SHILOHMAN THE SCIENCE GUY
PUZZLED BY SCIENCE AGAIN!
I have some questions for my scientific friends out there. Perhaps you could help me figure out this problem.
Once again I find myself stumped by science. The geological scientists tell me that the world is billions of years old. From my understanding, this has to be true because it would take that long for the major geological features of our earth to develop. For example, it would take billions of years for the Alps or the Rockies to grow. Or, it would take at least millions of years for the Grand Canyon to be carved out. You know. You all studied this stuff in high school or college.
So I was reading the news a couple of weeks ago and there was a very interesting article about Mount St. Helens. It seems that a giant rock has started to rise out of the magma dome that has grown up in the crater of the volcano. I saw the photo. It’s really amazing! There’s this huge slab of stone climbing into the sky out of the ground! It’s very impressive!
But here’s the thing that caused me to start wondering. They say it is growing at the rate of between four and five feet A DAY! Now how could that be? I got out my trusty calculator and started doing some figuring. Mount Everest is 29,035 feet high. According to the rate of growth of the new peak in Mount St. Helens it would take less than sixteen years for Mount Everest to reach its current height! I didn’t take much math but I’m pretty sure that sixteen years is not nearly as long as billions of years.
I’m not hearing very much about this from the geologists. Could that be because this rate of growth in Mount St. Helens doesn’t fit with all their theories? Is it possible that the earth is not nearly as old as they think it is? I wonder what they would come up with if they did some tests to date the age of the rock in Mount St. Helens. Maybe you can’t really get accurate dates on rock? Do they have carbon in them for Carbon-14 dating? I mean, this is pretty new rock; five new feet of it every day!
I’m just a little suspicious, I know. But if you can solve this problem for me I would appreciate it. I’m losing confidence in modern “science” again!
Thanks for listening. You’re all great!
7 Comments:
I KNOW! CRAZY! I see we have no scientists among our blog chums, as they have not stepped up, or they are franticly googling.I took a class at Westmont,'Origin of the Species'that was really good for me. It set my ever frantic college age mind and heart at ease about evolution.
Now this. What is a frantic middle aged mind and heart to do?
Why the heck was FRANTIC my adjective of the day?
Note to self, do not blog during Happy Hour.
SYS et al,
I'm waiting for Mr. and Mrs. Yak to return from Hawaii to comment on this one. I can usually count on them for some intellectual input. I had forgotten they were away. Let's hope someone helps out here.
Mahalo Yaks
Aloha! We are home & back at work after 10 days in Paradise. We missed you all, although Mr. Yak couldn't go cold turkey and kept up with the blogs on his Palm. I'm sure he'll have some Kauai posts in the works soon.
We don't discuss Mt. St. Helens here in Yukimoo. We're still suffering from "post-traumatic stress syndrome" after shoveling, scooping, sweeping, burying, hosing, breathing, mounding...tons of the gray ash which fell on our houses, cars, lawns, flowers, pools, pets...well, you get the idea. We sank into deep depression once it dawned on us that this "stuff" wasn't going to melt like snow.
The reminder that the dome is building at incredibly rapid rates and could blow again is making me break out in hives.
Mrs. Yak
Mrs. Yak,
I am so sorry! I never meant to raise such a painful subject for you. I'm not so sure it will actually blow again. It just seems to be creating a brand new mountain range at an incredible rate! I didn't realize Mt. St. Helens hit you guys with all the ash and stuff. Maybe I should look at a map?
Yeah, the mountain blew at 8:32am on a Sunday morning. They say the energy released was the equivalent of 27,000 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs. The plume shot over 12 miles into the sky and began moving at about 60 miles an hour. By 9:45am it had reached Yakima and our house on the corner. Church was cancelled and everyone sent home. The sun was totally blocked out, the sky was blacker than the darkest midnight, and the ash began falling…and falling…and falling. Photo-electric street lights came on and we waited for the four horsemen of the apocalypse to ride over the foothills. Street lights remained on for the rest of the darkened day, as the eruption continued for more than 9 hours. Not an event we’re likely to ever forget.
But on the bright side – the stuff ended up being great fertilizer! Full of nutrients and minerals. Our flower gardens never looked better than they did the following year!
Mrs. Yak
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