An Analytical Young-Earth Flow Model of the Ice Sheet Formation During the "Ice-Age"
Traditional interpretations of ice layers in polar regions have partially relied upon ice flow models which assume similar accumulation rates as those observed today and accumulation periods exceeding 100,000 years. If the Genesis Flood occurred less than 10,000 years ago and ice began to accumulate...
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DigitalCommons@Cedarville
2020
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| Online Access: | https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/icc_proceedings/vol3/iss1/60 https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1361&context=icc_proceedings |
| Summary: | Traditional interpretations of ice layers in polar regions have partially relied upon ice flow models which assume similar accumulation rates as those observed today and accumulation periods exceeding 100,000 years. If the Genesis Flood occurred less than 10,000 years ago and ice began to accumulate afterward at a high rate, decreasing to today's value, a different flow model would be needed and a completely different interpretation would result. This paper describes the development of such an analytic young-earth flow model of ice-sheet formation. The model assumes that a sheet of ice accumulates snow on its upper surface and grows rapidly following the Flood. The accumulation rate is assumed to be ten times today's rate near the end of the Flood, decreasing to that observed today. The thickness of the ice sheet is then a function of the accumulation rate, the thinning caused by the weight of the accumulated ice, and the time since it was laid down. The thickness of the Greenland ice sheet at Camp Century and the position of annual layers are calculated as a function of time, assuming the Flood occurred 4,500 years ago. The position of ice layers are applied to the oxygen 18 record and compared to the traditional distribution of oxygen 18 versus time. This alternative young-earth model compresses the Pleistocene record of oxygen 18 into a period of less than 500 years and expands the Holocene record into a period of about 4,000 years. This is in major contrast to the traditional model of hundreds of millennia for the pleistocene and about 10,000 years for the Holocene. If the Flood occurred 4,500 years ago, as assumed in this model, there would have been a quick "Ice Age" of less than 500 years. The oxygen 18 concentration would have decreased from a high value at the end of the Flood to a minimum 200-300 years later. It then would have increased rapidly from the minimum to the stable Holocene period in about 50 years. This latter change is in excellent agreement with the 40-year period of the Younger Dryas to the pre-boreal boundary suggested by several paleoclimatologists. |
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