Physics Commons^™

Numerical Investigation Of Strength-Reducing Mechanisms Of Mantle Rock During The Genesis Flood, Noah Cho, John Baumgardner, Jesse Sherburn, Mark Horstemeyer

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

This paper reports our efforts to model the effects of grain size, recrystallization, creep, and texture on overall rock strength within the Earth’s mantle during the Genesis Flood. Our study uses experimental rheological data obtained from the mineralogical literature for olivine, which is an important mantle mineral. We apply an Internal State Variable (ISV) constitutive model within the framework of the TERRA finite element code to capture the subscale structures and their associated dynamics, strength, and viscosity effects during the Flood episode. Our numerical investigations, in both 2D and 3D, that include the improved deformation model reveal even more clearly …