run parallel and in close proximity to many convergent-style plate boundaries. Other proposed Flood models cannot account for the chemical and mineralogical differences in the magmas at convergent boundaries, like Mount St. Helens, and those that form elsewhere, like the less explosive and silica-poor Hawaiian-type magmas. Plate tectonics provides a reason for these systemic magma differences that other explanations cannot. That may be why so many creation geologists accept plate tectonics, or better, catastrophic plate tectonics. No theory or hypothesis, other than plate tectonics, can explain so many global geological observations. However, plate tectonics cannot explain everything. There are still unresolved issues. For example, plate tectonics can only explain the creation of new oceanic lithosphere and the complete destruction of older (pre-Flood) oceanic lithosphere. Plate tectonics does not explain the origin of massive amounts of continental crust, such as the supercontinent Pangaea. Day 3 of Creation Week is still the best explanation for the origin of the continents. In stark contrast to today’s plate rates of a few centimeters per year, many Flood geoscientists think the plates moved much more rapidly during the Flood event, at rates of meters per second. Complex computer models by John Baumgardner (1986; 1990; 1994a; 1994b; 2003) have shown that this type of movement is possible and that catastrophic plate tectonics is the likely cause of the world’s continents separating from their pre-Flood configuration. His discoveries led to a completely new perspective on the mechanics of the Flood, now called catastrophic plate tectonics (CPT). Baumgardner (1986) was the first to suggest runaway subduction as a key mechanism responsible for the great Flood. He pointed out that the pre-Flood seafloor is entirely missing from the Earth’s surface today and mist have been subducted during the year-long event and rapidly replaced with today’s young igneous ocean crust. He explains: That no pre-Mesozoic ocean floor currently exists means that the entire pre-Flood oceanic lithosphere has been recycled into the mantle since the beginning of the Flood just a few thousand years ago (Baumgardner, 1986, p.8) and In regard to the fate of the pre-Flood seafloor, there is strong observational support in global seismic tomography models for cold, dense material near the base of the lower mantle in a belt surrounding the present Pacific Ocean. Such a spatial pattern is consistent with subduction of large areas of seafloor at the edges of a continent configuration commonly known as Pangea (Baumgardner 1994a, p. 63). This suggests that during the Flood, cold plates (original ocean lithosphere) were rapidly pulled down into the mantle, causing a thermal frictional envelope to develop around them by reducing viscosity (fluid-like thickness) in the mantle and “results in a sinking rate orders of magnitude higher than would occur otherwise.” (Baumgardner 1994a, p. 64). Baumgardner found that once the older, colder, originally created oceanic crust and lithosphere began to subduct, it would speed up and drop into the less-dense hot mantle like a fishing weight in water. He referred to this as runaway subduction. He suggested rates of movement of meters per second, not centimeters per year as secular scientists like to suggest. Baumgardner, keenly aware that the lab experiments had shown that stress, in addition to temperature, plays a crucial role in the strength of rock in the mantle, had by 2003 been able to improve his numerical techniques to the point of actually modeling the runaway phenomenon in an accurate manner, including the effects of stress weakening (Baumgardner 2003). The astonishing discovery of those numerical experiments was that, when runaway begins adjacent to a subducting slab, the weakened zone spreads to encompass the entire mantle, causing the flow speeds to increase by many orders of magnitude throughout the mantle, not merely within the envelopes immediately surrounding the sinking plates (Baumgardner 2003, his figure 2). Evolutionary geologists reject the idea of runaway subduction. They insist that the plates have always moved at today’s slow rates, employing their philosophy of uniformitarianism. It’s not that they have found any mistakes in Baumgardner’s math—on the contrary, his math is correct—or in his computer models, they just flat out don’t believe it. So, they ignore his results and his powerful computer model and his math. They refuse to consider the validity of runaway subduction because it suggests a global catastrophe like the one described in the Bible. Empirical data, independent of the chronostratigraphic timescale, demonstrate that the modern ocean lithosphere was completely created new in conveyor belt fashion at the ridges during the Flood, causing systematic spreading in both directions. In the 1950s and 1960s, geologists discovered that the ocean crust is very young compared to many of the rocks on the continents (Fig. 4). In fact, the oldest ocean crust only goes back to the Jurassic and Triassic system, a point about midway through the Flood (Absaroka megasequence). Recall that at every ocean ridge, the crust gets systematically older in both directions. Although evolutionary ocean floor maps claim ages in millions of years, they do seem to be correct in a relative sense (Baumgardner 2012; Humphreys 2000; Snelling 2010a). In addition, a tremendous amount of data affirms seafloor spreading independent of absolute dating methods. Consider a few examples. First, the temperatures recorded from wells drilled in the ocean crust and the heat flow measured near the ocean ridges show a systematic pattern of cooling with distance from the ridges in both directions. Sclater and Francheteau (1970) originally defined a relationship between heat flow and distance from the ocean ridge that still holds true today. This is why the ocean ridges are elevated above the surrounding deep ocean basins. This empirical data set is not dependent on any dating methods, absolute or relative. And the ubiquitous nature of ocean ridges in every ocean suggests a common origin for all of the ocean crust (lithosphere). The creation of new ocean lithosphere at the ridges is exactly what Harry Hess (1962) proposed. Second, magnetic reversal stripe patterns show a well-defined symmetry on each side of the ocean ridges, supporting simultaneous seafloor spreading outward in both directions from the ridges. The patterns initially observed by Heirtzler et al. (1966) for the ridge southwest of Iceland show a near-perfect symmetry for 200 kilometers in both directions about the ridge. The raw, magnetic anomalies are based only on distance from the ridges and not on the evolutionary ages of the rocks. The same relative patterns are found in every ocean also. Besides seafloor spreading, what other mechanism can explain these symmetrical magnetic patterns? Third, seismic tomography data strongly suggest runaway subduction occurred recently (Fig. 5). The internal images of the mantle (tomography) show clear oceanic lithosphere descending 700 km and more beneath ocean trenches and into the mantle rocks CLAREY AND WERNER Progressive Flood model 2023 ICC 416
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