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Hmmm. You're right. We're arguing past each other. The article makes the assumption that Mercury, like the Earth, started out as a ball of magnetized water. You didn't.

As to your other point, I think you meant that any geologist seeing the erosion on Mount St Helens would assume that it happened over an extended period of time.

I pointed out the example a few hundred miles away where most geologists assumed the Scablands formed over millions of hours.

It was a geologist, J Harlen Bretz, who figured out that it was a rapid process occasioned by the ice dam melting and unleashing Missoula Lake on the area.

I think this reply was exactly to the point of your St Helens post.

Correct me if I'm wrong on this, please?

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Gah!

...assumed the Scablands formed over millions of hours years.