Summations Only

I did not say that rock can form on the surface. I've never said that and would not say it. It would have to be buried to become rock. Why you would imagine me saying anything else I have no idea. There are exceptions I think but in this discussion to become rock the sediment has to be buried. So of course it's "not an issue," because I never said it. The sediment burying another landscape either has to become rock or be eroded away.

The problem is getting from your soil and landscapes to the strata that is the starting point of all this pondering. If the soil above the rock is not represented in the strata then it's going to have to get eroded away before the next rock is established above the one you mention that is deep in the earth. You can start from the landscapes and get any old sequence of strata you like, but the problem here is to see how the strata we've actually got was formed by the events supposed for them: particular depositional environments for particular rocks have to be considered, and then their burial and lithification, but all in the right order so that you end up with the given strata that is the basis for the problem here.So, this soil is not destined to become part of the strata unless it's also a landscape or depositional environment, and since you contrast it with landscapes above it, apparently it isn't. Therefore it will have to be eroded away before the landscapes (plural) you say are above it take their place as rocks in the strata. Have you made provision for the timing of all this? The consequences of each step? It doesn't sound like it. So you've got these landscapes, plural, above this soil -- which of course must represent rocks in the particular stack of strata that is the launching point of this problem. But more than one at once? Not likely. One landscape or depositional environment to a rock, after all, each representing a rock in the strata that launched the problem, at a particular level, between particular other rocks, identified with a particular time period according to the Geo Timescale.You also have to take into account that the critters are fossilized in particular rocks in this particular strata. They can't just roam around from one level to another, they have to stay in their own time period. But see, you aren't thinking about any of this. You think you can describe a general series of events that will do for any situation, but you can't. This is like a puzzle: you have to get the landscapes, the processes of burial and lithification into rocks, all accomplished in a particular order so that they end up as the strata that is the problem being posed: they have to become the particular rocks made of particular sediments, identified as representing particular depositional environments, containing particular fossils and no others, so that ALL the processes you are describing are not willy-nilly but precisely arranged to construct a very particular stack of strata. The question I've been asking is, how do you get from the supposed depositional environments or landscapes, to the particular stack of rocks Geology says represent them? You've got the rocks, those are the given, you have to show how they could have formed from a series of depositional environments understood to have existed on the very spot where the rocks that represent them now sit, with the particular creatures living in that environment that the fossils in the rock are interpreted to have inhabited at that time. When I try to solve the puzzle I run into all kinds of barriers. You and others just make up any old general sequence of soil deposition, burial and so on that has nothing to do with the actual problem as posed and of course you encounter no barriers.Nothing about this is "well documented." I've never seen this puzzle or problem posed before and unless I've missed it nobody here has addressed it either. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

As well as I'm able I've been sticking to the time factor defined by Geology for the formation of a stack of strata out of "depositional landscapes." I'm not using any other time factor than the Geo Timescale that is assigned to the fossil record within the rocks.Percy, however, limited his example to ten thousand years so I went with his number for the sake of consistency in trying to discuss that example. Yes but I'm not discussing any of that here. I'm attempting to discuss ONLY the strata and how they could have formed out of the depositional environments you all impute to them, and within the time spans you impute to them. If we were discussing the Flood I would answer you in terms of the Flood, since I certainly include mountain-0building within its time frame, but I am not discussing the Flood, I am TRYING to discuss the Geological theory about the formation of the strata from depositional environments or landscapes It has nothing to do with the Flood.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I don't know if I can straighten any of this out, but I guess I have to try.I realized at some point recently that I'm overstating the idea that the strata in question have to be a "particular" stack of strata as if the problem is to match such a stack rock for rock. That's a sad mistake I can only hope hasn't set the discussion back irreparably. The point I was overstating is that whatever scenarios are being described have to end up in a stack of strata or "stratigraphic column" as I am now trying to remember to identify it.A stack of strata or stratigraphic column is a stack of rocks each of which is interpreted to be the result of a former "depositional environment" or landscape. They are not just made up of different sediments, they represent former landscapes. This becomes especially important when I encounter something like Coyote's scenario of soil burying a rock so it will lithify, on top of which he supposes other landscapes forming.This will do as a general description of the processes that are supposed to turn environments or landscapes into a stack of rocks or stratigraphic column, but as I was trying to say to him the problem is more specific than that. Some processes will not end up in a stratigraphic column and that has to be recognized; it's essential to "solving the puzzle." My mistake here was to define the problem as matching particular stack of rocks, as I say above, but no, the problem is merely to match ANY stack of strata or stratigraphic column, defined as rocks that point to former depositional environments.The problem in Coyote's description was that soil he had piled on top of the rock being lithified. PaulK thought I was saying the sediment/rock being lithified wouldn't be lithified and I'm at a loss to understand how he got that idea, but what I WAS saying was that the soil that buried that sediment in order to lithify it, was apparently just plain sediment, and not like the sediments in a stratigraphic column which represent "depositional environments." That means that "soil" burying the lithifying sediment would not be part of the stack of strata we have to end up with. ANY stack of strata, not a particular stack of strata or stratigraphic column, but a stratigraphic column defined as rocks that point to landscapes or depositional environments, usually containing fossils that are understood to have populated those environments or landscapes. If all you have is "soil" or sediments that, say, slid down a mountain to bury a landscape and turn it into a rock slab, THAT soil is not going to be part of the final stack of strata, because the strata contain rocks that are depositional environments, not just sediments.Coyote COULD have specified that the soil burying the sediment/rock to be lithified is itself also a former depositional environment, but he didn't (and that would bring up a whole host of other problems for this puzzle I'm trying to set up anyway), it's just "soil" that never was such a landscape, therefore it doesn't belong in the strata, and THAT's why it will have to be eroded away. Its only purpose in his scenario is to bury the sediment to turn it into a rock. Presumably it did its work and that sediment is becoming or now is a rock in the stratigraphic column, but now the soil that promoted its lithification has to be eroded away leaving only that rock because the soil doesn't belong in the column.SO: attempts to solve this puzzle have to take into account what is going to become part of the stack of strata in the end and what isn't. If it isn't, it's going to have to be done away with before the rock it's burying becomes part of the stack, that is, before the next rock forms on top of it.I hope this is now clear but I'm getting used to being surprised by new misunderstandings in such a variety of ways I really don't know if it's clearer or not.I'm glad I did at least say the problem is like a puzzle, because it is: the processes that build up a landscape, that form it and bury it and erode it away, all of those processes all have to end up forming a stratigraphic column composed of slabs of rocks that each identify a former depositional environment or landscape populated by a particular selection of living things as found fossilized in that slab of rock. You can't just give the general principles of landscape formation and burial and lithification as Coyote did; you have to keep in mind how it's going to end up as a rock in a stratigraphic column. The soil he had in his scenario to bring about the lithification of a former landscape, wouldn't be part of a stratigraphic column and would have to be eliminated for that column to take its final form.To try to state the problem or puzzle: Starting from a stratigraphic column, reconstruct the depositional environments indicated by the clues in the rocks of that column, and trace out the events or processes that would have to occur to show how each depositional environment or landscape ended up as the rock in the column.ABE: Oh my aching head: I just skimmed through earlier posts I haven't yet answered and it's enough to drive a person to sleep for a year to try to forget it all. The strange misunderstandings, the odd ways the problem is getting posed. Oy. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I absolutely deny this. I am trying very hard to deal with the multiple landscapes that are obviously supposed to have existed according to standard geological understanding of the rocks in a stratigraphic column, AND the enormous spans of time allotted to this view of things. It's the very problem that I object to so I'm trying to show that it's untenable, but I've barely begun to get the basics across for that purpose.In trying to deal with this puzzle I've posed I EXPECT the problem to get very complicated with multiple landscapes, but for that reason I try FOR STARTERS to keep the focus on a single rock with its single landscape to get the basic processes spelled out, in an effort not to make the confusions worse than they already are.NOTHING from my Floodist thinking is involved in this, NOTHING. I'm focused COMPLETELY on the implications of the many depositional environments or landscapes supposed by standard Geology to have succeeded one another up the stack of strata in a stratigraphic column over hundreds of millions of years.

Many posts ago many posters said over and over again and I thought you were one of them, that a landscape IS INDEED the rock. It existed on the very spot where the rock now sits, the rock is what BECAME OF the landscape or depositional environment. The clues to the character of the landscape are found IN that rock. At one point I had to clarify that the landscape had to have formed ON the older rock. You are now saying it's CUT INTO the older rock. So what? What's the point of this kind of nit-pickery? And I’ll bet this doesn’t represent anything actually seen in a stratigraphic column either, it’s purely made up to illustrate what you believe happened. Besides which, what does it mean to have ONE landscape in that stack of rocks since each rock represents a depositional environment? The more details you add the more absurd Geology gets.I need another break.

What I am frustrated with is the unscientific claims that are called science, which you can get away with because you are a certified *scientist* although the utter nonsense of historical geology does not deserve the name.I suppose I'll recover and come back but for now I need a break.

You mean 861?I read it. I even partly answered it, figuring maybe I'll get to the rest later. But I don't get what you think is so important about it.The whole idea of former landscapes or depositional/erosional environments either, is purely imaginary, THAT's what's unscientific. And it's what I'm trying to get at with my puzzle because I believe you cannot scientifically/honestly get from your imaginary landscape to the rock that represents it. You come up with all kinds of principles you think accomplish it. They don't. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You are permanently stuck in that rut I fear. You really ought to stick your head out sometime and see how wrong you are.

That evidence works just as well for the Flood.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The "rock record" is a lie. The only real landscapes occur on the top of the strata wherever they are exposed. And those are the only landscapes that ever existed in the strata, all the rest is a bunch of misinterpreted bits and pieces in the rocks. Why not provide photographs instead of drawings? Could it be because in reality such irregular surfaces hardly ever occur in a stratigraphic column? And when something like that does occur it's better interpreted some other way?Since you are making flat declarations you make it necessary for me to do the same. You said something about having dealt with my "puzzle" but I don't recall seeing what you said about that. If you'd like to stop exchanging declarations and consider my argument please repeat whatever you said about it since I didn't see it. I'm sorry to hear it. You have my sympathy for your very sick science.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

If you have something to say or offer on the topic, please do so. Otherwise your comments on me personally, which is about all you've had to offer in post after post for some time, are out of line.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

No, it's one of the hypothetical weirdnesses that is made necessary by the craziness of the Stratigraphic Column and its Depositional/Erosional Environments, nothing else, just facts that present themselves as one tries to follow out that craziness. I understand that you must fail to appreciate this fact for reasons of your own. Definitely not. Because they think the stratigraphic column and the depositional/erosional environments and the geo timescale make sense. What I'm doing is showing that they don't. Unfortunately nobody gets it. But ya know what? I'm beyond caring. Not exactly. It's where the actual circumstances lead me. Not to any place a geologist ever goes because they are too busy avoiding the facts that would lead them there. Lots of general principles are thrown at me, but following out the actual facts, no. Your ability to assess motivation is abysmally bad. Do give it up and find a more useful pursuit. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

If I were moderator I'd put PaulK, dwise and jar out in the cold for a month for accusing me of lying among other things. But since I'm not I suppose the best thing to do is leave myself. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I appreciate Percy's attitude of fairness, although I've had enough of the accusations and snark for a while. And although I'm glad he recognizes that my posts are sincere, he's wrong that I'm characterizing what geologists believe. As I said in a recent post, that drew a chorus of accusations of lying, I'm trying to show something geologists have missed. I believe that if the "puzzle" I posed was honestly followed it would reveal the essential irrationality of the whole idea that there are depositional/or erosional "environments," or ancient landscapes, indicated by clues in the rocks of a stratigraphic column. This isn't something geologists think, it's something they haven't noticed because they normally stick to general statements about landscapes and environments and don't try to construct how you get from a landscape to a flat slab of rock in the stratigraphic column. And although it's asserted from time to time that the rocks have nothing to do with the Geological Timescale this is easily belied by any number of diagrams that can be found on the web. At best it's a nitpicky academic point.As for edge's experience of having his hard work go unappreciated, I sympathize, and have to say that I appreciate that he's been generally communicative, informative and fair in his posts; but about being unappreciated think I can say the same for my own experience, probably tripled.I'm on a break, a very long one I think. Considering the extreme misunderstandings of what I'm trying to do in this thread, and I recognize that it's an odd project I'm engaged in, I don't see any good reason to continue it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.