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How Long Does it Take to Form a Slot Canyon?

Some of the most striking features of the southwest are the slot canyons – the narrow, winding defiles in sandstone that can be well over a hundred feet deep and go for miles (photo).  A whole culture of slot canyoneering takes on the challenge of hiking through them, and the amazing patterns of reflected light […]

Cambrian Explosion Solved

Geologists have come out swinging against the idea the Cambrian Explosion damages Darwinism.  In a lengthy new paper in the Geological Society of America Bulletin,1 they believe they pitch three strikes against creationists and intelligent-design supporters who claim that the sudden appearance of all the animal body plans at the base of the Cambrian falsifies […]

Early Man in Trouble

New findings (or claims) are throwing long-held beliefs about human ancestors into disarray.  Early people were smarter, and traveled farther, than paleoanthropologists thought.     One report summarized by PhysOrg says, “A highly skillful and delicate method of sharpening and retouching stone artifacts by prehistoric people appears to have been developed at least 75,000 years […]

Keeping Saturn Old

Keeping a planet like Saturn going for billions of years has been a problem lately, especially when evidences show that what we see today of its rings and moons could not have lasted that long. Ringside gambling:  The rings of Saturn are majestic, colorful, and young-looking.  Their ices are too clean, and the forces acting […]

Animals Can Skew Archaeological Dates

Archaeologists date stone age artifacts by the depth of the layer.  They may not have paid sufficient attention to one factor that could have shoved them deeper down: animals trampling over them.  “Animals push human tools into ground�and back in time, study says,” was a subtitle of a report in National Geographic News.  This factor […]

Super Penguin: Seeing Is Believing, But Is It Understanding?

Another fossil of a giant penguin in Peru has been found (cf. 06/26/2007).  It apparently had reddish-brown underwings and stood as tall as a man.  It must have been a strong swimmer.  Nicknamed “water king,” the mammoth penguin was placed at the 36 million mark on the evolutionary timeline.  One remarkable feature of this fossil, […]

Lunar Complexity Challenges Simple Theories

Tomorrow is “International Observe the Moon Night” according to Space.com, stimulating laypeople and astronomy neophytes to get outdoors to look at the moon with telescopes, binoculars, and the naked eye while the last-quarter moon is in convenient position for evening viewing.  Humans have contemplated the moon for millennia on such evenings and imagined all sorts […]

Did a Global Flood Move Rocks Across Continents?  No, uh…

Paper View Sept 14, 2010 — Geologists were baffled.  Something moved rocks up to 3,000 miles across whole continents.  They found evidence in Asia and also in America.  How on earth could that happen?  Their list of explanations omitted one possibility: the transporting power of water.  Maybe it’s because it would have implied a global […]

What’s Flipping the Earth’s Magnetic Field?

Why has the earth’s magnetic field changed orientation in the past?  How often does it happen?  How long does it take?  Such questions arise from a story reported by New Scientist that claims, “Second super-fast flip of Earth’s poles found.”  This implies there was a first case – and that “super-fast” reversals are strange.   […]

Asteroid Pi

Asteroids are much more diverse than previously imagined.  The Spitzer Space Telescope (now in its “warm” mission after the liquid coolant has dissipated) is targeting about 700 asteroids in a program called ExploreNEOs (Near-Earth Objects).  NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope website reported results from the first hundred studied.  The scientists found that near-Earth asteroids… …are a […]

Moon May Be Active Today

The old story of our moon was that it was geologically dead.  Except for the occasional meteor impact, not much happens there; the interior had cooled down long ago, leaving it an inert, battered sphere.  That was before the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter showed scientists evidence that it has continued to shrink and form new surface […]

Ancient Earth Smackdown at Santa Fe Tells Global Story

Secular geologists tell a “a compelling story about the distant past” that emerges from a look at rocks near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Things in Space that Shouldn’t Be

A history of astronomy and a history of surprise discoveries in space would track pretty well.  Recent stories show that the trend continues even today. Wet moon:  The moon was thought to be depleted of volatiles – until now.  According to PhysOrg, “Researchers discover water on the moon is widespread, similar to Earth’s.”  Shouldn’t all […]

Dating of Impacts and Impacts of Dating

Earth and Neptune were both on stage this week with stories of impacts.  How do scientists know when they occurred? Neptune:  A comet struck Neptune 200 years ago.  That’s what planetary scientists are claiming, according to National Geographic.  The data only “suggests” this explanation, according to Space.com.  Since nobody witnessed the impact in 1810 (Neptune […]

Scratching Heads With Imaginary Stars

It was lurking out there, astronomers said.  Our sun’s evil companion, invisible, dark, like a stealthy general of an enemy force, wandered silently in hiding, waiting for the next opportunity to order its agents of death into combat.  Its name was Nemesis.  Every 27 million years, using its gravity, it sent comets from the Oort […]
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