Summations Only

As has been explained many times, the Colorado Plateau region is unusual in how quiet tectonically it has been over an extended period of time. Yet during the period when the it was tectonically quiet other parts of the world were tectonically active, and some of these tectonically active regions are immediately adjacent to the Colorado Plateau. As the USGS webpage on the Colorado Plateau says:

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One of the most geologically intriguing features of the Colorado Plateau is its remarkable stability. Relatively little rock deformation (ex. faulting and folding) has affected this high, thick crustal block within the last 600 million years or so. In contrast, the plateau is surrounded by provinces that have suffered severe deformation. Mountain building thrust up the Rocky Mountains to the north and east and tremendous, earth-stretching tension created the Basin and Range Province to the west and south.

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Did you follow that? Regions adjacent to the Colorado Plateau were very tectonically active at the same time that the Colorado Plateau was relatively tectonically quiet. This directly contradicts your claim, or in layman's terms, you're wrong yet again. And yet every time you try to explain your way all kinds of problems emerge. That's why most of the time you just declaratively say something like, "The Flood explains things much better," avoiding specifics, entire posts and entire people. Other times you just endlessly repeat boneheaded claims, like that the geologic timescale has ended. A lot of the time you seem apathetic about getting anything right, as if you just need a pastime and saying provocatively wrong things gets you the responses you need to keep busy.To add to what PaulK says about the Smith diagram, while it was a revolution in understanding at the time, there is much Smith could not know and that is therefore absent from his (by today's standards) extremely primitive and undetailed diagram. This is not to take anything away from Smith, but it isn't like we haven't learned anything in the intervening 200 years.--Percy

You're making false accusations again. Yeah, so? Why does it matter what hills we look at in the Painted Desert? I needed a high res image so you could see the contacts up close, so that's what I posted. Yeah, but you can't see, and when you can't see something you just make things up. Anyone who can see who blows up the image and pans around will easily find examples of tilts, crossbedding, gradations, and interbedding. Here's the image again: I again encourage everyone to include any image under discussion in their message. It's very easy to do, and it has very little overhead.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

We already know your Biblically based beliefs. The discussion is your opportunity to present evidence supporting what you believe. It's understandable that you to avoid doing that, since every time you attempt it you make one misstatement of fact or logic after another, but it does raise the question of why you are here. Bored, I guess?--Percy

I didn't deny this was evidence, and you didn't quote my actual response. I asked about your evidence for rapid deposition, and the question remains unanswered. Undisturbed strata certainly isn't evidence of rapid deposition - lack of disturbance of strata is something that can only happen after the strata was deposited. The absence of tectonic activity after deposition is no indicator of what happened during deposition.You need evidence of rapid deposition, but you won't find it because rapid deposition is impossible. Tiny sediments falling out of suspension is an extremely slow process even in quiet water, and in the active water of your waves and tides and inundations tiny sediments would not fall out of suspension. What you're saying makes no sense. Whether strata were deposited in hours or eons they still represent spans of time, so missing strata are gaps in time whether the Flood happened or not. Why do you believe missing layers are more consistent with the Flood? How do missing layers happen in a flood scenario? You're repeating the same error you've made in the past about erosion. Erosion levels a landscape. These landscapes were created by erosion: Landscapes like this are very unlikely to become preserved as strata, but I've explained why many times now and I'm not going to explain again. Read back in the thread.Streams and rivers channel water will cut into a landscape, and such channels are preserved if the strata are preserved. The Kaibab was exposed to erosion carving channels up to a hundred feet deep before the Moenkopi was deposited atop it. Here's the description from the USGS Kaibab Limestone Webpage:

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Unconformable contact with underlying Woods Ranch Member of Toroweap Formation attributed to solution erosion and channel erosion; average relief about 10 ft (3 m). Some channels have eroded as much as 150 ft (45 m) into the Woods Ranch in western half of map area. Erosion channels were filled with sandy cherty limestone typical of the Fossil Mountain, providing an extra thickness of the Fossil Mountain.

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Do you ever wonder why the Painted Desert is a bunch of mounds, wonder why the material between mounds eroded away while the mounds did not? It's because the material between the mounds was softer, and it was softer because it wasn't lake deposits of limestone and volcanic ash. It was land. Volcanic ash would have fallen on land and lake alike, but in a short time (geologically speaking) the volcanic ash on the land would have washed into the rivers and lakes.Rivers eventually silt up and change course, so it seems like we should see siltstone layers in the Chiinle, and we do. You keep making this silly and untrue assertion. For example, about half the layers of the Grand Canyon have unconformities between them. I've provided this list to you before, here it is again:

• Supergroup/Tapeats: unconformity
• Muav Limestone/Temple Butte: unconformity
• Surprise Canyon Formation/Supai Group: unconformity
• Formations within the Supai: unconformity at top of each
• Supai Group/Hermit Shale: unconformity
• Hermit Shale/Coconino Sandstone: unconformity
• Coconino Sandstone/Toroweap Formation: unconformity
• Toroweap Formation/Kaibab Limestone: unconformity
• Kaibab Limestone/Moenkopi Formation: unconformity

That's a lot of unconformities. They are, with the exception of the Coconino, marine strata formed through Walther's Law, where sea transgressions grind landscapes away. Most terrestrial erosional features created by rivers and lakes and so forth would have been obliterated. Your scenario is just something you made up that has no evidence. You are correct about one thing, that the Great Unconformity represents a great deal of erosion. The Vishnu Schist once had mountains above it to a height of six miles that eroded away before the layers of the Grand Canyon Supergroup were deposited before being tilted and themselves mostly eroded away. No amount of time and energy will find what doesn't exist. This is just a bald declaration with no evidence or rationale. It also includes a pretty bad misunderstanding. The geologic timescale cannot be based upon the geologic column because they are one and the same. They're synonyms. The geologic timescale is a conceptualization of information from all the stratigraphic columns around the world. Your are correct that it has no material existence in that it is conceptual, the way the Periodic Table of the Elements is conceptual. It can't end by definition, as has been explained a number of times. You're replying to yourself?Anyway, you haven't done anything except repeat your bald assertion again. I can only repeat the question. How can a stratigraphic sequence that has missing periods and nothing before the Cambrian be considered complete? It's a rhetorical question, since by definition it cannot. There is evidence for approximately four billion years of geologic history, and other evidence points to an age of the Earth of about 4.56 billion years. There is no evidence for what you're pushing. There is evidence of the unconformities. There is no evidence for what you're pushing. You don't have a theory - you have some cockamamie ideas based on your own personal Genesis interpretations. Your confabulations are so distant from reality that it's hard to fathom why you don't just invoke God. No one would fault you for that. But you're for some reason trying to contrive naturalistic explanations for miraculous events while not understanding almost any science and having no intuitive feel for how the real world actually works. Yes, exactly. And yet you claimed the entire geologic timescale was represented, which is incorrect, and so your error was pointed out. No one ever questioned that a stratigraphic column would tilt together. In fact, the only one who has questioned this is you, who thinks the Supergroup tilted independently of the layers above. You may be looking at this in the wrong way. This stack of strata (I assume you're talking about Smith's diagram) is partial only in the sense that some time periods are not represented. The stack of strata is otherwise completely solid. An unconformity is not a disturbance, if by disturbance you mean strata being acted upon by tectonic forces. The same what thing? You mean disturbances? If so, what disturbances are you referring to? The tilting? If so, why are you arguing about the tilting? No one questions the tilting, although keep in mind that Smith's diagram is probably like most geologic diagrams, with the vertical axis exaggerated. The tilting is likely not anywhere near as great as shown. Say what? Do you get some perverse kick out of denying things you've obviously said? If the fact that things aren't "over and done with" for these strata has been a major point you've been making all along, then why did you say that things are "over and done with" for these strata? Contradict yourself much?Just for a hoot, point me to where you've made this "major point I've been making all along." Sedimentation is occurring all around the world today. Creation of new strata is not over and done with.In the context of sedimentation upon the seafloor, let's step inside your Flood scenario for a minute. During the Flood sediments deposit on the sea floor as well as the land. As the Flood waters recede from the land they carry sediments back into the seas, which already have a great deal of left over sediment. The sediments continue deposition onto the sea floors. Where the sediments are sufficiently deep lithification has already begun.The Flood ends. The land is uncovered by water and is once again exposed to the air. Rivers flowing off the continents deliver sediments into the seas. Rains cause runoff from the continents and deliver sediments into the seas. So the seas will always contain sediments, and deposition of sediments onto the sea floor will continue from the Flood right on up to the present.Where do you see some demarcation of deposition between the end of the Flood and the present that would mark the end of the formation of strata? This is just made up with no evidence. If you want to offer evidence for your scenario then we can discuss it, but if you're just going to make up empty claims then all that need be said is that they're empty. You may as well deny that rivers flow to the sea. You're just going to repeat your fictional account. Making stuff up is not an answer, and repeating the stuff you made up is still not an answer. Faith, once again, there is no stratigraphic column in the world that completely represents the entire geologic column. Not in the Grand Staircase region, not in England, not in Tennessee, not anywhere. You're repeating yourself. Here's that USGS quote again about tectonic activity surrounding the Colorado Plateau from the USGS webpage on the Colorado Plateau:

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One of the most geologically intriguing features of the Colorado Plateau is its remarkable stability. Relatively little rock deformation (ex. faulting and folding) has affected this high, thick crustal block within the last 600 million years or so. In contrast, the plateau is surrounded by provinces that have suffered severe deformation. Mountain building thrust up the Rocky Mountains to the north and east and tremendous, earth-stretching tension created the Basin and Range Province to the west and south.

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Back to your message: Well, sure, there's no reason to conclude anything about when geologic events occurred, except for all the evidence. We've presented our evidence and your response is to either ignore it, be unable to comprehend it, or deny it. Meanwhile you have no evidence for any of these supposed Flood events that occurred a mere 4500 years ago. Above what point? See the USGS quote about the Colorado Plateau again. There you go with the pronouns again. If what only goes up to the Permian? We all agree the Colorado Plateau region was tectonically quiet for an extended period, but not in the surrounding regions, nor in many other places around the world. As far as Smith's diagram, I don't know much about the stratigraphy of England, but compared to today neither did Smith. I don't know how you can look at Smith's diagram, that you can't see anyway, and conclude there was no tectonic activity during the deposition of strata. What disturbance are you referring to? I can't figure out most of what you're saying here, except for the last part, so I'll just repeat that there are no complete stratigraphic columns anywhere in the world with respect to the geologic timescale.--Percy

No, of course you can't spend any time on research. How could you post 12 messages a day if you had to waste your time researching and providing support for what you say? Much easier and faster to repeat the same old bald assertions and made up stories over and over again.--Percy

Erosion carves canyons and cliffs and monuments and hoodoos and gullies and valleys and so on and so forth..

Why is this coming as a surprise to you? Of course lithification is a gradual process. If the weight of overlying sediments wasn't enough and/or the length of time buried wasn't enough, then the strata will incompletely consolidate, leaving you with a soft and crumbly rock. The rock at Bryce Canyon can be like this. This is from Landscape & Geology in Bryce Canyon National Park:

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Much of Bryce Canyon's rock is limestone, relatively soft and crumbly, which was easily eroded into the park's numerous intricate hoodoos.

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You seem to doubt that water would be forced out under pressure. Here's an interesting video where a roll of wet toilet paper is placed in a hydraulic press. I won't bore you with the whole video, this is positioned just as he crushes the wet toilet paper: All the water is forced out because of the pressure. This is what happens to crushed sediments. As the volume decreases the water is forced out of the interstices between particles and in essence floats upward in the stratigraphic column because it is both mobile and less dense. Folding and pulling apart? How does that match what we're talking about. The analogy is to your Flood scenario and what happens when bending and stretching results from the Kaibab Uplift. Just how much bending and stretching are you imagining was involved? However much that is, imagine your clay or dough being stretched by the same amount.In estimating the amount of bending and stretching remember that the vertical is exaggerated in the diagrams - your wet and malleable rock should be able to handle this small amount of bending and stretching without cracking with no problem. I know this is your magic rock that does anything you need it to do, but either it is malleable and can handle a little bending/stretching, or it's not malleable and it will fracture. Which is it?Why are you postulating wet and malleable rock anyway? It's made up and doesn't exist, and your Flood scenario seems to require rock that fractures rather than bends and stretches. I'm getting that from the fact that the Colorado River meanders. For the umpteenth time and as many people have told you, the river originally carved it's course when the region was lower in elevation and more level in topography. The river downcut as the region uplifted. Fractures wouldn't run across the plateau, and they wouldn't meander.--Percy

All of these are intermediate products. The ultimate product of erosion is a coastal plain.Admittedly, this could be exceedingly slow. Nevertheless, it will happen given enough time and erosive processes. And some rock will erode faster than others, depending on climate. We will not see this in our lifetimes, but that does not mean that it isn't happening and hasn't happened in the past.

Tilting is deformation. In a local outcrop it may be viewed as a low intensity deformation, but in the bigger picture, tilting is going to be an aspect of folding and/or faulting.Or can you come up with a scenario where a rock unit can be tilted without folding and/or faulting being involved?Moose

In Junior High I participated in a science fair where we transmitted sound across a room using light. We carefully explained this to the reporter. In the paper it became something like, "The light became brighter when they spoke into a microphone."The quality of science reporters varies. Becky Oskin, the reporter at Live Science, is apparently a respected science writer, a member of the National Association of Science Writers with many articles in Scientific American, so she's a good one. My guess is that "underground folding" was her translation of when Dickinson mentioned the role of subduction of the Pacific plate, which subducts at a shallow angle and causes strips of crust to pile up at great depth but well inland, like beneath the Kaibab Uplift. Maybe Edge has an opinion on that possibility.--Percy

My first blush is that most people see mountains as forming by compression, and when that happens, you end up distorting the layers of a rock body. Consequently when you talk about an uplift, they think more in terms of alpine orogenies where tectonic plates collide. I believe the word used in the article was 'pinching', just as you get a bump when you pinch your skin. This isn't the only way to get uplift.In fact, my guess is that the deformation causing the Kaibab uplift was caused more by tension rather than compression, and related to thermal effects in the asthenosphere. Keeping in mind, of course, that there can be local compression adjacent to faults even in an overall extensional environment. Also, I once referenced a paper in this forum in which the East Kaibab fold was referred to as a monocline which is a kind of 'drape fold'. When you combine that with the fact that the nearby Great Basin was created in an extensional environment sometime after the Laramide Orogeny, I think this is the best explanation."Underground folding", as a compressive event, just doesn't really make sense and is dynamically problematic. Extension, however can result in simple tilting that we see all over the Colorado Plateau. Even in very large 'blocks'.

Irrelevant. I'm saying one simple thing:Erosion carves canyons and cliffs and monuments and hoodoos and gullies and valleys and so on and so forth. The statement is true, all these things exist and they are caused by erosion.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

My guess is that the author of the article knew what she was talking about even if she didn't get it exactly right, and there's no reason to be trying to second-guess her anyway. She wrote: (As quoted in my Message 215)Neither your guesses nor Percy's -- and his understanding is often weirdly wrong anyway -- is going to tell us either what Dickinson actually said or what the author intended by her description.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

No I DON'T doubt that water would be forced out of rocks under compaction for pete's sake, this is just another of your weird misinterpretations. I suppose you aren't doing this purposely but I could almost wish you were so there might be some hope that you could sober up and stop doing it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That doesn't seem to have stopped you from telling us what he said.