Young earth explanations for Angular Unconformities

Again,A massive amount of water from above and below, coupled with countless assumable circumstances make it EXTREMELY difficult to postulate a hypothesis on the how. This doesn't in the least make it impossible, just not dogmatic. You demand something that would be absurd at best for me to reason through. I know, you can't know either.

The offer still stands.If there is a Flood Model it should be able to explain what is seen.As a very devout Christian I invite you to step through and show how the Flood Model can explain reality.That is after all, the topic of this thread.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Vashgun is the only creationist to have ever posted in this topic. As s/he is not buying the most basic of geologic principles, the Law of Superposition, it is pointless to be dabating anything else geologic with him/her.Going to close this topic down. Maybe it can be reopened at a later and more useful time.Vashgun - I strongly suggest your confine your geology postings to the above cited topic. If things work out there, then you can go into other geology topics.Adminnemooseus

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Topic reopened.Adminnemooseus

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Here's a couple of angular unconformities. Not really spectacular "text book" examples. But it just goes to show they're everywhere. Not just one or two flukes. In the first one, from northern California, the lower steeply inclined unit is Cretaceous Great Valley sequence. It's hard to see the bedding in the upper unit but it is flat. The unit is the Pliocene Tehama Formation. There's A couple of notable features: first, a fault in the lower right of the picture with drag folds that indicate the direction of movement. The hanging wall (upper block) has moved up. The fault doesn't appear to extend into the Tehama although there may have been an erosional scarp. Also, at the base of the flat lying Tehama is a "basal conglomerate" that includes eroded material from the lower unit. It clearly indicates the lower unit was solid rock before the upper unit was deposited. In the second one, from southern California, I'm not sure what the units are. The lower one is probably a marine sandstone, part of the Tertiary section that is common in this area. the upper unit is probably a very old stream terrace (old for a stream terrace, probably Pleistocene) deposit associated with a river that is about 200 feet downslope, or perhaps not associated with any modern drainage. The thing to note about this one is that the upper unit is composed mostly of sandstone boulders derived from the lower unit, and granitic boulders from the local mountains. Most stream terraces are adjacent to the stream they are associated with. So I think this unit may have been deposited by an ancestral river that is no longer reflected in the modern landscape. It is a mysterious enigmatic unit, and it may have formed in a "catastrophic" flood. But one thing is certain: it formed much later than the sandstones that it covers. And whatever flood formed it was not global. The extent of this unit is confined to this particular valley. Whatever flood, or more likely floods, that formed it didn't even cover the local drainage divides.

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Brent

I am going to ask the obvious again. Since these are surfaced rock, what stops me from assuming that the entire layer isn't the same? On the bottom picture the unconformity looks like it could have occured when the road was established. Wouldn't unconformities suggest rapid deposition due to the nature of how it is laid down? And doesn't this deposition go against the basic principles of Geology?Also, what geology mechanism is used to explain these unconformities?Edited by Highestevolvedwhiteguy, : No reason given.

Please clarify- which layer? On what do you base this? How so? especially since we haven't yet looked at what rocks are involved in many of these unconformities. No. Which ones are you thinking of and in what way are they violated?

I'm not sure what the significance of being near the surface is. An erosion surface is the main feature of all unconformities. Erosion surfaces form at the earth's surface so I'm not sure why this would be a problem. Nevertheless, in the first photo the upper unit, the Tehama Formation, thickens eastward from this location to about 2000 feet in the middle of the Sacramento Valley. The unconformity, with Great Valley sequence overlain by either the Tehama or other formations, is traceable in the subsurface in oil and gas wells throughout the valley. Numerous unconformities, most of them not angular occur above this major angular unconformity in the subsurface of the Great Valley. Subsurface erosion surfaces can even be mapped, showing typical surface features like weathering and stream channels. An ancient impact crater has been found in the subsurface of the Great Valley.In the lower picture, yes the upper unit is quite young. I called it a very old terrace because it is elevated a couple hundred feet above the modern drainage. Young modern terraces are right next to the modern channels. This is one of the youngest deposits in the area. But it is in the road cut so it must pre-date the road. And a close look at the deposit indicates it was not formed in a single event. Some of the deposit consists of unsorted material ranging in size from boulders to sand. Some boulders not well rounded and are in a sandy matrix with no preferred orientation.This suggests deposition by debris flow. But other parts have gravel that is well rounded and sorted, suggestimg normal channel deposition. There are even sandy lenses that look like sand bars. The upper material does indeed appear to have been depositged rapidly, but clearly not in one event. Rapid deposition like this does not go against the basic principles of geology, it is in perfect accord with them. There is no problem finding modern analogs for this type of deposit.The geologic mechanisms used to explain these unconformities are totally incompatible with flood geology. In the early days of geology, unconformities like these could not be explained by the geologic mechanisms of 18th century catastrophism. It was recognized that after deposition, the deformed sediments had to have been tilted, uplifted and eroded prior to the deposition of the upper sediment. The overlying units often contain eroded and weathered pieces of the underlying units, as well as material derived from rocks that did not esist when the upper rocks were deposited. In the Sierra Nevada granitic rock intrudes older deformed meta-sedimentary rock. Both are truncated by an erosion surface and overlain by younger Tertiary sediment. The Tertiary sediment contains material from the tilted meta-sediment and the granitics that intrude them. What flood geology mechanism could explain this? Remember it has to explain the presence of lithified, weathered pieces of underlying rocks and pieces igneous rock that has intruded (and therefore must be younger) the underlying rock. You've got one year to do it! Noah's flood year. Mainstream geology has all the time in the world.Edited by bdfoster, : No reason given.

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Brent

pick one. The fact...THAT THERE IS A ROAD THERE! sheesh. How, because it goes against the LoS, original horizion, original lateral. LoS, original horizion, original lateral.

I'm now fairly sure that you haven't understood any of the basic principles in the slightest.Explain how you think each of these are violated.Edited by The Matt, : No reason given.

It may be that Vashgun is saying, angular conformities were formed in the deluge. They have horizontal sediment overlyling tilted sediment. Therefore superposition and original horizontality must be false. If they were true it would violate his logical premise, that angular conformities were formed in the deluge.

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Brent

He may also be assuming that just because the ones that have been shown are all relatively near the surface that all are near the surface.I would suggest trying to find out what HE thinks an unconformity is and what the model is for creating an unconformity.Then step on to an angular unconformity.Then move on to show that there can be a whole series of unconformities in a geological column.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Im not saying throw the los and lot out, it just looks like those principles don't apply to unconformities. The only thing that violates my logical premise, is your saying there is a dichotomy between the laws and what my eyeballs are seeing.

Again, please explain how they do not apply. I'm still not sure you understand them.

the reason the law of superposition is a law instead of a hypothesis is because of angular unconformities. they are what prove it beyond any shadow of doubt.in order for an angular unconformity to exist, that layer and all below it need to be solidified before they are turned on their sides. the layers on top then must be formed after this occurence, with time for weathering in between.because angular unconformities are local and happen at many different levels, it tells us that the geologic column must have been laid down sequentially. we can talk about time later, but this is not the sort of event we see in a flood plain. floods always make very disturbed-looking, semi-homogenous single layers. they do not separate, sediment, turn over, sediment some more, and repeat. they make one layer.

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