Walls and the floor make a huge difference. They confine the flow to one direction. No cross-currents. No vertical component of flow. Boundary layers on both sides and on the bottom.
I realize that you have no clue what a boundary layer is or it's effects. Reality "knows".
I'm going to start with your last paragraph about whether the Coconino/Hermit boundary is really a disconformity:
edge writes:
Finally, I have been trying to find out if anyone thinks that the Coconino/Hermit contact is an unconformity and I don't really see it discussed as such. If you have such information, I'd be interested in seeing it. I might call it a diastem, but I don't think it is a full-blown unconformity.
quote:Like the Supai Group below it, the Permian-aged Hermit Formation was probably deposited on a broad coastal plain (see 6a in figure 1). The alternating thin-bedded iron oxide, mud and silt were deposited via freshwater streams in a semiarid environment around 280 million years ago. Fossils of winged insects, cone-bearing plants, and ferns are found in this formation as well as tracks of vertebrate animals. It is a soft, deep red shale and mudstone slope-former that is approximately 100 to 900 feet (30 to 274 m) thick. Slope development will periodically undermine the formations above and car- to house-sized blocks of that rock will cascade down onto the Tonto Platform. An unconformity marks the top of this formation.
I wasn't sure whether to trust this information, but then I found more information, and it addresses what you say about little of the Hermit Formation being lost to erosion:
The Cocnino/Hermit boundary is a discontinuity representing millions of years of erosion of the Hermit Shale and whatever now-lost layers were above it.
I really don't think it was that long and probably very little was lost.
quote:The boundary between the Coconino and the Hermit Shale is quite remarkable. Here, on the North Bass Trail, we are just a few feet away from the boundary, and you can see that the rocks switch completely from the light tan Coconino to the dark red Hermit in just the space of a few inches. You might think that some huge environmental change took place in the geological blink of an eye to create this sharp boundary, but in fact there is an unconformity between the formations, meaning that the Hermit Shale was exposed on the surface and eroded away for some millions of years before the sands that formed the Coconino began to be deposited.
But obviously you think this is wrong, and I've read that the Hermit Formation is one of the least studied layers, so maybe you think this information shouldn't be trusted?
Further, it is thought that the cracks in the Hermit are actually mud cracks that were open when the Coconino sand began blowing across the drying mudflats. In many cases the cracks can be seen zig-zagging downward into the Hermit suggesting that there is compaction of the muds as it was loaded by the overlying sand mass or even later as the sediments piled up.
Yes, thanks for mentioning this. I discovered I was wrong about this and was going to work it into an upcoming message, but this saves me the trouble. I thought I'd discovered evidence of tectonism, but no such luck.
But obviously you think this is wrong, and I've read that the Hermit Formation is one of the least studied layers, so maybe you think this information shouldn't be trusted?
Yes, thanks for mentioning this. I discovered I was wrong about this and was going to work it into an upcoming message, but this saves me the trouble. I thought I'd discovered evidence of tectonism, but no such luck.
Yes, I do think that the statement is wrong.
Let's put it this way. If there were much erosion of the last Hermit layer, why aren't the mud cracks filled with Hermit materials?
Here's another thing. If the mud cracks were open to receiving sand from Coconino dunes, they had to be in existence at the same time. In other words, the youngest part of the Hermit is actually younger than the oldest part of the Coconino.
Once again, this is a necessary outcome of Walther's Law and is well understood by stratigraphers though still hard to grasp by first-year students.
Now, if someone could show me canyons in the Hermit with heaps of truncated bedding planes, I might see things differently. But I don't see that yet.
See that skinny layer at the top of the Hermit and bottom of the Coconino? It doesn't look like it belongs to either layer. I wonder what it is.
If I'm seeing what you have in mind, it looks to me like a slight beveling of the Hermit rock just below the contact, that happens to be catching the light so it stands out.
ABE: Now I'm wondering if you are talking about the contact we've supposedly been discussing all along, which is nothing but a fine line, very very straight and without any erosional channeling. That is what is "between" the layers but it is most certainly not a layer, it's the contact line.
Okay, let's call it the contact line. It's about one inch thick. How is that a "knife-edge tight" boundary? Here's the image for reference:
But nobody else is as confused about what I'm saying as you are.
I think the only difference between me and everyone else is that no one else is pushing you as hard on this point. Pretty much no one accepts your explanations.
However, the general paradigm blindness here is indeed what makes my efforts nightmarish, and my constant hope that somebody will finally be smart enough or honest enough to get it is no doubt futile.
How do you know you're not the one with paradigm blindness who needs to be smart enough or honest enough to get it?
If the facts support your position then discussion will bring that out.
Have you really changed your views on unconformities and now believe that "some erosion in a contact is the usual thing"?
Of course not. I've always attributed the small amounts of erosion to runoff between the strata after they were laid down, or slight tectonic movement after they were laid down.
Oh, this sounds like your idea that the flood repeatedly advanced and retreated across the land due to tides, all while maintaining its loads or sorted sediments and fossils.
I don't do evo style interpretations, I'd think at least you would know that much by now.
One should not eschew interpretations for any other reason than that the evidence does not support them.
About "knife-edge tight", you're no longer claiming that it means a lack of gaps, right?
I never said one thing about gaps as far as I recall...
In Message 1203 you said, "The contact as shown in that picture with the arrow is just one single line with no gaps,..."
...but of course it doesn't have gaps, it doesn't have gaps, it doesn't have erosion, it's so tight it's one single fine line.
It's one single fine line that is about one inch thick, hardly "knife-edge tight."
And I've been coming to think you don't even know what the contact is on that picture.
There's no ambiguity about where the boundary in the image is.
If "improvements" in computer science hadn't utterly defeated my ability to navigate such things I'd blow up the picture and highlight the area closeup of the contact and ask you to put an arrow indicating what you think the contact line is. Perhaps you could do that?
No I couldn't, sorry. You don't mean "computer science" but "application software." We are all frustrated at the general regression in capability and quality in application software as the software industry increasingly caters to the nether regions of computer competence. And as more and more of the population transitions from computers to mobile platforms, fewer and fewer development resources are available for computer applications. For one example, in Windows 10 Microsoft replaced Paint with Paint-3D. Definitely not an improvement.
Do you understand that Baumgardner concedes that erosional channeling at formation boundaries exists?
As I already said he didn't "concede" anything because that erosional channeling is common knowledge. He said it's interesting how little erosion there is in the contacts, meaning all the erosional channeling, but also said it in a way that meant he regarded that section of the Coconino-Hermit contact as unique in having absolutely NO such erosion.
Given the many examples of erosional channeling in many strata boundaries, a 20-foot stretch of boundary that has no erosional channeling means nothing.
Do you understand that you can't extrapolate a 20-foot stretch of strata boundary to the entire strata boundary?
Percy, it's hard to believe you are this out of it but over and over you say stuff like this that shows that you are. You are so miserably misreading me it's beyond beyond. Where have I said one single thing that implies that I wouldn't know that?
Uh, in your previous paragraph?
Oh don't answer that,...
Oops, too late. Sorry.
...you'll have some utterly bizarre way of misreading me I don't think I even want to know aboutt. This whole series of questions is just weird and wacko. Your tediousness and nitpicking are problems I have with your posts, but bizarre misreadings is another.
I'm just calling attention to the implications of what you say.
I haven't EXTRAPOLATED anything. I've said over and over and over that it appears that short stretch of knife-edge tight contact is probably unique in the Grand Canyon.
Except that is neither knife-edge tight nor unique. The Coconino/Hermit boundary is pretty much the same everywhere throughout the Grand Canyon. What is unique about the section in that image is that it is easy to get to on the Bright Angle Trail, and the flat vertical wall of Coconino at that location makes the boundary especially easy to see.
A flume is tightly confined by walls. A global flood is not.
Well, I'm not sure what went on before my time, but AFAIK, there was never any confusion about cross-bedding versus strata.
No matter what Faith says, superposition is not violated because, at any given location, a grain of sediment is resting on grains that were deposited prior, even in cross-bedding (a term I don't remember them using in the video, by the way) this is the case.
First of all if you look closely, each lamination is formed by a 'catastrophic' event where sediment is collapsing down a slope. This will cause sorting of the sedimentary grains. You can even see this in boulders at the base of a cliff sometimes.
You will notice that the demonstrations (I don't call them experiments) show features at a scale of centimeters. The video cleverly compares those to beds that are meters to hundreds of meters thick reaching out into the ocean. This is a deceit.
Finally, what we do see in the continental scale is practically dictated by Walther's Law. At any given time, the sandstone and the siltstone formations both exist and if the sea transgresses, one will be superposed over the other.
Even though they exist at the same time!
And no, the demonstration does not invalidate original horizontality. We do know that sediments can be deposited on a slope. That slope is often called the 'angle of repose'. Without it, a pile of sand would just flow away to a thin layer. This is all kind of humorous since Faith has at times rejected the idea of slopes on original bedding.
Anyway, the principle of original horizontality is currently understood to be a first order approximation and is often perfectly accurate.
So in conclusion, let's just say that streams (like flumes) are not the same as transgressing seas. As soon as a current is introduced the world becomes more interesting.
Okay, let's call it the contact line. It's about one inch thick. How is that a "knife-edge tight" boundary?
It's not, you've just made a monumental mistake.
Turns out you DO have it wrong. A knife-edge thick contact would not be one-inch thick, which ought to be so obvious even you couldn't make that error. The contact in the picture is that fine dark line above the roughly one-inch thick beveled part of the Hermit as I described it earlier, the part that is lighter because the sun is shining on it at an angle to be reflected directly at the camera. Again, the contact is the fine line right above that. Nobody would ever call a one-inch-thick contact "knife-edge" and it's amazing you persisted in this mistake throughout this whole conversation. No wonder you had a billion irrelevant tedious questions, which is so typical of you. The original picture with the arrow shows the point of the arrow right on that fine line. This kind of mistake is very hard to explain but it is one royal pain in the neck.
Garner in the video didn't call it "knife-edge" but he did carry on some about how amazingly tight the contact is at that point, how he wished he could take the audience there to see it close up in reality.
You've done this to me before. You misread something, a sentence, a diagram, a photo, and you attribute the error to me. Talking to you is a hazardous undertaking.
I found the picture with the arrow, the tip of which is carefully pointed to and touching the fine line contact:
And just to be pedantically complete, here's yours as well. It looks the same although the light is at a different angle, which makes the contact a little darker.
I just noticed I never replied to this. I understood most of your explanations and so there was no need to reply, except I have a comment about this one part:
I sometimes cringe when people say that a formation is of a certain age. Actually, it is a range of ages and those ranges are different in different locations.
Speaking just for myself, thought I think this is true of more than just me, this is one of those things I "know" because it is an inevitable consequence of other things I know, but I never thought about it before. Radiometrically, stratigraphic layers not only increase in age with increasing depth, but also laterally backward along their path of formation. It's another facet of the radiometric qualities of the strata that no flood could produce.
Thank you for this, such a fine sight to see. And thanks to Jar for his description. I thought the mural was a real storefront and missed the reflection and the girl. A just checked out the Wikipedia entry on Standin' on the Corner Park, and it mentions that the animated film Cars was set along Route 66.
It appears that when Baumgardner described the lack of erosional channeling that he was implying that the entire Coconino/Hermit boundary lacks erosional channeling.
Everthing I've seen indicates that this short section of the contact is the only place where there is no erosional channeling, that it is unique in its tightness, which of course Baumgardner would know, so he certainly would not be "implying" anything else..
Edge has convinced me that some of what I've read on the net about the Coconino/Hermit boundary is incorrect. What seems likely true is that that boundary lacks erosional channeling wherever it is visible in the Grand Canyon area. Here's the link again to Baumgardner's article: Noah’s Flood: The Key to Correct Interpretation of Earth History. Here's the part I was referring to:
quote:Figure 15. View of the contact between the Coconino Sandstone (above) and the Hermit Shale (below) in the Grand Canyon along the Bright Angel Trail. Note the lack of erosional channeling along this contact.
He seems to be implying that there is no erosional channeling anywhere in the Coconino/Hermit boundary, and if he is then he is likely correct.
There is a great deal of erosional channeling in this boundary, and he tacitly concedes there must be at least some erosional channeling when in the text he asks, "Why is there so little erosional channeling at formation boundaries?"
He has no reason to "tacitly concede" something everybody already knows and certainly he does too.
So I'll repeat what I said earlier: Edge has convinced me that some of what I read about this boundary is incorrect, and that it is likely true that there is no erosional channeling in this boundary.
He is commenting on the common knowledge that there is in fact very "little" erosional channeling at most contacts, and wondering why that is so, a fact that makes this short section unique in being absolutely free of it,...
Repeating again what I said just above, there is likely no erosional channeling visible in the Coconino/Hermit boundary in the Grand Canyon area. That short section is not unique but typical. What's unique about that section is not the boundary itself but rather how clearly the boundary stands out because of the vertical flatness of the Coconino wall and how accessible it is along the Bright Angel Trail. Here's that short section again, and note how vertical and flat the Coconino layer is:
But there are other places in the Canyon where the boundary is just as clear, it just isn't as accessible and you can't just walk right up to it, as here:
...although in general there is hardly any erosion anywhere else anyway, far from the "great deal" you are claiming.
Again, you are correct. Edge believes the boundary is more a diastem than a disconformity.
Even more, here's evidence of tectonic pressure where Coconino sand has poured into a crack in the Hermit Shale:
Garner mentions this phenomenon at the end of his talk, saying that a creationist colleague has been studying it and thinks it was probably created when an earthquake occurred while the rocks were still damp that cracked the Hermit and allowed Coconino sand into the cracks. There are apparently other cracks, not just one.
Edge believes these are mud cracks formed by drying (which can only occur while exposed to the air, not while buried or submerged), and since he said that I've found other references describing the same thing. For example, this is from the Wikipedia article on the geology of the Grand Canyon area:
quote:Some Coconino fills deep mudcracks in the underlying Hermit Shale...
This has a major problem all by itself without even looking at the video. According to you all fossils are the same age. If Bertault is exploring a scenario where the fossils are of different ages then he does not share your views.
Well, it's only about the order of deposition, not any other measure of age. And I don't really get it myself, I'll have to watch it again, but the sediments are depositing simultaneously so there shouldn't be a discrepancy in age anyway.
After you've watched it again you can get back to us.
You sound so certain of what "floods" would do,...
What floods do is common knowledge. Floods happen all the time.
...and how they wouldn't do what the flume does, but all the flume is doing is running water in a stream at different speeds,...
That's pretty close. If you look up "flume" you'll find that it is "a deep narrow channel or ravine with a stream running through it." Bertault was creating artificial flumes in the laboratory.
...which rivers do and a rising Flood as well s far as I can see. It's moving rapidly up the land so it would be laying down strata just as the flume does.
A river is not a flume, and a rising flood is like neither a river nor a flume.
If you are talking about the foremost part of the strata as it moves through the flume when you say it's at a 45 degree angle, I don't see the problem since we probably don't get to see the foremost part of a layer anyway, it thins out at least.
Again, look at time 5:50 and see the slant of his strata. To help you out, here is the video already primed to start at exactly time 5:50:
He is showing an image of the layers right in the middle as they are forming, and they're all at an angle of 45 degrees (or thereabout). Not mentioned in the video is that he is feeding his "sediment" load into the flume at the other end (the left end) where the water feeds in. There are no sediments being held in suspension in some reservoir analogous to the flood.
Re: Flume experiments pretty much abolish the current thinking about strata
Faith writes:
My thinking on this subject is all about the physical world.
Not really. For the most part you have a very poor intuitive sense and little knowledge of how the world really works. The views you express here are primarily based on what you wish occurred given your religiously based beliefs of what must have happened. This drives an interpretation of the evidence at all odds with the physical world.
The problem I am encountering in you is NOT disagreement, it's strange misreadings and making mountains out of molehills due to incomprehension...
Another possibility is that you don't understand many of the implications or significance of your many misguided claims.
and I think now just plain not recognizing what the contact is in that photo that we've supposedly been discussing.
The contact boundary of the Coconino/Hermit is unambiguous and can't be missed. It is also about an inch wide and definitely not "knife-edge tight". Here's the image:
Re: A knife-edge thick contact is NOT an inch thick
Faith writes:
The contact in the picture is that fine dark line above the roughly one-inch thick beveled part of the Hermit...
I think you're mistaking a shadow for a "fine dark line". If there were truly a thin dark layer of strata at the bottom of the Coconino then it would not go completely unremarked upon by geologists.
And if what you're calling the "one-inch thick beveled part" were truly part of the Hermit, then why isn't it the same color as the Hermit? It is instead the same color as the Coconino.
No wonder you had a billion irrelevant tedious questions, which is so typical of you.
Well, I do agree that this Coconino/Hermit contact isn't very relevant now that Edge has pointed out that some of the things on the web about it are incorrect, such as the discontinuity being millions of years old. Edge doesn't even believe it's a discontinuity but a diastem. That's the benefit of discussion, you learn things.
But I think the feeling you express that the issues I've raised (which are pretty much the same issues others have raised) are "a billion irrelevant tedious questions" is more a reflection of your inability to provide answers.
You've done this to me before. You misread something, a sentence, a diagram, a photo, and you attribute the error to me. Talking to you is a hazardous undertaking.
Well, yes, I can understand how someone who doesn't like their ideas questioned would feel this way. The issues that remain unanswered are:
You say that erosion between strata is due to runoff. How do you envision the flood repeatedly advancing (deposition) and retreating (erosion) across the land due to tides all while maintaining its loads of sorted sediments and fossils? How do you explain ancient stream and riverbeds?
Why do you think Bertault's experiments support the flood given that they a) deposit strata at a 45 degree angle; b) require a flume rather than a flood; and c) postulate fossils of different ages?
Given that Bertault's ideas are so contrary to your own, why after so many years of arguing for Steno's unaltered views from centuries ago were you so quick to abandon Steno just on Bertault's say so.
How could a single tectonic event beneath what is now the Grand Canyon be responsible for everything we see in the Grand Staircase region, not to mention the breakup of continents?
What evidence leads you to believe that the Kaibab Uplift, the Hurricane Fault, the magma dikes, and I assume the Sevier Fault, too, though you haven't mentioned that yet, all happened at the same time?
What evidence leads you to believe that the top strata of the Grand Staircase that are now missing were broken up by "general shaking" that causing geologic structures like the Pink Cliffs, the Grey Cliffs, the Vermilion Cliffs and the White Cliffs?
What evidence tells you that continental drift used to be much faster than it is today?
What evidence tells you that this great speed of continental drift only began at the end of the flood?
You say that, "Something happened on the sea floor and under the continents that broke them apart and caused the water to drain, began the Atlantic ridge, began volcanism which gets triggered with the movement of the continents and so on." What is the evidence of this something that happened on the sea floor, and that it caused all these events?
What evidence is there of a tectonic event creating a drain on the ocean floor for flood waters? What evidence is there for fountains of the deep?
Since 3/4 of the globe is currently covered by water, how is a truly global flood that covers the remaining quarter much different?
Did you never wonder why no fishermen were able to get to their boats and survive the flood? Maybe that's who populated the land of Nod, where Cain's wife came from.
Why do you think volcanism only began with the breaking up of the continents, especially since volcanic deposits are easy to date showing that there has been volcanism throughout Earth's history?
If the Paleozoic layers were already present when the Supergroup layers tilted, why do the faults associated with the Supergroup extend down into the Vishnu Schist but not up into the Paleozoic layers?
If the Paleozoic layers were already present when the Supergroup layers tilted, then given that the weight of the Paleozoic layers was less than the weight upon the Supergroup layers, how were they able to resist tilting while the Supergroup layers could not?
If the Paleozoic layers were already present when the Supergroup layers tilted, then where did the cubic miles of rock of the now-missing portions of the Supergroup strata go?
If the Grand Canyon had been cut suddenly then the canyon walls would be vertical. How do you explain the sloping walls of the Grand Canyon?
What evidence suggests to you the extended periods of tectonic quiescence, particularly far from plate boundaries, is unusual, particularly in light of the many other parts of the world that have extensive strata without much faulting or deformation?
Why do you think the Great Unconformity is worldwide extent, especially given the presence in many parts of the world of strata from time periods represented by the Great Unconformity?
How do you explain the distribution of fossils in geological strata according to increasing difference from modern forms?
How do you explain the increasing radiometric age of strata with increasing depth?
How does a flood carry sediments thousands of miles across a continent and then separate them by type (not by size or density) and deposit them with distinct boundaries?
What evidence leads you to conclude that there is detachment along the Great Unconformity?
Why did you say that, "Radiometric dating is just not going to fly with me, it's all a bunch of conjectural stuff, not real evidence." What examination of the evidence led you to this conclusion, especially since even the RATE group found no problems with radiometric dating?
Do you now understand that erosion flattens and levels landscapes? If not why not?
AbE:
Why did sediments only deposit on land and never on sea floors?
The amount of scree and talus and rocks and boulders in the Grand Canyon greatly exceeds what could erode off the canyon walls in a mere 4500 years. How do you explain that?
How did the flood leave behind cross bedded sand dunes with animal tracks in the Coconino?
How did the flood transport and deposit sediments that include burrows, termite nests, worm holes, etc.?
Your scenario requires repeated inundations of the land to build the individual sedimentary layers. Each inundation delivers and deposits the sediment for a new layer, followed by a recession, and then the next inundation delivers and deposits new sediments for the next layer. If receding flood waters carved the Grand Canyon, then how is it that the receding waters between each inundation did not carve canyons, even small ones?
Here's a thought experiment about receding flood waters carving the Grand Canyon. Imagine a bathtub with a massive drain that can empty the tub in seconds. Fill this bathtub with water. Build a pile of sand in the middle that doesn't quite reach the surface. Open the drain. Why is there no flow of water across the pile of sand and no erosion?
Re: A knife-edge thick contact is NOT an inch thick
Faith writes: The contact in the picture is that fine dark line above the roughly one-inch thick beveled part of the Hermit...
I think you're mistaking a shadow for a "fine dark line". If there were truly a thin dark layer of strata at the bottom of the Coconino then it would not go completely unremarked upon by geologists.
The line is dark because of the shadow IN the contact, which is very fine because the contact is so tight. That's how much of a "gap" there is between the Hermit and the Coconino. Sheesh, Percy, are you really this obtuse?
"Thin dark layer of strata??????? It's the CONTACT for pete's sake, it's where the Hermit stops and the Coconino begins.
And if what you're calling the "one-inch thick beveled part" were truly part of the Hermit, then why isn't it the same color as the Hermit? It is instead the same color as the Coconino.
As I said, it's lighter because the sun is shining more directly on it because it's at a slight angle to the Hermit, which is what I meant by "beveled." If you are no better at reading a photo than this it makes conversation with you worse than tedious, it makes it futile for anyone else actually trying to make a point.
No wonder you had a billion irrelevant tedious questions, which is so typical of you.
Well, I do agree that this Coconino/Hermit contact isn't very relevant now that Edge has pointed out that some of the things on the web about it are incorrect, such as the discontinuity being millions of years old. Edge doesn't even believe it's a discontinuity but a diastem. That's the benefit of discussion, you learn things.
It's nevertheless important because it is very unusual and perhaps unique as such a tight contact in the whole Grand Canyon. It gets pointed out for that reason alone though calling it an unconformity may make it slightly more dramatic. It's only relatively unimportant in this context of your making such a huge issue of it which I now understand is due to your misreading of the photo.
I hope someone else comes along to disabuse you of your wrong idea about the photo but meanwhile I've learned, not for the first time, that you are so bad at this it's only ulcer-making futility for me to stay in the conversation.
I've been looking at the yellow line you put in the second photo and its magnified section and can't figure out what on earth it's supposed to be pointing to. It seems to confirm that you have a very strange idea of what the boundary between the two rocks is. The arrow shows the rough rock of the Hermit, the contact line is the very very fine line above the arrow between the Hermit and the smoother rock of the Coconino.
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