Atheos c. made a proposal off the "Hello everyone" thread which had gone on way too long with the usual hounds, wolves, orcs and hobbits chasing me all over the countryside, and Phat doesn't want to promote Atheos' proposal because of his snarky attitude toward me, which is even expressed in his title. Well, that's all very nice but the snarkiness was out of control on the other thread anyway and will no doubt be in evidence on this one as well, but thanks for the effort, Phat.
In any case I thought I'd propose the same basic idea even though it's very possible I'm not going to stick around long for it. We'll see. Maybe my own proposal this far is too snarky anyway.
HOWEVER, the atheistic Canadian asked what I think of a post by Dr. A., which I believe is the following one,
Message 378 So I thought I might start there:
Faith writes:
Sigh. During the Flood there would have been SHORT periods of exposure at the surface BETWEEN WAVES AND TIDES, during which ripples and minor erosion and footprints could have occurred to the wet sediments, but NOT the kind of erosion that occurs to land that is aerially exposed for years on end, which would be visible in the strata from across the whole canyon.
Dr A writes:
Large paleovalleys carved into the underlying Redwall Limestone developed through dissolution i.e. karstification, and likely were enlarged by west-flowing streams. --- Timons and Karlstrom (eds.), Grand Canyon Geology, Geological Society of America, 2012.
Sink holes, caverns, and solution cracks common in upper parts of the Redwall limestone are in places partly or entirely filled with red mudstone accumulated during deposition of the overlying Supai formation. --- E. D. McKee, U.S. Geological Survey, "The Redwall Limestone", Ninth Field Conference of the New Mexico Geological Society
The top of the Mississippian Redwall limestone in the Grand Canyon area was subject to extensive karstification during a period of about 30 million years from the late Meramacian to early Morrowan time. This hiatus has recently been shown to be much shorter, possibly only 5 million years, in the western Grand Canyon where tidal and deltaic channels draining westward toward the retreating sea are eroded into the Redwall surface. These channels have average depths of about 107 m (350 ft). --- T. Troutman, University of Texas at Austin, "Genesis, Paleoenvironment, and Paleogeomorphology of the Mississippian Redwall Limestone Paleokarst, Hualapai Indian Reservation, Grand Canyon Area", Cave Research Foundation Newsletter vol. 29 no. 1, 2001.
First of all Dr. A is answering my claim that NORMAL EROSION that occurs on the surface of the earth OBVIOUSLY did not occur to any of the layers of the Grand Canyon in any lengthy stretch of the sort I asked everybody to consider, which of course Dr. A. did NOT consider, but instead he chose a completely different section of the GC figuring it would demolish the idea of the Flood and that's what this post is all about. Meanwhile my request that the undisturbed section of the GC be considered is continuing to be resisted.
Karstification is not the NORMAL sort of surface erosion I was talking about, that would be VISIBLE from clear across the canyon if it had occurred to any of the layers in the section I proposed thinking about.
HOWEVER, there is no problem with the idea that limestone dissolves in water which can lead to the formation of all kinds of holes and caves, and had that occurred visibly to any of the layers in the section I had in mind THAT would be the explanation, NOT normal erosion. This would happen even if the limestone was never at the surface of the stack; why would that be a requirement? If the whole stack was laid down in the Flood the limestone could start dissolving very soon after being laid down, in this case being filled in with the red mudstone sediment from above as it got deposited in its turn, and there is no reason to think it would take millions of years. I'm sure 4300 years is QUITE sufficient and probably much much less, probably days, weeks, months at most. Even they saw that 30 million was a tad excessive and shaved off 25 million. They just didn't take it far enough.
You would not have those neat level horizontal strata ANYWHERE AT ALL had that ever occurred to ANY of the layers.
You posted this gibberish before but didn't attempt to justify it. Why would erosion of one layer affect the unaffected underlying layers?
Apparently I was not clear. I mean that if even one of the layers had been exposed for many years, let alone millions, at the surface of the earth, it would have been so distorted by erosion of various sorts that it would not lie neatly level and horizontal, destroying the appearance of the regular level horizontal strata. So that layer getting that distorted would also distort the appearance of neat horizontality of the whole stack. Then all its gullies and canyons and gashes and river beds and whatnot would get filled in by the sediment supposedly depositing on top of it (although how that could possibly happen under normal circumstances remains a complete mystery to me, let alone how it could happen to all those different layers we see in th Canyon) and we would NOT see that nice straight line between the two different kinds of sediment that we do in fact see, we would have a very rough line of contact indeed, and we could see it from all the way across the canyon. Multiply that effect by many other supposedly similarly exposed layers and the whole stack should be a vision of zigzags without a single neat straight horizontal contact anywhere.
If you think about it, even you must admit that the top of the Grand Canyon, the Kaibab Limestone, is currently undergoing subaerial erosion. Yet without affecting the surfaces of the strata beneath it, which, if flat, are remaining so.
At first I had NO idea why on earth you would say something like this but now I gather you simply misunderstood my statement above which I hope I have straightened out. My argument is that the layers way down in the stack now were never at the surface long enough to undergo NORMAL erosion in NORMAL time -- brief periods of exposure between waves and tides, yes, but never surface the way the Kaibab is surface. It never crossed my mind for half a second that erosion of the actual top surface layer would in any way affect the layers beneath.
That's why I specified that the stack above the basement rocks was to be the focus.
Ah, you don't know what "basement rocks" means, then? As to why you want to except such a glaring exception, I think we can guess.
You would guess wrongly because I actually enjoy that part of my argument, but it gets extremely convoluted and I still want my Experiment dealt with. This discussion has already wandered a long time and I'm tired.
I did think the "basement" rocks begin at the Great Unconformity but I'm sure you can correct me.
However, I believe the Great Unconformity, as I have argued here before, was also created after ALL the strata were laid down, created by the forced tilting and sliding of a segment of the lowest strata by the volcanic activity beneath the Canyon, which had sufficient force to tilt that segment but not enough to disrupt the horizontality of the stack above it, although the entire region was lifted upward, stack and all.
You did indeed argue that. Oh, how we laughed.
Quite foolishly because it's a good argument.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
™ Version 4.2
