shall observe shortly that there is evidence to infer that it was the latter. G. Accounting for erosional discontinuities between stratigraphic megasequences A landmark paper by L. L. Sloss in 1963 documented the reality of six large packages of fossil-bearing, sedimentary rock layers draped across North America, separated from one another by erosional unconformities spanning the continent (Sloss 1963). These packages are now referred to as megasequences. During the early 1980s the American Association of Petroleum Geologists undertook a massive project known as COSUNA (for Correlation of Stratigraphic Units BAUMGARDNER AND NAVARRO Large tsunamis and Flood sediment record 2023 ICC 371
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