Summations Only

Faith is not too bright. Some fossils found today are not found in the strata where they lived. For example those fossils fossils of unicelluar organisms found in the Dwyka. They were transported in the matrix from earlier rocks and redeposited in what is the Dwyka Group now. True. Some do. For example those unicellular fossils found in the Dwyka. That's why paleontogogists take specialist geologists on those rocks when they excavate those fossils. Some fossils, together with the surrounding matrix get deposited and buried somewhere else. Along with everything else. I'm really not too sure why Faith thinks that it is a problem for geology. Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

Too much is happening for me to keep up so I'm taking my time with it.But I continue to have this impression that the main part of my puzzle just isn't getting through: it's not about what kinds of landscapes are livable or possible or anything like that in the general terms that keep getting discussed since of course throughout history all sorts of landscapes should have come and gone.It's the timescale that puts a monkeywrench in this normal course of things. It's specifically how you get from an environment with creatures in it to a rock in the stratigraphic column because that's where I think the idea of environments as seen in the strata runs into impossibilities.You can talk forever about how landscapes are livable or not, erode away or accumulate sediments, and it's all quite sensible in itself. The implication of seeing environments in a layer of rock populated by living things is that the rock is the result of the environment, and I mean a huge flat featureless rock that contains the clues to an environment (they wouldn't all be as extensive as the marine layers, but nevertheless the terrestrial layers are still quite extensive geographically); but when I try to track it out I seem to keep running into insurmountable problems. This isn't something geologists have addressed because why should they? It seems reasonable that there must have been ancient environments of the sort suggested by the clues in the strata, and of course living things as suggested by the fossils. The idea that there could be a mechanical problem with the relation between the environment and the rock wouldn't occur.But I want to see where Stile's scenario ends up. I'm going to let him walk me through it because my brain is worn out.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

{Snark message hidden - STOP IT - Adminnemooseus}Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Snark message hidden.

I'm not sure where this is the case, however, I will say that if erosion were allowed to continue to completion, all rocks above sea level would be planed off. Except for sea level changes and geotectonics, this would happen, though the time would be beyond human time frames. And this happens in places where erosion is exceedingly slow or has temporarily stopped (I'm talking in a geological time frame here). Soils are temporary features on the earth, just as lakes, rivers and mountains are. I'm sure that is the case. That's why we've discussed the underlying theme of a single catastrophic flood event in Faith's argument, though she denies it vehemently. Certainly. Okay, I was not clear. Soil can grow by addition of material at the land surface (accumulation of organic and airborne mineral materials), but also by growing deeper into the underlying bedrock. Most certainly. However, I will admit that it is confusing. This is a question for Faith. Over time a species may migrate without notice to any individual. In the meantime individuals are dying in their environment all along. Well, that's a little harder to imagine unless there is a major change of other factors such as climate. Nevertheless, that would still allow a species to migrate. Even humans do it.Here is another diagram showing how soil forms and erodes: This was one of Hutton's early dilemmas. Clearly, soil was moving toward the stream, but the hills never ran out of soil.And, pertinent to our discussion, it shows how soil formation and transport is part of erosion. Now, if here were not slope, then there would be little transport and soil would accumulate upward due to accumulation. This would be the situation that you are pushing. If the situation changed due to uplift or stream formation, then the land would be rejuvenated (as per my previous image) and net erosion would start (again?).

Uh, oh ... transported fossils ...This may be too much for creationists to handle.

No worries.In fact, I was thinking that we should just get rid of the fossil entirely in the scenario.
The point of having "something in the dirt that gets buried" is to have a marker... one that stays with the dirt that was there while the landscape was thriving and then follows the dirt as it gets buried deeper and deeper.I originally thought that having a fossil would be a great, natural way to identify this and we could follow it down. However, maybe there's too many other contentious issues with "a fossil" that should really be covered in other topics.What I want is a marker. So how about this.
Let's say we have a tiny asteroid lump of lead (say... 6" across) that makes it through the atmosphere.
At year 1 this asteroid lands on the surface of the landscape.
Say it busted through some trees and slowed down just enough to land on the ground without causing a crater.Can we work with that?
This way we can ignore fossils entirely and we can focus on the landscape changing to rock. Once we get through that... maybe we could get into fossils later.So now we have a chunk of lead that sits on the ground.
It goes undisturbed for 2500 years.
It gets buried by 2 feet of the sediment.Let me redo the beginning of the scenario:

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We'll take your simple environment #1 with a realistic amount of sedimentation: About a quarter of a millimeter per year.
This means that it will take about 100 years for something to be buried an inch deep.We have 100 years going by. Creatures are growing up, dying, decomposing. Plants are growing and being eaten, trees are getting hit by lightning. Some fall over, some keep growing. But no living things are being buried. No habitats are being destroyed. There's simply an inch of sediment to deal with over the course of 100 years.But... all the creatures that lived in year 1 are all dead by year 100. They are all decomposed and eaten away by scavengers, bugs and bacteria.
During year 1, an asteroid dropped onto the surface, leaving a chunk of lead 6" across. This chunk of lead just sits there. Nothing touches it, nothing moves it. There's no reason for any living creature (even bugs/bacteria) to take any interest in it.
After 100 years, this chunk of lead is surrounded by 1 inch of sediment.This whole process continues. Creatures live and die. Plants live and die. Habitats are moved or re-arranged. The sediment keeps piling up. Another hundred years, another inch surrounds our chunk of lead from the asteroid 200 years ago.Fast forward 2500 years.
Our piece of lead from year one is now buried under 2-feet of sediment. Everything organic that existed at year 1 is now long dead. Some of the habitats are destroyed, others were re-arranged over the years, others were moved completely. The surface is still only dealing with an extra inch of sediment every 100 years.
The surface itself, though, still contains a thriving landscape. It still contains creatures and plants and trees. They live and die and decompose. They still go about their business of "dealing with" the extra inch of sediment every 100 years.Obviously, the trees and creatures that exist within the similar landscape at 2500 years are not the same trees and creatures and existed before. These trees and creatures are simply long-long-descendants of the ones alive during year 1. Yet they live very similar lives... just dealing with the extra 1 inch of sediment every year. Trees and plants grow faster than that, so they stay perfectly fine at the surface. Creatures move around so they just stay on top of the incoming sediment.

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Does this all still make sense? Or any more questions for our 2500 year length of time?We have a chunk of lead on the surface at year 1.
We have a thriving landscape of creatures and plants and trees at year 1.
We have a thriving landscape of creatures and plants and trees at year 2500.
There has been a thriving landscape of creatures and plants and trees straight through from year 1 to year 2500.
These creatures, plants and trees simply "deal with" the incoming extra inch of sediment every 100 years during their lives and remain on the surface. Living, having off-spring, dying. Living, having off-spring, dying.The chuck of lead is (clearly) not alive. It can't move. It cannot "deal with" the incoming sediment. It gets buried.
Year 100 - chunk of lead is surrounded by 1 inch of sediment.
Year 2500 - chunk of lead is buried 2 feet under the surface of the currently-existing landscape.All good?

All good, no problems. The lead is a great solution; I don't have to worry about it as I would a decomposing dead creature.

Nice.Okay, now we're going to extend the timeline up to 50 000 years.So here's the scenario so far, the italicized stuff is simply the year 1 to 2500 stuff I wrote above copied down again for easy reference, feel free to skip it. The non-italicized stuff is the year 2500 to year 50,000 stuff.

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We'll take your simple environment #1 with a realistic amount of sedimentation: About a quarter of a millimeter per year.
This means that it will take about 100 years for something to be buried an inch deep.
We have 100 years going by. Creatures are growing up, dying, decomposing. Plants are growing and being eaten, trees are getting hit by lightning. Some fall over, some keep growing. But no living things are being buried. No habitats are being destroyed. There's simply an inch of sediment to deal with over the course of 100 years.

​

But... all the creatures that lived in year 1 are all dead by year 100. They are all decomposed and eaten away by scavengers, bugs and bacteria.
During year 1, an asteroid dropped onto the surface, leaving a chunk of lead 6" across. This chunk of lead just sits there. Nothing touches it, nothing moves it. There's no reason for any living creature (even bugs/bacteria) to take any interest in it.
After 100 years, this chunk of lead is surrounded by 1 inch of sediment.

​

This whole process continues. Creatures live and die. Plants live and die. Habitats are moved or re-arranged. The sediment keeps piling up. Another hundred years, another inch surrounds our chunk of lead from the asteroid 200 years ago.

​

Fast forward 2500 years.
Our piece of lead from year one is now buried under 2-feet of sediment. Everything organic that existed at year 1 is now long dead. Some of the habitats are destroyed, others were re-arranged over the years, others were moved completely. The surface is still only dealing with an extra inch of sediment every 100 years.
The surface itself, though, still contains a thriving landscape. It still contains creatures and plants and trees. They live and die and decompose. They still go about their business of "dealing with" the extra inch of sediment every 100 years.

​

Obviously, the trees and creatures that exist within the similar landscape at 2500 years are not the same trees and creatures and existed before. These trees and creatures are simply long-long-descendants of the ones alive during year 1. Yet they live very similar lives... just dealing with the extra 1 inch of sediment every year. Trees and plants grow faster than that, so they stay perfectly fine at the surface. Creatures move around so they just stay on top of the incoming sediment.Keep going for 25 000 years.
The chunk of lead is now 20 feet under the surface. The surface, however, is still growing away as a lush landscape. Plants are still growing, dying. Trees are still growing, some falling over, some destroyed in forest fires. Creatures are still scurrying about in new habitats they find/make during their time. Every living creature easily overcomes the incoming inch of sediment every 100 years.
At this depth of 20 feet, though... all the sediment at this depth is starting to compress together due to the weight of the 20 feet of sediment on top of it. This 20-foot-deep sediment used to be at the surface 25 000 years ago when the chunk of lead fell onto it. 25 000 years ago this sediment was the landscape... it had trees, creatures and all sorts of stuff living on it. Now, however, all this year-1 sediment is buried 20 feet under, along with our chunk of lead. And it's starting to get pressed together by the pressure on top of it caused by 20 feet of sediment.Now we're at 50 000 years.
The chunk of lead is buried by 40 feet of sediment.
The sediment at the same level (40 feet under) has even more pressure on it, and it starts to squeeze out the little bits of moisture that are still in it. This process is still just starting. No rock yet. Just very compressed, pressurized sediment with 40 feet of sediment weighing down on top of it.
At this 50 000 year mark, at the surface, we still have a lush landscape. Still growing and dying with creatures and living things simply dealing with their extra inch of sediment every year.

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Everything still okay here?
This is, basically, just the year 1-to-2500 stuff extended over a longer period of time. That's all. So hopefully this is still making sense.I'm about to get into having the ocean start encroaching into the land, so just wanted to pause here and make sure you're still okay understanding that a continuously living (and dying, and having off-spring for more living...) lush landscape has constantly been at the surface for 50 000 years now.
As well, the dirt that was at-the-landscape (surface) at year one, along with the chunk of lead is now all 40 feet deep and beginning to feel some weight and pressure on it from the 40 feet of sediment above it.Feel free to make any comments or bring up any issues-so-far.Unfortunately, I'm not generally around much on the weekends for posting. My next post may have to wait until Monday. Which means my walkthrough is going nearly as slow as the sedimentation rate

OK now start the questions.The sketch of the first 2500 years is accepted as foundational (although I believe the original landscape would already be rock and any buried creatures already fossilized, but that's not an objection I want to make at this point; For now I'm accepting the scenario as given). So, to be clear, the twenty feet beneath this thriving landscape is all just accumulated sediment, right? And you haven't defined what kind of sediment for some reason -- the same as the original landscape's? OK for now. Here we start to have problems it seems to me. If the original landscape has begun to compress under twenty feet of sediment, then under forty feet of sediment it should not only be more compressed but sediment right above it should also be compressing quite a bit since it is under almost forty feet of sediment too. This is one problem I've mentioned a few times in relation to the idea of lithification of a landscape under accumulating sediments: at some point those lithifying sediments must start to get lithified as well. But as I've thought about it, they don't belong in the stratigraphic column that the original landscape is to end up in, so they would have to be eliminated at some point. Which becomes problematic if they are lithified as well. I recall that you are going to include them in the column eventually, but you haven't given any justification for this yet. But let's continue and see how things develop. Well I'm following you but starting to have questions about it all in relation to the final result of the stratigraphic column. (Aside: I would expect it to be thoroughly lithified by now myself, not just "beginning to feel some weight and pressure on it..." due to the great length of time probably more than the weight of the sediment, but I'm not making this an issue here.)So have a good weekend if you don't post again until next week.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I think Faith understands this, though she might disagree that it happens. I believe she's saying something else, that modern geology doesn't realize that its interpretations require that fossils move around between layers while still buried. It would be helpful if Faith could verify if this is accurate, and if it is to explain the rationale.

Just one suggestion for today. This is from Faith's Message 999: Faith is describing the point in time when the original landscape has become buried under 40 feet of additional material, is under great pressure, and has begun to lithify, and she correctly concludes that the layers just above would also have begun to lithify, though to a lesser degree. But after thinking about it she concludes that these layers just above the first layer would "have to be eliminated at some point." It needs to be understood why Faith thinks this.

I can't imagine that I said fossils would move around after burial. The closest idea I have of what I probably said is that as an environment becomes uninhabitable, which at some point could require that its inhabitants move elsewhere, a problem could be that the only places available to move would be to another environment that will eventually form into another rock, so their fossils would end up somewhere other than where we find them in the stratigraphic column. Which of course can't happen, which makes this scenario one of those that show the impossibility of scenarios based on what is seen in the rock record.This is the sort of problem I keep running into in tracing the path from landscape to rock, which is what the puzzle idea is all about: the idea being that you CAN'T get from the landscape to the rock, some sort of physical problem shows up that contradicts the basic expectation of Geology that it is possible, usually having to do with the fate of the creatures living in the environment.
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Stile, however, is doing an especially good job of showing how it may be possible after all. We'll see as he continues to build his scenario.You quote Pressie in Message 1000 saying that fossils can migrate. Unicellular fossils in Carboniferous rock I believe was the example. I didn't want to get sidetracked but it would be interesting to find out more about that.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm waiting for Stile to finish describing his scenario before coming to any certain conclusions, but the reason for thinking the sediments would have to be eroded away -- WHICH IS SOMETHING I'VE SAID MANY TIMES ALREADY IN OTHER CONTEXTS HERE-- is that they are not in the stratigraphic column from which these scenarios originate, they are just plain sediments added to provide for the lithification of the original environment, and not an environment in itself with fossils which is what we find in the column. Everything that happens in these landscape scenarios, HAS TO END UP in the stratigraphic column where the clues to these scenarios are found. HOWEVER, Stile is giving an example that could prove this particular scenario IS in the column. We'll see. He's going to have to spell out more of what he has in mind.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Maybe we should clarify what is in the "landscape" that is being discussed as becoming the stratigraphic column.Just off the top of my head - mineral materials & organic materials.Mineral materials include the sediment developed from the underlying bedrock, sediment transported from outside (windblown dust & sand; flood borne sand, silt, etc.; slumps & landslides, etc.), the remnants of decomposed organics.The mineral components (at least in soils with some rain and/or groundwater), are being altered by chemical weathering. Soluble minerals are washed deeper in the soil for example.Organic material includes the bacteria, fungus, etc. living in the sediment as well as all the plant & animal remains deposited (including roots).As time passes and the organic material gets buried deeper, it tends to be broken down, leaving traces that can be seen in some rock layers.Stile is working toward (I believe) showing how this process leaves evidence that can be seen in the stratigraphic column.Edited by 14174dm, : Clarity

The only thing that matters is what IS in the stratigraphic column. All the speculations about what is in a landscape aren't the point, only what is in the eventual rock.