Summations Only

No, Faith... the daftness here is that a person with a serious visual impairment would argue so vehemently about fine details in an image from the internet. How many times have we had these types of arguments?? It's ridiculous. That you would be so cock-sure that you are right about a detail that you obviously can't really see accurately just demonstrates your lack of humility and your inability to approach evidence in an honest and objective way.It is obvious to anyone who can accurately see the image that there is something going on at that contact. I have looked at several photos of that transition and in some places there is almost no transition and in other places there appears to be a band of lighter colored material between the two layers that Percy is talking about. The exact nature of that band can not be determined from a photograph; there is just not enough detail. You can't tell grain size or composition, nor how they intermix. None of us can tell for sure - from an image - what that light colored band is... and I have much less confidence in your ability to do than others. It could be a mixing of materials, it could be chemical weathering, it could be bleaching, it could be a separate layer, it could be the way light reflects off a bevel as you say... but it is impossible to tell for sure from a photograph. I didn't find anything written about it in a brief search except for a comment on the Panoramic Project link I posted yesterday that said the transition occurs in less than an inch. So that comment would support the idea of a minute amount of intermixing, but it's not clear.Regardless... the bigger point is: How could the flood make such a clean transition? You are trying to make this claim of a "knife-edge contact" to say that traditional geology can't explain it, but in reality... your flood scenario is what can't explain it. How could waves surging over the Hermit Shale lay down a huge layer of seemingly wind-blown grains of sand without disturbing the layer beneath. Did the Hermit Shale have time to harden between waves? Was the rising of the waves gentle and slow?That's whats daft. That you think that the contact between the Hermit and Cononino supports your story.HBD

Oh... so you really can't see the image, you are just going from the description of "knife-edge tight" by a creationist lecturer. Ahhhh.... I get it now....I don't really consider "knife-edge" to be any kind of real description of the contact, just a term for general audiences. That description doesn't really tell us anything useful.But OK, you convinced me. The contact between the Hermit Shale and the Coconino sandstone is remarkably tight. This would mean it represents an unconformity where there was an interruption in sedimentation and the Hermit Shale was exposed at the surface for some amount of time and was able to harden before the Coconino sands were blown onto it. So, I guess you win this argument.But.... how does that support a worldwide flood? Why would we be afraid of that since it doesn't do anything to justify the flood. In fact, transitions like that make flood deposition untenable. Unless you have some argument or evidence that a flood deposits layers with "knife-edge" contacts?What the issue is, is the misrepresentations and distortions that creationists use to support their flood narrative and then declaring those assertions to be good science.HBD

So... how many years do you think it took to carve out the Grand Canyon and turn all that material to "dust" and carry it away. Were you thinking like 10 to 15 million years?HBD

Uhmm... no I'm not. I made a comment about the panoramic views at that website and that you could see all the debris on the ground. That didn't happen quickly. It took a long time to break those pieces of rock down. I was using your term "dust" to refer to what erosion does. And erosion is what carved the Grand Canyon, is is not, or am I misrepresenting your scenario? That's why I don't spend much time discussing with you anymore. That's how it always goes; it's always everyone's fault but yours. You are the epitome of rational discussion and everyone else is [insert your favorite insult here]I did acknowledge it. The contact is tight. I won't use the term "knife-edge" because it has little meaning to me. The contact is remarkably tight in the area you are pointing to. (I have seen other areas where it is not so tight, but I know that is irrelevant to you).Again... what's the difference to your argument whether the contact is less than an inch thick or "knife-edged." What "thing" foundered on whether the contact was as tight as you were saying? How does it being "knife-edged" matter to your narrative?HBD

So that's not erosion reducing the material to dust?Have you even looked at that website to see what I'm taking about? Let me guess... you haven't looked at it but you already know that there is nothing there that can dispute your scenario. Do I have that right?HBD

Yes, that is exactly what I was talking about. All you have to do is actually look around the canyon area and it should be clear that a flood did not carve it out a few thousand years ago.In case you didn't see the link I posted in Message 1265 to the Panorama Project (Since I did that post as a general reply) here it is again. Grand Canyon Panoramic ProjectI have been to the GC but only saw it from the South Rim, did not go down into it. It is not really possible to get a idea of the scale of the GC from images. The panoramic shots are better than static images, but it is still very underwhelming. Still there are some shots of the Redwall cliffs, well... just wow... In the Elves Chasm area there are some great shots of the Vishnu and what I believe is the Tapeats, which is composed of hundreds of laminated layers. They are really beautiful images - rivaling Tanypteryx's dragonfly images, although his deal with very small features and these deal with very large features. Anyway, check it out.Have you ever been down in the canyon yourself? It is something I would really love to do someday.HBD

But, of course a biased creationist can...

Percy, here is the entire section on the Hermit shale from your reference.

quote:

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HERMIT FORMATION (LOWER PERMIAN)

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The Hermit "shale" was named by Noble (1922, p. 26) for the red sandstones and siltstones lying between the Coconino sandstone and the Supai formation at Bass Trail. The designation "shale" to the unit is a misnomer, inasmuch as Noble (p. 28) in his description of the type section, used the term sandstone for the compact massive beds and "shale" for the thinly laminated soft beds, which are in reality fine-grained sandstones.

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At Bass Trail the Hermit formation is 332 feet thick. At Kanab Canyon, 30 miles northwest of Bass Trail, it is 775 feet thick, according to a section measured by Walcott and compiled by Noble (1922, Pl. XIX). At South Hurricane Cliffs, approximately 32 miles southwest of Kanab Canyon, the formation is 933 feet thick. It decreases slightly in thickness westward and is approximately 700 feet thick at North Grand Wash Cliffs and Pakoon Ridge.

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The upper contact of the Hermit formation with the Coconino sandstone is abrupt and is marked by a sharply defined line separating pink and gray sandstones from the conspicuously cross-bedded lower layers of the Coconino sandstone.

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The paper is in .htm format, so I don't think I can send it to you unless I copied and pasted it into a Word doc. But I don't think it really has much useful info in it anyway. I quote the relevant part above.So it looks like, in context, this paper says the grey sandstone is part of the Hermit formation, which is primarily sandstone rather than shale. In this image, it looks like the Coconino sits right on top of the Hermit formation with no intermixing. To me, this suggests that the Hermit was pretty well lithified before the Coconino was deposited. There is also an issue with timing that Whitmore discusses in a paper you referenced earlier in Message 1297. If you PM me an email address, I can send you the paper. Maybe you could also share it with edge and he would be a better peer-reviewer.But, what I got from Whitmore's paper (Sand injectites ...) is that faulting related to the Bright Angle Fault was responsible for the cracking of the Hermit shale and liquification and injection of Coconino sandstone into the cracks. This means the Coconino was present but not lithified at the time of the faulting but the Hermit was at least partially lithified. The problem Whitmore presents is that the Bright Angle Fault was supposedly active during the Precambrian period and then not again until the Miocene. So that means the Coconino was unlithified for about 200+ million years, which seems unlikely. I am thinking the key is the timing of when the Bright Angel Fault was active. Maybe this is evidence the fault was active during the Permian?Here is a semi-relevant quote about the contact

quote:

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2.3. The basal Coconino homogenized zone and other features

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Bedding is easily distinguished throughout the Coconino, but along
Hance Trail, Grandview Trail and the South Fork of Rock Canyon,
lenses of non-bedded structureless sandstone, up to 2.0 meters thick
and 40 m long, rest on the Hermit at the base of the Coconino (Figs. 9—
11). The zones are continuous and intimately connected with sand-
filled cracks (Figs. 4E and 10). The Coconino bedding and cross-
bedding in contact with the structureless sandstone, or homogenized
zone, can occur as a sharp contact (Fig. 9), or as distorted bedding
grading upward into normal Coconino cross-beds (right center of
Fig. 11). The homogenized zone occasionally contains bedded
Coconino clasts, with long axes from 2 to 75 cm (Figs. 9 and 11).
Bedding angles inside the clasts are often askew. Along Hance Trail,
features similar to load casts occur at the base of the Coconino. These
features are intimately associated with dozens of shallow, distorted
sand-filled cracks and the homogenized sandstone. The smaller casts
(Fig. 12) are about 8—10 cm in diameter. One larger cast was found
that was about 50 cm in diameter. It was also directly associated with
a large sand-filled crack.

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So it's more about the Coconino than the contact between the Coconino and the Hermit.The other reference in Message 1297 (Sandstone clast breccias ... )appears to be to an abstract from a conference, so there is no paper associated with it.HBD

You use "looks like" as evidence of your claims an awful lot. I don't agree that the things you say "look like" this or that, actually do "look like" this or that. How about including something not so subjective. Remember that, according to you, the surface was violently stripped of materials during inundation by a flood that has no equal. How did animals survive that to be happily skipping around between waves? It doesn't add up... What about the paleosols, termite nests and in situ root systems I presented in Message 993. Those were transported? To the location where apparent ancestral population migrated after the flood? Seems kinda speculative... actually beyond speculative and into nonsense. What you are imagining is landscapes being captured like a snap shot of time. And you say that if long periods of time existed we should find these "snap shots" throughout the geological record. But in reality, the type of process that would be required to capture a "snap shot" of time in a landscape is a major, rapid flooding event. But we don't see that. We see the result of slow, gradual processes that work to destroy the current surface and build up new surfaces. What you imagine doesn't line up with reality.HBD

Do you respond to persons other than jar any differently? No, so don't blame jar for your lack of cogency. The example of local floods that "collapse hills and bury cars" multiplied a billion times... and I "embellish" with a term like violent? Violent doesn't even begin to define what the flood you describe would be like.Do you remember the Tsunami of 2011? Here is an image of the aftermath of that wave It hardly stripped any sediment from the land and I would consider that episode to be violent. You propose something a billion times more powerful and I shouldn't call it "violent?" It does have to be ALL the sediment that it is going to redeposited, which in the GC area alone is thousands of feet thick. ALL that sediment had to come from somewhere... It must have stripped it from the land. But by ALL the sediment it doesn't mean there would be no sediments left unscoured, it means all the sediment that was deposited had to come from somewhere. Besides, what sedimentary rock do you think was not laid down by the flood? You even think the GC Supergroup was deposited by the flood. So your criticism of "It doesn't have to be ALL the sediment" is quite senseless.Oh, and how did sedimentary processes work before the flood? Where did all that sediment come from originally? Did God create the whole Earth as unconsolidated sediment? That's not what conventional geology does. It is your caricaturization of conventional geology that does that. What conventional geology does is when a fossilized fern is found in a layer, they say "ferns grew when this layer was being deposited." When a dinosaur skeleton is found in a rock, they say "This dinosaur lived during the time when this sediment was being deposited." You add a bunch of those observations up and you can begin to have a idea of what the environment was like at the time those sediments were deposited. Right... How is that no problem for a flood that was a billion times more powerful than the 2011 Tsunami in Japan? A billion times more destructive that the worst mudslides in recorded history? Do those transport intact systems? NO. They destroy and mix everything into a big mess. They don't transport intact nests and root systems and then stack them up, one on top of the other, to look like they have been accumulating over long periods of time. NO. How would you know, you didn't even look at the references I gave you did you. You dismissed them without consideration.Your method of dealing with evidence is "I know the flood happened, so none of the details matter." and not only is that logic extremely flawed, but you cannot claim to be basing you conclusions on the physical evidence since you don't even consider large portions of the physical evidence. Basically you ignore any evidence that counters your premise. WRONG! This "everything else" has to SUPPORT the main premise.Its not enough to make an observation and call it evidence. You have to connect that observation with reality. Remember my example I gave several years ago where I observed cows on the side of a hill and the grass had been cut to spell "MSU?" If my conclusion was that the cows selectively chewed the grass to produce that message, that would be daft. But why? Because it is not enough to make an observation and draw a conclusion from it. You have to connect that observation to reality. Cows don't spell messages in grass.And floods don't sort sediment into the types of layers we observe in the GC. Floods don't transport intact root systems and reefs and nests. If you disagree, then you need to explain how that could happen. You need to connect those observations to reality, not just assert your conclusion. That is not evidence. For example, looking at that cross section and saying they look so flat that it destroys the idea they could have been deposited over millions of years. That is just an observation; and one that is very similar to thinking that cows cut a message into the grass. But in order for it to be evidence, you need to connect that observation to reality. So far, its a no-go.HBD

Very little you say is "obvious" as to what you mean. There are vertebrate tracks encased in the Coconino sandstone. Are you now suggesting that everything below that was not stripped bare. If animal tracks were found only in lower levels of sediments, you might have a point. But that's not the case... they are found higher up in the strata.Besides, I was not objecting that there would be no land left after it was stripped bare (which there most certainly wouldn't be since it was a flood - which means all the land was covered by water making it no longer land... ), I was objecting to the assertion that there were animals running around between waves of the flood. At the time of the Coconino being deposited, the flood had already stripped "all" the sediment and deposited ~ 4000 feet of sediment and you think animals were still alive and running around? How could that possibly be? Not even close to being proven. You have made some observations. But you have yet to connect those observations to reality. I have observed some cows on a hill with the letters "MSU" cut into the grass. Can I come to any conclusion I want that seems to explain the observation? No, it must be based in reality.It is the same for your observation of flat pancakes of strata. You observe that and then come to any conclusion you want without it being based on reality. Lots of problems with this statement but the two major ones are1. If "floods don't do much of anything like the worldwide Flood would have done" then you have nothing in reality to go from your observation to your conclusion. You can't say "this is what a flood would do so from that we can infer what a worldwide flood would do" and my [ABE (due to premature posting)] conclusions fit reality.That would be connecting your observations to reality and if you did that your conclusions would be well founded. But you don't have any part of reality that you can draw from since "floods don't do much of anything like a worldwide flood would do." In actuality, this statement is designed to simply allow you to postulate any bizarrio scenario you want and dismiss objections that try to connect observations to reality.2. You say "floods don't do much of anything like the worldwide Flood would have done" and then go on to say what floods do that supports your observation. So which is it? Does the worldwide flood behave like a modern flood only bigger, or are modern, local floods NOT a model for the worldwide flood? You want your cake and eat it too. Again, this is just a statement designed to allow you to postulate any ridiculous conclusion you want. [/ABE]HBDEdited by herebedragons, : No reason given.

You are not really reading my messages are you? "Flat" rocks over huge expanses... That is the observation. What in reality connects that observation to the conclusion that there couldn't be millions of years and the the only explanation is a global flood? That is the point... you have absolutely nothing to go on that tells you what a global flood would do; what the results of a global flood would be; or what features you would expect to find as a result of a global flood. All you have is assertion and speculation.You are right that a flood of that magnitude would be exponentially more destructive that local floods. But that same principal creates some expectations of what a global flood would do:

• It would mix sediments not segregate them by type. How could it keep sediment types segregated? or segregate them by color or by degree of weathering, etc. ?
• It would sort sediments by size and density, with large, dense particles on the bottom and small, light particles at the top. That is how water sorts particles. While there can be exceptions in special cases, there is no reason a global flood would be one of those exceptions.
• It would NOT sort fossils by how different they are from modern forms, but by the same principals that govern sedimentary particles - size and density.
• It would NOT transport large intact structures such as nests and reefs but would destroy them. The flood was, uhmmm... strong enough to strip thousands of cubic miles of sediment from the land, it would not also be gentle enough to keep delicate structures intact.
• It would NOT sort by apparent radiometric age - how could it possibly do that?
• It would not create sharp contacts between layers because the layer that is being deposited on would not be consolidated and would simply stir up when the next "wave" passed through
• It would not leave animals alive after the initial inundation. The flood was violent enough to strip the land - thousands of cubic miles of sediment - animals could not survive that type catastrophe.

These things and more are what we expect, based on reality, a global flood would do. To you a global flood can do anything - there is no connection to reality. You don't like the descriptor "violent" attached to the flood... well a more accurate descriptor of your flood is "magical." It can do anything it needs to do in order to make the geological record look like it does.Observation ----> ConclusionWe are asking for you to justify the arrow. How does your conclusion follow from your observation?I observe cow on a hill with a message cut into the grass. How do I justify my conclusion that the cows selectively chewed the grass to produce that message? I can't, there is no connection to reality. Now if I say they are magical cows...You observe "flat" strata that cover large extents. How do you justify the conclusion that it must have been the result of a global flood? None of my expectations for a global flood, that are based on the reality of what floods do, fit that conclusion.Your claim that a global flood would be nothing like a local flood is somewhat true, but over all it is an empty claim. What you do is make an observation and then make that observation your expectation. So the justification for the conclusion is based on the premise itself. That is circular reasoning. That is why your justification needs to be based in reality, not just matched to the observation.Well, I'm sure you're not really interesting in reading my posts or even having an honest dsicussion about this, so, I guess I've said enough...HBD

Yea, access through the university is amazing. Out of hundreds of resources I have looked up, there has only been a handful that I was not able to get access to. If materials are older and not digitized, I can request the library to scan them and email them to me. I have only been to the library to look up resources a half dozen times. Here is how I understand it. Noble described and named the unit at the Bass Trail. This then became the type section. Here is the quote again

quote:

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The Hermit "shale" was named by Noble (1922, p. 26) for the red sandstones and siltstones lying between the Coconino sandstone and the Supai formation at Bass Trail. The designation "shale" to the unit is a misnomer, inasmuch as Noble (p. 28) in his description of the type section, used the term sandstone for the compact massive beds and "shale" for the thinly laminated soft beds, which are in reality fine-grained sandstones.

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I am not 100% sure how it works in geology, but in biology the type specimen becomes the standard for description of the species. I assume "type section" works in a similar way in geology. So where Noble named it and described it, sandstone was the dominate bedding and siltstone was the minor laminates. But it seems to be lacking the predominance of clay that would define a shale. Whitmore also aluded to that in his description that the Hermit did not have a sufficient amount of clay for the cracks to be desiccation cracks (whether that is true of not, I can't say for sure).Here is Nobel's description:

quote:

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Hermit shale (Permian):
Deep brick-red sandy shale and fine-grained
friable sandstone; characterized in upper
portion by concretionary structure; beds
form slope (pg. 26)

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A section of the Paleozoic formations of the Grand Canyon at the Bass TrialHowever, on page 28, he describes 24 individual members of the formation and it seems as though shale is the predominant component. Noble's description is worth a read through just to see an actual geological description and how complex a formation can be. Whether "shale" is a misnomer or not, the formation is not just a layer of pure shale (I'm sure you know that, I am saying that for the sake of others). I think that it highlights the fact that geological units are not homogeneous in their composition and the description depends on where the observation is made. And how the author paraphrases the complex set of descriptions. Read Noble's description on pg. 28-29 and paraphrase that into a one sentence description. I bet it is different than the other descriptions. I am aware of Whitmore's affiliations. The paper seems well written and as far as I can tell, a decent scientific report. It is published by Elsevier, which is a respectable publisher. I don't know anything about the journal, "Sedimentary Geology" but if Elsevier publishes it, it is properly peer-reviewed. Now, I personally am not a suitable peer-reviewer for geological papers, but his premises and conclusions seem legit - at least logically sound.

quote:

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The previous interpretation that the sand-filled cracks at the base of
the Coconino are desiccation cracks is problematic. They lack features
common to desiccation and playa cracks, especially in regards to crack
width, crack spacing and crack fill. None of the cracks show horizontal
bedding as would be expected if these cracks filled due to the Coconino
dunes blowing in over the mud cracked Hermit floodplain. Furthermore, it
appears the Hermit Formation lacks the appropriate clay minerals and
clay-sized particles to crack via desiccation. Instead, evidence suggests the
basal Coconino was water saturated and underwent liquefaction during
an ancient seismic episode, perhaps along the Bright Angel Fault. The most
conclusive evidence includes a zoned crack depth distribution; preferred
orientation of the sand-filled cracks; widespread homogenized zones
containing brecciated clasts of bedded Coconino attached to sand-filled
cracks; vertical flow structures within sand-filled cracks; and the
association of the sand-filled cracks with lateral sand bodies near the
top of the Hermit. (pg. 57)

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This is the most "Creationist" conclusion I see in the paper:

quote:

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A problem with no readily apparent solution is that it appears the basal
Coconino was water saturated and unlithified (or only partially lithified)
at the time of Laramide faulting which we suspect caused dike intrusion. It
is unlikely the Coconino could have remained uncemented in excess of
250 million years. Solutions to this dilemma might include removal of the
basal Coconino cement just prior to Laramide faulting; or sufficient and
previously unknown movement of the Bright Angel Fault shortly after
deposition of the basal Coconino. We welcome further structural analysis
on the Bright Angel Fault, considering the new patterns we have
established, so the timing and orientation of the sand-filled cracks can
be better understood. (pg. 57)

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I see that as a legit question to bring up. Of course, Whitmore probable went back to his Creationist conferences and stated that he had evidence of a global flood and that the Coconino was deposited in water. But he didn't say anything like that in the paper.There is another explanation that Whitmore doesn't mention.

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The sedimentary rocks consist of sandstones and limestones stacked on top of one another that are generally separated by low permeability shales and siltstones. The three largest regional aquifers are the D-, N-, and C-aquifers.

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The C-aquifer is the largest and most productive aquifer in the planning area with an areal extent of 21,655 square miles. It is named for its primary water-bearing unit, the Coconino Sandstone. The C-aquifer extends from the Mogollon Rim in the south to an area west of the Little Colorado River and northeast into New Mexico.

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Hydrology of the Eastern Plateau Planning Area - GroundwaterSo the Hermit shale is impermeable and water is trapped above it in the Coconino. I think that if a sediment is in standing water it will not lithify properly, at least it will slow it down significantly. Maybe Edge or Moose can confirm that... But, perhaps water was trapped very early in the deposition of the Coconino and the sandstone never really lithified until the Bright Angel Fault was reactivated. Then the water drained off and allowed the basal units to lithify and then at a later time, water became trapped again. That would explain the Coconino clasts in the homogenized zone at the base. The higher level portions, that were not saturated, did lithify and when there was siesmic activity, they broke and became embedded in the homogenized areas.I don't know if this is a legitimate scenario, but it is definitely a better guess than "flood did it."HBD

The problem is that Faith truly believes she HAS provided said evidence. She thinks that if you can create a narrative around an observation, that is evidence. But that's just not enough. Technically, anything put forward to support a position is "evidence" but the quality of that "evidence" is highly variable. The important thing is that the jump from observation to conclusion is justified. Faith's conclusions are not justified, all she has is observations. Those observations cannot qualify as evidence of the conclusion she comes to because there is not justification to get from observation to conclusion.Faith is hardly interested in evidence, she has her conclusion and looks for observations that she can create a narrative from. And that's good enough for her. Because of this, I try to focus on philosophy of science type issues with her. Of course, she sees no relavence in that either.HBD

Wait... what does that have to do with anything?? I thought this discussion was only about the physical evidence not the Bible. My criticism was about how you handle physical evidence and draw conclusions that don't follow from the observations.HBD