Re: Geology Question (KRS related)

On Fri, 3 Feb 2006 11:36:10 -0500, "Steve Marcus"
<smarcus_spamout_@xxxxxxx> wrote:



"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:jbd5u11jasfs8bnou46p62fkb1ucn64oal@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 2 Feb 2006 18:27:16 -0500, "Steve Marcus"
<smarcus_spamout_@xxxxxxx> wrote:



"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Thu, 2 Feb 2006 05:39:02 -0500, "Steve Marcus"
<smarcus_spamout_@xxxxxxx> wrote:



"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ass2u1pmq8mk9bm5kbjp9qhctdfv1o6mqv@xxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 1 Feb 2006 17:37:33 -0500, "Steve Marcus"
<smarcus_spamout_@xxxxxxx> wrote:

--- snip ---

The KRS was discovered buried in soil that one might safely predicate
was
a
bit "swampy" or "boggy"; that condition was used to support
consideration
of
Runestone Hill as fitting the term "island" which appears on the KRS.

Aren't you jumping to a conclusion here? The runestone was found on
the side of a hill of 'glacial till'. Somebody (Daryl?) has already
pointed out that the term 'glacial till' covers a wide range of
possible materials but I am not aware that anyone has suggested that
the particular site ever was swampy or boggy. As far as I know, the
description of swampy/boggy has been applied to the conditions at the
foot of the hill but not the hill itself.

LOL. Wasn't the argument that the hill was "this island" (as which is
how
the inscription reads) because the land is boggy and swampy?

I don't know why you feel the urge to 'LOL'. Are you trying to
minimise my point?

Not at all. I'm simply trying to engender a discussion. The LOL was at
the
caveat that begins the last sentence. Oughtn't we to know the answer,
since
Wolter clearly knows what the pH is on Runestone Hill?

What is there about a discussion of your claim that the hill was
swampy or boggy that justifies a switch to a discussion of the pH?

First, let me preface this post with noting that you are the one who always
takes a position that questions must always be asked and answered, even when
evidence tilts strongly in one direction. You are constantly going on about
how you do this in the course of working in your professional capacity.
Your foot dragging on this sort of issue is, quite frankly, very telling.

One of the differences between us is that I prefer to deal with a
problem one item at a time while you tend to respond with a whole
cloud of issues. There is a term for this ...

All of this started when you wrote

"The KRS was discovered buried in soil that one might safely
predicate was a bit "swampy" or "boggy";"

The KRS was found near the top of a hill and I have never previously
heard the point of discovery discovered as either swampy or boggy. I
then suggested that you might be jumping to a conclusion here and gave
my reasons why. (see above)

You then asked me:

"LOL. Wasn't the argument that the hill was "this island" (as which
is how the inscription reads) because the land is boggy and
swampy?"

In another stage of this discussion (see below) part of this
discussion I wrote:

If you wan't to continue to claim that someone has
argued that the hill was boggy and swampy, I suggest that you get up
off the floor and find a credible source for that allegation.
otherwise it makes no sense."

You responded:

"I feel otherwise."

I in turn replied:

"So, you are prepared to introduce the claim that the hill was
swampy and boggy without you being under any obligation to
introduce evidence to that effect. We are not discussing a work
of fiction you know. I suggest you apply the same standards of
evidence to yourself that you generally requite of others."

At this point you introduce a whole cloud of obscuring issues - as
follows:

Now I'll lay it out for you very simply:

1. The authors state that they originally intended to take below ground
samples of the tombstones.

2. From this I infer that they originally intended to compare those samples
with the above ground samples and with the KRS (which the authors believe to
have spent at least 30 years below ground).

3. From this I infer that the authors felt that there was some value to
making that comparison.

4. The authors did not take those samples due to the fact that the ground
in which the tombstones were embedded was frozen and covered in a foot of
snow.

5. The authors subsequently changed their minds about collecting the below
ground samples because of "the difference in pH of the soil in Hallowell,
Maine (?? do they mean in the cemetery located in Hallowell) and the
Kensington Rune Stone discovery site." Page 39.

6. The data by which the authors determined that the KRS is at least 200
years old had to do with the weathering of biotite.

7. The authors state that the Maine tombstones showed evidence of lichen
growth and that acid produced by the lichens accelerates biotite weathering.

8. Bogs and swamps are typically acidic.

9. Runestone Hill is thought to have been an island surrounded by boggy or
swampy land.

10. Aren't *you* curious what the pH of the soil in which the slate
tombstones were erected is, and how it compares to the pH of Runestone Hill?

11. Aren't *you* curious as to why the difference in pH indicated that
taking below ground samples in Hallowell was no longer necessary?

If you answered 10 or 11 "no", why? I would like to be educated.


If you wan't to continue to claim that someone has
argued that the hill was boggy and swampy, I suggest that you get up
off the floor and find a credible source for that allegation.
otherwise it makes no sense.

I feel otherwise.

So, you are prepared to introduce the claim that the hill was swampy
and boggy without you being under any obligation to introduce evidence
to that effect. We are not discussing a work of fiction you know. I
suggest you apply the same standards of evidence to yourself that you
generally requite of others.

.... and finally you got to the point where you in effect admitted that
you had no evidence to support your suggestion that the place where
the KRS was found was either swampy or boggy.

Okay. Let's modify the claim by saying that the hill is at least adjacent
to land that, historically, was acidic.

You don't really know that either. I have already referred to
http://www.agviselabs.com/tech_art/grdsolph.php which suggests that
the subsoil pH is likely to be >6 and possibly in excess of 8. That
is, it may range from weakly acidic to weakly basic. In other words it
is approximately neutral subject to the normal range of natural
variation.

See the above enumerated items 7-9,
and especially the items numbered 10 and 11. Don't you think that they
deserve to be answered before one simply accepts Wolter's dating? If not, I
have to ask whether you're feeling okay, because your typical (and self
promoted) bulldog approach to tie everything up 100% completely, even when
the evidence seems 95% certain, suddenly seems to be lacking.

We've already discussed most of the points of your question and I see
no point in going around them again.




Assuming that
the hill was not swampy or boggy, doesn't a rigorous analysis demand
comparison of below ground samples from the Maine tombstones with the
KRS?

No useful conclusion could be drawn from such a study if the
conditions are significantly different, as they seem to be.

How can you claim this without taking a crack at explaining why the
original
intent was to obtain samples of the slate tombstones from below ground, if
those samples were of no value to the weathering issue, and why minds got
changed about that importance due to different pH values betweenn
Hallowell
and Kensington.

Don't you think that *if* an acidic pH accelerates
weathering, that it might be important to compare both samples of the
rocks
being compared taken from below ground, and test the soils in which they
were found for pH values? Or do you know that being buried for 30 years
in
acidic soil cannot possibly account for an acceleration of the weathering
of
the KRS? If so, please cite the passage in the Nielsen/Wolter book that
so
states.

We don't know the pH values.
We don't know which is the more acid soil.

But Nielsen/Wolter know. Wouldn't you like to know too, given the enumerated
items above?

Read my past posts.

I agree it would be nice to know this but it is one of the many items
of technical information which the authors omitted from what was
intended to be a book rebutting the idea that the KRS was a forgery.

Well first, it's clear that the authors have this data. And second, it's
but one of several omitted items that are critical to their conclusion.
It's no good saying that it's "technical information", thereby implying that
it doesn't belong in a "popular" book intended for laymen. People
interested in the book's topic are not confined to people uninterested in
technical science (even if currently ignorant of the details regarding
certain aspects thereof). If you are implying that the authors withheld
information that would have supported their technical conclusions, I think
that you ought not to defend them having done so. I know beans about
geology, but when given A+B =>Conclusion C, I have enough mental capacity to
understand when A+B don't necessarily imply C without consideration of
certain other variables, and I am not afraid to have the information
regarding those variables supplied, explained, and shown to C.

How about you?



The authors seemed to think so since they clearly intended to take such
samples. They state that they did not do so because of a pH difference
in
the soil between the Maine and Minnesota locations. If that's the case,
isn't the reader entitled to know what that pH difference was, and why
it
impacted the originally intended comparison??

Do I
conclude from your post that burying a stone in swampy or boggy
conditions
would not accelerate the weathering of biotite so as to impart a "200
year
old appearance" to, let's say, a 100 year old inscription that had
been
buried for 50 years?



Eric Stevens


Steve



Eric Stevens

.