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Paul, you've got things seriously out of order here. The meanders occur at the very end of the carving of the canyon, whether on OE theory or YEC theory. The meanders were carved by the RIVER at the BOTTOM of the Canyon, that on MY scenario wouldn't have existed as a river until after the entire canyon had been scoured out by the huge volume of water I've kept describing as spilling into cracks in the uplift from all sides until it's carved away miles and miles of strata and sent it west and out of the canyon.

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I'm pretty sure that you're wrong about the OE view - that states that the meanders are early and are cut by the river continuing to follow the same course as it cuts down.In any version where the canyon forms before the meanders you have the difficulty of how the meanders get cut - and where's the evidence for it? Where's the original canyon, for one?And if the meanders could be cut that deep over time, without the initial surge, why not the rest of the canyon?

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And on the OE theory the current river bed with its meanders also wouldn't have existed, in that case for millions of years because it would take that long for the river to carve out the canyon and it wouldn't get so deep until very recent time.

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You're not making a lot of sense here. IN the OE view as I understand it, the River and it,s meanders existed before the uplift. When the uplift started the river eroded downwards, keeping it's original course. The meanders got their depth the same way as the rest of the canyon. So I guess the problem is just your assumption that the meanders are relatively recent.

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Um, sure, but you have to assume you've got a river bed anywhere in the vicinity of today's canyon, when the canyon didn't yet exist and was no deeper than a rather shallow river bed and how it could get that deep under the circumstances is rather puzzling to. I find it hard to suppose a riverbed could have existed at all along the south slope of that sausage shaped uplift no matter how high the uplift.

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I guess you're still missing the point that the river bed has cut down at the same rate as the uplift has raised the land around it - in a sense the river bed hasn't moved at all.
(The downward erosion is a response to the uplift, which makes sense when you think about it. )

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I think you are mixing things up, in some way it's hard to pin down. The meanders did not exist AT ALL until toward the very end of the formation of the canyon, that is after millions of years on OE theory, and at the very end of the draining of the Flood waters on YEC theory.

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No, you"re simply wrong about the mainstream view.

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Again, sure, but again, getting a riverbed established at all along the south slop of the uplift, still strikes me as highly unlikely. You seem to keep picturing the current riverbed at the bottom of the canyon but I'm picturing it all before there was any canyon, only a shallow riverbed following the course that would eventually become the canyon, and that's what seems unlikely to me. But sure, if you HAVE a riverbed there, certainly the river will keep cutting into it.

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The river exists before the uplift. The slope is produced by the uplift. Therefore the river is established before there is any slope to worry about. That seems obvious to me.

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That depends on the river's already flowing before the canyon existed at all, in the direction you expect it to end up in the eventual canyon it's supposedly already begun to cut, and before the uplift even got started. It also depends on its already having a nicely barricaded channel to flow in that would keep it from flowing south if the channel is flowing east-west, and if you have any evidence that it WAS already flowing east to west in such a nicely walled channel before the uplift occurred you've got a point.

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If your only objection to the conventional explanation is that it assumes that there was a river right where the river is now then you really don't have much of an objection.

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But of course it's all made up as all this stuff is.

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I think that the fact that we DO have a river there is pretty good evidence. If you want to argue otherwise you need to do more than try to pretend it's just made up.

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Very convenient that the uplift just happened to rise exactly where the channel was flowing along the southern side of that eventual mound where the canyon eventually developed. I wonder how that happened?

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I don't see anything exact about it.

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Rivers don't normally keep to a certain course even over a hundred years let alone millions and let alone keep meanders, that are created by differential deposition along their flow, keep it all going in a GENERAL east-west direction without losing its course, while the land is rising with a strong north-south slope into which it all somehow continues to keep its course even over millions of years and maintain it at the mile deep bottom of the very canyon it supposedly carved. .

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It is true that under more normal circumstances rivers regularly change their courses. In this case, however, we have two additional factors - the uplift and the canyon.The uplift forces the river to cut deeply into the rock, and in doing so causes the river to be constrained - and that's why it retains it's course.

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But anything is possible in human imagination strongly under the sway of a theory.

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Oh no. None of us on the side of science would possibly come up with something as daft as attributing the order in the fossil record to mechanical sorting. Or even as silly as suggesting the the meanders developed after the canyon was cut, while leaving no evidence behind to tell that it had happened at all.

Faith I understand why you're leaving now. The obvious desperation in your recent posts, your inability to dent the mainstream view of how the canyon was cut, and the lack of any sensible alternative that fit with your beliefs are all too obvious.

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The idea that an uplift would "force" a river to cut deeply into rock just strikes ME as daft, speaking of daft. Like you live on some other planet than Planet Earth.

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It's already been explained in this thread. And it's pretty easy to see that flowing water - and whatever it is carrying - is going to hit an upward slope in its path, so erosion would naturally follow. A little thought is all it takes.

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THIS is what strikes ME as daft. I can't even figure out what on earth you think you are saying. You get meanders in a river following a particular course. It isn't going to keep that course for millions of years while at the same time it supposedly cuts out a canyon miles wide a mile deep and hundreds of miles long.

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But I note that you don't offer a more sensible alternative that fits the evidence. So I'm going to ask the obvious question again. If the canyon was cut before the meanders formed, where is the original canyon ? You don't just lose a stretch of canyon that deep !Anyway, it's again pretty obvious that solid rock is a more substantial barrier than the average riverbank.

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I've given up trying to deal with all the things said in all your posts. Once it was said that a river is going to be FORCED to cut more deeply into an uplift I just gave up on anything making sense at all.

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If you choose to reject things that make sense then it's no surprise that you end up believing nonsense.

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This makes NO sense. Rivers do not try to maintain some supposed preferred level by cutting deeper into rock. It's unbelievable to me that anyone would say such a thing. Rivers "seek their own level" is an old saying, but it means they run to ground that is at their own level or lower, they do NOTHING with higher ground except run off it, unless their banks keep them in a certain channel, but the reason they follow the channel is that it is lower than the banks. If higher ground rises in front of them they are either forced to become a deep pool until they find a new outlet over the obstacle, or they back up until they find an outlet in that direction. That's what dams do.

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It would be a pretty odd uplift that lifted the riverbed above the banks. As I've already explained the uplift is slow, the slope of the uplift causes the water to hit against the slope (that's simple geometry!) and that - with the help of any hard objects carried in the water will cause erosion. (And if you really believe that flowing water can't cut into objects that rise in front of it, then I'd like to see your explanation for the Grand Canyon !)All that is necessary is for the erosion to keep the bed low enough that the river has a course. And quite obviously the riverbed in the Grand Canyon IS low enough for the Colorado River to flow.

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The creation of barriers is also what creates meanders. The river deposits build up along the banks under certain circumstances forcing the river more and more in a new direction until it makes a complete hairpin turn.

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And the relevance is ?

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For the same reason they will run down the bottom of canyons once they find their way into one, because that's the lowest level around. The canyon had to already BE there though, rivers do NOT cut great canyons. Sigh.

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So you argue that a river flowing through a canyon MUST alter it's course as rivers usually do, but that it can't cut a course through a canyon. What's the big difference that makes the first inevitable and the second impossible ? Both come down to the river cutting it's way through rock. (And we've got an explanation of why it's easier to cut the canyon than to change course within a canyon).Not that you have an alternative to the river cutting the canyon - the meanders in the Grand Canyon were obviously cut by a river. Reality trumps your imaginings, Faith.

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Actually the idea that rivers cut INTO rising rock is the sort of thing that people say when they're high on dope, and it usually provokes a fit of hilarity followed by a fit of the munchies.

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Try coming up with something that makes more sense, Faith. But I guess this explains how you really came up with your ideas about angular conformities.

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But I am not addressing the river IN the canyon, I'm addressing the river before the canyon existed, which was supposedly flowing across a plain when the land started to uplift. Of course a tiny amount of uplift isn't going to make a difference but a foot or so of uplift probably would depending on the size of the river. And it seems to me it would have to DIVERT the river around it, pool its water where it encounters the uplift and other possibilities.

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Which only makes sense if you ASSUME that the uplift must outpace the erosion. If the erosion keeps up with the uplift, leaving the river at the same level then it won't be diverted. As I keep explaining.

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No, not WITHIN THE CANYON, not once it is at the bottom of the canyon. I'm talking about what is supposed to have been its situation BEFORE THE CANYON EXISTED, how it would change its course as rivers tend to do on a plain, often many changes in course.

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You seem to be arguing against your own position here. The mainstream view has the meanders created before the canyon existed exactly as you say.

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As the land uplifted it simply wouldn't run where the canyon eventually was cut because the uplift doesn't slope in the right direction for that to happen. Rivers don't just tend to run east-west on a slope that tilts north-south.

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And still you fail to understand that the shape of the land doesn't matter because the river came first, and has kept its level through erosion. In the mainstream view, that erosion is what creates the canyon, so it's hardly something you can ignore.

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You've got a lot of ifs in your erosion-uplift ratio, but apparently you have no problem assuming the "right" ratio against all probability, even when the river finds itself clinging to a slope that slants away from its own course. Oh well.

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Not really. All we need is the erosion to be fast enough to keep pace. That's not a huge 'if' and you don't have anything even close to as good. Try counting the 'ifs' in your preferred explanation in the same way and see where you get.And the river doesn't cling to the slope, it cuts into the slope as it develops. So long as you fail to understand that you're going to waste your time making arguments that miss the target.

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The shape of the river, meanders and all, isn't going to be maintained through the cutting of a stack of layers a mile deep,

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The evidence would seem to show that it has. This isn't a dogma, it's just the only thing that accounts for the evidence.The meanders were cut by the river. There are no deep cuts showing earlier courses. Deal with those facts.

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meanders themselves often don't stay meanders, according to Wikipedia on the subject.

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Read up on incised meanders.

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Yeah disturbance on too small a scale to mean what the OE theory says it means, that's the point of getting back to appreciate that fact, really very simple and obvious if you don't have the OE blinders on.

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I have to admit that I don't understand why you think that this is a good argument. I can't see any reason why there shouldn't be areas where the visible erosion is too small to be clearly seen in a photograph taken from a distance (I find that the 2-dimensional nature of photographs is a hindrance, on top of the distance).

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The Flood left a ton of evidence all over the earth. It left all the strata, it left the Grand Canyon and all the formations of the Southwest (It's really kind of amusing to think of the separate layers of which the hoodoos are built as each representing millions of years of time), it left the scablands, it left the traces of the huge lakes such as the Missoula and Lahontan and Bonneville, it left the dinosaur beds and the fossils.

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Claiming that the Flood did things - which it obviously did not - does not make them evidence for the Flood.So thanks for yet again showing that the Flood is only a myth.

I believe that I can offer some clarifications.

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1. There's a section of the GC that's (how many) hundreds of miles long showing flat, undisturbed sedimentary layers.

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We have no clear idea of how long this section, or sections, is. Only that faith doesn't want us to consider other locations, apparently because they don't support her argument.However, it is not true that they are undisturbed, only that the effects of the disturbance is not visible in photographs taken form the opposite side of the canyon. That's a really major difference (and as we've seen the two dimensional nature of photographs does seem to make interpreting the pictures difficult).So far as I can tell this is not a very good argument. Plains exist, so I'm not sure what a region of mostly flat land - when it's even above water - is meant to show. Especially when the sort of erosional features Faith talks about seem to be visible in the strata in other places.

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It's about 250 miles long.

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Is it ? On what basis do you make that claim ? How do you know that there are no sufficiently large disturbances for all that distance ?

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Actually they ALL support my argument, even the picture in my previous post, but because the situation is so much messier it's harder to MAKE the argument.

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Or maybe your interpretation of the picture is wrong.Anyway, I'm still waiting for an explanation of how the relatively small areas we've seen can possibly be sufficient to conclude a young Earth, even without all the contrary evidence.Edited by PaulK, : Clarify question

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Pollux, I've read a fair amount in the history of geology and especially the concept of deep time starting with Hutton (read the biography of Hutton, The Man Who Found Time). You are wrong, it is NOT based on facts, it is based completely on subjective impressions and arguments.

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You can declare the truth to be wrong all you like, but that wont chage the facts.

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Hutton looked at a formation and decided it had to be millions of years old. He decided this subjectively, not objectively, not with any evidence but only his own inability to see how an angular unconformity could have been formed rapidly, ignoring the fact that the entire formation clearly exhibits identical weathering rather than the millions of years between the sections of it that he asserted had to be the case.

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Is this actually true, or another fiction like your "erosional belts" ?Also see post Message 210 for reasons why Hutton was right about Siccar Point. Of course you ignored it the first time around.

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Here, tell me the upper originally horizontal strata are less weathered by millions of years than the lower vertical strata at Hutton's famous Siccar Point

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Simple question: Under the views of mainstream geology, how long have the visible surfaces in your photograph been exposed to weathering ? Show your working.However, I will note that the upper strata certainly appear to be more heavily eroded. So I have to ask how you judge the degree of weathering, too.

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They had a very BAD understanding of YEC principles in the early days, really really bad ideas of what kind of evidence the Flood would have left for instance. Much of their bad understanding needed to be corrected, just as much of the nutty creationist ideas in Darwin's time needed the corrections in Origin of Species. Nevertheless the theories that supplanted those early bad ideas are just as false. I find it easy to support today's YEC explanations from the actual observed facts myself.

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I think you mean that the early geologists weren't nutty enough given some of the ideas that you've put forward. And certainly you've had great problems honestly supporting your ideas in this thread. I suppose it is easy ignore evidence (and demand others to ignore it) and to make up silly speculations - easier than actually caring about the truth. Coming to conclusions based on prejudice is much easier than following evidence and reason. And we know that you do that.

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I believe if you grasp my argument, RAZD's arguments will have to be rethought.

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Well that's obviously false. The evidence that RAZD uses is untouched by your argument and it still needs to be explained. Just as the order in the fossil record needs to be explained, and not dismissed with silly ideas about mechanical sorting (one of the daftest ideas I've seen from any creationist - even mainstream YECs know that that isn't viable).

Sure you find it easier to worship the words that men have put into God's mouth than follow Christ.

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No, it's what I've been complaining about as a VIOLATION of the physical laws of the universe, and even go on to object to in that same post you are answering here. It makes absolutely NO sense to me that water would cut deeper into upraised land, NONE whatever. It can only detour around it, roll off it, pool up in front of it or whatever, but cut more deeply into it, no, a thousand times no. Yes it's been said many times here. For me it is a trip down the rabbit hole or through the looking glass, or a deep drag on the hookah. It makes NO sense.

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I don't understand how you can say that.Start with the fact that the uplift is slow. The river won't leave its course because of the uplift immediately, not until the uplift has reached a point where it will block the river.So if the river can cut down as fast as the uplift raises the ground this issue will not arise. From that, we'd get a canyon that looks like a river course. And since we're looking for an explanation of why the Grand Canyon looks like a river course, things are looking pretty good for the conventional explanation.So we've got a small slope in the river, but not enough to block it. Now I can see that the water of the river - and material carried in it - is going to hit that slope and so there will be an erosive force. And the steeper the slope, the stronger the erosion.So it's just a matter of erosion matching uplift - and with positive feedback helping, right up until the point where the river is forced to find a new course. And the evidence is that didn't happen - the river is right there.Now certainly there is a problem for any view which tries to put the uplift BEFORE the river. You would need the canyon in pretty much it's present shape - meanders and all - to be somehow formed in just the right place for the river - and it's tributaries - to flow through.Now THAT makes no sense.

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Fine, go ahead and try to make me give up on the law of gravity. Good luck.

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All that you have to give up on is your strange idea that any violation of the law of gravity is required. Which should be easy since there's no basis for it at all.

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As I see it, the uplift is the problem for ANY explanation of how the canyon formed because it requires water, whether of Flood proportions or a mere river, to excavate a path through a SLOPE that normally water avoids like the plague.

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Water is not allergic to slopes. The avoidance is based on simple physical principles not an actual aversion. In fact this is WHY explanations with the river existing before the uplift work better. Once the course of the river is established it is easier for the river to flow over a small slope than to leave its course - it is constrained by its banks.

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If we have higher ground from which the water originates, and we have some way of getting that water into that very odd trench on the south side of a slope, then we can argue for either the river OR the Flood at that point. But that's a main reason I like the idea of the cracks -- because it gives openings to catch the water and direct it where it might not normally choose to go.

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But the mainstream view with the river first is better still. Your problems only apply to uplift-first views, like yours.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.