I am looking at your diagram and I think I get the gist but I really can't distinguish light from dark green. All the drawn-in lines just look like thick dark lines. But I get the general idea that the arrows mark lower areas where you'd expect water to run while the circles areas are higher.
Wobbly outlines enclose the higher elevations, red circles along the rim give an idea of the relative widths of the areas north and south compared to the Grand canyon for the same elevations.
I've been trying to figure out exactly where the Kaibab uplift occurred because as I've been putting it all together it was the formation of that uplift that cracked the strata that started the canyon forming. .We start with sedimentary layers stacked two miles above the current canyon rim, still underwater. Tectonic upheaval occurs pushing a lot of rocks around at least three miles below the surface of the water at this point.
This pushes up the land called the Kaibab Uplift, and I suppose the whole Colorado Plateau is also being pushed up, but the Kaibab uplift is the higher area into which the Grand Canyon is cut. Its rising puts strain on the uppermost strata which are less consolidated than the lower strata - the deeper you go the more compaction you get. So now we've got the whole stack being pushed up in this one area and cracks form in the upper layers.
The tectonic movement coincides with the start of the draining of the Flood, maybe because of the sea floor dropping as some have suggested. The water level starts going down. But it's a pretty slow process, takes five months or so as I recall to completely drain away.
As it starts draining the uppermost layers break up. Maybe they are mostly loose sediment at this point. The sides of the cracks formed over the Kaibab Uplift fall inward into the cracks as they widen. After a while there is a pretty wide crack there or maybe many cracks, whose sides are falling inward. At some point the water starts moving laterally toward the deepening sea. Strata start to be exposed but they are still not compacted enough to hold together very well so they keep breaking up and now start washing with the draining flood water toward the oceans. The cracks over the Kaibab Uplift keep widening and falling into themselves as it were.
The strata are harder, more compacted, the lower we go, they become chunks breaking up instead of loose sediments. Chunks are falling into the crack over the Kaibab Uplift causing even greater widening. After some time, a month? Two months? we are down to the level of the Kaibab limestone and it's pretty well compacted from the weight that had been above it. a very wide crack has formed on the south side of the Kaibab Uplift which keeps widening as water is running all around and past it and through it and so on headed to lower areas wherever they are. We're still mostly looking at an expanse of water everywhere though strata to the north in the Grand Staircase area are holding together better though breaking up into cliffs and that should be visible, but overall it's a lot of water still, it's just lower now and it's moving in various directions. As it keeps getting lower the cracks widen and eventually form the canyon. The Kaibab plateau becomes visible, and the Coconino plateau and the bottom of the crack becomes a channel for a lot of stuff that keeps the canyon widening and stuff falling into it. The rim is higher than the land around but there's enough debris=laden water channeling into it to keep it forming.
Something like that.
I think it's because the uplift created crackis for the water to flow into creating the canyon that the water went there, but it would also have drained in the direct of the arrows at the same time. The Kaibab Plateau is bordered on the east by the Kaibab monocline down which which water would flow east. I don't know what's going on in the Coconino plateau area.
Except that all the evidence of actual tectonic cracking doesn't support this scenario, there is no existing tectonic fault line along the Grand Canyon, while almost all the actual tectonic fault lines run perpendicular to the canyon.
The Coconino plateau is the same as the Kaibab, just cut off by the canyon.
Well, this is what I've got so far.
And as usual it is full of evidence ignoring speculation and fact free fantasy.
one fault line stream tributary vs meandering canyon
It's impossible to conclude a crack model from this diagram. It shows just a tiny part of the canyon. As Edge says, the canyon's shape is sinuous - here's a Google Map view of it:
Nothing about this shape suggests it is following fractures in the rock. And if the Kaibab Uplift caused these supposed fractures, how did water continue to flow through the uplifted area?
Please note the tributary stream that runs approximately from the "m" end of where it says "North Rim" in a SSW-is direction to approximately where the "P" is where it says "National Park" -- note that it is a straight line: this follows a fault line, the only one in the canyon I am aware of that does this. The straightness is due to following the fault line. Fault lines do not meander the way all the other parts of the canyon does. There is no part of the main canyon that is a straight as this north rim tributary, which is evidence contrary to Faith's crack model.
There is another place that shows a fault line capturing a river flow. See at about minute 1:55 the black lines perpendicular to the rivers, and again at about minute 2:39, where he talks about the fractures --
Again, where rivers follow fault lines they are straight, and where they flow naturally over gently sloping land they form meanders.
There is also another place that shows braided flow, and that is the scab lands flow at it's western end. See at about minute 1:19 --
So we have straight rivers following fault lines, meandering rivers flowing over gentle sloped landscapes, and braided rivers where high flows spread out over relatively flat landscapes.
Re: one fault line stream tributary vs meandering canyon
I skimmed it RAZD. ...
Typical. You expect us to accept your argument ...
... I don't see how a fault line falsifies anything I've said. ...
It's not just one, ALL the fault lines in that area run generally NNW to SSE while the canyon runs generally ENE to WSW ... perpendicular: this indicates that your crack alignment is not related to the actual tectonic activity caused by the Kaibab Plateau being pushed east up over the land to the east.
That one fault is also perpendicular to the canyon, and the erosion along it maintains the fault line -- a straight line, with NO meanders. There is NO section of the main canyon that is that straight.
Near the south and west end there is a section of the canyon that parallels a fault, but not in the fault.
Conclusion: the main canyon did not follow any fault line, it's alignment is not related to earth cracking. The meandering shows it formed by natural erosion.
... Without having studied your point it seems to me it could even confirm what I've been saying.
Only if you ignore the parts that contradict it and cherry pick what happened in the tributary ... again typical.
There is another place that shows a fault line capturing a river flow. See at about minute 1:55 the black lines perpendicular to the rivers, and again at about minute 2:39, where he talks about the fractures --
Again, where rivers follow fault lines they are straight, and where they flow naturally over gently sloping land they form meanders.
Above the fault line the river meanders like the Grand Canyon, but once it hits the fault line it becomes straight straight straight, and NOT like the Grand Canyon..
There is NO evidence for your cracked idea, there IS evidence that contradicts it.
Re: one fault line stream tributary vs meandering canyon
The Kaibab uplift is not "gently sloping land," it's rather steep, so it isn't going to form meanders. ...
Now.
It is steep now because it has been pushed up over land to the east, lifting the whole plateau over time with the eastern edge being lifted the most, tilting the whole plateau to a steeper slope.
... so it isn't going to form meanders. ...
The meanders formed when it was flatter.
... And your fault line doesn't seem to be in the right place for the Colorado to follow, ...
EXACTLY.
That's why your cracked idea is not supported by the evidence (aside from it not being straight).
... AND without something like a fault line to follow there is no way the river is getting over that uplift. ...
Except that the uplift occurred after the river had started meandering over the plan and made a channel. The uplift was gradual (as it continues to be today) and the river eroded through it as it lifted, getting steeper sloped (with more erosive power) as the plateau tilted with more uplift at the east end than the west end.
The deep canyon formed by erosion from the west end, where reaching the west edge of the uplift created a waterfall that worked it's way upstream following the path of the river channel.
... But I admit I'm not taking the time to read it all through so I could be missing your point.
I'm sure you'll find someway to make a mash-up of the evidence to fit your delusion.
Here's more on meanders:
Incised meanders cut through the rocks as the land rises (uplifts) and the river stays at the same elevation.
Re: one fault line stream tributary vs meandering canyon
sigh
Um, the curve of the canyon/river does not look like a meander, RAZD, meanders are quite smooth and rounded or horseshoe shaped, the river here is very irregular and not at all nicely horseshoe shaped.
Re: one fault line stream tributary vs meandering canyon
I understand the basics of meander formation, RAZD. ...
Obviously you don't. They don't suddenly pop into existence.
... I just went looking at You Tube films of meanders, both actual and animations, and still have the same impression: they make smooth loops, they don't look to me anything like the course of the Colorado over the Kaibab plateau.
That is the end of the formation process.
They start as a little wiggle, one of many. Rivers are wiggly.
Dunning-Kruger. You haven't any knowledge of hydrodynamics, just enough of a cursory knowledge to think you are an expert. Which is a BIG surprise seeing as this is your modus operandi in all sciences.
Re: one fault line stream tributary vs meandering canyon
Why on earth would I think I'm an expert, I merely know the basics of how meanders form from reading descriptions and watching videos and animations. It's not rocket science. I certainly said nothing about them "popping into existence" for pete's sake.
This is the illusion of knowledge, a cursory sample and the feeling you know enough to make valid comments, this illusion is the basis of the Dunning -Kruger effect (where our "president" appears to be the poster child), the basis behind the old saying that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."*
Water behaves chaotically, and indeed small random events can have ripple effects - a wiggle that becomes a meander, for instance. Hydraulic engineers have studied the behavior of water so that they can make useful approximations, but still can't predict when a wiggle becomes a meander, just what will probably happen after it starts. Every wiggle is a potential meander, if the conditions are right.
There are many aspects of hydraulics, and the history can be read in the canyon walls, and they show that (a) the canyon does not follow a crack (it wiggles and waggles too much), and (b) that it was not formed by overflow from a mythical flood.
This has been discussed in detail on this and other threads (along with multitudes of other evidence that the canyon is not a flood remnant), but faith, with her limited knowledge and overly high confidence in her ability to explain, soldiers on.
Enjoy
Edited by RAZD, : * image from Dunning-Kruger link
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