Relation of Geological Time Scale to sedimentary rocks

This is probably going to be a very rudimentary proposal to be refined quite a bit before promotion, if it makes it that far.Dr. A asked me to start a thread about how the idea of the strata in relation to the time periods hits me as strange, but there didn't seem to be more to say about it than I'd already said. I could say I don't see how it makes sense for strata to exist at all on the Old Earth model, why there should be discrete Time Periods at all, and so on.Then I found an exam for a course in Historical Geology online that gave some standard geological views of the formation of the strata. Six major transgressions and regressions of the oceans, for instance, over the supposed hundreds of millions of years since Precambrian time, seem to account for all of it, though as usual it's more interpretation than fact. Students who uncritically want to learn the current information wouldn't have a problem with that, but somebody who wants to see how the concepts were derived from the facts will of course encounter the frustration of the usual mystification that passes for science in these areas where it's all about historical facts that can't be replicated.I did, however, discover that the 2009 edition of the textbook for the Historical Geology course turns out to be affordable for me, which is a small miracle, so I've ordered it. It's to arrive in a few days. I'm hoping it will include enough of the actual facts for me to piece together the real physical phenomena apart from the interpretive mystification.Edge referred to the "first of the major Paleozoic transgressions" on the other thread in explaining how the Tapeats sandstone is time-related to other sandstone deposits elsewhere. We need a lot less of the interpretive language of "transgressions" and a lot more of the latter kind of information about sandstones that are considered to be all part of one time period, clear descriptions of actual phenomena. How extensive the strata are, whether the strata are composed of the same kind of sediment in the same time period elsewhere and so on. The various KINDS of sandstone, Potsdam and whatnot, tend to mystification, however. What makes them different from each other as simple factual phenomena and why should someone wanting to know about these things have to track down that information?He also said that the strangeness I see in the time period-strata connection doesn't hold water, as it were, because of all the unconformities in the strata. Which when translated back to simple fact means the erosion or rubble between some layers. Typical mystification of treating an interpretation ("unconformity" bah!)_as if it were a fact, making it as hard as possible for anyone else to come up with another interpretation of the same fact.I did enough research to get some idea of the six supposed transgression-regression events, whose names are given as if that contributes to knowledge instead of merely being another bit of mystification, meaning that I get only the roughest idea how these supposed events are supposed to account for the phenomena of the strata.Of course the very idea that water is given as the explanation for most of the sedimentary deposits makes me wonder why the Flood is considered to be so impossible by the same people who accept all this fantastic history. I mean all the ingredients seem to be there for the Flood. By the time we get to the transgressions in the Cretaceous period and higher we're already approaching the enormous amount of water that's supposedly so impossible to explain if it's only one worldwide Flood, because that "time period" is a couple of miles higher on the land than the earliest "transgression" would have had to surmount.Also it all makes me wonder how living things on the land masses that were periodically transgressed by the oceans would have survived all that water rising over the land. In the Paleozoic era the fossilized life forms are all (? mostly?} marine anyway, but when you get to the two supposed transgressions in the Cretaceous and higher up, where dinosaurs and other land creatures have been fossilized, why bother with special explanations for extinctions when you have enough water to drown the lot of them?I've been trying for days to come up with a topic proposal. I know this is inadequate but I wanted to get something up if only to become the nucleus of something more coherent. Advice as to how to turn it into something coherent is quite welcome.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Before I can promote a thread I need some assurance that discussion will be civil and constructive and that participation won't be abandoned in mid-stream. I cannot promote this thread at this time.

I'll be good. ABE: I could commit to making that effort but after a few hours of thinking about it I realize I don't want to go through another experience of the kind of abuse debating at EvC has become. I'm not the only one who gets out of line but I'm usually the only one who gets called on it when I lose it in response.Too bad, I wish I were up to it.Sorry. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You're often strongly resistant to moderation, and that's why you quickly garner the majority of moderator attention. You might try an experiment: let moderators handle moderation issues. Moderators can't issue admonishments for small snubs when you've already significantly escalated along several axes of Forum Guidelines violations.The ground rules are simple: follow the Forum Guidelines. Evidence is foremost. As I have done since this site's beginning, I will disallow all arguments that are so general that they can be made on any topic, such as "We just interpret the evidence differently." Such arguments can have their own threads.

I've actually tried that experiment, Percy, and moderation didn't step in on many such occasions, even refused to on a few I tried to make an issue of. So you disagreed with my view of it, fair enough, nevertheless it takes a heavy toll on me that I'm not up to paying any more. I thought I was tougher than I am. You have no idea what a bashing I take here, no sense of it at all. And of course everybody else says it's the creationists who are favored and that I'm just being a martyr, which adds fuel to the fire.And the more I've reacted against the provocations the more heavyhanded your moderation has become. Understandable I suppose but counterproductive. Your moderation is in fact abusive. I know I go too far but I don't think any other reaction would have made a difference.Besides that, you don't even recognize that the different interpretations of the facts IS the argument. And then you actually ruled against the principle of original horizontality. Wow. I don't know if that was the last straw or the tenth to the last but the camel has been dead for some time now. Such differences in the basic understanding of the debate itself, on top of the abusive attitudes that you think are just minor snubs, just got to be too much.I love to talk about these issues, that's the problem, I'm addicted to it. The the rules here, mostly the unspoken ones, have always made it difficult, but now impossible.Too bad. It would be nice to have a reasonable discussion about the OP but I've finally learned the hard way it isn't going to happen.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.