Summations Only

I don't see how we can be expected to address "difficulties" you won't even explain.

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Try imagining the depositional and erosional processes that would have to occur for each transformation from landscape to rock keeping in mind a particular stack of rocks as they exist today.

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Have YOU done that ? If so, why have you not produced an example in this thread ?If you were actually trying to make a case you would have done it to show us these problems that you think you see. The fact that you have not is quite telling, I feel.But to deal with your issue, you are obviously imagining problems out of prejudice. There is simply no basis for your claims and your avoidance of concrete examples suggests to me that you know that.

I imagine this is possible, but I can't locate any definitive work. Just off the top of my head ...If you have a formation that is homogeneous, compressible; and has some strength and some irregularities on its surface like mud cracks or burrows or fossils, and if it is loaded evenly, then flattening and apparent smoothing of the contact should occur as those irregularities are compressed.The problem is that, often, rocks and sediments don't cooperate in detail.I think there are better reasons for 'straight and flat' contacts of the type that Faith talks about, such as irregular thicknesses showing that they don't really exist. I think that even loading of sediments by a 'rain' of fine grained material that would happen in most offshore marine environments would give you just what she claims is impossible. Even turbidites would form flat deposits as they spread our over large areas of the seafloor.We have certainly provided plenty of images of such contacts that are not as straight and flat as they would appear at a larger scale; but for some reason, she has the idea that those are not 'strata' (her definition).But we have an adamant YEC, and nothing will ever suffice to explain.

Your opinion is noted. No problem. Constructing geological histories is part of what geologists do.If you could be more specific about what your issue is, perhaps we could address it. As far as I can see, you simply deny any reasoning or evidence that we provide. I have seen problems, but none insurmountable. This doesn't make any sense to me.Could you perhaps list the sequence of events, one by one? Maybe you could start with the Great Unconformity and follow the rock sequence up through time. Why could this not happen? AFAICS, we are not destroying those environments, but preserving them. They probably don't look the same, but there you are trees and leaves and bugs, the whole nine yards. The problem is probably not with mainstream geology, but with your understanding of natural processes along with your dogmatic acceptance of a young earth.

Maybe you could add some more detail. I have a feeling that you are leaving out some steps, one of them being marine transgressions across the continent that I have been trying to demonstrate. Why not? Just saying that something is impossible is not evidence or even reasoning.If I have a steady rain of sediments in an offshore area and then the climate changes or I have a cloud of ash fall in the area, why would the layers not be straight and flat? Okay, so the plants and animals that died there are covered by sediments and preserved. The ones that lived would simply die later and be preserved in later sediments. This doesn't seem like a hard concept to me. Perhaps you can explain why it is impossible.

I thought I said that if you do it yourself then you will discover it's impossible. I didn't expect that saying it's impossible is some kind of proof. Yes there's no doubt a lot more detail that coujd be added but I rhought I also said that I've been unable to get the whole thing worked out. That's why I said you should try it.I'm no longer trying to prove any of this, I merely sketched out a few things to show that what's being addressed by you all is not what the thread is about. As for marine transgressions I include marine environments when I'm trying to think it through.Good grief, what I said ought to have been at least this clear. But I don't care. As I said, for me the thread is over. I can't put it all together but when I've tried I kept running into the problems I mentioned.Since you aren't even trying to do what I suggested of course you don't see any problem with any of it, not to mention that you have a vested interest in not finding any problems. You don't even really think through what I said let alone try to do what I suggested, you just give the usual snap judgment in response. But as I said, the thread is over for me. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So basically you can't make your case so you want us to do it for you. You can't be bothered to look at real examples. You can't be bothered to show us a single real problem. You can't even give us a good reason to think that we will find your alleged problems.That is not how you make a case. That is how you make it obvious to everyone that you don't have a case.

Fossils are from dead critters Faith and once dead they seldom move on their own. The ones that did move did not die there and so I doubt we would see their fossils there. Yes Virginia, environments really do change. So far you have not presented any real problems. Perhaps when you do we can address those problems.What we think we are doing is discussing reality.Edited by Admin, : Fix typo.

It's futile to keep trying to explain of course, but oh well. Yes I can't make the case because it's too unwieldy, but what I said about my attempts is nevertheless true -- I kept running into insurmountable problems. But it's too much, too unwieldy to spell it out completely. So I gave up, yes, can't prove the case so gave up. Nevertheless I do think if anybody sincerely tried to do what I tried to do you'd run into the same problems I did. There's always the chance you could find a way that doesn't run into such problems, and prove me wrong, but you'd have to actually do it and nobody has.

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It's futile to keep trying to explain of course, but oh well. Yes I can't make the case because it's too unwieldy, but what I said about my attempts is nevertheless true -- I kept running into insurmountable problems

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Trying to "explain" something that is pretty obviously wrong is never going to be easy.But if it is too much work for you to do here - to even produce one example - why should we bother ? It's not as if you'll believe us if we came back and said we couldn't find a problem. You'll just accuse us of being biased and not seeing the problems.And, of course it should be easier for you. You can choose a small example which shows a problem - if you can actually find one. If one of us chooses a small example which doesn't show a problem you could dismiss it, without even being unreasonable. There wasn't a problem there, but there "must" be one somewhere else.So, if you were correct it should be easier for you to make your case than for us to refute it. But you won't even try. You insist on us doing all the work. Well, why should we ?You're the one trying to make a case. If you refuse to support it in any way then you fail. And that is exactly what you are doing.

Are you genuinely surprised by this? You're taking on 200 years of knowledge and research by hundreds of thousands of scientists without training, you do no fieldwork and have an inability to accept facts that deny your dogma. You can't do this from your armchair and Wikipedia. Science is rather detailed and all joined up. It's a web of interlocking knowledge. You haven't even touched it. You don't have the faintest clue the work that's gone into amassing this knowledge, yet think you have an insight that no-one else has. You probaly do, but it's a thoroughly wrong one.You attempt to do the same in molecular biology, radiophysics, paleontology and god knows what else.At some level you have to be admired for the effort, but you have no idea how utterly deluded it makes you look.Ah well.

I sense your frustration, but fail to see why you don't do something about it. You just keep repeating the same phrases and complaints. You're not getting it, Faith.We have done what you suggest.The real problem seems to be something basic that eludes you. This is nonsense.The whole issue is about a series of processes that we've gone through multiple times. I think it's pretty clear that:

There is a reason for this. Do you want to discuss it or just shut down the conversation?

In Message 806 I presented a map and link to the general current surface of the Earth to try to help explain what happens regarding changes over time.Before going much further I want to emphasize that like all the maps we have examined in this and other threads, it represents a snapshot of what exists at a given time. As we look at the different colored parts of the map hopefully some changes will become clear as well as a better understanding of why we see what we see.Here's the map again; I am going to start with the kinda sea blue Orogen areas since they are places we discussed earlier in this thread and even referenced by Faith. If we look we see that that area was shown as a relatively shallow inland sea that lasted over 40 million years. But an Orogen is an area that is buckling due to stress built up by plates colliding. The inland sea first appeared about 120-125 million years ago and lasted in some form and different extent right up until around 60-65 million years ago. But it is not a sea today.What has happened is that stresses built up and buckled the crust pushing the area up. Today, the Florissant Fossil Beds in Colorado that we have been discussing are at over 8000 feet above sea level and the dominate landscape is Aspen, Fir, Spruce and Ponderosa pine. But the geology is layers of marine and volcanic materials above old, old pre-cambrian granite. What is seen are ash flows, mud stone, shale, mudstone and lots of conglomerant (cemented rubble from erosion). The active volcanoes though that resulted when the area was buckled up forming mountains have quieted down and eroded down to a shadow of their former size.Since the area was uplifted what we see is much that was once there is no longer there and so the dinosaur fields are now exposed at the surface. Millions of years of material have been weathered and eroded away but what is left shows that once it was at and below sea level and not at 8000+ feet above sea level.Next let's look at the Basins. They are kinda Carolina Blue: The basins are the opposite of the Orogen, they are warping but depressions. Depressions are one of the places lots of the material weathered and eroded from the high spots pauses or ends up. What we expect to see there are layers of sediment and in fact that is what we do find; lots of sediment with not all that much really old material at the surface.The Platforms. The platforms are relatively flat or sometimes slightly tilted layers of sedimentary rock sitting on top of igneous and metamorphic rocks that themselves resulted from an earlier deformation. Some of the hardest rocks we see are where old igneous and metamorphic platform and shield (the next place we will look) rocks found as cratons.Shield rocks: The least active areas where about all that goes on is erosion are the Shields. Shields are really old, igneous and metamorphic rocks all at least 500 million years old. When paleontologists wanted to see if they could find an early example of critters emerging from the sea onto land they looked for areas where they might find 300-400 million year old rocks and the Canadian Arctic shield seemed a good place to look. The result was finding Tiktaalik.So the general picture seen in the image above pretty much explains what we can expect to find when it comes to fossils and ancient landscapes.Edited by jar, : appalin spallinEdited by jar, : add map showing inland seaway

I suggest focusing on these areas:

• Faith has expressed a concern that people aren't discussing anything relevant, that they aren't "focused on the problem posed by this thread." While a good part of this stems from Faith's desire to end the discussion, there is some truth in it. People are responding to Faith's issues by offering explanations of their understanding of geology and how natural forces shape our planet. What is required is a more precise understanding of how Faith misunderstands geology and the natural forces shaping our world. Responding to Faith's issues with accurate information isn't helping because it provides no path to take her understanding from where it is to where it needs to be. She doesn't have to follow that path and accept modern geology, but people could hopefully improve her understanding to the point where she can at least see the path despite not taking it.
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  I guess this boils down to a suggestion that people try to think their way into how Faith is thinking before responding.
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• Faith has also expressed a concern that people are not investigating issues she raises to find the problems she can't find herself but knows are there. Concerns like this can be raised about anything, whether they're true or not. That problems with the water in Flint were being covered up sounded like typical conspiracy theory claptrap until actual information was uncovered. That there are foundational problems in modern geology also sounds like typical conspiracy theory claptrap, and it will remain that way until someone describes some actual problems.
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  Bottom line: Everything that is true, including that the world is round, is challenged by somebody somewhere. Those who insist there are problems must make their case, not ask everyone else to make their case for them, or even worse, to merely claim that a case could be made if people would just think about it. It is Faith's responsibility to identify geology's problems, not everyone else's.
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• Faith still does not understand how terrestrial landscapes become embedded within a strata. Breaking the sequence of events down in detail is needed. Start with an image of a terrestrial landscape embedded in strata and describe how it got there going all the back to when there was life living upon and within it.
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• I have to suggest to Faith that she must stop dismissing information she hasn't seen, usually images that are too bright. We can help Faith figure out how to use her monitor. If she provides a model name/number we can provide the rest. Or Faith could buy some sunglasses or a buy a screen filter or several.
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• Faith has a significant misunderstanding of how deposition and erosion affect an actual landscape. From Message 809:
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  Faith in Message 809 writes:

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  Try imagining the depositional and erosional processes that would have to occur for each transformation from landscape to rock keeping in mind a particular stack of rocks as they exist today. If you're really doing this, you will run into insurmountable problems. To keep the creatures alive You start multiplying landscapes that aren't part of the final stack of strata;...
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  I'm mainly focused on the last part about keeping the creatures alive and multiplying landscapes. It would be helpful if it could be figured out what Faith thinks geology is saying, because this sounds impossible even in Alice in Wonderland.
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• There's a misunderstanding about how layers lithify in Message 809 that could be explored:
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  Faith in Message 809 writes:

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  ...you get sediments piling up that have nothing to do with the final stack of strata, being there only because they are needed to bury one sediment so it will lithify.
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  Faith's own favorite diagram of the Grand Staircase shows layers at the Grand Canyon that we know could only only have lithified after being buried, even though those layers are not present at the Grand Canyon. But if you look north on the diagram (to the left) many layers missing at the Grand Canyon are still there:
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  At the Grand Canyon the Kaibab is the top layer, but at Bryce Canyon there are around 14 layers of strata above it. I think Faith still believes that rocks form by drying rather than by the great pressure of burial that results in compaction and cementation. If it were just a matter of drying than in the time since the flood most of the surface of the world should have turned to rock.

That's enough for today.Please, no replies to this message.

The point here is that the environment changed. It was subaerial prior to, and after, the Cretaceous Seaways existed.Here is where you can view an interesting animation from the early Mesozoic to the present:Page not found | GeosciencesUnder 'Animations', click on the North American Paleogeography and bring up the slide show that goes from 244ma to 0ma. The thing for Faith to remember is that this is based on evidence from actual geological observations, not a dreamscape. The presence of sequoia tree fossils suggests that the area was at a much lower elevation than where it is now. So, somewhere between 35ma and recent time the area has been uplifted about 8000 feet. This probably happened during the latest Rocky Mountain orogeny that resulted in the high peaks of Colorado. Some people have proposed that the tops of the 14k ft peaks are remnants of an old peneplain that was near sea level only a few million years ago.Here is a generalized diagram of regional transgression sequences in North America. It is similar to the one I showed earlier for just W. Illinois and might be easier to understand: Basically, the center of the diagram represents the center of the continent and the blue areas represent the extent of the seas covering the continent. Each one of the little blue cuts in toward the continent represent a transgression. Obviously, some transgressions are major and others are more or less insignificant at this scale. The most significant transgressions are recognized as continental in scale and have names such as Sauk, Tippecanoe, etc. These are termed 'cratonic sequences': Cratonic sequence - WikipediaI'm sure that the minor transgressions are schematic since the are probably minor and local in nature. However, the major ones are documented by a huge amount of mapping and stratigraphic/paleontological studies.So, as indicated, the blue areas are times of sedimentary deposition and the yellow areas are times of erosion of the continent. There is a lot of information packed into such a simple diagram and, if you know some things about geology, it gives a possible explanation for some of the things that we see.One of those things is the superposition of strata and depositional environments in the geological record.