Evidence that the Great Unconformity did not Form Before the Strata above it

Before I start, let me present the image again: Before you can conclude that the downward slope of the layers on the left could only have been due to tilting or sagging after deposition, as you do here: You first have to demonstrate the truth of the proposition that layers can only deposit horizontally, as you claim here: About what you call "example after example" of horizontal deposition followed by deformation, you have to show that this is not just you seeing what you want to see, which you do time and again. For example, Sunday you claimed that some of the rock in the above image had the appearance of damp clay, an observation no one shares with you, in the same way that no one shares your observations of horizontal deposition. Everyone else understands that sediments will remain where they fall unless the slope is too steep. The slope in that image is not at all steep. How did you eliminate the possibility that any appearance that the gneiss has is due to blasting and excavation? You'll have to be more clear about what you see as a disturbance in the layers above. The patch of darker rock that you once circled has no blast holes in it, so the appearance of rock face there must have been the result of heavy excavation equipment. What leads you to believe that isostatic depression and rebound would have been uniform everywhere? Wouldn't it have been a function of the overburden of ice that depends upon the topography, for example, glaciers being deepest and heaviest in valleys?And no one's trying to snow you. We're trying to understand the rationale behind your claims. The diagram wasn't presented as proof. It was presented as a visualization aid for you, along with a request for you to describe what you see happening that could result in (b). One guess is that you think sediments falling on the sloped surface would somehow flow down to the lowest point like water, but we can't really know for sure what you think until you tell us. Until you provide a reasonable explanation everyone is going to continue to believe that (b) is impossible: Also, I believe you have the means in your possession to demonstrate the truth or falsity of your claims regarding the horizontality of deposition.

I think Faith's position is that the bending disappears gradually in the higher layers because, being soft, the material pushed to the side away from the point of bending. The rougher appearance of darker rock in the center of the image is a record of this disturbance.

I won't be able to catch up today with the sudden volume of posts, it'll have to wait until tomorrow, but in a brief scan I've seen enough to issue this warning: if I see any posts after this one that include comments about and/or criticisms of other participants then I will be issuing suspensions in the morning. Use the "Edit" button as necessary.

I was just about to sign off for the night when I saw there were a few more messages. I'll also be issuing suspensions to those posting messages that have no content other than complaining, criticizing or expressing frustration. Please constructively address the topic or risk being suspended tomorrow. Use your "Edit" button now.

Hi Faith,I have a few moderator rulings relating to a couple of your messages from Message 1607 forward. Rather than posting two messages I will summarize those rulings here.From Message 1607: The problems with your evidence have also been spelled out over and over again. Instead of repeating your original assertions you must address the concerns. Your reconstruction of what happened includes the fundamental assumption that original horizontality of sedimentary layers is required. I've requested several times that you provide your rationale for original horizontality, and you answered that you would perform an experiment in June. I then requested that you put contentions for which you lack evidence or rationale on the back burner, but you have ignored that request.So now I'm ruling that you can no longer assert that layers could only have sagged or tilted after being deposited until you provide evidence or rationale for original horizontality. One who behaves so arrogantly and dismissively has no right to complain about the responses such behaviors will inevitably draw.By repeating your initial assertions yet again rather than addressing the concerns raised about them many times I am ruling that it is you who are failing to address the point. You must cease this line of argument until you provide evidence or rationale for original horizontality, and explain how you can tell a rock face pre-existed blasting and being hit by heavy equipment. I am ruling comments like this as attempts to deflect discussion off-topic and contrary to the Forum Guidelines.From Message 1619: And serious concerns have been raised about your "very good case." I am ruling here that you must address the concerns, not simply assert that your case is "very good."Edited by Admin, : Improve clarity.Edited by Admin, : Grammar.

Here's the image again. The jog upward in the red line is the portion above the letters "P" through "m" in "Precambrian": What you had said in your Message 1559 was this: So if the pinching out that you see "over the gneiss on the right" isn't that jog upward in the red line, where is it?

As people have been saying, it's likely that the perspective is giving a false perception. Here's the Google Street View of the road cut from more straight on with the area you think was pinched circled in yellow: Now in this image it almost appears that there's a pinched area to the left of the circled area, but we know from the other image that that's not true.Notice also something else that isn't apparent in the other image image, that the layers that appeared to flatten out toward the right hand side of the image actually continue upward.As Edge keeps saying, you have to exercise some restraint in drawing conclusions from an image.

Hi Faith,I'm just trying to clarify again. This is the Google Street View image of the road cut, this time without the yellow circle. I'm posting this to emphasize the point that the layers appear to tilt upward to the right across the entire image, that there's not really much if any bend at the point that you've been indicating. Please let me know if you need me to add some marks so you can get your bearings in the image relative to the other image of the road cut, but what this means is that it would be incorrect to argue that there is a tilting or sagging that occurs only on the left side of the image. The layers appear to have the same general tilted upward orientation from left to right across the entire image. If you actually go to Google Street View and follow the road cut a little further to where it ends you'll see that the upward tilt to the right continues all the way. Others can correct me if I have this wrong, but I don't believe the mainstream view is that the sediment was originally deposited on a pre-existing slope. All that's being said is that there's nothing in the image to indicate that the sediment was originally deposited horizontally. It certainly could have been horizontal, but it also could have been in some other orientation. And as Moose stated earlier, the layers have the appearance of dipping downward away from the rock face, so the tilt isn't exclusively left-to-right.So just to clarify once more, no one's saying the layers could not have been deposited horizontally. They're saying that there's no evidence that horizontal is the only possible original orientation.And I'd like to again repeat the caution that it is a good idea to act cautiously in drawing conclusions from an image, otherwise one might tend to overinterpret. Claims that there's a bend in the layers, or that the shape of the rock face is evidence of a disturbance, or that some parts of the rock face have the appearance of damp clay, must be considered suspect.

Quoting myself from Message 1639: Before continuing on this point, please provide your evidence or rationale for original horizontality. Otherwise put this claim on the back burner for the time being.

I don't know that everyone would draw the lines in the same places that you have.But I think everyone can agree that the layers tilt consistently upward to the right, and that the lower set of layers are a little thicker to the left of the outcrop. We can't tell from the image why that portion of layers is thicker. Some of the individual layers might be thicker. Or some of the layers might stop at the outcrop. There's no way to tell.But we can still examine your rationale for the sagging you say happened. You attribute the greater thickness to sagging, that the layers became thicker as they sagged, but as THD pointed out this would have required the rock to increase in volume. You then claimed the rock must have stretched, but THD then pointed out that stretching does not increase volume.The angle of tilt does not change from left to right, and rock cannot increase its thickness. What are you seeing in the image that leads you to believe the left side sagged?One question you might ask yourself is if you had seen the Google Street View image without having first seen that other image, would you still have thought those layers sagged?

Yeah, I noted that possibility back in Message 1481, Edge seemed to agree, and I reminded Faith of this in Message 1565.

Hi Faith,Earlier today I wrote that not everyone might place the lines on the image in the same way as you did. This is how you originally placed the lines on the image in your Message 1648: And you've just proven that even you will draw the lines differently each time, because here's how you just drew them with a much more pronounced leveling off toward the right, presumably because that's the point you wanted to make this time: So I'm going to repeat the caution yet again, more emphatically this time: You are overinterpreting a very low resolution image. Even high resolution images must be approached with caution. Perspective, lack of 3D, illumination angle, shadows, etc., all get in the way of accurate interpretation. Nothing beats being there.If there are any particular views you would like of the layers in the area around the outcrop, either close-up or distant, then you might want to pass SnapDragon some additional ideas. There is nothing in science that doesn't need to be proved, i.e., supported with evidence and demonstrated likely true through replication that is able to persuade the relevant scientific community. That's why Steno's principle of horizontality turned out to be only partly correct. What would be evidence? You've proposed a scenario for what might have happened, not presented evidence. If you think the layers experienced deformation then you must describe what you are seeing that indicates deformation. What are you looking at in the gneiss that indicates it experienced deformation? Is this gneiss "already deformed" or is it "already eroded". You've just said both. I think everyone could agree about "already eroded" because that's what we already know about the boundary between the Precambrian gneiss and the Potsdam sandstone.I'd like to bring up something that was under discussion a while back, your doubt that erosion can result in flat horizontal surfaces. I just serendipitously came across this GIF of a meandering river changing its course: Meandering is what happens to rivers that travel across relatively level landscapes. The changing meanders that you see in the above image level out the area. Over more years the river will change its course even more dramatically, with changing meanders that flit about (in geologic time), flattening and leveling the landscape. Flat plains are generally just way stations for sediments that are being carried from higher elevations to lakes or seas.

A couple of points.First, about the "not really thinking" part, could I strongly suggest that's inadvisable, that you should think things through before posting? You've heaped a great deal of abuse on people for not understanding you and always thinking you're wrong, so I think you owe others at least that much, to cease issuing half-baked flights of fancy.Second, the possibility that the solid rock of a lithified sedimentary layer could somehow expand in volume in any visible amount is something that few people would ever entertain for even the merest instant. If you don't want to feel like you're ideas are being treated as if they're less than stellar then you can't just say things like this off the top of your head. Thinning? I think you must have given this answer as much thought as the one about thickening. What evidence are you looking at that suggests they "thinned"? This is a rhetorical question because obviously you're not seeing any evidence in the image, else you would have already seen that evidence of "thinning" and never made your earlier suggestion of thickening. Also, realize that more compressed layers would be denser and harder and therefore less likely to crumble and collapse, as here: Right, exactly. The evidence, and low-res evidence at that, doesn't support the notion. Well, if you must, but this moderator's advice is that you're pushing a very improbable scenario onto very slight evidence, to say the least. This is the kind of thing that frustrates other people no end. If you won't stop doing such things even while I'm calling your attention to them then there is little I can do. There's only so much a moderator can do to enforce civility in the face of such behavior.But since you're still trying to make the case, then please explain what evidence you're seeing in the image that tells you the layers on the left "sagged".Edited by Admin, : Typo.

First a brief moderator comment. This is another thing that frustrates people, referring to evidence as "good evidence" when it was immediately challenged and questioned and no one accepts it but you. By this criteria, all your evidence must be "good evidence."Now, about your "good evidence".If one of the things you're referring to as "good evidence" is the appearance of disturbance in the rockface of above layers, then that was immediately and repeatedly challenged, and you have not as yet provided any explanation for how you know that rockface represents a disturbance and not just the result of blasting and excavation.If one of the other things you're referring to as "good evidence" is that the top of the gneiss at the outcrop is possibly higher there, I think everyone grants that this is possibly true (but only possibly because the image is ambiguous on this point, as on many other points), but it isn't evidence. There isn't anything about a level change in a boundary that automatically says "pushed up."And if one of the other things you're referring to as "good evidence" is that there could be a slight leveling out of the layers above the outcrop, I think everyone grants that this is possibly true (but only possibly because the image is ambiguous on this point, too), but this isn't evidence. There isn't anything about a leveling out of layers that automatically says "pushed up," and this seems improbable.And if one of the other things you're referring to as "good evidence" is that there could be a diminishment in total thickness of that set of layers with the lighter color, then I think everyone grants that this is possibly true (but only possibly because the image is again ambiguous on this point), but this isn't evidence. There isn't anything about a diminishment of thickness of a set of layers that leads to the conclusion that they could only have been "pushed up," and this seems very improbable. Might you be raising a possibility "without thinking" again? It is indeed amazing that for almost any fact about the real world that you somehow arrive at a contrary conception. Anyway, I'm sure there are some places where local conditions have caused sharp meander bends with higher banks on the outside, but I think if you look at these images of meandering rivers that you'll see that isn't commonly the case.

Maybe I've gone off in the wrong direction, but I thought Faith was using a different definition of "deformed," or at least adding additional aspects to the existing definition. For example, in Message 1680 Faith said, "'Deformed' refers to its being higher in one place than the other but that concerns the idea that it was pushed up into the sandstone..." I assumed in my response to Faith that when she said "deformed" that she meant "deformed upward into the sandstone."Please let me know if I've misunderstood something.