So how did the GC get laid down from a mainstream POV? Deterministic models?

Let's not conduct a Gishian gallop. You've got plenty of other threads going on this topic and starting another one merely deflects focus.CheersJoe Meert

You've already a thread going on GC stratigraphy. No need to start a new one.CheersJoe Meert

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
^ In the interest of clarity I would like this topic treated separately. Joe, if you don't wish to take part in this thread I'm disappointed but that's your right.

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JM: I think I'll stick to the original thread. You can start as many new threads as you like, it's a good technique in debate boards.CheersJoe Meert

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Sorry Edge, but I've read thousands of pages of that stuff you're talking about. The mainstream material does not answer my questions compellingly and that is why neither of you will even post a layman's summary IMO.

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I can give you a layman's introdution to any aspect of molecular biology or particle physics you would care to hear about. Why can't you do that for me on what should be a bread and butter geological foundation? I am truly interested in answers from geolgoists on this board.

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 05-22-2002]

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JM: Given what you think about Helium in the atmosphere, I am not sure I want to hear you lecture on particle physics .

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Joe and Edge, let's forget about creation/flood for a minute - just what are the mainstream explanations, both qualitatively and deterministically, for the origin of the vast beds of the GC including the multiple inundations of continents by the sea and terrestial plant and animal fossil beds?

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Joe, I'm afraid your mistaken on the helium issue (and your thinnly veiled personal attacks are wearing thin BTW) - that is a well known mainstream result that 'the helium budget' is a problem. The detailed models have not been able to explain the low abundance of helium in the air. There are two main competing efects: radiogeneic helium into the air from igneous rocks and escape from the atmosphere via Boltzman (his distribution). Escape from the atmosphere has not been able to explain it. Creationist explain it easily becasue we have found where the helum is! It hasn't had time to diffuse out of the rocks. I'm not saying that there will not be a mainstream solution, but there currently isn't one and there is a creaitonist one.

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Refs: The RATE book (see last link) has the diffusion calc in it (I've read it), the mainstream Gentry ref records evidence of vast excess helium in zircons, the web links contain mainstream refs to the helium budget problem, and I link to the RATE site where they report that the experimental helium diffusion rate backs up their previouls argon extrapolation:

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R.V. Gentry, G.L. Glish and E.H. McBay (1982) Geophys Res Lett 9:1129-1130
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1401.asp#r7
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/v8n2_helium.asp
http://www.icr.org/headlines/ratereport.html

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I have absorbed much of the basic backgound of geology although I do not deny I make mistakes of jargon and cannot compete with a real geologist. If you made even the simplest attempt to appeal to a general audiance I would be able to understand what you are saying. I have read most of Chernicoff and three sedimentology texts from cover to cover! If you can't talk to me who can you talk to!

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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 05-22-2002]

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JM: Tell you what, I'll back off the claims a bit providing you supply me with a list of published references demonstrating that the helium problem is a real issue for the age of the earth. Creationist websites are claiming it is, but I've yet to find any peer-reviewed source supporting this argument. In fact, the websites you provide are quite vague in their descriptions using words like 'too high' (how high is too high and what are the errors associated with 'too high'. Many do not even discuss which isotope of helium they are talking about. These links do not discuss the issue scientifically, they simply suggest a problem.CheersJoe Meert

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
By the way this thread I created is a 'Geological Column' thread, not a Grand Canyon thread as some believed due to my unfortunate use of the acronym 'GC'!

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JM: Well, gee that certainly narrows it down! I still maintain that there is no helium problem insofaras it relates to the age of the earth. I will look for references, but so far I have not come across anything other than creationist sites vaguely describing what I believe is an invented problem. PS: Vardiman's book is a religious book, its sole purpose is to support a religious viewpoint and that makes it suspect.CheersJoe Meert

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How much longer are people here going to deny that there is no good deterministic mainstream model for the origin of the geolgoical column and that even the qualitative mechanisms are only proposals. If you disagree with me - tell us and show us! Isn't this what this BBS is all about

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one might just as easily say:
How much longer are people here going to deny that there is no good deterministic mainstream model for ye-creationism and that even the qualitative mechanisms are only proposals. If you disagree with me - tell us and show us! Isn't this what this BBS is all about?However, in the interest of moving forward maybe you could tell me what you would accept as a deterministic model? You realize that geology is based upon observation and testable inferences from those observations. We observe sedimentation (in its many forms) today (had you carefully read your books you would have noticed people like Hutton and Joly--among others) studying deposition and erosion. If by deterministic you mean 'absolute answer' then the answer is NO, geology cannot do that and, in fact, no science can do this. What we can do is limit the possibilities by amassing the evidence. Geologists of the 17th and 18th centuries wanted to find evidence to support the flood. They also wanted to be honest about what the evidence showed. They approached the Bible as a book of salvation that may have also documented a global flood. What they found was so diamtetrically opposed to a flood that they realized it must be a myth. History strongly suggests that the Hebrew myth was borrowed from the SUmerian epic of Gilgamesh. I am getting a bit off track, but I am beginning to suspect that you are looking in these books for something that no science can do. Only religion can give you absolute answers (and even then, they depend on the religion!). So, please explain what you would accept as 'deterministic' and then explain why creationism is deterministic. ThanksCheersJoe Meert

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
[B]Joe, something 'deterministic' might at least demonstrate correct trends - explain, at least the trend and fact of the global sea level changes for example over time. [/QUOTE]

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JM: And it has. For example, we can correlate sea level drops in the more recent past with glaciations. We can correlate sea level rise (say Cretaceous) with increased spreading rates (see discussion of this mechanism at http://gondwanaresearch.com/oceans.htm. We can correlate sea level drops in the past with glacial epochs. So, I don't know why you insist that geologists don't have a good idea of how these changes occurred. We do.

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And before that, what are the qualitative mechanisms? What's the consensus? Why do you expect creatnioists to have detialed answers when thousands of you guys don't for your model?

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JM: Yes, if they are going to insist that their model is better, then it should explain everything conventional geology does and go one better. As of today, they are not even publishing this material in places where their peers can review it.

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I know very well about the detailed (very nice actually) work done by geologists from Hutton to Lyell to Holmes to you guys etc. What I am, gradually (I'd do it quicker but I'm already hogging this site too much) trying to express is that I think all of that beautiful work is in fact consistent with flood geology and didn't actaully prove how the geological column got there.

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JM: Well, here I go repeating myself like I said I would try to avoid---but here goes. WHERE? What evidence have they published? All we get is assertion. No data. So, where's the data published? If I do a search on GEOREF, who's name should I look for?

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IMO Hutton and Lyell (and the rest of you) have primarily demonstrated that almost all features carved out of the vast beds of the column could have been done gradually over eons. I agree. We also think it could have happened rapidly out of soft sediments.

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JM: You keep painting this false picture of geology despite the fact that we have told you that processes vary over time. Some features are fast (volcanic eruptions) and some are slow (the creation of birdfoot deltas). Soft sediment deformation, when it occurs, is quite obvious in the field. The problem with the soft-sediment idea is the presence of very striking brittle features in the rocks (such as joints and fractures) which parellel deformation in the mountain belts where we find them. S

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I will categorically state that 99% of the books I have read on 'Origin of Sedimentary Rocks' do not actaully cover the issue of 'Origin of the Geological Column'. There are a dozen erosional/depostional environments that in great detail are linked in terms of ancient/current.

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JM: I suspect that they do, but not in the manner that you desire. Frankly speaking, I am not sure what you want since the origin of the geologic column is discussed in nearly every elementary book I have ever read!

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On the critical issue of where did the vast beds (ie not the erosional feauteres but the alyers themselves) that characterize the continental deposits there is near silence.

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JM: How do you figure? I am preparing a proposal on a 5000 meter thick sequence of sedimentary strata in India. I've no less than 30 references discussing the formation of these sedimentary units. The references discuss the provnenance of the sediments, the paleocurrent directions, the depositional environments and even the rates of deposition. To assert that such things are not discussed is absurd in the highest degree.

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On a few pages of these texts (Shelley, 1996 for example - see my opening post) we find the admission that there is no modern analog for the formation of these vast beds.

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JM: What vast beds? The entire geologic column? Why would something that took millions of years to form have a modern analogue (i.e. the last 100 years?). However, we find sediments accumulating and dewatering in the Mississippi delta, we find carbonates being formed in the Bahamas (UF runs a field trip there yearly), we find conglomeratic units being deposited in high energy river systems. We find glaciers depositing moraines. We see dunes forming cross beds in modern deserts. To assert that there are no modern analogues is also absurd in the highest degree.

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I have no problem with that (but boy did I have to do a lot of reading to find that out). I can appreciate that due to plate tectonics we live in a different world. It is still interesting that the vast beds of the geological column are not forming anywhere on this planet as they have previously.

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JM: You mean you had to search high and low to find one quotation that hints at what you think is a problem? OK.

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It is true that Lyell made all of his claims without knowing this is it not?

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JM: HUH? I don't understand this sentence.

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Lyell never really did prove where the vast beds of the geolgocial colum ncame from and I don't think that contemporary scientists have either. It is a nice theory that sounds right. I'll grant that

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JM: As you well know, science is not about 'proof'. Absolutes fall in the religious realm (and even those are relative between religions!)CheersJoe Meert

A couple of points.(1) The link is working provided I type it in correctly! It's here(2) Sea level changes have several different amplitudes and glaciation is only one of them.(3) Dynamic topography caused by increased spreading rates is well known from the Cretaceous. This is the so-called Cretaceous superplume event by Larson and others.(4) The variations in temperature of the mantle impose a shape to the geoid which creates long wavelength geoid lows over subduction zones and highs over ridges. As continents move towards the geoid lows, they may become inundated. This is discussed to some degree here; however also see Gurnis 1992 (Science 255, 1556-1558).You took the word glacial and ran with it, but please note that I discussed it among other scenarios in my post.(5) Why are the beds flat? Well, because of gravity. Particles tend to settle in layers (try it). I think the picture you imagine in your head is somewhat simplistic. For example, even on a sloped surface, the sediments will accumulate in horizontal layers although the layers will 'pinch out' up slope. A simple picture of this is shown below: (6) I've noted a few problems with the creationist 'models' in the piece on the ocean floor, but there are others. For example, creationist's have no answers for the many pre-Pleistocene glacial deposits other than to assert they don't exist (or are misindentified).(7) Sedimentation and the processes of sedimentation for NEARLY all types of rocks have modern analogues that are described in the literature. Here are a few references:Deepwater channel systems in Turkey as a comparative architectural analogue for sinuous depositional channel systems in high-resolution 3-D seismic Faulkenberry, Laura; Kneller, Ben; Peakall, Jeff; Cronin, B T SO: AAPG Bulletin, vol.85, no.11, pp.2050, Nov 2001Sediment"-cement relationships in a Pleistocene speleothem from Italy; a possible analogue for "replacement" cements and Archaeolithoporoella in ancient reefs Kendall, Alan C; Iannace, Alessandro Sedimentology, vol.48, no.3, pp.681-698, Jun 2001The effects of surface area, grain size and mineralogy on organic matter sedimentation and preservation across the modern Squamish Delta, British Columbia; the potential role of sediment surface area in the formation of petroleum source rocks Adams, Rupert S; Bustin, R Marc International Journal of Coal Geology, vol.46, no.2-4, pp.93-112, May 2001Gypsum salina-coral reef relationships during the last interglacial (marine isotopic stage 5e) on the Egyptian Red Sea coast; a Quaternary analogue for Neogene marginal evaporites?
AU: Orszag-Sperber, F; Plaziat, J C; Baltzer, F; Purser, B H
SO: Sedimentary Geology, vol.140, no.1-2, pp.61-85, Apr 2001Glacier surging as a control on the development of proglacial, fluvial landforms and deposits, Skeidararsandur, Iceland
AU: Russell, A J; Knight, P G; van Dijk, T A G P
SO: Global and Planetary Change, vol.28, no.1-4, pp.163-174, Feb 2001Morphology and sedimentology of a giant supraglacial, ice-walled, jokulhlaup channel, Skeidararjokull, Iceland; implications for esker genesis Russell, A J; Knudsen, O; Fay, H; Marren, P M; Heinz, J; Tronicke, J Global and Planetary Change, vol.28, no.1-4, pp.193-216, Feb 2001The Gulf of Carpentaria as a modern tectonic and eustatic analogue for the Illinois Basin during the Pennsylvanian Gluskoter, Hal J; Edgar, N Terence; Cecil, C Blaine; Dulong, Frank T; Damberger, Heinz H Abstracts with Programs - Geological Society of America, vol.33, no.6, pp.55, 2001The provenance and facies architecture of Upper Triassic fluvo-lacustrine deposits from the UK; a modern analogue Clarke, Paul R
SO: AAPG Bulletin, vol.84, no.11, pp.1862, Nov 2000Sandstone sheets associated with deep-water channels; three analogue candidates for HARPS in Turkish Eocene exposures with different origin, external geometry and connectivity Cronin, Bryan T; Hurst, Andrew AAPG Bulletin, vol.84, no.9, pp.1415, Sep 2000CheersJoe Meert

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I'm genuinely intreted in how the transgressions/regressions occured. So transgressions occurred due to more rapid build up at the mid-oceanic ridges.

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JM: More correctly, due to the dynamic topography generated via increased spreading rates.

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What about my simple idea (based on what you've told me so far) of delayed subduction of oceanic plates under continental plates? Wouldn't this explain the data? You have semi-continuous sea-floor spreading at mid-oceanic ridges. This causes the regression onto continents via displacement of water by folded oceanic crust.

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JM: I don't know how to say this, but you are making no sense!

We know that the earth maintains a 'rough' balance between spreading and subduction. However, in terms of driving forces, subduction is not driven by ridge spreading per se, it is due to the negative buoyancy of the slab. I think (but my post was snipped last night for some reason) that TB has a somewhat twisted view of the process (talk of folded oceanic crust). Subduction is not 'delayed' during increased spreading events.CheersJoe Meert

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Thanks Joe. I'll read your web site page carefully.

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JM: I would hope you would read your books carefully as well.

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In this thread I really am trying to find out the fundamental processes that led to the multiple trasngressions/regressions of the sea onto land. Why? Because I'm wanting to point out that even in the standard mainstream framework it is these cyclical events that generated the majority of the strata. The vast beds across North America or Africa for example. Even the mainstream view is that these formed via transgressions/regressions of sea onto land, not via river deltas etc.

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From a look at the titles of the papers you have listed I can see that these are typical Lyellian analyses which I don't doubt. But what I'm saying is that that is not the bread and butter of the geological column. These erosional and depositional feautres are superimposed on top of the vast beds generated via transgressions. I know that mainstream geolgoists know this but I sometimes think they fail to point out the qualitative differnece of the vast beds generated by transgressions to the Lyellian feautures that formed after each regression.

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JM: And so it goes:TB: Well what about the 'vast beds'Meert, Edge and others: Examples, pubs, corrections and web site linksTB: No, I mean the REALLY VAST BEDS.Meert, Edge and Others: Examples, pubs, corrections, web sites.TB: Not the Lyellian stuff, I mean THE MEGA REALLY VAST BEDSsigh! You dismissed a suite of references sans reading--yet you claim to be a "Phded" scientist. Poor scholarship (refusal to read) cannot help this discussion continue. [QUOTE]I very much understand the gravitational reason why sediments are flat. However, IMO we should only expect them to be very flat when they are rapidly laid down. Normal continental shelf floors are not flat like the Grand Canyon marine strata! I've scuba dived - I know and I can also look at Grand Canyon sections (or the road cuttings near my house) for a comparison.[/B][/QUOTE]JM: And so it goes:TB: What about the flat layers?JM: Here's how they form.TB: No I mean the REALLY flat layers.Others (JM gives up): Here's the explanation and observations found in any elementary textbook.TB: Yeah, but I mean THE SUPER REALLY FLAT LAYERS. Now those can only form quickly!JM: What an absurd extrapolation! What (other than a misinterpretation of Genesis) could lead you to conclude that the only way to get SUPER REALLY FLAT LAYERS is through a flood?CheersJoe Meert