Reply To: Private: The UM and Heat Flow

“So far your review and discussion of the Universal Model has been spotty and biased evidently without actually reading or evaluating Volume I in its entirety before giving an objective review. In other words, it would appear that anything that goes against the ‘established doctrine’ of what you teach as a professor of geology is simply incorrect, no matter what.  It also seems you cannot acknowledge the possibility of even one of the hundreds of new discoveries found in just this first volume. You wrote on your blog, “The UM provides a nearly perfect example of a pseudoscientific enterprise” which you concluded long before having had a chance to review the book (you had received the UM on April 18th and posted this response on the 21st). In certain respects, Galileo had the same problem with the ‘learned’ thinkers of his day when they refused to look through his telescope to see what was on the Moon – they already knew.”

Even worse, I still haven’t read your 800-page tome in its entirety!  But yes, at that time I had only watched a 2-hour video about the UM on your YouTube channel, noticed that a number of your arguments were based on claims I knew to be factually incorrect, argued back and forth with some of you in the YouTube comments about some of those points, and looked up the topics in the UM book to see if you had any better arguments there.  And yes, I have undoubtedly been biased to some degree by that experience.

However, that’s actually why I chose to start by addressing specific arguments, rather than take on the whole thing at once.  You see, even if your overall conclusions are correct, some of your arguments may still be very flawed.  For instance, if you claim that minerals like quartz can’t form from a melt, and some of the sources you cite to back up this claim actually reported just the opposite, then you clearly have made a flawed argument by any reasonable standard.  What will you do with that information?  You might radically change your mind about the UM.  You might stand your ground on the UM as a whole, but acknowledge that certain of your arguments need some shoring up, referring instead to some other evidence that you think is better.  You might argue in return that I’m the one who misinterpreted the sources, or misread the UM, or whatever.  Any of that could conceivably be the response of generally reasonable people.

What is NOT reasonable, in contrast, is pretending that reading the entire UM will magically make your bad arguments good.  Why not just try to evaluate my critiques of your arguments on their own, and if you find I am correct, admit that fact and bring up other arguments that you think support your conclusions better?  Even if I’m the biggest Galileo-arresting, baby-eating, big-fat-meanie of a scientific bigot, it should still be useful for you to see which of your arguments are the weakest.

“Every day, the UM has new readers and open-minded reviewers who are earnestly seeking to discover how Nature really works and why we are such an important part of the beauty that surrounds us. Anyone can go to the UM website, UniversalModel.com under the Review Tab and read Written Reviews by dozens of people who have read all of Volume I and who tell of their story of finding truth and understanding in geology for the first time. Perhaps you judge these people as misguided, but some of them have been studying the UM for years, and will tell you nothing but goodness has come from the new understandings and explanations that the UM offers to all who will take the time to look and actually examine the new scientific discoveries and evidences found in this material. How else is the public to judge which science explains Nature better, other than to compare multiple competing hypotheses? On one hand, we have conventional science, which has not discovered one new significant natural law in over one hundred years, and it tells us everything came from nothing; on the other hand this new Millennial Science sets forth dozens of new natural laws that everyone can easily understand and test for themselves.”

If none of said people understand the standard scientific theories, and you describe those theories incorrectly, how can they possibly make any informed decision about such a thing?  Can you at least accept that someone like me might have significant insights about whether you are fairly describing MY paradigm?

“Have you asked yourself what if there really is no magma inside the Earth? What if the liquid really is water instead of magma? As you know, no one, including yourself, has ever observed magma. What if this subterranean water (which scientists themselves now acknowledge exists in quantities far beyond what is found in our oceans above the crust), was the same water which covered the Earth in a Universal Flood 4,362 years ago? What if this event really happened? What does this mean to all of modern science and to every human being now that not one or two, but hundreds of empirical evidences for the Flood actually demonstrate it happened and are found in the UM?”

Sure I have asked that.  And I looked at the evidence you presented and found it wanting.  Therefore, even if your conclusions are true, some of your arguments are faulty.  Will you deal with those criticisms, or not?

For instance, when you talk about scientists acknowledging that vast quantities of water exist in, for example, the mantle, do you realize that they are not talking about liquid water, or even ice?  (See this LiveScience article.)  They are talking about minerals which have small amounts of the elements H and O in their crystal structures, and which will undergo chemical reactions to release water vapor when they are heated at low pressures.  Once again, misinterpreting scientific sources like those you mention does not make a good argument for your case, whether or not your conclusions are correct.

“We will address some of your specific criticisms regarding UM and Heat Flow after addressing some of the subchapters you left out of your review of Chapter 5, the Magma Pseudotheory. First we note that you evidently chose to ignore the first subchapter, 5.1 Magma Defined, wherein geologists are quoted saying that “Magmas properly belong to the realm of theoretical petrology.” You seem to have ignored the quotes of the professionals who state that “geologists infer” because no one has ever seen magma or observed direct evidence for it. You leave unaddressed the expert’s statement, “The question of where the magma comes from and how it is generated are the most speculative in all of volcanology.” ”

I actually haven’t done a “review of Chapter 5”.  Instead, I’ve written several articles about specific issues covered in Chapter 5–and I’m not done, yet!  These articles are on my blog, and I have tried linking to them on your forum in the past, but those posts were always deleted by your moderator.  It would be a lot more convenient for everyone if you would just let me link them.

Anyway, I did reference some of those quotations in my article, “Does Magma Exist?”  And guess what?  I have absolutely no problem with the idea that magma (at least the stuff that is too deep in the Earth to drill into and observe directly) is “theoretical,” and that we have to “infer” the existence of things we can’t directly observe, and that “inference” always involves some degree of speculation.  The real question, for me, is why you think this is so significant.  I mean, if nobody can drill to the center of the Earth, then how do UMers come to the conclusion that there is a ball of ice down there?  Presumably you “infer” it based on something other than direct observation, and it is a “theoretical” construct.  Explanations always go beyond the facts around which one constructs them.  Otherwise, they wouldn’t be explanations.

“The next subchapter, 5.2 the Magmaplanet Belief, is also absent from your review posted in this forum. We concur that belief is not science, yet one can only believe in magma because it has never been observed. This subchapter clearly shows that modern geology’s claim of a magmaplanet is only a belief, as one blue quote in the subchapter asks, “Why is the Earth’s core so Hot” and “How do we know the temperature? The answer is that we really don’t … As a result, scientists must infer the temperature in the earth’s deep interior indirectly” (p75 in UM). It is this little word “infer” that has gotten every major field of science into trouble. ”

See what I mean?  Alternatively, please show me how Dean Sessions observed the Earth’s deep interior directly.

“Geology has never demonstrated an empirical heat source for magma, especially radioactive magma which would of course, mean that all lava would be radioactive that came from radioactively melted magma. Not trace amounts of normally occurring radioactive material, but bonafide radioactivity. Those of us who have been to Hawaii, a lava island, have never seen signs warning about radioactive lava. Modern geology has been mis-queued by modern chemistry into thinking that very hot (hot enough to melt rock) natural radioactive minerals actually exist – when in fact they don’t. Thus both magma and its heat source have never been demonstrated and thus remain only a belief.”

As I explained in another article, “Facepalm:  The Universal Model and Radioactive Lava”, geologists do not, in fact, think that there are local concentrations of radioactivity in the Earth’s interior concentrated enough to melt the rock around it.  Once again, you are arguing against a straw man.  (Do you see why you need a geologist to at least comb through the UM and point out ridiculous claims like that?  Remember that the claim is about what WE think, not what you think, or what actually is the case.)

“You also seem to have completely skipped subchapter 5.3, the Lava-Friction Model, where, for the first time, lava is demonstrated to arise from the frictional heat generated by fault movement within the crust. You also seemed to skip past the two new natural laws presented in this subchapter and the direct evidence for the Earthquake-Lava Connection. You have left out the important geological discovery known as Earthtide, the daily tidal movement of the Earth’s crust, (which was not discovered until the first GPS satellites were put into orbit) and how this is directly connected to Earthquakes, lava eruptions and Moonquakes. There are pages and pages of evidence for these new natural laws which you have apparently chosen to ignore.”

Don’t worry, I’m getting to that.  In the meantime, supposing your frictional melting idea is a good argument, how does that demonstrate that your bad arguments (like claiming geologists believe things they really don’t or acting like it’s not necessary to “infer” the existence of things you can’t directly observe) aren’t really bad?  It doesn’t.

“Moving on to subchapter 5.4, Magma Theory Defies Heat Flow Physics, clearly delineates that the Magma Pseudotheory goes directly against the demonstrable laws of heat flow. The quote you took from p92 of the UM “Geophysicists have not been able to explain why heat flow through the thin oceanic crust is less than the heat flow through the thick continental crust,” is actually correct and consistent with peer-reviewed literature, it is not an “odd statement” as you noted. The geophysicists’ current estimate you used from Wikipedia to make your point about the heat flow is from a older 1993 article than the newer 1996 article found in Scientific American which we refer to in the UM (p93) that clearly states the oceanic crust “rises about 15 degrees C per Kilometer of depth” whereas the continental crust, “increases by about 25 degrees per kilometer.” Why did you leave the newer quoted article out of your critique?”

You didn’t read my critique carefully, and once again it would have been helpful if you had read the full article.  Here’s where you are going wrong.  (In the following paragraphs I use a lot of ALL CAPS, which is not meant to come off as internet “yelling”.  I’m just trying to get you to focus on those words so that you can make sure not to miss some main points.)

On Figure 5.4.5 you show the USGS heat flow map, and on the bottom it has a color bar to indicate what the different colors mean.  Note that units given are mW/m^2 (milliwatts per square meter), and that if you eyeball the colors on the ocean floor and continents, the average seems like it must be in the ballpark of the 101 mW/m^2 and 65 mW/m^2 that I cited.  Note also that a “milliwatt” is a unit of energy flow (energy divided by time), so mW/m^2 expresses units of energy flow per square meter of the Earth’s surface.  Now look at Figure 5.4.7, where you list the “actual heat flow” of the continents as 25 °C/km, and that of the ocean floor as 15 °C/km.  Notice anything different?  How about the fact that °C/km ARE NOT HEAT FLOW UNITS.  They are units of temperature change over distance, which means they are describing THERMAL GRADIENT, NOT HEAT FLOW.  The reason Dean Sessions mixes up the two is because the Fourier Law indicates that heat flow DUE TO CONDUCTION is proportional to the thermal gradient.  Therefore, if the heat flow going on were ONLY DUE TO CONDUCTION, then it would be proportional to the local thermal gradient.  But if BOTH CONDUCTION AND CONVECTION are going on to varying degrees in the different localities, then the non-conductive heat flow doesn’t follow the Fourier Law, and when comparing different localities the heat flow WOULD NOT BE PROPORTIONAL TO THE THERMAL GRADIENT.

Please read that last paragraph over until it sinks in.  I tried to explain all that before, but here you are telling me that I should accept the “heat flow” numbers from your Scientific American article over those in the source I cited.  But the fact is that your Sci-Am “heat flow” figures ARE NOT ACTUAL HEAT FLOWS. Instead, they are THERMAL GRADIENTS that are COMPLETELY CONSISTENT with the ACTUAL HEAT FLOWS I cited, as well as the ones you have mapped on Fig. 5.4.5, AS LONG AS CONVECTION IS GOING ON.

Can you begin to see why scientists would typically find interactions with you to be frustrating, UM Team?  The thermal gradient issue I brought up is a very common rookie mistake that would have been beaten out of Dean Sessions after taking a single course in thermodynamics.  But Dean never took such a class, nor did he even learn the math and terminology he would need to follow along in a textbook on his own.  But here he is using thermodynamic arguments to lecture the world’s scientists about how they could see their theories were wrong if they only understood heat flow.

“The following sentence in the Wiki article you quoted from actually says “[The Earth’s heat] is much more concentratedin areas where thermal energy is transported toward the crust by convection such as along mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes.” This statement begs the question, what do we find occurring along mid-ocean ridges? Earthquakes. Thus, Fig 5.4.5 in the UM shows that “the heat flow from the ocean floor is higher”, but only on the “mid-ocean ridges” where earthquakes are more prevalent as the Wiki article states, not as you state the “average heat flow from the ocean floor is higher.” Fig 5.4.5 clearly shows that the thinnest crustal areas of the Earth (all along the deep trenches of the ocean) do not contain the greatest heat flow, but where we find the highest heat flow is exactly where the description below the Figure says, “on plate boundaries where gravitational frictional heating is highest.” The black lines in the image that separate crustal plate boundaries are actually individual seismic events found in most geological maps. ”

Yes.  According to REAL plate tectonic theory, as well as the UM, you should get extra heat flow around mid-ocean ridges.  Therefore, the fact that the greatest heat flows are around the ridges doesn’t do anything to distinguish between the two ideas.  That was my point.

However, if the UM is correct, then I have to wonder why you don’t get a bunch of volcanoes and extra heat flow around, for instance, the Himalayas or the San Andreas fault.  Plate tectonic theory explains this.  If the UM does, I haven’t seen it.

“The simple point we are trying to make here is that the average continental crust is six times thicker than the average oceanic crust and numerous geology textbooks state that these crusts are floating on a liquid substance. What is that liquid substance? Is it magma? If so, we would see much more heat coming from the entire ocean floor than from the continental crust because the oceanic crust is so much thinner – but we don’t. It is a well known fact that the mean temperature gradient across ocean waters does not increase as you go deeper towards the ocean floor – rather it decreases.”

The standard geological viewpoint has been, for quite a few decades, that the lithospheric plates (which include the crust and the uppermost part of the mantle) are sitting on top of the “asthenosphere,” which is a part of the mantle that is almost all solid, but heated and pressurized to a degree that the solids deform plastically.  Once again, you could have gotten this much information from the Wikipedia article on the asthenosphere.  “The asthenosphere is generally solid, although some of its regions could be melted (e.g., below mid-ocean ridges).”    Incidentally, you could have also gotten this from geophysicist O.M. Phillips’ 1968 book, The Heart of the Earth, which Dean Sessions cites in the UM.  Check out pp. 167-168, in particular.  Phillips also explains why they have known for a very long time that the crust isn’t floating on a giant pool of magma.  “Yet the mantle is capable of transmitting S waves, and these cannot travel through a fluid” (The Heart of the Earth, p. 167).

So whatever you read in all those geology textbooks, you are misinterpreting it badly.  Again.

“One of the quotes you use states that: “…water circulation might be an important form of heat transport near the ocean ridges. This has now been verified by the discovery of vents of very hot water near ridges and large amounts of heat are being transported by this convection or hydrothermal circulation as it is called.” This is a great quote showing exactly what the UM is saying, that on the ocean ridges where there are the most earthquakes and frictional heating taking place, we find direct evidence for not just “hydrothermal” circulation, but Hyprethermal environments, meaning heated water under pressure. Both physics and chemistry do not frequently use any word to describe this most important environment which is required to dissolve and create minerals (hy-hydro, pre-pressure, and thermal-heat). We find this environment described in Fig 8.9.2 at TAG Mound, where only 338 degrees C is needed to create Basalt, Quartz, Pyrite, Anhydrite and Surface Chalcedony (see Fig 8.14.7), when you are beneath 3,700 meters of ocean water. You need about five times this much heat to MELT these minerals without water. This is the same hyprethermal environment replicated in our autoclave (high-pressure vessel) to duplicate mineral formation, precisely as they were made in Nature (see Fig 7.4.13 p266 in UM).”

Regular geologists also think some minerals form from hydrothermal solutions under pressure.  I fail to see how this shows that your false statements about heat flow are not false… especially since you seem to agree that convection of hot water is transporting heat around in the ocean crust.

“You state in your review that, “Dean Sessions says the heat flow from the oceanic crust is less than that from the continents. FALSE. He says the temperature gradients contradict the standard theory about how hot the Earth’s interior is. FALSE.” Our response to this, as any of your students can easily see from Fig 5.4.5, the actual heat flow from the Earth is not coming from the thinnest areas of the crust as Fig 5.4.4 would indicate from current geological theory, but to a greater degree from the vertical plate areas along the equator where we find the most gravitational movement and therefore the most frictional heating from the daily Earthtide movement taking place. We find it rather curious that you chose to ignore Note 5.4b (p93), which comes from the second deepest borehole in the world, the KTB German borehole, where the heat gradient was found to be 27 degrees C/km, much higher than any average oceanic crust? We also must ask if you accidently ignored, on the same page, the quote from Bib 125 p398, a highly used geology textbook in its day which states that, “Rocks such as granite are extremely poor conductors of heat. Therefore, if temperature at depth of several miles should be high, say 1000 degrees C, heat would flow out very slowly and the change in temperature for each 100 feet would be considerable.” But as additional evidence in subchapter 5.10, the Drilling Evidence, demonstrates this is NOT the case. So both your charges against Dean are incorrect; the standard geological theory of temperature gradient fails at every possible turn.”

Once again, °C/km is not a heat flow.  It’s a thermal gradient.  See above.

Also, are you seriously going to quote a 1939 geology textbook to illustrate current “problems” with geological theory?

“The deepest borehole in the world, on the Kola Peninsula in Russia, demonstrated that current modern geological ideas failed the most expensive drilling test ever (over a billion dollars). Don’t take our word for it read what the researchers themselves said: “Direct measurement of the temperatures in the well compels revision of ideas about the distribution and flow of heat in the earth’s interior.” (p 94, Note 5.4e) This is a nice way of saying their theoretical heat flow theories failed. Have you read all these studies on the deepest boreholes in the world? We have spent years studying them. They do not confirm the pseudotheory you are teaching in class, they contradict it. There are pages and pages of evidence against the existence of magma that you have ignored in subchapter 5.4, Magma theory Defies Heat Flow Physics, but this should be enough for the typical reader who is encouraged to read for themselves all of the actual evidence found to demonstrate that magma heat flow does not exist.”

I actually did address your “too hot too fast” argument in my article.  SPOILER:  Sessions forgot to factor in convection again.  He also forgot to mention HOW the geologists he quoted thought they had to revise their ideas about the distribution and flow of heat inside the Earth.  (My guess is that they didn’t think they had to hypothesize an ice ball in the center.  They just had to figure out why the thermal gradient flattened out more in the interior.  Answer:  more convection than they thought.)

“Subchapter 5.5, the Accretion Theory also missed your critique, perhaps because you found it so compelling? Researchers in Scientific American (UM p97, Note 5.5c p54) state that the underlying science of impacts and impact cratering is uncertain because of its ambiguity: “The ambiguity is a sign that the underlying science is uncertain.” Uncertain? Read pages 305-470 of the UM for the most in depth, detailed and comprehensive discussion on impacting, cratering and meteorites ever assembled. Dozens of new discoveries confirm that not only does modern science not understand the cratering and meteorite making processes, but most of today’s assumptions come from the incorrect Accretion Theory, making them invalid. We are interested to hear what you have to say about the Arizona ‘Meteor’ Crater actually being the Arizona Hydrocrater. The evidence is unequivocal for any honest scientist who cannot fail to acknowledge that this crater has a diatreme beneath it (p402 in UM) – and was formed in a phreatic (steam) explosion from beneath the crater, not from a high-speed impact from above which would have resulted in a glass-lined crater with no origin for the diatreme (funnel shaped cracked rock area under the crater.)”

You mean there is “uncertainty” in the details of scientific theories about things that are supposed to have happened over 4 billion years ago at a scale that can’t be recreated in a laboratory?  Anyone who would be scandalized by this doesn’t know the first thing about science.  Yawn.

Oh, I almost forgot.  You don’t seem to have mentioned how any of the above shows that your false statements about heat flow are not false.

“In another forum discussion on heat flow, “Another Heat Flow Gaffe for the UM,” you state that the UM says most of the “radioactive elements are most concentrated in the crust. This is wrong.” Then you say, “It’s true that the most abundant radioactive isotopes tend to concentrate most in the crust of the Earth, but that really doesn’t matter.” Yes it does matter! Your theoretical example of hot spots in the mantle has no geological reality. Only where we find fractures in the crust do we find increased temperatures as we descend in depth in the crust and this is demonstrated in many of the UM book’s chapters. The reality is that no naturally radioactive rock is hot – period! Have you held natural radioactive uranium ore as seen in Fig 5.6.1 or been to a uranium mine? There are some not far from where you live and the rocks are NOT hot. Even when uranium is artificially separated from the ore, it is NOT hot, only warm to the touch. There is ZERO evidence that any radioactive mineral could melt ANY rock in the Earth let alone the entire insides of the Earth.”

Yep, we have a whole cabinet full of uranium ore downstairs at work.  Are you suggesting that radioactive decay doesn’t release heat?  Because that’s how nuclear reactors work, you know.  And that’s all standard geological theory requires.

Did you not understand my explanation about how an object would heat up from the outside?  Because I didn’t say anything about “hot spots in the mantle,” and I specifically addressed the other stuff you say.  If anything in my explanation was unclear, let me know what it is.

“Despite your claims to the contrary you have not actually explained why it is “true” that the most abundant radioactive isotopes (the supposedly heaviest) are found in the crust, and not found settling to the core of the Earth when it was molten? Why is this? Because the only easily understood answer comes from p635 in the UM, the Ore Mark, where for the first time we find direct evidence of how and why these radioactive minerals are found not deep in the crust or core of the Earth, but in diatremes, and why they were made in the Universal Flood. UM scientists have put much thought into the heat flow found in the crust of the Earth and just as there is no physical evidence for, as you say, “black hole sucking” there is also no evidence for heat or a radioactive heat source in the center of the Earth.”

I actually explained why all the uranium wouldn’t just sink to the core to Russ on your YouTube channel, but he didn’t seem to get it.  But never fear!  That’s actually going to be the subject of my next article, which will feature yet another example of Dean Sessions quote mining a geology book and ignoring all the surrounding text that contradicts his interpretation!  Stay tuned.

[BRAIN TEASER:  If you mix together some water (made of H and O) with some oil (made of C, H, and O), will all the H rise to the top because it’s the lightest element there, and all the O sink to the bottom because it’s the heaviest?]

“We will answer your “Quartz CAN Form in a Melt!” and “Earth’s Magnetic Field” posts in a later post. We do want to truly thank you for your vigorous analysis of the UM, and feel you are providing an important appraisal of the UM by helping the public see how professional geologists answer some of the most basic questions about their field of study.”

I look forward to your explanation of why you repeatedly say quartz can’t form from a melt when your sources clearly say that it can.

“One final note. On your own blog,  you list “12 Bickmore Laws” which includes Bickmore’s First Law of the Box which states:</span>

“‘Thinking outside the box’ requires being capable of recognizing ‘the box.’”

“Therein lies the rub. Do you or can you realize that you are speaking to us from inside the scientific establishment box? When one such as yourself recognizes that he or she is inside ‘the box’, and that the UM offers scientific truths outside of the scientific establishment box, one will see the UM in a new light. It is the same light in which all new scientific discoveries are made – one where old worn-out paradigms are let go as new, more correct ways of seeing the Universe are revealed.”

Maybe it would be easier for me to reach that blessed state of enlightenment if you guys would stop telling untruths about modern geological theory.  You know–if you could actually recognize “the box.”