Summations Only

Yesterday upon the stair
Faith saw a problem that wasn't there.
It wasn't there again today.
Oh how she wishes it would go away.

A few suggestions, mostly issues that could use resolution:

• Let's avoid the snarky comments and just try to figure out what Faith means so we can respond to that. Obviously it has become common for Faith to say she didn't mean what we thought she meant, and she has admitted that she has difficultly putting her thoughts and ideas on this topic into words.
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  Unfortunately I don't have any answers. Faith tells me my interpretations of her comments are wrong fairly consistently. But we have to make a greater effort to build an understanding of what she is saying, because rebuttal of things she isn't saying isn't useful. Correspondingly, when we misinterpret what Faith is saying she should attempt another explanation that makes what she is saying clear.
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• I think it important to figure out what problems Faith thinks exist in her Message 853. For example, what does this mean:
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  Faith in Message 853 writes:

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  The problem is getting from your soil and landscapes to the strata that is the starting point of all this pondering. If the soil above the rock is not represented in the strata then it's going to have to get eroded away before the next rock is established above the one you mention that is deep in the earth.
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  Scenarios where there's deposition and then erosion and then deposition and so forth are proving confusing. We should concentrate on either a depositional environment or an erosional environment. In Faith's quoted text I think she's introducing erosion into a scenario that was net deposition, and it would helpful to understand why, since she was responding to Coyote's message where he was attempting to make clear how deposition occurs slowly and gradually - he didn't say anything about erosion or about strata that are not represented.
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  So we need Faith to explain why she is talking about landscapes or layers that are being eroded away for a scenario of net deposition.
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• More from Faith's Message 853:
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  Faith in Message 853 writes:

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  You can start from the landscapes and get any old sequence of strata you like, but the problem here is to see how the strata we've actually got was formed by the events supposed for them: particular depositional environments for particular rocks have to be considered, and then their burial and lithification, but all in the right order so that you end up with the given strata that is the basis for the problem here.
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  Faith seems to believe that when strata are in the "right order" that it represents a problem. Why does she think there's a "right order?" Why doesn't she accept that what we find in the Earth's layers is just a record of what happened, not strata in the "right order?"
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• More from Faith's Message 853
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  Faith in Message 853 writes:

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  So, this soil is not destined to become part of the strata unless it's also a landscape or depositional environment, and since you contrast it with landscapes above it, apparently it isn't. Therefore it will have to be eroded away before the landscapes (plural) you say are above it take their place as rocks in the strata.
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  It would be helpful if Faith could make her reasoning clear. Where Faith says Coyote is contrasting a buried landscape with ones above it I believe she's replying to statement's like this in Coyote's Message 851:
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  Coyote in Message 851 writes:

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  If the same process repeats for a million years, you have the gradual accumulation of soils, and beneath those soils you may have a gradual lithification process.
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  And all the while the process of tiny amounts of soil are added, both moving the "landscape" upwards and increasing heat and pressure on lower layers until they become rock.
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  We need Faith to explain why she thinks the deposition Coyote described won't be preserved. We all understand it mightn't be preserved if the net depositional circumstances later becomes net erosional, but the scenario Coyote was focused on was depositional. What did Coyote say that Faith interpreted as meaning the new deposits upon the landscape wouldn't be preserved but would have to be eroded away before any new sediments could be deposited?
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• More from Faith's Message 853:
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  Faith in Message 853 writes:

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  So you've got these landscapes, plural, above this soil -- which of course must represent rocks in the particular stack of strata that is the launching point of this problem. But more than one at once?
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  I *think* the "more than one at once" part means that Faith believes we're describing multiple landscapes full of life stacked one upon the other. If so then I think more stress needs to be placed on the fact that life lives on and within the topmost few feet of a landscape. If a landscape accumulates an addition inch, foot or mile of sediment, life continues to live on and within the topmost few feet of landscape. There is little or no life in former landscapes that are now buried. There is no significant life below a depth of a few feet, except maybe bacteria and such. No one is saying that there are stacks of landscapes, each one full of life.
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• More from Faith's Message 853:
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  Faith in Message 853 writes:

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  You also have to take into account that the critters are fossilized in particular rocks in this particular strata. They can't just roam around from one level to another, they have to stay in their own time period.
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  Faith evidently thinks that following modern geological principles would require fossils to roam around within buried strata in order to get the evidence we see. We need to explore how she comes to this conclusion.

There's more, but I'll stop here.Edited by Admin, : Grammar.

Good idea. I think I will also.

You are glossing over the issue here. But at least you are trying to address the issue being raised. Is this the first time you've made this argument?Yes, if ultimately the upper surface is rock, then of course the soil gets eroded away. But that process need not happen right away. If the dirt becomes soil and plants grow into it, and there is a net deposition, then the soil does not go away. During that period the soil is part of the landscape, and animals can continue to live there.Of course if the top soil does eventually erode away to bare rock because there is more erosion than deposition, then you are right, that the area is no longer suitable for plant life, but lots of history can happen in between the time soil is deposited and the time when erosion over comes deposition. During that period of time rocks can form under the soil.But you've agreed that there is no issue with rocks forming under a surface. Given that, there would seem to be no obstacle to you understanding what folks are proposing. If your admissions so far are correct, you would seem to have no remaining point to make.I too am going to stop here.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I don't know if I can straighten any of this out, but I guess I have to try.I realized at some point recently that I'm overstating the idea that the strata in question have to be a "particular" stack of strata as if the problem is to match such a stack rock for rock. That's a sad mistake I can only hope hasn't set the discussion back irreparably. The point I was overstating is that whatever scenarios are being described have to end up in a stack of strata or "stratigraphic column" as I am now trying to remember to identify it.A stack of strata or stratigraphic column is a stack of rocks each of which is interpreted to be the result of a former "depositional environment" or landscape. They are not just made up of different sediments, they represent former landscapes. This becomes especially important when I encounter something like Coyote's scenario of soil burying a rock so it will lithify, on top of which he supposes other landscapes forming.This will do as a general description of the processes that are supposed to turn environments or landscapes into a stack of rocks or stratigraphic column, but as I was trying to say to him the problem is more specific than that. Some processes will not end up in a stratigraphic column and that has to be recognized; it's essential to "solving the puzzle." My mistake here was to define the problem as matching particular stack of rocks, as I say above, but no, the problem is merely to match ANY stack of strata or stratigraphic column, defined as rocks that point to former depositional environments.The problem in Coyote's description was that soil he had piled on top of the rock being lithified. PaulK thought I was saying the sediment/rock being lithified wouldn't be lithified and I'm at a loss to understand how he got that idea, but what I WAS saying was that the soil that buried that sediment in order to lithify it, was apparently just plain sediment, and not like the sediments in a stratigraphic column which represent "depositional environments." That means that "soil" burying the lithifying sediment would not be part of the stack of strata we have to end up with. ANY stack of strata, not a particular stack of strata or stratigraphic column, but a stratigraphic column defined as rocks that point to landscapes or depositional environments, usually containing fossils that are understood to have populated those environments or landscapes. If all you have is "soil" or sediments that, say, slid down a mountain to bury a landscape and turn it into a rock slab, THAT soil is not going to be part of the final stack of strata, because the strata contain rocks that are depositional environments, not just sediments.Coyote COULD have specified that the soil burying the sediment/rock to be lithified is itself also a former depositional environment, but he didn't (and that would bring up a whole host of other problems for this puzzle I'm trying to set up anyway), it's just "soil" that never was such a landscape, therefore it doesn't belong in the strata, and THAT's why it will have to be eroded away. Its only purpose in his scenario is to bury the sediment to turn it into a rock. Presumably it did its work and that sediment is becoming or now is a rock in the stratigraphic column, but now the soil that promoted its lithification has to be eroded away leaving only that rock because the soil doesn't belong in the column.SO: attempts to solve this puzzle have to take into account what is going to become part of the stack of strata in the end and what isn't. If it isn't, it's going to have to be done away with before the rock it's burying becomes part of the stack, that is, before the next rock forms on top of it.I hope this is now clear but I'm getting used to being surprised by new misunderstandings in such a variety of ways I really don't know if it's clearer or not.I'm glad I did at least say the problem is like a puzzle, because it is: the processes that build up a landscape, that form it and bury it and erode it away, all of those processes all have to end up forming a stratigraphic column composed of slabs of rocks that each identify a former depositional environment or landscape populated by a particular selection of living things as found fossilized in that slab of rock. You can't just give the general principles of landscape formation and burial and lithification as Coyote did; you have to keep in mind how it's going to end up as a rock in a stratigraphic column. The soil he had in his scenario to bring about the lithification of a former landscape, wouldn't be part of a stratigraphic column and would have to be eliminated for that column to take its final form.To try to state the problem or puzzle: Starting from a stratigraphic column, reconstruct the depositional environments indicated by the clues in the rocks of that column, and trace out the events or processes that would have to occur to show how each depositional environment or landscape ended up as the rock in the column.ABE: Oh my aching head: I just skimmed through earlier posts I haven't yet answered and it's enough to drive a person to sleep for a year to try to forget it all. The strange misunderstandings, the odd ways the problem is getting posed. Oy. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I believe we are treading ground James Hutton did over 200 years ago here. He noticed that soil was continually creeping downhill into streams to be eventually washed into the sea.And yet, there was always soil on the hill.Such a simple observation and yet it led to the idea that the earth is continually renewing itself and that these processes must have gone on for time immemorial.In my effort to figure out what Faith is trying to express, I'm wondering does she understand that a landscape is cut into older rocks. It is not a part of the older rocks but a temporary location for life to exist and also setting the table for new sediments (later to become rocks) to be deposited, thereby preserving the landscape as a primary sedimentary feature.Here is an example (schematic cross-section) of a landscape that I referred to earlier: (By דקי - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, File:Disconformity.jpg - Wikimedia Commons)The paleolancscape is the bold line in the middle of the diagram. Yes, it's an unconformity, cut into older sediments and then buried by later sedimentation.At one time that surface was exposed to erosion. It was a landcape on which forests could have grown and animals may have lived.But over time it was inundated once again by the sea and buried. The soils were stripped and the forests washed away. The ecosystem moved inland to higher ground.The fossils in the lower beds are of an older time than the landscape. And the fossil in the upper beds are of a younger time.We literally don't know how long the landscape existed other than that it was a period 'between the two rock ages', or even how many landscapes may have existed during that interval. However, if there were a lake bottom or river deposit on top of the lower beds, and older than the upper beds, we would have a snapshot of what life was like on that landscape at one time.These things are not easy to wrap one's mind around, but with time, you can work out the whole sequence. The point is that the landscape (topography) represents a time period within the geological record.It is not a rock. It is a surface cut into the rock. It is a gap in the sedimentary record of that area. Edited by edge, : No reason given.

Not exactly, but getting better.The landscape is actually a gap in deposition. It does not represent a sedimentary environment, other than if there might be rivers or lakes or other subaerial deposits. That is exactly what we are saying.Consequently, a landscape (topography, terrain, etc.) is not a rock. See my previous post. I have spent inordinate time trying to understand your issues and think I have covered this problem. Once again, I refer to my last post of a few minutes ago.The topography is not a rock. It is a surface cut into older rock. Younger rock (sediments) will bury that surface and preserve it as a discontinuity in sedimentation.

That was not my point.My point was that you are devoted to the idea that there was one sedimentary event, one extinction event, one igneous event and one mountain building event.This is forced by denial of deep time and complete submission to a biblical myth. You cannot conceive of multiple 'landscapes' in the record.

I absolutely deny this. I am trying very hard to deal with the multiple landscapes that are obviously supposed to have existed according to standard geological understanding of the rocks in a stratigraphic column, AND the enormous spans of time allotted to this view of things. It's the very problem that I object to so I'm trying to show that it's untenable, but I've barely begun to get the basics across for that purpose.In trying to deal with this puzzle I've posed I EXPECT the problem to get very complicated with multiple landscapes, but for that reason I try FOR STARTERS to keep the focus on a single rock with its single landscape to get the basic processes spelled out, in an effort not to make the confusions worse than they already are.NOTHING from my Floodist thinking is involved in this, NOTHING. I'm focused COMPLETELY on the implications of the many depositional environments or landscapes supposed by standard Geology to have succeeded one another up the stack of strata in a stratigraphic column over hundreds of millions of years.

Faith, that is all just word salad, lots of words with absolutely no meaning.What ends up in any geological column is simply whatever gets left, there is no plan, no pattern, not predetermined outcome.What happens happens.What gets left to get buried is what gets left to get buried.What the final product becomes is the result of what is available.Faith, it really is that simple. Stop making shit up.

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PaulK thought I was saying the sediment/rock being lithified wouldn't be lithified and I'm at a loss to understand how he got that idea,

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If you had read the portion of you post that I quoted there would be no mystery. If what you write is at odds with your intent then the problem is yours.

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...what I WAS saying was that the soil that buried that sediment in order to lithify it, was apparently just plain sediment, and not like the sediments in a stratigraphic column which represent "depositional environments."

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That is also a pretty damn weird thing to say. The sedimentary material in the soil would have been deposited in a depositional environment. Because a depositional environment is just an environment where there is net deposition of sediment.

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To try to state the problem or puzzle: Starting from a stratigraphic column, reconstruct the depositional environments indicated by the clues in the rocks of that column, and trace out the events or processes that would have to occur to show how each depositional environment or landscape ended up as the rock in the column.

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And it makes no sense to do that without an actual example. Which makes your refusal to consider actual examples more bizarre.Anyway, as you should know by now geologists have considerable success in doing exactly that.

Many posts ago many posters said over and over again and I thought you were one of them, that a landscape IS INDEED the rock. It existed on the very spot where the rock now sits, the rock is what BECAME OF the landscape or depositional environment. The clues to the character of the landscape are found IN that rock. At one point I had to clarify that the landscape had to have formed ON the older rock. You are now saying it's CUT INTO the older rock. So what? What's the point of this kind of nit-pickery? And I’ll bet this doesn’t represent anything actually seen in a stratigraphic column either, it’s purely made up to illustrate what you believe happened. Besides which, what does it mean to have ONE landscape in that stack of rocks since each rock represents a depositional environment? The more details you add the more absurd Geology gets.I need another break.

A rock does not 'have' a landscape'. Just trying to figure out why you are having such a problem.ETA: I would think that you would at least try to cooperate a little bit. Edited by edge, : No reason given.

I have always said that landscape is preserved in the rock. Like a fossil or a crack. Actually, the landscape is what happened to the rock.But it wasn't just one rock, either. A landscape would cut across many rocks if it were an angular unconformity, for instance. Actually, no. The rock pre-exists the landscape. The landscape is cut into the rock. Most unconformities tell us nothing about what the land looked like (unless there are local basins that have been preserved). Sometimes true soil is preserved, as under a volcanic rock, but these are not large parts of the geological record.The overlying rock is younger than the landscape because it buries the landscape. Well, yes. That's what erosion does. You are free to believe what you want. However, you will continue to be frustrated in any conversation with science-minded people. In general, it doesn't represent a depositional environment. It represents an environment. An erosional one. As I said, you are free to believe what you want. But you will continue to be angry and frustrated.ETA: As I have requested of you before, please read my post #861. I have tried to spell things out a basically as possible. Edited by edge, : No reason given.

What I am frustrated with is the unscientific claims that are called science, which you can get away with because you are a certified *scientist* although the utter nonsense of historical geology does not deserve the name.I suppose I'll recover and come back but for now I need a break.