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

Great find Percy! It makes the scale of the formation much clearer.Your image is enormous though, it takes forever to load and then I have to zoom way out (33% zoom or smaller) to get the full size image to fit on my screen. Could you possibly reload it in a smaller aspect?I have some discussion regarding this formation that I am going to present to edge, but I need to get back to my school work now - so maybe later...HBDEdited by herebedragons, : additional info

Right click and select "view image".

A corollary to that is that if the whole world were flooded there would be no erosion and just deposition. All the land surface would be below the lowest energy potential.What that would look like can be seen in examples of floods today; you get one relatively uniform deposition of material. We can see that in the US Mississippi drainage basin, in monsoon flooding across the Indian sub-continent, the Amazon, the Nile, all over the world. What we don't get from flooding events is what we see in reality; the multiple layered examples where one particular type of deposition dominates.Nowhere does a single flood ever leave layers of sandstone then shale, then limestone, then shale or sandstone again.

Is this just a semantics or term thing, because I'm having a hard time believing that the process of moving material from high to low stops at sea level. And I'm certainly correct to assert that there is energy potential below water level for any object heavier than water.Clue me in on what you mean here, because I know you know all of the above.JBEdited by ThinAirDesigns, : No reason given.

The model I presented is obviously very simplistic. You are right that there are energy gradients below sea level and that there are erosional forces also at work. However, in such a simplistic model as I presented (especially one that deals primarily with land processes), we need to think in terms of NET erosion and deposition. Surfaces below water level would experience net deposition -although of course, there would be regions of erosion as well.The point would be that erosion would move materials from land to the sea, down the energy gradient. The energy gradients on land deal primarily with erosion while the energy gradients in the ocean would primarily deal with sedimentation.HBD

I think Faith is right in asserting that a flood of that magnitude would behave in ways that might not fit our models of localized flooding exactly. But there is a generalized pattern we should observe if there were a single, global flood event:erosion --> deposition --> erosionUnconformities are problematic in that they create a pattern that is more like:erosion --> deposition --> erosion --> deposition --> erosion --> deposition --> erosionWhich strongly suggests multiple, smaller events rather than just one massive, single event.(and by "strongly" I mean inescapably conclusive )HBDABE: I think Faith has one of the better approaches to this problem - trying to explain unconformities with an alternate mechanism, rather than erosion, in an attempt to reduce the problem of multiple events into the single event sequence (erosion --> deposition --> erosion). Of course, I think it is ultimately futile but so is trying to restrict the flood event to a narrow segment of geological history. Edited by herebedragons, : ABE

All good. I agree with that generalization.Thanks
JB

If there is no land left above water (as during the floods I mentioned) what we see happening is deposition. Based on the floods described in the Bible we would have relatively calm waters and all of the material picked up or eroded during the rain phase would get deposited. We also know that again based on the two different flood stories found in the Bible the water level gradually went down, fairly slowly over a period of about a year unlike the water rising phase that lasted only just over a month. There are no mentions of storms or tectonic activity or mountains rising or much of anything except the water receding. In fact there is no mention of the ark getting caught in any current or even being carried downhill. In the simplified diagrams presented by hbd and that I was replying to, sea level was defined as the low energy point.The key point is that once you wear the land surface down to sea level there is no place for land surface (what we live on) to go and conventional erosion stops.We can look at floods to see just what evidence a world wide flood would leave and then compare that to what we actually see. What we see is a relatively uniform deposition of material. We can see that in the US Mississippi drainage basin, in monsoon flooding across the Indian sub-continent, the Amazon, the Nile, all over the world. What we don't get from flooding events is what we see in reality; the multiple layered examples where one particular type of deposition dominates and each layer is different enough to be identifiable.So what we see when we look at floods everywhere simply does not look at all like what is seen in reality.Now to below sea level; an area irrelevant to a discussion of land surface humans normally live upon.Gravity continues of course. What hbd describes also would apply to the much slower changes below sea level. Erosion still moves material from high spots and deposits the material in low spots resulting in an overall leveling. It simply can't do diferently unless magic is invoked or reality suspended.

I think that, in the context of the current discussion, the point is that material will be moved from high elevations to low whether in the air or in any other fluid.The intent of the erosion to base level notion is that, in general, rivers cannot cut more deeply into the earth than whatever water body they flow into. In fact, they are more likely to deposit their loads as soon as velocities decrease in a standing body.Now, we can understand that there are exceptions such as density currents or turbidites that will erode soft sediments, and there are such things as slumps or debris flows that we usually treat as depositional features, but indeed they can erode soft sediments. In fact, if you want to include glacial erosion, we could argue that material is actually transported to a higher potential energy state.The point is that we have to make some generalizations or we would need to bog ourselves down in endless details; and, of course, this is an advantage for the YEC side of the discusssion.

With the outline on the surface of the stepped dolomite it appeared to be lying on top of the sand and the sand appeared to be flat on the ground with the Ibex formation perpendicular to it like a vertical wall. With the outline removed the dolomite now appears to be embedded in the sand but the sand seems to be still flat on the ground and the Ibex vertical behind it. I know it can't be this way but this is how it looks, which is why I wish there was another angle on it available.I'm not sure I'm implying anything, just saying the photo looks odd and I need to see it in its immediate context to be able to have a clear opinion about it. I have looked at pictures of Mosaic Canyon and that general area so I know that it's characterized by these rocks but haven't found a picture that shows anything like this unconformity.However, all edge wants is an admission that the dolomite section must have formed first and the other two rocks been laid on it afterward, and that IS what looks like must have been the order of things.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yes, I get the idea, thanks. I'd still protest that you'll never get the degree of levelness seen in the pictures I posted, and in millions of years shouldn't you also have more mountain building and uplift to interfere with this process? Earthquakes, volcanoes and whatnot?The implication of all this [abe: the OE erosion theory] must be that the mountains we see today, the Adirondacks and the Rockies and the Alps and the Himalayas and so on, simply haven't had enough time to erode down to plains, while the Supergroup's upper portion did have enough time. And isn't all this merely an artifact of the OE theory rather than anything that can be evidenced?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Thank you for that. I've presented my scenario in these terms many times. Are you saying something different than I am? Not following you. What's wrong with the pattern I've suggested: erosion of all the (erodable) land mass, deposition back on the land in layers of different sediments, tectonic disturbance that uplifts land, pushes up mountains, breaks up and washes away the looser upper strata and cuts canyons and the stairs of the Grand Staircase and so on and so forth? Thank you, it is nice to get some approval for a change, even if taken away in the next breath. Oh well. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Not at all Faith, in fact just the opposite. Old Earth is a conclusion based on the evidence since there are no known processes that could do what exists in reality in anything less that long, long, long, long, long periods of time.Until someone (and in 250 years or more no one has been able to offer any model, method, mechanism, process or procedure that can explain what actually exists that is not as absurd, silly and laughable as what Answers in Genesis markets) presents the model, method, mechanism, process or procedure to explain what is seen old earth is the only possible conclusion.That is why Young Earth and either Biblical Flood have been DeadOnArrival for over two centuries.

Just that the evidence doesn't suggest that there was such a single event of erosion --> deposition --> erosionbut rather multiple events producing multiple cycles of erosion and deposition Well... that's part of what this discussion is about... unconformities challenge that pattern. The presence of unconformities suggest multiple erosion / deposition events rather than a single, linear progression. (ie. erosion --> deposition --> erosion) It's an interesting approach, I just think it goes against all the evidence. Most creationists say that the Great Unconformity is the pre-flood surface, which is fraught with problems of it's own.HBD

Doubt the evidence is all that clear for this but that it's far more a conclusion based on theory or interpretation. I do have some evidence for my interpretation too, mostly from cross sections as presented before. Yes but mostly as an artifact or conclusion from the OE model, not so much the evidence itself. Well I'm committed to it, though of course different factors may change my idea of HOW it all worked. This is the one facet of the Flood scenario I've prayed the most about. Yes. It works as a stopgap admission/concession to allow them to develop other aspects of the scenario, but yes, either ALL the strata were laid down in the Flood or none of them. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.