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Author | Topic: Sedimentary Rock Formation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
TheLiteralist Inactive Member |
Hi Jazzns,
So then which flood made the layers that the ovirapor was sitting on top of when it was buried? I had not thought of this. A very good question and one, which I likely will not be able to answer (at least not very well). I do see at least two possibilities: (1) the creation of dry land on day three or (2) the Flood had stages which are responsible for such features. I would tend to go with number 1, because it would seem unlikely that anything would build a nest on muddy layers laid down at an earlier stage of the Flood (although, if the layers lithified due to a curing agent, it might be a sliiiiight possibility...the procuring of nesting materials being the biggest obstacle to such a thought, in my mind). The only thing I can do at this point is ask for a description of the layers under the fossil. But as I am no geologist, I'm not sure that would serve any fruitful purpose. --Jason
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TheLiteralist Inactive Member |
Nighttrain,
Are believers looking for it? Maybe, but I don't think any YECs are.
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 3911 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
Good call. If anyone can detail the sedimentary structure underneath the fossils that would be helpful.
The killer to number 1 would be if there were any fossils in any layers underneath the oviraptor. Then you are pretty much stuck with number 2 and the host of problems that accompany it. No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
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TheLiteralist Inactive Member |
Jazzns,
As a side-note, you might find a "theory" of mine interesting (or not). I believe the fossilized footprints to be the result of creatures, who had survived earlier stages of the Flood, traveling across a layer laid down in a previous stage...which layers I envision to have had curing agents intermixed, and thus were in the process of lithifying before being traveled on and for the surface part (on which the creatures walked) to have cured enough to prevent washing away of the prints before the next stage of the Flood overtook the area again. --Jason
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Jazzns Member (Idle past 3911 days) Posts: 2657 From: A Better America Joined: |
While I have no inherant moral objection to this (my main problems with the flood are due to much for bald problems) I would warn that it is dangerously close to the intial theory that geologists came up with the describe the geologic column of multiple floods. Too often there are structures in the column that cannot be explained by a single rising and falling of water.
On a side note, and totally off topic for a science thread, one also has to wonder about the elements those who take this sort of theory are reading INTO the flood account in the Bible. The Bible speaks of a single innudation that rose to the tops of the highest mountains and remained. Proposing that there was always some amount of land available for animals to retreat to just to come back "down" and make tracks seems contradictory to a literal reading of the Bible. Being that YECs pride themselves in there literalism, it seems interesting to note this one particular liberty they take with the text. But continuation of this line of debate does belong in another thread if you care to continue. No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Interesting indeed, but wouldn't those curing agents remain and be chemically detectable?
And where do the agents come from? Antediluvian cement factories?
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Coragyps Member (Idle past 734 days) Posts: 5553 From: Snyder, Texas, USA Joined: |
She was not nesting underwater, rather she and her nest -- though located in a terrestial environment -- were suddenly buried/crushed by sediment-rich waters due to the Genesis Flood.
I haven't been to Mongolia to look, but I'll bet that the sand grains entombing the nest are wind-borne grains: frosted, and with bedding preserved at angles far greater than those possible for sand deposited under water. Have you done the experiment I suggested at the start of this thread yet? Sand, a glass pie pan, and then a pyramid of sand a) under water and b) without water? You could even add a protractor and actually measure the angles you can achieve.
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Coragyps Member (Idle past 734 days) Posts: 5553 From: Snyder, Texas, USA Joined: |
The original report of the nesting oviraptor - Norell, M. A., J. M. Clark, L. M. Chiappe, and D. Dashzeveg, 1995: A Nesting Dinosaur, Nature, 378, 21/28 December, pp. 774-776. - is just old enough that Nature wants $30.00 to read it online. I didn't want to bet that much, but if one of you kind folks is near a real library, I'm sure the paper gives some details.
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Nighttrain Member (Idle past 3993 days) Posts: 1512 From: brisbane,australia Joined: |
Good point, Jason. The trouble is when dealing with the irrational, one tends to lump believers together.:-P
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TheLiteralist Inactive Member |
Interesting indeed, but wouldn't those curing agents remain and be chemically detectable? I guess, but am not sure.
And where do the agents come from? Antediluvian cement factories? Heh. But, as an example, limestone, IIRC, is a natural curing agent. Or, I was under that impression, anyways. --Jason
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1466 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
But, as an example, limestone, IIRC, is a natural curing agent. Or, I was under that impression, anyways. No, you're right, it is. But calcium carbonate is easily detectable, chemically.
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gene90 Member (Idle past 3822 days) Posts: 1610 Joined: |
quote: Salts wicked up to to the soil surface by evaporating dew could act as a curing agent to stabilize the fossil, and you can gently bury it by thin sheets of sand collapsing down the face of an advancing dune. However, this is a rare formation that you aren't likely to ever see in the rock record. An more obvious and more common feature you should look for instead are rhizomorphs, which is the plant's root system preserved as a fossil. Since we seem to be very desert-oriented right now, another thing you could do is slice up the rock into thin sections and look for cubical grains of halite (the mineral equivalent of table salt) and gypsums and the other evaporites and for pseudmorphs after them (that is, other minerals that have gradually replaced the evaporites but retained their crystal and grain shapes). I would look for mud cracks in between dune beds in addition to the rhizomorphs, and as was mentioned I would measure the angle of repose of the dunes and I would look for flat sheets of sand at the toes of preserved dunes that indicate collapse. I would also be on the lookout for fossil soil horizons (paleosols) where minerals have been leached or worked by plants and redeposited shortly below during perhaps wetter climate intervals. As I mentioned before, the sandstone should be very mature, that is, nearly all quartz and very rounded. If they appear opaque from being battered in transport, that means that they are probably aeolian. So yeah, there are things that tend to distinguish windblown (aeolian) deposits from under water deposition.
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GeoJim Inactive Member |
Hi, I am new here, so apologies if what I say has already been said; but this is my take on the issue of terrigenous sedimentary rocks.
Firstly, there are numerous rock formations that do not require the presence of a water body to allow for their formation. Desert sandstones are the most obvious, and their formation can be observed in present day deserts. Study a desert and witness how rounded, spherical grains dance and deposit themselves, subsequently getting buried. Historical records also show that deserts do migrate over time. Also we have volcaniclastic rocks, most notably pyroclastic-flow deposits, pyroclastic-fall deposits (tephra), and epiclastites; all of which are formed through sedimentary processes (they are not igneous). You can see these processes happening today, look at any eruptive volcano and study the layers of deposits formed by each eruption. Then there are agglomerates and conglomerates, these again can be seen forming at the base of any significant mountain range. Most of you have probably seen beautiful alluvial fans at the base of steep valley sides, these (although often associated with lakes) can form by gravity alone. Study them, watch the unaided rock falls, and the way they deposit themselves at the base of the valley wall in slopes no greater than thirty degrees. Then there are glacial deposits. Even though ice is frozen water, glacial processes are not the same as fluvial processes. Again study them. My point therefore, is that if you were to actually study these processes you would be rather shocked at how slow some of them are, and thus discover how long it takes for significant processes to operate enough to produce the massive thick stratigraphic layers we see in the rock record. It would certainly take longer than the 6000 years the opposing party would have us believe. More importantly though, you will observe how rocks are forming right now as we speak without the need a water body, such as that of the hypothesised flood. This is significant in two ways: Firstly, if rocks are forming today and contain structures that are identical to those observed in rocks thought to be of millions of years old (and we know this because cross sections via natural erosion, or drilling/coring of present day sedimentary forming environments reveal these structures to us), I see no justification whatsoever for creationists to disprove the theory that rocks have been forming on this planet for over 4.6Ga (that is billion years), or ~3.8Ga for sedimentary rocks. Sedimentary rocks are everywhere, we can even find the remains of such rocks in the core of mountains (albeit in a highly altered state). If it is to be believed that the earth formed 6000 years ago, the rates of creation of these rocks must be phenomenal (yet you can not see this happening at that speed if you actually study them), therefore suggesting that within our life time we should see the landscape around us completely change. Secondly, I would be highly intrigued at how creationists can counter argue the fact that facies that can be observed forming today only in specific environments are shown in rocks found in regions thousands of miles away from the environment needed. For example, I live in England, it is very wet and often cold, yet right on my door step I have aeolian red desert sandstones that are identical to deposits found right now only in deserts. Are you therefore to believe that within the past 6000 years England was once a hot dry desert? If so, why are there not any historical records which say so? Those who disagree with geologists really need to go out into the field and study what they see instead of trying to disprove sound theories on the basis of insignificant apparent flaws created mainly by hearsay. As you have probably guessed, I am currently studying geology
{Added some blank lines between paragraphs - Adminnemooseus} This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 11-26-2005 06:22 PM
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edge Member (Idle past 1706 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
Firstly, there are numerous rock formations that do not require the presence of a water body to allow for their formation. Desert sandstones are the most obvious, and their formation can be observed in present day deserts. Study a desert and witness how rounded, spherical grains dance and deposit themselves, subsequently getting buried. Historical records also show that deserts do migrate over time. Also we have volcaniclastic rocks, most notably pyroclastic-flow deposits, pyroclastic-fall deposits (tephra), and epiclastites; all of which are formed through sedimentary processes (they are not igneous). Then why do we call them volcaniclastics and pyroclastics?
... Then there are agglomerates and conglomerates, these again can be seen forming at the base of any significant mountain range. Most of you have probably seen beautiful alluvial fans at the base of steep valley sides, these (although often associated with lakes) can form by gravity alone. Then why do we all them 'alluvial'? Or are you thinking of talus? However, your points are well taken. It is quite clear to most of us that YECs are woefully uneducated in geological studies and it can be seen in the poor, repetitive quality of their arguments. Right now we are in a lull on this forum, but as soon as a new batch of bright-eyed YECs come along, fully charged with propaganda from various creationist websites, I'm sure things will heat up again; at least until they are, once again, driven away by an obvious lack of ammunition.
As you have probably guessed, I am currently studying geology Yeah, me to, but probably considerably longer...
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GeoJim Inactive Member |
Any geologist, especially sedimentologists know that volcaniclastics and indeed pyroclastics are a form of sedimentary rock (once diagenesis has taken place). Granted they are produced by igneous processes initially (from the volcano), but the way they are deposited is akin to sedimentary deposition. A big clue to this is the inclusion of "clast" in the name. Clasts are only found in sedimentary rocks (and deposits), I would be worried if a geologist referred to crystals formed in igneous or metamorphic rocks as clasts! Likewise if sediment particals (the actual "grains"- not the cement or recrystalised variety) were referred to as crsytals.
Fans can form without being submerged under water, granted they are helped along by flowing water from either percolation, or temporary surface run off. However this begs another question, how do creationist account for the differences in maturity of sediments? If one big event occured (i.e. the flood) then why do we observe rocks that are mature, and others that are immature? Surely one massive body of water would produce a standard lithology, perhaps that mainly of poorly sorted, immature grains (clasts)? Not that I disregard creationist's theories, afterall, no scientist should ever believe what he reads is absolute fact. I just find it intriguing how they believe such opposing views despite the overwhelming (and lets face it, it is of gigantic proportions) evidence that suggests otherwise. For me, I like to observe and interpret what I see in the field, instead of taking other peoples word for it.
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