The evidence continues to accumulate: Mars used to be wet. It used to have a much more active hydrological cycle. The Mars Couriosity Rover has been revealing the complex geology of Mars including the deposition of sedimentary rocks (Curious Geology: Stunning Images Reveal a Complex Mars) but we have been able to study the watery... Continue Reading →
The Appearance of Age and the Origin of the Hawaiian Islands
What is the origin of the Hawaiian Islands? The exploration of that question consumed my attention for several years. At that time—way back in the 1990s—I was a post-doctoral researcher at Southern Illinois University sequencing chloroplast genes from holoparasitic plants. At the same time I discovered list-serve discussion groups, I was given creation science literature... Continue Reading →
Non-Martian Rocks on Mars: Finding Small Meteorites on another Planet
Previously we explored some meteorites that have been found on Earth that are very likely from Mars (Finding Mars on Earth). Only a small percentage of the meteorites found on Earth are from Mars with a few more (over 100) originating from the moon. The remainder presumably come from the far reaches of the... Continue Reading →
The Mars Curiosity Rover: A Geological History Detective
How could anyone not be curious about Mars Curiosity rover? NASA gambled by playing up the "7 minutes of terror" landing, using social media very adeptly to get a huge audience right in the middle of the Olympics. Failure of the rover to safely land surely would have been a crushing blow to the... Continue Reading →
As The Asteroid Tumbles: Asteroids and the Age of the Solar System
There are millions of asteroids orbiting the solar system most of which are found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Studies of these asteroids, as part of an effort to assess the threats to earth, have allowed us to track and paths, sizes and rotational frequencies of over 1000 asteroids.
Kamil Meteor Crater: A “Young” Impact on Earth Compared to Craters on Mars
Kamil Meteorite crater is a recently discovered crater in Egypt which is an example of a very young crater on earth. What can Kamil Crater tell us about the origin of craters not only on Earth but also on other Planets? And what does this tell us about the age of the Earth and those other planets?
Mercury follow-up: A watery beginning?
How were the planets formed? While young earth creationists appear to be fairly unified in their convictions about the origin of the geological features of the earth, the question of how the planets and the moon came to appear as they do seems to be one for which there is little consensus among YECs other... Continue Reading →
Walter Brown and the Origin of Asteroids and Impact Craters on other Planets
Sometimes you run across an article so ridiculous you can hardly believe you just read it. Such is the case with a chapter of Walter Brown's book "In the Beginning." The whole book has significant problems but while I was delving a bit deeper into the origins of meteorites and asteroids and the appearance of... Continue Reading →
A Young Mercury? Apparent Age Redux
Another blog brought to my attention a recent daily news update from ICR that comments on the origins of Mercury. The latter article comments on recently published results of the MESSENGER spacecraft that is now orbiting the planet Mercury (Science abstract). That spacecraft is mapping the surface of Mercury with several instruments including X-ray fluorescence... Continue Reading →
The History of an Asteroid Family
A press release yesterday from NASA (HERE) was picked up by various news outlets because it referenced problems with a prior work that attempted to identify the source of an asteroid that may have killed off the dinosaurs. While the release and the related research paper is interesting in itself I was more interested in... Continue Reading →
Apparent Age: Craters on Mars
This is the first in what will be a series of posts on the "apparent age" or "appearance of age" theory as an explanation for some of the features of the earth and cosmos. There is a long tradition of those that have espoused various forms of apparent age including probably the most famous proponent... Continue Reading →