Evidence that the Great Unconformity did not Form Before the Strata above it

I can point to thousands of true Christians like me but for some reason they don't come to a place like EvC. I'm the only one dumb enough to do that.Christianity is God's own work, it can never be dismantled. This is just the sorting of the true believers from the compromisers. Probably a good thing really. In the rest of the world where Christians are being murdered for being Christians they only get stronger. Americans are soft, we could use some beheadings to sort the wheat from the chaff.ABE: I'm not really off topic. This is what it's really all about and I'm leaving this thread.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Continuing the unconformity discussion, here is a photo of the GU in the Thousand Islands area of New York. As you can see it is not quite so 'straight and flat' as Faith would have us believe.And here is a schematic section of the region showing significant relief on the regional scale, on the eroded Precambrian surface beneath the Potsdam Sandstone, equivalent to the Tapeats Sandstone. Also note the modern glacial unconformity beneath the blue-green unit.

You use the term "GU" (I assume that to be "Great Unconformity") here. I'm just learning about such, but does the term "GU" refer to specific instances of an uncomformity? I had thought in North America it referred to the one discovered by Powell.JB

That's just shorthand for this forum. I don't think that it's a common usage.For the most part, I'd keep this discussion to the Grand Canyon (GC) location, except to show variations on unconformities. Faith kind of forced us in this direction and made the conversion go global to show how unconformities form.The Great Unconformity is so huge and so long in forming that there are a variety of ages in both the lower, and the upper sequences. It is probably also eroded at more than one time in the geological record.That's just my opinion for the sake of keeping the discussion from becoming too complex, which may already be the case.

But what happens when the uncompromising Christians (AKA "true Christians") take a position that is obviously, blatantly, undeniably false? Wherein to admit the obvious, blatant, undeniably true fact would mean becoming a "Compromising Christian"?I am not making this up. There was a recent documentary that aired on HBO, which I seem to recall was called "Questioning Darwin." As I recall, it consisted entirely of interviews with people on both sides of the "issue", though the vast majority were on the creationist side -- and, no, they did not come off well. One creationist, a leader in an evangelical ministry, stated that if he were to find that the Bible says that 2 + 2 = 5, then for him that is exactly what 2+2 would be. That is exactly what he did say.Faith, what is two plus two? Four, right? Obviously, blatantly, undeniably true. If your theology were to teach you that the Bible says that two plus two is five, then what would your answer be? Four or five? Would you be a "true Christian" or a "Compromising Christian"?Again, Faith, what if you are wrong?BTW, fighting against the liars is what I've been doing ever since I got started with "creation science" in 1981 and that has been my primary motivation all these decades.What if you are wrong, Faith? That is the key question for your entire involvement here.

Actually, the fine individuals to whom you had addressed that are in fact very well versed in thinking hypothetically. It is you who has no clue how to think hypothetically. Indeed, most of what the rest of us have been doing has been to try to complete the process for you.Thinking hypothetically is at the core of thinking scientifically. It's part of that entire process of forming and testing hypotheses:

1. You observe something that you want to figure out.
2. Based on your observations and on your understanding of how the universe works, you make some guesses that might explain what you're seeing.
3. You then test your guesses both against the evidence already observed and against new evidence.
4. Your guesses (AKA "hypotheses") either survived those tests, failed those tests, or the results were inconclusive. The important point was that your guesses have to be tested.
5. Even if your guesses survived the tests, parts of it were found to be wrong, so you refine your guesses and submit them to further testing.

Now, comparing actual hypothetical thinking to your own methodology, do you see a glaring difference? In actual hypothetical thinking, testing your guesses (AKA "hypotheses") is an essential step. In your own wishful thinking, you do everything you can to avoid testing your guesses. In fact, our overwhelming response to your guesses is to test them, which you persistently fight every time. So then, which of us are engaged in hypothetical thinking and which of us refuse to?Faith, we really, truly, and most deeply wish that you start engaging in thinking hypothetically. It would really help the discussion to progress if you were to.

Well so I can't get off this thread yet.But here you've given me even better evidence that the GU did not form before the strata above were deposited. I wish I could count on you to be honest about it. As I said, it's really hard to take to have my good evidence unrecognized, ignored or dealt with unfairly with sophistic arguments. Yeah I'm used to it but it's hard to take anyway.True this is not an example of the straight level contacts I presented in messages 213 and 313. That is very good evidence and none iof your attempts to account for it by normal erosive processes has succeeded.But this example from across the country makes a different case for the strata already being in place when the basement or Precambrian rocks were disturbed.Here's your picture again: And here's a copy I marked in the hope of getting my point across. And here's what I want to show:The yellow lines are an attempt to represent the straight horizontal level. It's hard to tell exactly because none of the strata are straight and level and certainly the surface of the gneiss, i.e. the unconformity, is not, but I think my guess must be close.The blue lines are an attempt to indicate the deviation from the straight horizontal level of the strata above the basement gneiss. Freehand drawing on Paint isn't easy so please make allowances for some inaccuracy. Also the rocks are so deformed it is hard to distinguish one layer from another at some levels.The reasoning:The strata above the gneiss sag on the left where there isn't enough gneiss to support it. The whole lower layer or two sags and follows the contour created by the gneiss.This is evidence that the strata were not deposited on the gneiss in its current shape because in that case the new sediment would have filled in the gap and had a level horizontal straight surface instead of the whole layer's sagging as it does. This suggests that after all the strata were in place the basement gneiss was tectonically deformed and pushed up into the strata, just as I've argued happened in the Grand Canyon, although here the gneiss doesn't have a planed-off surface but a very irregular surface. But the evidence that this was not due to erosion before the deposition of the sediments above is that those sediments sag into the irregularities in the gneiss instead of filling them in and forming the level horizontal upper surface that freshly deposited sediment would form.The two vertical yellow lines on the left between the horizontal yellow line and the surface of the gneiss are there to indicate how deposition on top of the gneiss would have filled in that depression and had a level surface following the horizontal yellow line.Instead the whole stack has obviously been deformed, and this must be due to the disturbance of the gneiss beneath it, being pushed up into it, which causes the malleable sediment to sag into its depression while maintaining its original width from its original horizontal deposition, at least on the left.I hope I've been clear. In the Grand Canyon the upper strata stay level, but here the irregular shape of the gneiss causes them to be deformed.Please make an extra effort to see what I'm saying here and an extra effort to be fair and honest about it.Your diagram is too small to see clearly but the first picture contains the evidence for my argument anyway.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Good summary of why it's an erosional unconformity and not a thrust fault, but...I would like to see support references for the first two of the above quoted.Moose

I don't know what you expect us to say here Faith?This is an interesting example. If you look at the area just below the label "Potsdam Sandstone" it has clearly been deformed. It has a different "texture" than the rest of the rock face, probably caused by fracturing due to pressure from beneath.I agree that an uplift occurred after the Potsdam Sandstone was deposited. But this statement suggests you still don't understand what an unconformity is. An unconcormity is a boundary between two layers that displays evidence that deposition was not continuous. Tectonic uplift does not transform a conformable boundary into an unconformable boundary.Look at the boundary between the gray unit of sandstone and the tan unit. Why did it not change to an unconformity due to the uplift? Why just the boundary below the tan unit? What is the evidence that the unconformity is not an erosional surface? That's what this thread is supposed to be addressing. We don't argue that tectonic activity can happen after deposition, but that tectonic uplift doesn't turn a conformable boundary into an unconformable boundary. Yes, Faith, the uplift occurred after the upper strata were deposited (at least most of it). But that observation does NOT lead to the conclusion that there was only one depositional period and one tectonic period that followed deposition. Nor does it lead to the conclusion that the unconformity formed after tectonic motion.HBD

Good references can be kind of hard to find - at least primary sources. An incredible amount of work on the Grand Canyon geology was done by Edwin MacKee in the 1940's and his work is not readily available online - you have to go to the dusty books section of a major library to find them.The book I used as a reference for these statements is available online as a free e-book! "Cambrian History of the Grand Canyon Region" -Edwin MacKee, 1945Reference back to Message 204 for more discussion on these points.I also just found a really great set of illustration on page 113 and 114 that show some of these erosional surfaces in various places throughout the canyon. There is so much detailed information in MacKee's book, it is incredible. This is the kind of source that is really needed in discussions about the GC.HBD

dwise 1 -- your excellent discussion of how scientists think hypothetically and then test their hypotheses misses the point of what Faith is doing.What Faith means by "thinking hypothetically" is coming up with alternate explanations for scientific explanations--in other words, "what-ifs."If she can come up with a "what-if" for a given situation, to her way of thinking that alternate explanation can be given equal or greater weight, and negates the scientific explanation. We have seen that time and again in these threads.And if, by some chance, that "what-if" can be successfully disproved in these threads, then new "what-ifs" are a dime a dozen. So round and round we go.As Heinlein noted, "Belief gets in the way of learning."

I also thought I would call your attention to this image of the Cheops Pyramid I posted in Message 204I was hoping to get some feedback as to whether others agreed with my identification of the layers in that image - particularly the lack of Tapeats. Maybe you could take a look and see if you agree that this image represents one of these monadnocks referred to in descriptions.HBD

This is a great find.I'm trying to imagine Faith's rebuttal to this and just can't come up with anything. These are actual observations, not inspections of a photograph; and pretty comprehensive, too.None of these examples look like detachment surfaces.

That was my point. So, you are now saying that not all occurrences of the GU are 'straight and flat'. It is very good evidence for what? That wasn't my point here. I was showing how not all of the GU occurrences are 'straight and flat'. I'm not sure why this is important to you. That is why we have professionals. Your lines are not drawn accurately, but that's not the point. Again... There is nothing abnormal about this. This type of sag is present in many of the diagrams that HBD has shown in the paper by McKee. Sorry, Faith, but I see that kind of feature all the time. It doesn't, does it? Could that be due to erosion?Nevertheless, as you point out, the layers are 'draped', but what you miss is that they also thin toward the higher point of the gneiss. They are not simply folded. Not only that, but no one is saying that there is no deformation after the upper layers were deposited. That's not erosion, Faith, that's deposition on a pre-existing surface. What does the sagging have to do with erosion or lack of erosion? Along with deformation of the overlying sediments. You are destroying your own argument here. I'll just sit back and watch if you want. That is one of the problem with ad hoc arguments. Eventually, you have to refute your previous arguments. I'm being very fair to your scenario and honestly, it doesn't make sense. If fairness means agreeing with you, then you've got some kind of distorted definition of the word.And no, you have not been clear. The sentences about the vertical yellow lines is unintelligible. Then magnify it.

You my friend are suffering from a severe lack of imagination. JBEdited by ThinAirDesigns, : No reason given.