One possible alternative explanation is that tectonic forces pushed up settled strata before the next layers were laid down on top of them over a relatively brief period of, say, years, or even less.
Well, except for the "brief period part", this is what Hutton said, so it is not an alternate explanation.
Sorry for not being precise enough. The alternative explanation IS the brief period part.
How is this explanation consistent with a flood? Remember you have to get the lower layers laid down, lignified, then pushed up with the ends vertical, the vertical edge eroded to a horizontal plane in some cases, and upper layers laid down and lignified.
Isn't the term "lithified," not "lignified?" I certainly don't see this occurring DURING the flood, but afterward. The idea is that the layers were laid down over some period of time by water, how long a time is not known but within years, including both the flood period and the time the flood took to recede afterward -- which period of receding would have included tidal action over the land areas. Yes, I am visualizing what you describe except that I have a worldwide flood in mind so I do picture damp sediments that took quite a long time to dry out and harden into rock -- though I would think that the sheer weight of the stack could accomplish hardening in a relatively short period of time. Thinking of the way the Grand Canyon area looks, as I said, I figure it COULD have happened the way I described.
the entire stack could have been laid down already, even up to the height of the Grand Staircase, and already compressed greatly, after which magma from beneath displaced some of the lower stack and forced them in a vertical direction. This force was not great enough to displace the entire stack because of its enormous weight.
No, it could not have happened this way and I believe someone has already explained to you why in another thread. Geologists can tell whether an intrusion was into air or into an existing layer by the crystalization structure at the interface.
Look at the
Grand Staircase diagram. Not sure you are addressing what I'm describing. The intrusion didn't even get into the strata of the Grand Canyon proper, only into the uncomformities at the very bottom, as can be seen on the diagram I linked (after you wrote this post I'm answering I understand, but I'll get to that eventually). All it seems to have done, besides intruding into those tilted strata at the bottom, is push the whole Grand Canyon area upward from underneath, including those uncomformities themselves, which I'm suggesting against your objections could have been tilted at that same time by that same force.
How do you explain the neat layering of the overlying strata from the bottom unconformity all the way up to the Kaibab, following the hump and the slope to the north and yet maintaining that parallel layering as it did, if the uplift that caused the hump and probably the unconformity at the base as well, did not occur AFTER the entire stack was complete? I mean, there's no way neat parallel layers of loose sediments are going to lay themselves down over a big hump and a steep slope like that. They would wind up in a heap at the lowest part of the slope. That didn't happen. I can't imagine that geologists think anything different but then don't they have to agree that the uplifting force occurred after the strata were laid down? And isn't that a likely cause of the tilting of the uncomformity at the bottom too? Clearly they were laid down as fairly even horizontal deposits and THEN the upthrust from below pushed them into the hump-and-slope configuration. And it seems to me that same force would have created the uncomformities at the bottom at the same time. Sorry I know I keep repeating myself but I've had the experience so often here of saying something that seems obvious to me but others misread that I feel it's necessary.
Also, the intrusion has been eroded to a horizontal plane before the deposition of the upper layers. How do you explain that, flood wise?
I figure the flood had receded by this point for starters. The stack was built by it, but we are now talking about post-flood effects. If the force from beneath occurred after the entire stack was built, which is the idea I am pursuing here, the weight of the upper part of the stack could simply have provided a counterforce that would in effect shear off the top of the uncomformity, perhaps at the junction between two different particular kinds of sediments that allowed for particularly mobile slippage between the two. Where would the sheared off corners go? I guess they'd form rubble somewhere in the vicinity of the uncomformity, under the bottom layer (The Tapeats? I keep printing out stuff on these things but it's hard to keep track of. I need a better file system). Even the fact that the layers of the uncomformity are in two separate sections, separately uptilted broken segments of the same layers, suggests that they enountered a counterforce from above. The lowest layers of both are identical. The next layers above are identical -- the red section into which the magma from below has intruded -- etc. They were once the same horizontal strata until the force from beneath tilted them. (Is this the way the Great Uncomformity appears everywhere? Haven't been able to track it down yet). But if there had been no layers above, why wouldn't the whole stack have uptilted? Why sections? I hope this is clear.
The layers must have been still relatively soft as they maintain their even horizontal configuration over the entire slope caused by this force from underneath,
Again you are repeating claims that have been pointed out to you as being not consistent with geological science. Layers do no deform this way when they are "relatively soft". Lignified (rock) layers deform this way.
I'm simply trying to account for the fact that the many layers above the unconformity at the bottom show such a neat parallel structure, although they cover an enormous distance over that hump and slope created by the uplifting force from beneath. If that is possible after lithification, fine, it doesn't affect the point. The point, again, is to explain this DRAPING effect of the entire stack of layers over this hump and down this slope in such neat parallel form, which is seen on that diagram I linked. Seems to me that layers couldn't form so neatly over hills and dales. They had to have been horizontal originally, and that being the case, the hump was created after they were all in place, and that being the case, there's this other question about how they draped so neatly and stayed so parallel if they were solidly lithified -- which as I said, may be possible as Jazz claims though it seems unlikely to my untutored imagination just looking at it -- you tell me.
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