At http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/wonder/the-mars-rover-found-a-meteorite-m… …. a video of an iron meteorite found by the Mars rover trundling over the surface of Mars
At www.msn.com/en-us/video/wonder/the-milky-way-is-being-hurled-through-spa… … another video. This time it is the Milky Way being hurled through space.
Sedimentology. Interesting web site with some good papers on sedimentology. Go to www.sedimentology.fr… I shall probably comment on these later as there is a list of papers which include Guy Berthault as one of the co-authors. Some of them are by Russian scientists but they all seem contrary to uniformitarian ideas on how sediments are formed in the geological record. It seems that turbulence flow is an important factor – and this is derived from moving water. Berthault describes these as transgression events which may have a connection with polar movement. Not exactly the sort of thing to please uniformitarians as it conjures up visions of the Biblical flood. As a result of this emphasis on transgression events (not one but a whole host of them) he is popularly quoted on Creationist web sites (but there is no indication that he is sympathetic to that idea at all). In fact, these papers concern periods such as the Carboniferous and the Permian, preceding the dinosaur age. How one associates that with the Noachian time scale is a bit of a mystery – but on the basis of what applies to the remote geological periods and era also applies to more recent geological periods and epochs, one can see why they might want to take Berthault seriously. Interesting reads – especially on laminate layers. Flint in chalk also occurs in laminate bands (as well as the more common nodule formations of the Upper Chalk formation). Does this provide a clue to how flint is formed?
Guy Berthault has been cited by several SIS members but the jury is out as his experiments do not appear to be conclusive or substantial. From a quick scan of the Internet the claim he is not a Creationist is also open to question. That might be bias on the part of mainstream, attacking the man rather than his science. Occurs very often in critiques of contrary climate scientists. Standard fare of politicised science. One has to be wary however and firm endorsement may not be justified. Whatever anyone might feel about the young earth issue the interesting point is that if he is correct about rapid sedimentation that supports neo-catastrophism rather than a universal flood as favoured by religious dogma. In other words, an earth with a longevity not too different from the standard model but one punctuated by catastrophic events (and preserved in the fossil and rock record). In reality, geological time scales are really just large numbers and do not mean a lot to the average person. These events, in the main, occurred a very long time ago – and that is all we need to take onboard.