Summations Only

I think that one of the problems with this thread is that Faith is so wedded to the idea that all life was eradicated at once on a young earth, that none of what we say makes sense.I'm not sure what to do about that. Perhaps we could create a chronological list of events that we see in the geological record, as Percy suggests, and Faith could just read along for a while as we continue the discussion. It might be productive but time-consuming. It certainly would take some work and a great deal of back and forth. I'm afraid that some would lose interest.

You use a term that I think is really important to this topic and discussion and so I hope you will tell us more about Peneplains; what they look like, how they are identified, how they are formed, how they could be identified if within a greater geological column.Edited by jar, : fix sub-title

Okay, I cheated: I went to Wikipedia first. My concept was pretty much correct, but some interesting details emerged from Wiki.Peneplain - WikipediaPeneplain, as the name implies is an 'almost-plain'. It occurs as the near complete erosion of a land surface to base level (usually sealevel). Usually, this happens by way of fluvial erosion, but I wonder if it would include glacial planing of the land surface as well. Wiki does mention parts of the Baltic Shield as being a peneplain ...I guess the question is mechanism. How do rivers create plains?To me it is a matter of low-relief and meandering streams. If you will notice, over time, meandering streams are both erosional and depositional. This is my opinion, but I think that meandering streams cut into the outer turn and then redeposit sediment farther down stream as sand bars, or eventually into river deltas and the sea. In all cases, material is moved to a lower elevation. The result would be to form buttes which eventually would be eroded as well, finally resulting in a plains-type geomorphology.The interesting thing is that meandering streams cannot cut below base level.This means that erosion stops at a flat surface at sea level.Okay, what if the Kaibab Limestone were flat lying, at sea level, prior to uplift of the Colorado Plateau? Over time, and with meandering streams (where have we heard about meandering streams in the Grand Canyon area before?), would not all of the higher formations (softer formations, by the way) be denuded over large regions? Perhaps leaving buttes and mesas of Mesozoic sandstones in some places?Just some food for thought ...

I earned my BS Computer Science in 1979 and have worked as a software engineer from 1982 to the present (I had to complete my active duty military obligation first). That should establish that I know whereof I speak.Software projects are truly massive Ours are relatively simple yet they amount to over a hundred files of source code. The interactions within that code can be baffling and, to the limited human psyche, often baffling. We do what we can to organize the internal structure to be comprehensible to us mere humans.We have been taught an approach called "Divide and Conquer." You have an enormous software task to accomplish. So divide it down to smaller tasks. For example, there are devices with which you will need to communicate. So some of those smaller tasks will be how you communicate with those devices. Those communication tasks divide further down in terms of the hardware communications and the higher-level communications. In one real-life project, we started our top-down design from the upper-most levels and defined everything down to the lowest levels, then we started designing those lowest levels and testing them and worked our way up to the top.So when faced with a massive software project, do you try to write everything in sequence, or do you break the task down to its smallest components, then work your way back up solving each smaller (ie, lower-level) component up to the top?Another analogy would be building a gothic cathedral. Do you just throw every block of stone out there and hope it will still stand in the final stage? Or will you start with a plan, a "master masonic plan"? Place one stone after another in the right place. Realize partway through the construction that the plan was weak, so you go back and reinforce the weak points (I have seen such mid-construction corrections in cathedrals).Do you not see a kind of iterative method being applied? What are the odds of everything just falling into place by chance? Practically nil. What are the odds of an iterative process doing it? Practically inevitable.But your problem is different. You have an idea. It has many components and very quickly becomes confusing. Because of that confusion, you cannot explain it properly and you only succeed in confusing everybody who tries to work with you.OK. Divide and conquer! Take your overall idea and break it down into its lower levels. Then tackle those lower levels. Does your model require that sediments become solid rock on the surface? Then determine whether that is the case. Then determine whether that would happen or be expected to happen. As in the case of the builders of the cathedrals, if you or your predecessors had made a fatal mistake, how would you have corrected for it?In other words, if your original ideas turn out to be false, are you able to correct for that? Or are you just going to stand out there screaming that reality is not relevant?So then basically, what I am asking of you FAITH, is that you at least make the attempt to build your model. You want to build a wall, so build it already. Brick by logical brick. Don't complain that the task you have set for yourself is too difficult. Divide and conquer! Work your way down to the lower levels and show us that we have something that we need to think about. That is when you'll get our attention.Just in case you got lost in the midst of all those pearls:

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Divide and conquer! Take your overall idea and break it down into its lower levels. Then tackle those lower levels. Does your model require that sediments become solid rock on the surface? Then determine whether that is the case. Then determine whether that would happen or be expected to happen.

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I think I just fell in love with you! Fear not, it won't last (thanks to other communications of a different sort), but that was a very thoughtful and kind attempt to help me out and I may actually be able to make use of it. Just your taking my statement of my problem seriously was very encouraging. I will certainly ponder your advice and see where it leads me. Thanks. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

For me the most interesting thing Faith has said, the thing I'm most curious about, is why the slow accumulation of sedimentary deposits on a landscape should create a problem for life.Taking an example, let's say there's a large expanse of low lying area adjacent to a mountain range, mostly flat plain but with small hills and valleys and plains and forests. Because it's adjacent to a mountain range this low lying area experiences net deposition. This means that sedimentary deposits accumulate even faster than they're being carried away to even lower regions such as sea coast and the seas themselves.But the sedimentary deposits are accumulating at the very slow rate of let's say ¼ inch per year on average. Such a slow rate of sedimentary deposition isn't going to be a problem for any life, neither plant nor animal. Though after ten thousand years the sedimentary deposits will accumulate to a couple hundred feet, no life, no matter how long lived, would be affected. They wouldn't even notice or have any way of noticing. Here's a diagram of the topography of the area before and after ten thousand years have passed: The mountain has three topmost layers labeled A, B and C that become eroded away after 10,000 years and are deposited on the low lying area where I've also labeled the layers A, B and C, though now they're in the opposite order and are probably much mixed together due to the irregular forces of erosion and the slow haphazard journey of the sediments from the mountain top to the plain.We need to understand what Faith thinks is the problem for life over this 10,000 year period of very slow deposition.Anyone having trouble reading the diagram because of it's small size should hit Ctrl-+ (or Cmd-+ on a Mac) to grow the size until it is readable. Hit Ctrl-0 or Cmd-0 to return to the original size.Please, no replies to this message. I realized I've introduced discussion material, but I'm trying to stay outside the discussion.

Very frankly, Faith, I do not believe that you will ever make an honest attempt at creating an actual model for what you're thinking. Your entire position depends on you remaining ignorant of actual geological processes and the only way you can maintain that ignorance is to keep yourself terminally confused about all kinds of aspects of reality. It is sad to have to say that and painful to have to watch, especially for such a protracted length of time. It's like watching Emily Litella over and over again on Saturday night after Saturday night, but at least there was something endearing about her (except to Jane Curtin) and she at least had the common sense to realize when she was wrong so that she could say, "Never mind."I really really hope against all hope that you will prove me wrong. But I am not at all optimistic.

Are we talking marine environments or terrestrial?If marine I suppose the sediment just makes the water rise so it's no threat to the life in it. But marine layers indicate the transgression of a sea onto the land, and eventually it's going to retreat, and THEN there will be no more marine life in that location. But the sediment has to become rock if it's represented in a stack of strata and at this point there are no other sediments on top of it to bring about lithification.But at some point, since these ARE strata-to-be, one environment has to come to an end and another begin. You know, one rock on top of another rock. In the strata that generally means a different kind of sediment is now deposited, but that isn't going to happen if it's all coming from that one mountain, is it?. Whether it does or not, if B is now being deposited presumably our marine environment has come to an end and another is beginning. Just for variety's sake, make it terrestrial. New sediment is depositing, plants start growing, crawly-walky creatures start proliferating. A few thousand years go by and the sediment is burying this landscape. Are the crawly creatures still there? For a while the plants will just keep growing on the new level of sediment but eventually it's all going to be buried because of course it's all going to end up as a rock. When the crawlies' plants are all buried will they still be there or is there some other place with those plants that they can go? Where would that be? Aren't we forming an extensive flat rock in a stack of rocks here? They'd have to leave their environment altogether wouldn't they? That environment that's becoming the rock in the strata?Is the former marine environment beneath the terrestrial environment lithifying yet or not? Under certain circumstances it could, but perhaps it needs more weight on top than it has.So eventually, a few thousand years later, environment B is buried, and where its unburied remaining living things have gone is unknown, and for whatever reason now sediment A is scooting down the mountain and slowly spreading over B which is now a landscape buried under sediment B. and a new landscape A is forming, with new kinds of life that will ultimately be found fossilized in the rock it eventually turns into.ABE: Because all we have is the strata, the stacks of rocks that contain fossils that are the foundation for the Geological Time scale, EVERY landscape or depositional environment we see in the strata has to eventually become that rock in the strata. Even if creatures that once lived in that landscape can escape to some other landscape, THAT landscape is going to get buried and eventually lithified with fossils in it too. Because that's what this theory is all about. All the time periods are represented by rocks that are former landscapes. The processes that turn a landscape into a rock HAVE to deprive living creatures of their habitat. We end up with a barren flat rock in all cases, all sandwiched between other barren flat rocks. /abeAll this is just an off-the-cuff response to Percy's diagram, not a considered attempt to follow an organized procedure such as dwise suggested. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

As I see things, this the point at which you make your error when you are considering terrestrial environments. The Director's posts suggest a similar problem.A small fraction of an inch of sediment added to a large landscape per year might not make the landscape uninhabitable even if that deposition continues over thousands of years. That tiny top layer of sediment simply becomes topsoil. The rate of growth is slow enough that even worms and most plants can avoid being buried in it. As long as the rate of sedimentation is slower than the rate at which the deposited sediment can become a soil layer there is simply no danger to plants and animals. No loss of habitat at all.It is underneath all of that soil that rock formation occurs.

Eventually the landscape itself becomes the rock. If there is soil on top of it, that too is going to have to become rock or be eroded away, both of which destroy habitat. The problem is in the fact that it all becomes a rock in the strata that we see, a barren rock. No matter how long the landscape lasts or the soil keeps on accumulating, eventually it has to become that rock we see in the stack. The slowness and the length of time just put off the inevitable. When the rock is a rock among rocks, where did the landscape go? Into the rock (although when you consider just how little there is in the rock that is taken for a clue to the landscape, this is really not a tenable idea to begin with). Where did the creatures go? The only clue to that is in the rock also, the fossils. There was no other place for them to go that I know of since all the landscapes of the time periods got preserved as strata. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Eventually the landscape itself becomes the rock. If there is soil on top of it, that too is going to have to become rock or be eroded away, both of which destroy habitat. The problem is in the fact that it all becomes a rock in the strata that we see, a barren rock. No matter how long the landscape lasts or the soil keeps on accumulating, eventually it has to become that rock we see in the stack. The slowness and the length of time just put off the inevitable.

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If the material that becomes rock ceased to be the surface millions of years ago, it's becoming rock makes no difference to the creatures living in that location. So why is this a problem at all ?

The landscape is where it always was Faith. The landscape does not go away, it is always there. Landscapes change, evolve but they are always there and in the same places. The terrestrial landscapes are always at or near the surface, the marine landscape in the water. And where do the living critters go? Where they have always gone.Boop-Boop Dit-Tem Dot-Tem What-Em Chu! Boop-Boop Dit-Tem Dot-Tem What-Em Chu! Boop-Boop Dit-Tem Dot-Tem What-Em Chu! and they swam and they swam right over the dam.BUT, sometimes stuff dies. Leaves fall from trees, animals die, crickets die. Sometimes critters move about and leave tracks and trails. Some stuff gets thrown away, old egg shells and pieces parts.Sometime that stuff gets covered over.None of the living things pay a lot of attention. They keep going where they have always gone.Boop-Boop Dit-Tem Dot-Tem What-Em Chu! Boop-Boop Dit-Tem Dot-Tem What-Em Chu! Boop-Boop Dit-Tem Dot-Tem What-Em Chu! and they swam and they swam right over the dam.Often grass grows on the dirt that covered up the stuff.Sometimes more dirt gets put on top and the grass grows on that surface and the critters go where the always went.Eventually, after millions of years the stuff may get buried deep enough to transform from dirt to rock.But all the while ...Boop-Boop Dit-Tem Dot-Tem What-Em Chu! Boop-Boop Dit-Tem Dot-Tem What-Em Chu! Boop-Boop Dit-Tem Dot-Tem What-Em Chu! and they swam and they swam right over the dam.

Either it's a rock deep in the strata in which case the creatures died long ago, having no place to go as their habitat either eroded away or got buried to become rock, and it's now just one rock in the layers of rock; or it's a landscape still in the process of becoming a rock, buried under sediments that themselves aren't landscapes and will eventually be eroded away, both burial and erosion destroying habitat; creatures could survive a while but eventually have to relocate, any new location putting them through the same processes anyway; or it's a landscape now that will eventually become a rock in the strata after being buried which will kill it as a habitat in its turn, and any sediments that were there just for the purpose of burying it will have to be eroded away and so on. All the sediments that end up as strata are depositional environments; can a depositional environment do the work of burying another depositional environment? I don't see how. It would have to be plain sediment doing that work, and that would have to be eroded away because it isn't going to end up in the strata. The weight of a stack of layered sediments could certainly do the work of lithifying sediments lower in the stack, but the problem is that these layers are depositional environments, not just sediments, so they have to undergo a whole process of being landscapes that get buried deep, lose all their landscape characteristics, become useless as a habitat, get all extraneous sediment eroded away etc etc etc. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Nope. They are the depositional environments that the strata used to be. The strata now take their place. There is no place they could possibly be now. The only landscapes now are on top of the entire stack of strata. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well that was a confused rant that completely failed to answer the question.The creatures live on the surface. What goes on deep underground has little to n effect on them. Do you understand that much ? Because it certainly doesn't look like it.