WESTERN KANSAS CHALK & FOSSIL SAFARI

By Doug Dexheimer

The annual CSAMA Western Kansas Chalk and Fossil Safari is coming up soon.  You will not want to miss this safari, which starts at 9:00A.M. on Saturday May 25, 2013 at the Tuttle Creek Reservoir, near Manhattan, KS.

• We’ll start at the parking area overlooking the Tuttle Creek Spillway at the east end of Tuttle Creek Dam, where we’ll view the canyon carved by the overflowing water during the 1993 flood. This is an excellent example of how canyons are formed by the rapid action of “cavitating” water flow.
• As we drive west, we’ll stop for a brief look at a geode site, and then proceed west toward Silvan Grove, KS, where we will:
• Visit a post rock quarry
• Have lunch at the Silvan Grove town square.
• Visit an ash fall site, where we’ll get an up-close, hands-on view of an impressibly thick deposit of volcanic ash.
• Near Wilson Lake, we’ll explore a roadside cut containing innumerable Inosoramus clams, before continuing west to our campsite at a riverside park in Ellis, KS.  After an evening meal around the campfire, we’ll enjoy fellowship, singing, and a more detailed discussion of how fossil and chalk deposits were formed based on the account of Noah’s flood in Genesis 6 through 9.  Afterwards, we’ll retreat to a restful night’s sleep in our tents.  (For those who prefer, there are motel accommodations readily available in Hayes and Ellis.)
• On Sunday morning we’ll enjoy a short devotion after breakfast, followed by a journey to Wildcat Canyon and Castle Rock.  Wildcat Canyon is the site from which the world-famous “fish-within-a-fish” fossil (now displayed at the nearby Sternberg Museum in Hayes, KS) was excavated.  Over the years, many of our safari explorers have uncovered sharks’ teeth, fish vertebra and ribs at this location.  Some very interesting minerals also abound in the canyon.  We’ll return to our campsite in Ellis for Sunday supper and another inspiring creation-oriented talk.
• On Monday, May 27, 2013, we’ll breakfast, and break camp.  Our next stop is Monument Rocks (the first landmark chosen by the US Department of the Interior as a national natural landmark), south of Oakley, KS. There are several possible locations along the way, where our guide will want to stop and search for fossils. 
• The safari ends officially at Monument Rocks. However there are many interesting sites to visit on the way home, including:
• The Fick Museum in Oakley, KS.
  http://www.kansastravel.org/fickmuseum.htm
• The Sternberg Museum in Hayes, KS (where you may view the famed “fish-within-a-fish” fossil, mentioned above)
  http://www.kansastravel.org/sternbergmuseum.htm http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/3035
• Rock City, near Minneapolis, KS.
  http://www.kansastravel.org/rockcity.htm
• [Other sites too numerous to mention.]
• More details of this safari can be found on our website:

http://www.csama.org/safaris/shwks.htm.

• Please download the Safari Detail Book, available as a pdf file on our website.  Note: The year and specific dates are from a previous year.  The locations and itinerary will be followed as much as practicable with this year’s dates.

You must register for this event so that we can plan accordingly.  Register at:

http://www.csama.org/Safarisignup.htm  

• or call CSA @(816) 618-3610

Check out photos of previous safaris at

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?
set=a.10150207050844516.335653.304317929515&type=3

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Recent Creation Safari

By Doug Dexheimer

Last Month (March 2013) CSAMA embarked on its annual safari to southeast Kansas in search of evidence for creation.

We began our trip at “The Berry Patch,” where this writer first presented his hypothesis explaining the connection between the Noahic flood in Genesis chapters 6 - 9 and the geothermal placement of mineral deposits in the midst of sedimentary geologic formations.  Here is a condensed version of that presentation:

GEOTHERMAL ACTIVITY

AT THE TIME OF NOAH'S FLOOD,

AND

KANSAS MINERAL PLACEMENT 

Let me tell you about a sequence of discoveries that I made a few years ago.   I was chatting with CSA president Tom Willis while on our Southeast Missouri Safari over Labor Day weekend.   We had just visited the volcanic region of Missouri -- the St. Francois Mountains.

As we drove past Jefferson City, Tom mentioned that his father had owned and operated a “tiff” mine not too far from Jefferson City.

I did not know what “tiff” was at that time, so I did a bit of research and found that the word “tiff” is another name for barium sulfate.  (Tiff is pulverized to make a heavy drilling mud that will sink to the bottom of wells.  It is also combined in a dense solution used to coat a person’s intestinal tract so it will show up in x-radiographs.)

I had known for many years that most metal ore, or metallic salts are generally found in areas of predominantly igneous rock.  I later learned that there are a number of heavy metals that were once mined in the Missouri-Kansas-Oklahoma mining district -- which is covered with sedimentary rock layers, rather than with igneous rock.

I was curious:  What brought these metallic salts to an area that is covered with layers of sedimentary rock, laid down by tidal action during Noah's flood, as recorded in Genesis 6, 7, and 8?

Recall what Gen 7:11 and 12 say:

 

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month—on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 7:12 And the rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

 

We believe that the “fountains of the great deep” in this passage refers to volcanoes and hot geothermal springs, among other things.

When I began researching minerals, I discovered that most if not all of the metallic salts were said to be associated with areas of geothermal activity, or hot springs.

Lo and behold, Tom Willis had already been teaching that the caves and sink holes in central Missouri were the result of hot sulfuric acid that came from deep within the earth during the flood.  The acid dissolved the soft limestone that had then-recently been laid down by the floodwaters.  This explanation is quite different from the more commonly presented account of Karst Geology, which teaches that the caves and sink holes were the result of weak carbonic acid leaching or trickling down through fallen leaves.

Several years ago, I met a young earth creationist, Dr. Emil Silvestru, affectionately known by his colleagues as “Caveman,” who is from the Karst region of Eastern Europe.  He clearly demonstrated the “weakness” of the “weak carbonic acid theory,” and showed that even tankfulls of carbonic acid were completely incapable of opening any cavern or caves when poured on the surface of the ground.

This was seemingly a very interesting coincidence indeed -- an inspiring insight -- when I discovered that geothermal activity is associated NOT ONLY with Karst Geology, BUT ALSO with metallic mineral placement.

When I looked at a map of present-day geothermal activity in our area, I found that there is an abundance of such activity in Arkansas to our south, and all across the southern tier of counties in Kansas. 

It began to dawn on me that the same geothermal activity that brought hot sulphuric acid up from the inner parts of the earth has performed double duty: It dissolved the soft calcium carbonate known as limestone, forming the Karst geology, AND it left metallic minerals in place of the dissolved limestone.  As it passed over deep deposits of metals, the geothermal flow had evidently dissolved some of them in the acid, and then deposited the metallic ore in the caves.

I remembered a little high school chemistry lesson: Metal + sulphur + hot water, yields hot sulphuric acid + dissolved metals.  When this mixture encounters calcium carbonate in the form of limestone, the calcium changes places with the heavier metallic salts which remain behind, while calcium sulfate (gypsum), moves on with the geothermal flow to be deposited downstream. The free carbonate ions are transformed into carbon dioxide gas, which escapes into the atmosphere.

This simple chemical reaction accounts for the metallic salts in “vugs,” or cavities in the limestone, and it also accounts for the gypsum deposits found in south central Kansas, around Council Grove!

Here is a list of the metallic ores or metallic salts that are associated with geothermal springs:

• Galena is lead sulfide, or lead ore.  Lead is used in ammunition and batteries.
• Sphalerite is zinc sulfide, or zinc ore.  Zinc is combined with copper to make brass alloys.  It is also used to coat, or “galvanize” iron objects to protect them from corrosion.
• Pyrite, or iron sulfate is also known as “fools gold.” Commercially, pyrite use persists in the production of sulfur dioxide for use in such applications as the paper industry, and in the manufacture of sulfuric acid. A newer commercial use for pyrite is in cathode material in “Energizer” brand non-rechargeable lithium batteries.
• Gypsum is calcium sulfate. It is used to make plaster and plaster board (commonly known as “gypsum board,” “wallboard,” “drywall,” or the genericized name, “sheetrock”). A very fine-grained white or lightly tinted variety of gypsum, called alabaster, has been used for sculpture by many cultures.
• Cinabar is mercury sulfate. Generally cinnabar occurs as a vein-filling mineral associated with recent volcanic activity and alkaline hot springs. Cinnabar is deposited by ascending aqueous solutions (those near the surface and not too hot) far removed from their igneous source. It is associated with native mercury, stibnite, realgar, pyrite, marcasite, opal, quartz, chalcedony, dolomite, calcite and barite.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF MINERAL PLACEMENT: THE NAICA MINE IN MEXICO

There is a mine in Naica, Mexico that produces galena and sphalerite from deep down in the earth, very much like the mines in the Tri-State Mineral Mining area in the Midwest area of the U.S.  There has been a recent discovery of a crystal cavity or cave almost a thousand feet below the old mine.  This crystal cave has enormous crystals of the mineral “selenite,” which is a variety of gypsum.  The selenite crystals are so huge that humans can walk around and between them.  Some of them are 30 to 40 feet in length!

This Naica crystal cave serves as confirmation of the notion that geothermal activity was responsible for placement of the minerals galena, sphalerite, and selenite (gypsum).  Incidentally, the Naica crystal cave is still very hot, due to geothermal activity deep in the ground beneath it.  Explorers must limit the time they spend in the cave, and wear special cooling coveralls to protect them from the very high temperatures.

 

PRESENT DAY COUNTERPARTS TO GEOTHERMAL MINERAL PLACEMENT

My career as an engineer in the power industry has served to demonstrate to me another example of geothermal activity.  This time it is in a power plant boiler's furnace, where soft coal, also known as bituminous coal (which contains an abundance of sulphur), is burned in the furnaces of a big utility power plant like Jeffery Energy Center, releasing the sulphur into the flue gas.  If not removed from the flue gas, this sulphur release into the atmosphere results in harmful “acid rain.” 

To prevent this, power plant operators mix powdered limestone with the coal when it is burned.  This results in the following chemical reaction:  hot calcium carbonate (limestone) plus sulphur, yields calcium sulphate (gypsum) in the form of “fly ash,” and carbon dioxide.  The fly ash is a power plant byproduct, which is recovered and used to make lightweight concrete.

So here, in modern-day utility power plants, sulphur and limestone meet once more, again, at high temperatures, and the sulphur from the coal combines with the calcium carbonate to make gypsum -- very much like the process that we believe happened long ago during Noah's flood in geothermal hot springs.

 

CONCLUSION

The Biblical account of Noah's Flood in Genesis 6,7, and 8 helps us understand the evidence we find in the Tri-State Mineral Region of southeast Kansas.

 

Following your author’s presentation, Bob Farwell and Kevin Anderson led the group to various roadside locations on our way toward Picher, OK, where we discovered some interesting fossils and coal deposits.  One of our travelers had a very close encounter with a wild turkey that flew into the path of his windshield, but thank the LORD, no one was hurt.

When we arrived at Picher, we scrambled up a chat pile and found examples of some of the crystallized minerals discussed earlier. 

On our way home, we enjoyed a meal together over pleasant conversation and “war stories” of our day’s adventures.

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REFLECTIONS ON A NEW FOSSIL

By Doug Dexheimer

Recently I saw a photo of a maple leaf impression on the surface of some hardened concrete.  The imprint of the maple leaf was plainly visible, even though the leaf itself was no longer there.

The sight reminded me of the ancient fossils that we find on our CSAMA creation safaris.  The same types of processes responsible for this new impression were also responsible for ancient fossil impressions:

• Some kind of catastrophic event removed the specimen from its normal or former location, and set it down on top of an impressionable surface. 
• In the case of the newer “fossil,” wind may have been the “catastrophe” that carried the maple leaf from another location, and placed it onto the surface of a recently poured concrete sidewalk.  The leaf may well have been alive and attached to a tree until a few seconds before it was deposited on the concrete.
• In the case of an ancient fossil, a fern leaf, or perhaps a mollusk shell of some type was carried away from its natural location by some eventful force, and then deposited in another location, possibly just moments after it had been fully alive and growing. 
• The material on which the fossil was deposited then “lithified” (“became like stone”).
• The concrete finisher pressed the leaf into the concrete’s surface with no apparent damage to the leaf, and in the course of a few hours, the concrete hardened.
• In the case of the ancient fossil, the sediment onto which the object was deposited was soft and impressionable.  Another wave of sediment then covered the ancient fossil, and after some time (days, months, or years) under the pressure of layers of sedimentation, the layers above and below the specimen hardened.  We find the impression today as a fossil in limestone, shale, or sandstone.

Here is a suggestion for thoughtful creationists:  When we come across a person who has been “flattened” by an unexpected catastrophic event, remember that the Creator Who put the sun, moon, and stars in place -- Who also put the fossils in place -- has a reason for everything He does.  His reason may be simply to cross that person’s path with ours.

I think the appropriate response should be to lift that person up spiritually (in prayer), physically remove him from further danger, take the opportunity to share our concern for

Continued in right column.

CSA Monthly Meeting

Tuesday June 4th, 2013

“Vestiges and Recapitulation –

Did God Mess Up?”

by Bob Farwell

Public school textbooks use the notions of vestigial organs, and recapitulation, as evidences for evolution.  Supposedly by around 1900, researchers had compiled a list of vestigial organs totaling about 180, and this was considered one of the strongest arguments in support of evolution for well over a century.  Among these supposedly “useless/functionless” organs were: the vermiform appendix, ear muscles, tonsils and adenoids, the pineal gland, the coccyx (“tailbone?”), the thymus gland, and the nictitating membrane of the eyes.  However, medical research has since discovered that each of these organs does indeed have some function during the life of a human.  True science once again trumps evolution -- “the fairy tale for grownups”!

(For time & location see box near the end of this newsletter.)

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Coming Events: 2013

• May 25 - 27: Western Kansas.
• June 8: Photo.
• June 20 - 22: Float trip down the North Fork of the Black River.
• June 29: Astronomy.
• July 20: Kansas University Natural History Museum.
• Not Scheduled 2013: Rock Bridge / Connor’s Cave.
• July 27: Astronomy.
• August 9: Astronomy.
• August 17: Greater KC Fossil Hunt.
• Aug. 31 - Sept. 3: Southeast MO.
• Not Scheduled 2013: Safari Zoological Park Caney KS.
• September 6: Astronomy.
• October 18 -19: Ha Ha Tonka.
• Not Scheduled 2013: KATY Bike Trail.
• October 4: Astronomy.
• November 1: Astronomy.
• December 7: Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge; Eagle Days.

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Monthly Meetings

2013

(1st Tuesday of each month;
content subject to change;
no signup or registration necessary.)

• June 4: “Vestigial Organs,” Bob Farwell.
• July 2: “Origin of Life,” Kevin Anderson.
• August 6: “The Great Debate” DVD, Part 1,
  moderated by Bob Farwell.
• September 3: “The Great Debate” DVD, Part II,
  moderated by Bob Farwell.
• October 1: “The Great Debate” DVD, Part III,
  moderated by Bob Farwell.
• November 5: “Cave Formation, & Mineral Placement,” Bob Farwell, Doug Dexheimer, and Kevin Anderson.
• December 2: “The Star of Bethlehem” DVD,
  moderated by Bob Farwell.

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Local and National Conferences

• Creation Ministries International
  http://www.creation.com
• International Conference on Creationism,
  Pittsburg, PA Aug. 4 - 8
  http://www.creationicc.org

International Conference on Creationism
August 4-8, 2013

The board members of Creation Science Fellowship invite you to attend the 2013 International Conference on Creationism.  You may attend in person in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or via webinar. This peer-reviewed scientific conference currently has 41 research papers completing the review process which is overseen by Dr. Mark Horstemeyer, who heads up our team of editors. 

Papers will be presented in one of four lecture halls at the Pittsburgh-Greentree DoubleTree Hotel during the mornings and afternoons of August 5-8, 2013.  Each one-hour presentation will be followed with a 45-minute question-and-answer period.  A tentative speaker schedule is now posted on our conference web site and is given below.  The web site provides much more detail.

During the evenings we have special speakers whose presentations are free and open to the public.  Ken Ham, founder of “Answers in Genesis,” will open the conference Sunday, August 4th with his talk on, “Genesis, Biblical Authority & the Age of the Earth.”  Other evening speakers and topics are shown at the bottom of this email.

Main Details

What:  2013 International Conference on Creationism.

When:  August 4-8, 2013 (Sunday evening through Thursday evening).

Where: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the Greentree DoubleTree by Hilton.

Times:  Technical presentations 8:00AM to 5:00PM.  Special evening talks start at 7:00pm.

Cost:  Registration is $135 – Does not include meals or hotel costs.

Attendance Mode:  You may attend in person or via webinar on your computer.

Important Information can be found at the Home Page of ICC Conference Web Site: www.creationicc.org .

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“Size of the Universe” vs. “Biblical References to the Age of the Earth”

By Doug Dexheimer

Of great concern to creationists is the popular concept of astronomical distances expressed in terms of “light years.” One “light year” is defined as the distance light travels in one Julian year, assuming a constant speed of light as measured at 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum. As so defined, this unit equals approximately 6,000,000,000,000 (six trillion, or 6 million-million) miles.

This type of measurement is called the “light-travel distance.” Simply put, it is the assumed time it takes light to travel between two points in space, multiplied by the speed of light.¹

Scientists often specify astronomical distances in terms of “millions of light years.”  Since such great distances cannot be measured directly (e.g., with a tape measure), researchers infer them indirectly using various techniques:

1. Parallax.  A distant heavenly body’s position is recorded at the two most precise moments of an intervening six-month interval.  At the properly chosen points of earth’s 12-month orbit, the two sightings describe the equal lengths of an isosceles triangle, and the third side, or base, represents the earth's orbital diameter around the sun.  The object’s distance is then calculated using the angle between the base and one of the two equal-length sides of the triangle. This technique requires extremely precise angular measurements and time standards, and high trigonometric resolution in order to achieve an accurate measurement. Astronomers claim accuracy at distances approaching 400 light years.²


Beyond 400 light years, other methods have been devised, each of which is dependent upon numerous and uncertain assumptions and estimates.³

 

2. Angular diameter distance.  Assumes that the observed size of a star’s image is an indication of its distance (i.e., “the bigger the star, the closer it is”).
3. Luminosity distance.  Assumes brighter stars must be closer than dim ones. 

In addition to the above techniques, there are a number of classification systems that assign distances of stars to various reference colors, as established by particular star types. You may have heard of “red giants,” “white dwarfs,” “variable stars,” etc.⁴

The bottom line is this: distances from planet earth to distant stars and galaxies, given in terms of millions or billions of light years, are based on the notion of a constant speed of light.  For instance, according to popular astronomy, the radius of the observable universe in this belief system is simply the estimated age of the universe, i.e. 13.7 billion light years.

Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions among popular scientists regarding the size of the universe.⁵

Did you catch the enigma? The “popular” concept is unacceptable to young-earth creationists. How can the radius of the observable universe be 13.7 billion light years, if the age of the entire creation is only about 6,000 years, as measured by the number of the earth’s trips around the sun since creation?

The answer to this is wrapped up in the so-called “speed-of-light constant” (“C”). However, as we shall point out, the notion of the invariability of light’s speed is simply invalid.  Einstein incorrectly inferred the concept from his misunderstanding of the Michelson-Morley experiment.⁶

Enter: variable C

CSAMA is blessed to have in our midst physicist, engineer, bible scholar, and young-earth creationist, David Penny.  Dave has “unearthed” some very interesting computations that were made over 150 years ago. It seems James Clerk Maxwell derived the speed of light from electromagnetic constants characteristic of the varied media through which light passes.

Maxwell's equations are a set of partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electrodynamics, classical optics, and electric circuits. These fields in turn underlie modern electrical and communications technologies. Maxwell's equations describe how electric and magnetic fields are generated and altered by each other and by charges and currents. They are named after the Scottish physicist and mathematician James Clerk Maxwell who published an early form of those equations between 1861 and 1862.”⁷

[Ed. note: Albert Einstein was born on 14 March, 1879 -- seventeen years after Maxwell’s equations were published.]

 

Maxwell’s equations showed that the speed of light, C, is NOT constant or fixed, but depends on the medium through which the light is passing. Maxwell’s equations give accurate results for C in air, water, diamonds, or the vacuum of outer space.

A more thorough discussion of how the electrical and magnetic properties of matter can be dependably used to determine the speed of light (C) can be found at Dave’s website, www.GravitationalRelativity.com.

One important concept to keep in mind is that the speed of light is directly proportional to its distance from large objects, or inversely proportional to gravity flux -- i.e., as gravity flux decreases, the speed of light increases. Observation seems to indicate that as its distance from our sun increases, the speed of light approaches infinity. Dave suggests that the light from our nearest neighbor star, “Proxima Centauri,” takes only a few hours to reach earth.  The enigma created by Einstein's “special relativity” is thereby resolved. The size of the universe is immense, but the speed of light in outer space is almost infinite. We see the most distant stars today by the light emitted from them since the time of their creation approximately 6,000 years ago.

This writer believes that light from [the 7,000 visible stars in our sky] began its journey on Day 4 of creation, and that it had already reached Adam’s eyes on Day 6.

Light from the more distant stars and galaxies is visible with our most powerful telescopes today, less than 6,000 years after their creation.  If modern special relativity with its constant speed of light at 186,000 miles per second were true, then no star could have been seen by Adam until the nearest star had first appeared to him four years after the creation. 

This is a matter of believing Maxwell's derivation of the speed of light, rather than Einstein's theory of special relativity, since Genesis clearly states that Adam saw the visible stars, sun, and moon immediately after the creation.  Otherwise these celestial bodies could not have held their clearly designed purpose in being "for signs and seasons, and for days and years" for Adam and his descendents.

(This writer wishes to thank Dave Penny for his invaluable contributions to this article.)

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REFLECTIONS ON A NEW FOSSIL
Continued from left column

his plight, and when appropriate, share with him the gospel of salvation.  We are responsible for lifting that person physically and spiritually when we respond to the Holy Spirit's prompting.  Personally, when I hear the siren of an emergency vehicle, I am prompted to pray for any victims of the catastrophe that has just occurred.

I can think of victims of catastrophes, both ancient and recent, in which strangers uplifted the downtrodden (the “flattened”), and saved them from being “buried” in the hurried rush of life.

• The Good Samaritan, who stopped and cared for the traveler who had been beaten and left for dead along the road to Jericho (Luke 10:25-37).
• Soldiers and sailors who pick up and carry their wounded comrades to safety at the risk of being injured themselves.
• My family physician, who took time to go to Japan following the recent earthquake/tsunami to care for some of the victims of that catastrophe.
• Many folks from all over the nation who went to Joplin, MO to lift up the fallen.
• The diners at the site of the second Boston Marathon explosion who refused to leave the site, and chose instead to stay and care for those who had been injured by the blast.

Bottom line:  When you discover that a person has fallen, lift him up in prayer, and if possible, help him to safety before he is covered by the detritus of life.

Let me know your thoughts on the above reflections.  Send your comments to me via the Contact CSAMA Newsletter editor link at www.csamanewsletter.org.

Douglas R. Dexheimer

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