Ken Ham's take on Fossil Butte

So yesterday the blogger over at The Dispersal of Darwin posted a link to this story on Facebook yesterday. When I saw where it linked I initially didn't think much of it but as I read through the article I wanted to address something. The link leads to Ken Ham being upset about the way that Fossil Butte National Monument (Wikipedia page) handles the age of the Earth.

First, Ken Ham can complain all he wants about this being "indoctrinating visiting families" but I am sorry Ken it isn't. Why do I say this? Well simple there has been no peer-reviewed published scientific paper that 1) disputes evolution, and 2) supports his particular view of a 6 day creation. All evidence right now points to an old Earth one that is ~4.6 billion years old, I am not saying that it may not be proved wrong in the future but it isn't really looking like it. What the NPS is doing is taking the current scientific understanding about the planet and presenting it in a unique way.

This brings me to my second and main point, this is a really cool way to try to teach people about this. As someone who has taught labs on historical geology I am always trying to find a way to help my students understand the age of the Earth. While this may not be useful to everyone to the people visiting Fossil Butte it will help them get a better understanding this great expanse of time. Humans are not good at understanding numbers that big because they really don't mean much to us but by having people drive through this whole length of time might give this huge numbers some meaning, you could do the same thing with other numbers that are really big like the debt etc.

I haven't been to Fossil Butte myself but Ken's post makes me want to visit it even more than before, hopefully someday.

Devils Tower

Devils Tower National Monument(NPS site and the Wikipedia article) is a massive tower of igneous rocks in eastern Wyoming (apparently I have really wanted to talk about Wyoming recently), very close to the border with South Dakota. I have personally been there, photo left is from my trip there during the summer of 2007, and I must saying standing look up toward to top of the tower really makes you feel insignificant. This area is sacred to the Native American tribes (see here) in the area and is a climber's dream, they only allow a limited number of climbers a year (see here) and seeing the climbers up against the sheer rock surfaces really makes you realize just how huge it truly is, you probably get the idea that it is huge by now. The formation of the rocks themselves are very well understood so you can imagine my surprise when I saw this on the left hand side of Conservapedia:

"Atheists have no plausible explanation for Devils Tower, which sits in a plain like a watch found on a beach."

Couple of things about that. First Atheists are not the ones studying the geology of Devils Tower, that would be geologists. I personally know plenty of geologists that believe in God. But beyond the semantics and wording of the statement geologists do have explanations for the formation of Devils Tower, if you have ever been to the visitors center at the site you would know (or just been to the NPS site). In fact the idea that it was formed by Igneous rocks pushing up through the older sedimentary rocks has been around since the late 1800's. Effinger (1934) summarizes this discussion well:

Carpenter (1888) interpreted Devils Tower to represent a volcanic plug, being the duct through which the subterranean magmas passed to higher level in the earth's crust. Russell (1896) proposed the name plutonic plug for the intrusive bodies of the Black Hills, stating that they differ from the laccoliths described by G. K. Gilbert (1877) in the fact that the molten rock did not spread out horizontally among the stratified beds so as to form "stone cisterns", although some of the hills not thoroughly examined by him might reveal this structure with further study. "As they are composed of igneous matter forced into sedimentary strata and have a plug-like form, it will be convenient to call them plutonic plugs." Devils Tower is believed by him to represent an extreme type of plug, the part now remaining being an erosional remnant, where the arch of stratified rock which once surmounted the summit of the mass has been completely removed and the surrounding strata eroded away.

This pretty much means that it is an igneous rock and may have the same source as many of the other igneous mountains in the area. Effinger (1934) summarize the origin of Devils Tower as such:

From a consideration of the evidence presented it would seem most reasonable to believe that Devils Tower represents a remnant of a laccolith, probably rather small in comparison with others of the Black Hills, and separate from the Laccolith of the Little Missouri Buttes. It would seem probable that the duct through which the igneous material was injected lies beneath the tower or the talus. The stages in the formation of Devils Tower according to this hypothesis might be represented diagramatically as is shown in the succeeding charts.

Several more years of study lead to Robinson (1956) saying:

Much more detailed geologic work will have to be done in the surrounding area before the mode of origin of Devils Tower may be proved conclusively. The evidence gathered during the present investigation, however, suggests that Devils Tower is a body of intrusive igneous rock, which was never much larger in diameter than the present base of the Tower, and which at depth (1,000 feet or more) is connected to a sill or laccolith type body. The bases for this theory are—

1. The exposed portion of the Tower is the result of recent erosion. At the time of its intrusion it was surrounded and probably covered by several hundred feet of sedimentary rock.

2. The mineral composition and texture are more typical of shallow intrusive rocks, which are formed at depth, than extrusive rocks, which are formed on the surface.

3. No evidence of extrusive igneous activity has been found in the surrounding area.

4. Missouri Buttes, about 4 miles to the northwest, and the Tower have the same composition so it is assumed that they were derived from a common magma; possibly the magma of a large intrusive body, such as a laccolith or sill.

5. In a well drilled about 1-1/2 miles southwest of Missouri Buttes, near the center of a structural dome, rock similar to the Tower and Missouri Buttes was encountered at about 1,400 feet below the base of Missouri Buttes. Inasumuch as the thickness of the sedimentary rocks in this area is normally much greater than this depth, the rock in the drill hole probably represents an intrusive body, rather than the Precambrian igneous rocks upon which the younger sedimentary rocks were deposited.

6. The relatively small amount of talus, slope wash, or terrace gravel derived from the Tower and Missouri Buttes suggests that they have not been extensively eroded, and therefore the original igneous bodies were not much larger than at present.

7. Columnar jointing is common in intrusive bodies formed at comparatively shallow depths.

But wait these paper says that there are still questions as to the origin of Devils Tower. Yes in a way, we know it is igneous and we know how it got to where it is so when I think origin this is what I mean but the main question right now is did this igneous rock reach the surface and form a volcano (Effinger, 1934; Robinson, 1956). In other words we know what Devils Tower is and how it got there, but we don't know if it reached the surface, far from a question of origins.

So I figured I would check to see what the Conservapedia article of Devils Tower said to see if maybe there was further explanation. The relevant part of the article reads (click here to read the version of the article from the date I read the article, 8/28/2010):

There are two implausible atheistic theories about the origin of Devils Tower:

one theory is that it was formed by molten igneous rock forcing its way into the area's sedimentary rock, cooling before reaching the surface, and the sedimentary rock being eroded away.[2]

the other theory is that Devils Tower is the remains of a volcano, though no other evidence of volcanic activity has been found in the area.

Both theories are baseless and absurd because there is no extrusive igneous activity in the area, and there is no evidence of volcanic activity in the area either.[3]

Intelligent design explains the rock well: it is a work of art worth seeing.

Hey look those are in fact the two competing ideas for what happened during the formation of Devils Tower. My question is how does not finding extrusive igneous rock near by invalidate both hypothesis? No extrusive igneous activity would tend to lead to the first theory you stated that the magma did not reach the surface. The only thing is that area that was the surface at the time has since eroded away which could lead to the possibility of the magma as having reached the surface but it is something we will most likely never know for sure, although maybe there is a more recent paper that I didn't find that has settled the debate. I also don't see how a rock monolith shows intelligent design but I will agree with them on one thing, this National Monument is definitely worth going to see at some time. I'll leave you with one more of my pictures this time of the talus pile at the base of the tower.


Sources:
Effinger, W.L., 1934, A report on the geology of Devils Tower National Monument: National Park Service, Field Division of Education: Berkeley, California

Robinson, C.S., 1956, Geology of Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1021-1

Both papers can be read online if you want to read the whole thing Effinger (1934), click on contents on the left hand side, and Robinson (1956), click on table of contents on the bottom of the screen and from there you can navigate to any part of the paper. I found them thanks to this site which has a list of papers published about many of the National Park Service entities.

National Park Service Series

Say it ain't so Wyoming

I was born in the state of Wyoming (I lived there for 2 months oh the memories) and both my parents went to the University of Wyoming so I will read a story about the state when I happen across it. Lately the stories that I have been seeing haven't been so pleasant. I know a lot of people still remember what happened right around a year ago now with the University of Wyoming Geological Museum, this was bad enough to get my dad to pull some of the money he give to the University and instead gave it to the group that kept the museum open, if you don't remember Chinleana has the reasoning, the University posted an article about the people who donated to help keep the museum open, (also if you are on facebook become a fan of, or like or whatever the heck it is, the Save the University of Wyoming Geological Museum). Over the past week a few other stories have grabbed my attention and these ones are not good either.

The first one I found here (the Guardian article and NPR article that inspired it). I don't know why I didn't say something when I first read it but now the author has another article in which he mentions sending a letter to the Governor of Wyoming and he asked for help. I figured I would say something even if it is just my little blog with very few followers. The story comes down to the state owns some land within Grand Teton National Park, to see all the federal land within Wyoming go here (for your own state go here), that is to be used for educational purposes but the Governor is planning on selling the land off to private citizens. While this would be allowed if the Governor used the money for schools, which he said he would, it would be a severe disappointment and would drastically reduce the beauty of the area if a private developer put houses or what have you within the park. Now states all over the country are looking for money right now so I guess I understand why the Governor would want money. Oh wait maybe not:

We're not short of revenue. We're in pretty good shape. Our revenues are ahead of projections. We’re sitting on about $800 million in cash reserves and we expect the next projections to show revenue probably $200 million to $300 million over projections. So this thing about the Grand Teton is not driven by that.

I remember going through the Tetons when I was like 5 years old between that the Geologic Museum and Yellowstone that is all the I remember from Wyoming. The problem is that the Governor of Wyoming doesn't really seem to care what people outside of the state think (see next story) so it is going to come down to people within Wyoming sending angry mail to the Governor before he is going to stop.

So this next story just makes me shake my head. Years ago, 1995, wolves were first reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in Idaho and Wyoming. This was an attempt to get back these animals to number before humans had hunted them to extinction in the Western United States (the Wikipedia article is a good read). Last week a federal judge angered people in Idaho and Montana when he ruled that since Wyoming isn't being very protective of the wolves the EPA cannot allow hunting to go on in those two states. Since Wyoming allows the killing of wolves within 80% of the state by whatever means this will prevent wolves from getting back to sustainable numbers within the state. I ran across another story today in which the Governor says that if the Federal government want to save the wolves than they can pay for them. No seriously he did:

“I don’t want to spend any state money on it,” he [Governor Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming] said of wolf management. “Let the feds do it. Why should I pay state money to be a toady to the federal government?”

Why should you pay state money, oh I don't know, maybe because people in your state killed them all off, yes I know the people who did it aren't alive anymore point still stands. Later the article says this:

The most recent court decision stripping Montana’s and Idaho’s authority over wolves said the Endangered Species Act couldn’t be bifurcated across state lines. In other words, wolves in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana either all had to be under federal protection or all under acceptable state plans that ensure their persistence.

That could make Montana and Idaho put pressure on Wyoming to reject the predator zone in favor of trophy game status statewide. Under such a scheme, wolf shooters in Wyoming would need a license, although seasons and limits could be liberal.

But Freudenthal said he didn’t care about pressure from other states.

“Neither has 100 percent of the state in the recovery area,” he said. “We do.”

This is why I don't think he will care if people from outside of the state of Wyoming care about the selling of land within the National Parks. He doesn't care what people think of his state, that he could lose tourist dollars apparently doesn't scare him much either.

Govenor please stop playing politics with the environment!