Summations Only

Hi Faith You could try reading them to see if they really are bald assertions or are supported by evidence. Except that the fault lines are in those locations and that they have been reactivated. Those fault lines also show in map here: You do realize, I hope, that your argument here is based entirely on your incredulity rather than on objective evidence (ie - showing that no other place on earth has less activity)?This is an interactive map of Quaternary earthquakes in the US: Different colors represent different ages ...Look at the Great Plains area -- N.Dakota, S.Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska -- an area much larger than the Colorado Plateau ... no fault zonesZoom in on the Colorado Plateau & Grand Canyon ... many fault zonesThe Great Plains would represent sedimentary deposition and large flat geography very similar to the layers of sedimentary deposits in the Colorado Plateau -- before uplift and tectonic stress build-up.Should there be earthquakes there? Not without cause -- earthquakes are a result of stress build-up in plates, so as long as there is no significant stress build-up one would be silly to expect earthquakes wouldn't you agree? See Message 819 to see a better representation of the actual layer slopes (rescaled to approximate 1 horizontal to 1 vertical dimensions) - a lot of detail is lost but you can follow the color bands to see the slopes. But "mystification" can be remedied with learning - start with the basics : perhaps roxrkool can recommend some entry level textbooks and if you are interested I can buy one for you from amazon (you'd have to message me an address).Now my knowledge of geography is weak, but I love learning new stuff so I could order one for myself too and we could do a Great Debate Book Review discussion of the book, both of us learning as we go along ...EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : piclink

Yes, you are incredulous that this occurred, but the question is whether we should be incredulous, based on evidence of "huge disturbances" ... and the consensus appears to be no, there is no reason to be incredulous about long term benign levels of activity.Faults occur where there is stress between plates, and if there is no stress there is no cause to expect faults occurring.Again I direct you to: That much larger area has no fault lines and that means no disturbances in over 1.6 million years. And questions you need to answer is first is where 750 million years comes from and second what were the tectonic stresses during those years ... provide evidence that there was stress but no activity and you would have a conundrum.But there is another issue here, which revolves again around your concept of "huge disturbances" and what qualifies.The fault lines in the area of the Grand Canyon are shown on this map And from the USGS map we know that some were <15,000 years ago (yellow), some were 15,000 to <130,000 years ago (green), some were 130,000 to <750,000 years ago (blue), and some were 750,000 to <1,600,000 years ago, and many of the younger colored ones show the recentest occurrence age rather than their oldest occurrence age. All of which occurred over a long period of some 40 million to 70 million years for the canyon to form (depending on which study you pick) or longer (possible pre-canyon activity).That doesn't seem to me to be a "sudden" occurrence at all, especially as a good part of it could have occurred well before then ... like the faults that recur along older fault lines, but I'm no expert here.One of the issues for whether they would "qualify" for your disturbances is whether they can be observed across the canyon ... so if all the faults are side-slip faults with no change in elevation then they could move "huge" amounts but not meet your qualification for observation.Likewise lack of observability does not mean that this did not happen. I just don't have the data to tell, nor do I feel I need to dig it out at this point because it's your argument to support not mine. Curiously 750 million years of placid deposition in the environmental conditions for the deposition of the sedimentary layers does not disturb me, but I don't think your numbers add up (wiki):

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The major geologic exposures in the Grand Canyon range in age from the 2-billion-year-old Vishnu Schist at the bottom of the Inner Gorge to the 230M-year-old Kaibab Limestone on the Rim. There is a gap of about a billion years between the 500M-year-old stratum and the level below it, which dates to about 1.5 billion years ago. This large unconformity indicates a period of erosion between two periods of deposition.

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Many of the formations were deposited in warm shallow seas, near-shore environments (such as beaches), and swamps as the seashore repeatedly advanced and retreated over the edge of a proto-North America. Major exceptions include the Permian Coconino Sandstone, which contains abundant geological evidence of aeolian sand dune deposition. Several parts of the Supai Group also were deposited in non—marine environments.

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bold added for emphasisCoconino is group number 3 and the Supai group is number 5, well up the walls of the canyon. Sand dunes would leave evidence in the patterns of grains in different sizes (wind sorted) that would be visible, but maybe not across the canyon.Using the ages for the layers in the diagram I get a summary of the layers as follows: From the top of the Great Unconformity to the current surface represents 525-270 = 255 million years not 750 million.Each level represents time spent where level deposition would be normal.Since then there was likely additional deposition that has subsequently eroded away.You can see why I have trouble with your 750 million year number here ... No, it would be a valid argument if you can show that there was tectonic stress in the area that should have caused the disturbances you are suggesting should have occurred. These things don't occur in cycles of a regular pattern, they are the result of tectonic stress.If there was no stress there is no reason to expect faults to appear on their own. As do I Faith. Any side slip activity would not make it into your record, so we don't know from just looking across the canyon whether such activity occurred or not.There are lots of lesser disturbances that you choose to ignore, ones that show periods of erosion and periods of surface life.The Grand Canyon is just a small area and is really just a cross-section taken along the river course -- it doesn't represent the activity of the whole area. The only thing it represents well is the deposition of layers of sediment in a large geological column in several different periods of deposition.But I have another question for you:Why was the Grand Canyon location cut by flood waters when land to the north and south are lower at the top of the ridge and lower than the rim of the canyon such that they would form similar courses for the water to run west to the sea ... why are there no great canyons in these locations? This map againhttp://earthquake.usgs.gov/hazards/qfaults/map/allows you to move around and zoom in and out, it shows elevations with color shading with light green lower than medium green, (the canyon is a darker green).There is a lower elevation in the ridge south of the canyon between Flagstaff and the south rim, and there is a lower elevation in the ridge north of the canyon where hwy 89 crosses the ridge on the way from Page Arizona to Kanab Utah. Instead of taking either of these routes the Grand Canyon cuts across two (2) ridges at higher elevations.If this was flood drainage should not there be canyons of equal size or greater in these locations???Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : clrtyEdited by RAZD, : piclinks

So you would agree that the dates shown for these layers means deposition from 525 mya to 270 mya? Note while you were busy replying I edited my post to sneak this table in That summarizes the diagram in wiki. I'll be glad to say ~250 million years of deposition without significant differential vertical displacement or major drainage channels (which would not form underwater). That leaves the vertical up and down compared to sea level (which can be attributed to sea level change rather than ground), and then rising to it's current elevations (which is a pretty visible disturbance imho). I know Faith -- the "INVISIBLE erosion" can't be seen across the canyon. You have to look at all the evidence, and that means getting up close and personal with the layers (that's what rock hounds and geologists do). But I don't need to imagine anything that is objective empirical evidence, all I need to do is look at it.But when it comes to imagination, can you tell me ...Why was the Grand Canyon location cut by flood waters when land to the north and south are lower at the top of the ridge and lower than the rim of the canyon such that they would form similar courses for the water to run west to the sea ... why are there no great canyons in these locations? This map againhttp://earthquake.usgs.gov/hazards/qfaults/map/allows you to move around and zoom in and out, it shows elevations with color shading with light green lower than medium green, (the canyon is a darker green).There is a lower elevation in the ridge south of the canyon between Flagstaff and the south rim, and there is a lower elevation in the ridge north of the canyon where hwy 89 crosses the ridge on the way from Page Arizona to Kanab Utah. Instead of taking either of these routes the Grand Canyon cuts across two (2) ridges at higher elevations.If this was flood drainage should not there be canyons of equal size or greater in these locations???Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : piclink

Not the same thingEnjoy

In outline form:speleothems
terrestrial layers between marine layers
surface erosion of layers in canyon wall
fossil evidence of mature life ecologies in layers
sloth skull and dung in cave
meandering of canyon walls
meandering within canyon walls
no floodplains
not like scablands
not like Palouse canyon
not like Mt St Helens ash canyon
hydrodynamics and energy gradients
lava dams (13)and finally: Message 1 of If Caused By Flood Drainage Why is the Grand Canyon Where It IS?EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : updated link

Nice picture, take it back a notch and you can show the lower passes over the ridge while the canyon goes through at a point of rising slope, and then climbs over another high point at the left ... as I show on If Caused By Flood Drainage Why is the Grand Canyon Where It IS?try that out on them

From my point of view if you believe in creation then you believe in what was created, that it provides true evidence rather than falsehoods, and science is just a tool to help us understand what was created and how it was done, rather than try to prove god/s from creation.Enjoy

Have you seen Message 26 and replies on the February, 2013, and beyond - Post of the Month thread? A meander occurs when the banks of the river wiggle, wobble and sometimes turn back on themselves.Eddies in the river itself are not meanders, they are eddies.So you look at the canyon walls to see the meanders, both large scale with the rims of the canyon and small scale with the inner canyon walls (often they follow the same pattern). The picture Atheos canadensis posted shows those large scale meanders of the canyon rims.The pictures I have posted show the inner canyon meanders and their relation to the rims. the bunched up (topographic) lines near the river show the inner canyon cliffs, while the white/pink edge shows the canyon rims.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : piclinks

indeed, however I have a bigger question for you And why does the canyon cross higher land than either of these two paths?EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : piclink

cognitive dissonance causes discomfort when strong beliefs run counter to facts.you could be near, be careful

Which is correct as far as it goes ... the trouble is that there is no evidence to support the flood drainage flows. Rather than delving more into the canyon let's look north and south of it.There are two paths, one north of the canyon and one south of the canyon where the ridge elevation is lower where they cross the (middle right) ridge than the Grand Canyon location where it crosses the ridge: darker green is higher land than lighter green and I have drawn a topographic line for the elevation dividing dark from light.And there is another high point in the middle left where the canyon goes through while paths north and south have lower elevations.Why are there no similar canyons in those locations?Why does the Grand Canyon go through two high points?EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : piclink

Saturated clay will bend, ... and you have fully saturated clay.Saturated sediments will liquefy and settle with fine particles rising while large dense particles sink (think quicksand) or flow downhill when shaken by an earthquake, ... and you have fully saturated sediments. And the faults all seem to run north/south rather than east/west ...The reasons your arguments are wrong do not change with you repeating it in larger letters.Enjoy

and saturated clay bends. your clay has been underwater for ~a year.Just think of making pots with 'ropes' of clay run round and round -- the way pots were first made.Enjoy

Thank you for the smiley Curiously I've made pots this way without cracking or breaking.What is your mechanism for drying out the sediments once the flood vanishes?Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : .

Actually you can stretch clay quite a bit, but really the irrelevance is you using clay as an example. Limestone is not clay, nor does it form underwater, sandstone is not clay.Wet sand is not clay. Unlithified sediments fall into cracks. Water does not flow faster in cracks it slows down.Enjoy