It has been immensely entertaining watching the emotional fireworks show in the comment area. I've listed a few of the more interesting comments below, after the article.
Pocket of rock survived 4.5 billion years without being mixed by plate tectonics
Imagine you suddenly discovered part of your umbilical cord was still attached. Scientists just did that for the planet Earth. What's been found is a clear sign that beneath the crust in northern Canada there is a chunk of pristine, undisturbed rock from the time when Earth was nothing but molten rock.
The evidence comes in the form of lava rocks that, themselves, are a mere 60 million years old. But these rocks contain an early Earth mixture of helium, lead and neodymium isotopes which suggest the mantle rock beneath the crust that yielded them is a virgin pocket of Earth's original material.
That pocket had survived for 4.5 billion years under Baffin Island without being mixed by plate tectonics or erupted onto the surface.
"I was surprised that any of the (original) mantle survived," said geoscientist Matthew Jackson of Boston University. He is the lead author on a paper announcing the discovery in this week's issue of the journal Nature. "Finding a piece of the original mantle has been a holy grail. The original Earth was a big ball of magma. That's our (planet's) original composition."
The discovery has surprised other researchers as well.
"Even if a vestige of such material remained, it seems unlikely that it would be found in any samples from Earth's surface or the shallow subsurface that are available to geologists," observed David Graham of Oregon State University in Corvallis, who wrote a commentary in the same issue of Nature. "Yet that is what (this) new evidence suggests."
One of the obstacles in finding rocks from such ancient mantle, up to now, has been that researchers had assumed an early Earth was composed of rocks with helium and lead isotope matching those of a type of ancient meteorite called a chondrite.
That may be true up to a point, said Jackson. Some recent research by scientists at the Carnegie Institution of Washington has suggested that the Earth's early mantle would also have tell-tale neodymium isotopes that are unlike chondrites.
"That turns out to be the same as we find in these lavas (from Baffin Island)," said Jackson.
The other signs of untouched ancient mantle material -- which has not before lost any of its material to Earth's surface or been otherwise tainted -- is large amount of the isotopes helium-3 relative to helium-4. There is also an very old lead-isotope signature. It was these three criteria -- the helium, lead and neodymium -- that led Jackson and his team to the conclusion Baffin Islands massive volcanic cliffs are made of the oldest material on the planet.
As for how much of this original mantle might be around, the only way to tell is to look at lava rocks and see if they came from such stuff, said Jackson.
"We have no idea how common it might be," Jackson told Discovery News. Models suggest that up to 10 percent of the early mantle might still be around. But the new discovery could change those models and their predictions. "It turns everything on its head."
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A commenter named "Mekinism" has been wonderfully instructive in the YEC perspective.
Oh no, "Pbarb" caught onto the fact that this YEC'er believes science is encumbered with too many atheists and not enough literalist Christians!!!! He/she said:"Science doesn't 'prove' anything. Science is a tool used by humans to interpret facts."
"i've been seeing these atheist (and yes humanism is a religion) scientists publishing more and more 'big stories' lately. They have to stick with what the know still works these days - evolution/billions of years. They go on and and on about 'the facts' with the same old logical fallacies about how 'science has proved' something. If you start with the old concepts of uniformitarianism and no catastrophic events - you'll get your billions of years. If you start with a literal, straight reading of the Bible - you'll get around 6000 - and yes, the same 'facts' will back it up.""apollyon - very true - science is science - so why does science try to answer a history question when it comes to origins? there is absolutely no way to empirically test the age of a basalt flow without making a LOT of assumptions. In this case - assumptions rooted in atheism.
The consistant Christian has the inerrant Word of God as his starting point and views the facts from that standpoint."
Mekinism comes back with:
"Science doesn't make assumptions based on atheism (as you stated, Mekinism). To state you can only look at facts through "humanistic or biblical glasses" shows your bias, as if the Christianity is the only religion out there. And then to state that conclusions made through those lenses have just as much basis in fact is just ridiculous. For example, a conclusion made through "biblical glasses" evolution can not have occurred since God created man and animals. This is obviously not the case, and if you feel otherwise then there is probably no point in arguing. Science is ideally unbiased, but when assumptions have to be made they are based on logic and knowledge, nothing else."
"I also didn't say that science makes atheistic assumptions - i said it's a tool - that if one believes there is no God - their findings will reflect that. If one starts from the Bible - then it shows something else -"
Exactly. Starting from the Bible makes absolute sense!!! .... for about ten minutes. Then you remember that the Earth isn't flat and the sun doesn't revolve around the Earth.
Mekinism finishes off that cringe-worthy statement with something I wanted to crawl under the table and hide from, it was so forehead-slappable.
"as for Christianity being the "only religion out there" i'm just standing on the Bibles own claim to being the infallible Word of God."
If you didn't cry in abject horror of that circular logic go back and reread the sentence.
2 comments:
Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
Your doom and gloom statement was pretty broad, Patmos. Not sure what you were trying to say there, other than perhaps science is bad or that you don't agree with the suggested theory being presented?
According to Genesis(if you read it in a literal way) we've all been doomed since the fruit was eaten and the Fall occurred. Not sure what your point is, then.
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