The Grand Canyon Paradox

Well, most creationists assert that finely striated stratigraphy can be layed down quickly, such as a large catastrophic flood might do. For face value it makes sense. If you take an hour glass and let the sediment fall, it tends to make fine layers. Could you extrapolate that towards the Grand Canyon? I can't say for sure.As well, another part of their argument points to radical curves in the formation of rock. Obviously, that can't happen to solid rock through slow erosion because the rock would snap. But if you, however, have soft, pliable mud after, say, its been immersed in large volumes of water, after the water dries, the sediment will pack and harden, and thus, might explain why there are such curves in solid rock. Creationists don't categorize fossilized organisms age estimates via the geologic column. In fact, they tend to vehemently oppose it as being credible to begin with. Rather, they tend to point out places where clustering of fossils have been found in basins. Obviously, a mass graveyard can only accumulate in a few ways naturally. Most notably would be a flood that swept the animals in to a run-off, they died, then fossilized.Are they right, even in part? I don't know. I'm not much of an advocate for geological arguments or age estimate arguments. But what you are presenting is not unique and they have offered rebuttals to the paradoxes you describe. Edited by nemesis_juggernaut, : No reason given.

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"It is better to shun the bait, than struggle in the snare." -Ravi Zacharias

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Obviously, that can't happen to solid rock through slow erosion because the rock would snap.

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Agreed, that was a poor choice of words. What I was alluding to was that solid rocks can't bend, because of, say, the earth's plates shifting. I'm sure they can. But how would that happen in an area where no volcanic activity takes place? I'm fairly certain that extraordinary heat would be required to melt rock faces the size of large buildings. What was the heat source? I first have to see evidence that fossils were deformed in it before I can make any kind of assessment. I clicked on the link. It looked pretty long considering the OP has several links contained in an already lengthy post. I only skimmed the page. I suppose for the sake of the argument that I will eventually read it, but perhaps in the meantime, you can summarize. Where did this "Bill" go? Anyone know? Or did he just stop posting one day? Edited by nemesis_juggernaut, : No reason given.

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"It is better to shun the bait, than struggle in the snare." -Ravi Zacharias

I want to post something started by our former member, Faith. She took the time to write it, and it seems to parallel our current conversation. Perhaps she can live vicariously through our conversation.

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The supposed problem of unconformities for a young earth is that it doesn't seem possible they could have occurred in a short period of time. A series of strata supposedly has to be laid down and then upended and eroded flat before the upper often horizontal group was laid down, which supposedly had to accumulate over a long period of time. But it's possible to explain them without assuming all that time. Of course the order of superposition applies, but the creation of an unconformity can occur after all the strata are in place.

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The following pictures give a clue how that could happen. Here previously horizontally laid strata have obviously been twisted in one cataclysmic event. To get the typical configuration of the kind of unconformity that YEC's supposedly can't account for, the tilted strata beneath the horizontal, all that need have happened is, if instead of bending as occurred here, the bent strata had broken, and the upper more horizontal portion had then slid over the lower angled portion. The friction would certainly have eroded the interface all in the same action. In fact there are broken off pieces of strata in the upper picture, to the upper left for instance, which had to have occurred as part of the single event. In the lower picture, had the rock completely broken instead of holding together under the pressure well enough to form the S shape, you'd have had the formation of horizontal strata over upright or angled strata that is said to be inexplicable from the young earth point of view. Not at all inexplicable.

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However, there is also the kind of un/nonconformity at the base of the Grand Canyon, which is the one Paul K says I couldn't explain well enough to please him, but here's the idea: A north-south cross section of the Grand Canyon region shows the unconformity beneath the Canyon that was supposedly laid down and then tilted and then eroded before the upper layers were laid down, tilted strata overlaid by the horizontal strata of the canyon proper. There are a couple of fingers of magma intrusions up through that area, that terminate below the lowest horizontal layer of the canyon. If you have a wide angle view of the region you can see that the canyon area has been uplifted in a sort of mound, and the canyon cuts through this mound a little to the south of its highest point. You can also see that the strata through which the canyon cuts follow the curvature of this mound quite neatly, retaining their parallel relation to each other, which shows that they were already in place when the mound was formed. Had they been laid down afterward, they could not have maintained their parallel condition over the curve, but gravity would have laid them down horizontally and the mound would have looked like an intrusion into the strata.

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Clearly all the strata were in place before the canyon was formed, and my theory is that the canyon itself was caused by the same force that formed the mound, an underground volcanic eruption, which is evidenced by the magma intrusions always shown at the base of the canyon. The eruption caused the whole column of strata to uplift into the mound shape, and the canyon itself was formed as a crack through the mounded strata brought about by the force of the action, which of course would have put tremendous horizontal stress on the strata at the higher levels.

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Assuming there were still large bodies of water left over from the Flood, or even that this area was still largely covered in water itself, the cracking of the earth provided an outlet for a lot of it, which tore away an enormous quantity of the stacked sediments as it rushed in to fill the gap. If you have a view of the entire region including the Grand Staircase to the North of the Grand Canyon, you can see canyons formed in that region as well, and the famous cliffs that form the steps of the staircase are the north sides of what were cracks or canyons from which the south side of each simply washed away in a great rush of water, leaving the plateaus of the staircase. If it hadn't been for the underground volcano the entire region would probably have remained a quiet stack of unexposed sediments up at least to the highest level of the Grand Staircase and perhaps higher. There may also have been an intrusion of magma under the north end of the staircase too though -- some diagrams seem to show that possibility, and the land appears slightly tilted upward to that point too. At least there's a fault line there.

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"It is better to shun the bait, than struggle in the snare." -Ravi Zacharias