CPT Q. 045: How does CPT account for the vast amounts of dolomite in the rock record?

Q. 45. How does CPT account for the vast amounts of dolomite in the rock record?

Extended question

The “dolomite problem” imposes some severe issues with regard to both mechanical and geochemical constraints on any model. This includes the evolutionary model or models that have a difficult time explaining dolomite’s occurrence. No evolutionary modeler can simply exclaim, “Dolomite occurs here and was formed in this manner!” Too little is actually known about the process. Creation models are not without similar problems. These problems include:

1. The large amounts of magnesium required to form dolomite, whether it be considered to be “primary” (formed directly from solution” or secondary (as the result of diagenetic processes). The issue – sources of concentrated magnesium.

2. The incorporation of fossil material into the content of the dolomitic rock. The fossil content can be often seen directly in hand specimens and in thin section where they occur as preserved replacements, as molds (moldic porosity having the morphology of a recognized fossil specimen) or as ghost forms, where recrystallization of the dolomite, or perhaps its preceding mineralogy has obliterated details of the original specimen. These ghost forms are apparent by their outlines, which in many cases are created by remnant organic material which crosses grain boundaries and fractures. Ultraviolet imagery reveals more detail in these fossil forms. The issue – fossils are found in many more dolomite beds than generally acknowledged.

3. Carbonates in general show an inverse solubility constant (Ksp), so solubility is reduced in higher temperature environments. The issue - this imposes restrictions on direct precipitation processes especially from hot solutions that are cooling.

4. Massive thicknesses of dolomite in the stratigraphic column. This poses problems in terms of direct precipitation or diagenetic alteration. The precipitation processes are extremely tricky, and massive amounts of dolomite imply that the conditions for precipitation and transformation were in place over a period of time. The issue – huge volumes of dolomite restricted by geochemical, thermal conditions and the kinetic barriers to dolomite formation.

How does your model accommodate the formation of enormous amounts of dolomite, either by means of direct precipitation or by geochemical (diagenetic) alteration? Please explain chemical and potential transportation processes into your model and how your model may provide superior explanatory power to dolomite’s occurrence within a Flood context. (Reference (broke), editor: perhaps see here)

Response: Certainly I acknowledge the reality of this “dolomite problem,” not only for the uniformitarian framework but for models that seek to conform to the time frame of Biblical history. Frankly, although I have long been aware of the problem, I have not given much attention to solving it. The first sub-problem you mention, that of an adequate source of magnesium ions, is crucial. In the context of CPT, one obvious possibility as a source for magnesium ions is in the context of the supercritical water circulating in the newly forming basalt at the rapidly spreading V-shaped depressions where ocean plates are diverging and along which the supersonic steam jets are emerging.

I have not yet searched the chemical engineering literature in a serious way, but a quick Google search turned up several papers concerned with metal corrosion in supercritical water systems such as those used in waste water treatment. One paper stated that “especially severe corrosion occurs when halogens are present.” So I suspect that under the conditions occurring as the water, at depths substantially greater than those required for water to be supercritical, circulates through extremely hot basalt, that there could well be substantial quantities of magnesium dissolved from the basalt by the supercritical water. Basalt typically contains 5-12 percent MgO by weight, so the amount of magnesium potentially available via this process is vast—conceivably adequate to resolve this aspect of the “dolomite problem.”

Moreover, it is conceivable that this dissolved magnesium would be carried along as the supercritical water flashed to steam, rapidly reached supersonic speed, and entrained adjacent ocean water, carrying it high above the earth before this entrained fell back to earth as dispersed rain. So there seems to be a plausible way to transport and disperse the magnesium from the fairly restricted zones where it is extracted to a more global distribution. I recognize all this is speculative at this point, but it seems coherent enough to merit further study.

I would like to mention at this point that, in the context of the Flood, there is not only a “dolomite problem,” but there is also a similar “limestone problem.” A source for all the limestone we find in the Phaneozoic record is a huge issue. It is at least conceivable that much of the calcium required might also be available through this same mechanism that provides the magnesium.

What about an adequate source of carbonate ions? Again, this is not an issue I have looked at in any serious way, even though I have been aware of it for a long time. One possibility I have entertained in the past is that perhaps in the earth God originally created or from organisms in the pre-Flood seas there were vast deposits of calcium carbonate at the time of the Flood which were somehow pulverized and/or dissolved and suitably transported and/or precipitated to form the vast limestone beds so prominent in the Phanerozoic sediment record. A serious research initiative using the isotopes C-13 and C-14 and possibly others to try to decipher the origin of the carbon in the world’s major limestone deposits might provide some important clues.

As far as the changes in ocean chemistry required to allow the rapid precipitation of so much dolomite and limestone, my training in chemistry is simply too thin to offer any constructive ideas other than to point out the obvious fact that the Flood cataclysm likely altered ocean chemistry in a major way while the cataclysm was taking place.

These, then, are my thoughts on this difficult but important issue.