|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
Thread ▼ Details |
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: Evidence that the Great Unconformity did not Form Before the Strata above it | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
While the layers might be ash rather than sediments, and while the boulder may have been blasted from a volcano rather than dropped from a glacier floating above, the principles otherwise seem the same.
From the standpoint of rocks being deformed by what I would call 'primary' conditons (occurring at deposition) yes. The problem is that a real dropstone situation has fewer variables such as the origin of the fragment within the ash flow, its pathway through the ash and the movement of the ash. Also, this type of deposition is subaerial. So, if we are talking about erosion, sedimentation, unconformities, etc., I think it much simpler to look at a simple dropstone system. Faith could have us running in circles trying to explain what's going on in the inside of an ash flow.
Also, it seems possible that the rough direction of flow can be implied from this image:
That would be a logical interpretation. It would really be interesting to visit the location and see what other indicators there are. The annotated figure that I mentioned in my previous post showed cross-bedding in the ash flow with transport in the opposite direction. That could have been schematic or the boulder could have had a different velocity than the ash. Just too many questions for me to feel confident here.
We can tell the rock hit the ash layers while travelling through the air roughly from left to right, because the layers became stacked up and compressed to the right of the rock. Assuming the boulder was blasted from the volcano, and assuming that the ash is flowing away from the volcano, and assuming the ash is from the same volcano as the boulder, then it too must be flowing roughly from left to right.
With only the photograph as evidence, yes. One thing to remember is that these flow can entrain boulders and 'float' them so that their immediate source is not the volcano itself, but from within the ash flow. Again, if you look at the 7th figure in the UMass lecture notes, you can see how they think volcanic rocks are transported in this type of flow. I just don't think that we can get into such details here. This is why geologists take field trips... Edited by edge, : No reason given.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
|
That has not been demonstrated at all. You claim sandstone. Have you ever noticed the amazing horizontality of the Coconino?
Have you ever noticed the presence of cross-beds in the Coconino? How are those beds deposited at such an angle? And notice that nice, flat eriosional surface that truncates the cross-beds in this picture. But of course, erosion could never do such a thing...
Or maybe you've read that the Coconino is highly variable in thickness, so how can it be perfectly horizontal?
The thickness of the formation varies due to regional structural features, in the Grand Canyon area it is only 65 ft thick in the west, thickens to over 600 ft in the middle and then thins to 57 ft in the east. Coconino Sandstone - Wikipedia
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
I.e. it isn't about whether strata are loose today, but how they could have formed non-horizontally before they lithified, and your harping on loose layers (strata or not) today is an attempt to evade the real issue.
I think this is an important point. No matter what definition of 'strata' you use, the sediments were all 'loose' when deposited, and they can obviously be deposited in non-horizontal fashion. So, when we see non-horizontal 'hard' strata (using Faith's criteria), we still have to describe the sagging rock structure. Faith has never given us evidence that this sagging structure is tectonic or otherwise related to intrusion (uplift) of a basement rock into the 'strata'. On the other hand, we have seen numerous cases of the sagging of loose sediments around a 'hard point' in the sequence of rocks. As far as I'm concerned, much of this discussion is really unnecessary. But perhaps some good has come from the discussion...
Most sandstones were not deposited horizontally, and many examples of other lithified sediments that obviously did not deposit horizontally.
I never thought of it this way, but it's a good observation.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
Why do you venerate Steno so?
I think Faith sees Steno's principles as a magic bullet she can use to refute the possibility that inclined bedding planes occurred at deposition. Remember, she wants all deformation, volcanism, etc., to have happened after the flood. Never mind that these are just principles and not immutable laws. I also think that among YECs, in general, there is a desire to accept authority. After all, their deity is the ultimate authority and he speaks through the Bible and the YEC interpretation. So, once you have an agreeable authority, he/she is revered.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
Steno merely tells the truth about reality, ...
Well, part of it. Do you understand what I'm saying when I explain that Steno's principles are just that: principles? Do you understand that a principle is not necessarily an immutable law? Do you understand that a principle depends upon definitions?
... it has nothing to do with him personally but you aren't interested in truth or reality because that would lead you to the Reality of the FLood, which you get to deny as long as you can invent ongoing deposition of sediments no matter how pitifully inadequate the possibilities are for that claim. Pathetic.
Your personal attacks are getting tiresome. Is this all you've got?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
|
From BerkeleyEdu:
Yes, this was Steno's understanding 350 years ago.Assuming that all rocks and minerals had once been fluid, Steno reasoned that rock strata and similar deposits were formed when particles in a fluid such as water fell to the bottom. This process would leave horizontal layers. Thus Steno's principle of original horizontality states that rock layers form in the horizontal position, and any deviations from this position are due to the rocks being disturbed later. Care to join us in this century with the knowledge that we have gained since then?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
|
I know it from the evidence you all have posted here. Minuscule sedimentation beds compared to what produced The Strata;
Please provide a reference to 'The Strata'.
... claims that a hill of gravel is the basis for a layer like those found in The Strata, a teeny tiny little hill of gravel; ...
Gravel deposits are never continental, even in the geological record. What are you talking about?
... or The Mississippi River Delta with some layered sediments, about a thousandth of the horizontal extent of most of The Strata on the N. American continent; ...
Ummm, most of the NA continent is above sea level, why would it be accumulating continental-scale sedimentary deposits?
... and arguments in the past that it's all continuing at the bottom of the ocean, despite a billion or so years of supposed accumulation on land, all said with a straight face in defiance of probability.
Gibberish. Are you saying that no sediments are accumulating on the bottom of the ocean? Who says there is a billion years of sediment on the ocean floor? As usual, you are making no sense. Please try again.
The apparent observed fact/ actual evidence is that sedimentation and layering on the scale of The Strata long since ceased.
As expected, Faith.
And I know why that is even though you seem not to,.
Then perhaps you could enlighten us. Edited by edge, : No reason given.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
With all due respect, ...
Heh, I seriously doubt that.
I hope, what you are calling knowledge looks more like a denial of reality on this particular subject, as I keep saying.
Yes, it appears that a hope is all you've got.
Steno certainly didn't have it all right, but he did have original horizontality right. IMHO.
According to whom?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
|
I recognize the effort it takes to compose complete responses that contain all the necessary information in one message, and I know that the demands of time and the desire to not waste one's time are good reasons for slipping into extreme brevity, but I was unable to understand your responses across most of this message, and Faith has indicated she didn't understand much of it either.
I think I was running out of time last night and got to be a bit brief and perhaps a little short-tempered at the posts I'm responding to.
If it helps, I didn't understand what the request for a reference to 'The Strata' was meant, and I'm guessing it's sarcasm, but I'm not sure.
Yes, I see what you mean. In some recent posts, Faith had started to provide an independent definition of 'strata' and to emphasize the point, she had started referring to it as 'The Strata'. I have no idea what this meant, but I suppose it conforms to her definition of 'real strata'. I wasn't in the mood to entertain further machinations. We have had plenty of those around here lately.
I also didn't understand the comment about gravel deposits.
Faith had mentioned these sedimentary deposits we were discussing are continental in scale. I was pointing out that comparing a gravel deposit to the Coconino (for instance) is not a good comparison. Here is the exchange:
Faith: " ... claims that a hill of gravel is the basis for a layer like those found in The Strata, a teeny tiny little hill of gravel; or The Mississippi River Delta with some layered sediments, about a thousandth of the horizontal extent of most of The Strata on the N. American continent;..."
So, as you can see, I was uncertain as to what she meant.
edge: "Gravel deposits are never continental, even in the geological record. What are you talking about?"(bold added) And about the Mississippi River Delta part, I don't think Faith was trying to imply that she believes sediments should be accumulating on the continent, though I should caution that I often find it hard to be sure what Faith is saying.
I intended to point out that yes, since most of the continents are very much emergent (above sea level), they are mostly undergoing erosion and continental-scale sedimentary deposits are not the norm. Here is what I said:
"Ummm, most of the NA continent is above sea level, why would it be accumulating continental-scale sedimentary deposits?" Faith's next statement is a resurrection of an old argument of hers that the geological column stopped at the end of the flood.
"... and arguments in the past that it's all continuing at the bottom of the ocean, despite a billion or so years of supposed accumulation on land, all said with a straight face in defiance of probability.
Basically, she is saying that sedimentary record has stopped. Our argument is that it has continued, just in a different place. This would be normal for geological processes. I think people have a hard time seeing long-slow processes and assume that the present is all that there is. And since all we see is erosion going on around us, that the world is fundamentally changed from the great sedimentary formations of the Phanerozoic. We don't see all of the sediments being deposited on the bottom of the ocean, and even the Mississippi River Delta is 'out of sight'. I refer to a later sentence of hers to show my point:
"The apparent observed fact/ actual evidence is that sedimentation and layering on the scale of The Strata long since ceased."
In fact this may be true, but it is so for two geological reasons: 1. The process of continental-scale deposits requires a long time and the slow process of transgressing/regressing seas, It was probably never visible. 2. Continental-scale deposits require submerged continents. So, I responded with:
"As expected, Faith."
Intending to mean that things are as I would expect them without modern, continental-scale deposits and that (as commonly occurs with YECs) there is no surprise here. In my very first geology class, this was one topic of discussion and I remember it well. Edited by edge, : No reason given.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
|
This flies in the face of the actual factual EVIDENCE, as I said, which is that The Strata, otherwise known as The Stratigraphic Column or the Geologic Column, do cover continents and supposedly took billions of years to do so, ...
Okay, that's the observation.
... but now -- just on a whim? -- changed their location to "a different place" and we're supposed to consider this "normal?"
Now you have left the realm of evidence and injected a personal wish.
After a billion years of continent-spanning deposition?
How long do you think it should be?
Not to mention that, as I said, the examples of continuing deposition are minuscule compared to the extensive slabs of rock that make up The Stratigraphic Column.
I have explained the reason for this. I mean, isn't it pretty obvious that you cannot deposit a basal Cambrian (Tapeats, for instance) type of sandstone across the continent while the continent is above sea level? I'm not getting your problem here.
ABE: I'd also point out that there are too many obstacles on the continents now for continent-spanning slabs to occur any more.
Yes, that's what I said. The continents are above sea level.
Evidence that mountain building and other tectonic effects waited a billion years or so before producing today's bumpy surface.
That is not reasonable. You don't know how many tectonic events there have been. Edited by edge, : No reason given.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
|
It's time for me to leave this futile discussion.
I understand your frustration. It's really hard to debate on subjects where one is uninformed. But that can be fixed.
I absolutely reject your system as fantasy and you have the same attitude to mine. I just happened to read a bit in the Britannica on the Triassic period, full of pure imaginative nonsense they treat as fact, about imaginary climate, imaginary animal life, all based on a slab of rock with fossilized dead things in it that was most certainly deposited in the Flood, but this fantastic nonsense is the "science" you insist be respected and that you insult Creationists for rejecting.
It's a free world. Believe what you want. But if you come to a forum like this, expect to be questioned.
You're impatient because I refuse to accept any of that, and I'm tired of your dismissive impatience.
Not if you look at all of the evidence. For instance, even at the height of the Cretaceous transgressions, there were emergent lands with volcanism and erosion in progress.
Yes, deposition of sandstone does require being underwater. Flood required for all of it. Flood ended, deposition ended. That's what the EVIDENCE shows. OK by you if a billion years of continual deposition just comes to a screeching halt, but to my mind that is outrageous denial
I'm not sure why that should be a problem. Why do you term it a 'screeching halt'? Do you have some evidence that it happened quickly? My guess is that your only evidence is personal incredulity ... which isn't evidence.
In the Grand Canyon there was no tectonic activity for the entire Phanerozoic Era.
Actually, there was some. In the late Proterozoic, you had erosion of the GC metamorphic rocks (which had already been deformed and metamorphosed at least once; followed by deposition and then disruption of the GC Supergroup rocks; then more erosion followed by a long period of quiescence with a few erosional unconformities present. Then later, of course, you had uplift of the Colorado Plateau and downcutting of the Grand Canyon
I've had enough edge.
I've actually known this for a while. It is difficult to argue scientific points when you don't have evidence.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
That would also have been the case if the rocks or monadnocks were already present when the Tapeats deposited. It wouldn't deposit over the rocks, but around them. Horizontally. Not in those sagging draping forms.
The problem is that we actually see those sagging, draping forms; so it's not a matter of whether they exist. The first two here, we have already seen from Namibia. The third one is from Washington state.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
I think you are misinterpreting what edge is saying. He is not saying that deposition only happens when the sea level is rising (transgressing). Deposition happens whenever the surface is covered by water and there is a source of depositional material.
Well, yes, the land has to be covered by water. That is critical. However, the other critical point is that we develop laterally continuous deposits by transgressing and regressing of the oceans. Otherwise, you could not get the huge sheets of sediments covering areas the size of continents. Now, you can get regressive sequences, but they are a little harder to preserve since the exposed land surface can be eroded. However, they do happen. For instance going from the Hermit Shale to the Coconino Sandstone is regressive.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
|
This may be a stupid question but, does this deposition of continuous sheets of material contribute to the rising sea level as it is happening by displacing water?
It's possible, I suppose; but there are other counterbalancing effect such as subsidence. As we load the crust, it will literally sink into the mantle. Rising sea levels, I think, are much more affected by melting ice caps and increased volcanism at the mid-ocean ridges.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1737 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
|
Nope. Sorry, Faith, This isn't going to help you.
This is correct that there have been multiple transgressions and regressions. In fact, during the Caboniferous there were many of them resulting in the stacked swampy deposits providing us with multiple coal layers. Look up 'cyclothems' sometime. First off, you need a regression not a transgression, as the flood waters would have been receding. As the flood waters rose, they scoured the land, as they retreated, they deposited. The image below (img C) shows what a forced regression should look like (a forced regressions is regression accompanied with falling sea levels). Second, the Tapeats is one of the lowest layers in the sequence. Sea level would have been way above the level of the Tapeats, so there would be no regression or transgression sequence. The Tapeats would have had to deposit by settling. But either way, a single transgression or regression doesn't solve the problem. However, the Tapeats --> Bright Angel --> Muav sequence in the GC is a classic transgressive sequence. When you think about it, it is easier to preserve from erosion sediments that have more sediment deposited on top of them. Since regressive sequences tend to leave more land exposed to erosion, they have a less chance of preservation. However it is still very common. On the other hand, erosion during transgression occurs mainly at the seashore where wave action destroys the land surface as the sea encroaches. However, the sand deposit representing a beach is then left behind and buried by more offshore sediments and then preserved. For instance, the Tapeats is mostly a beach sand and and slow transgression of the Tapeats sea caused it to be covered by the Bright Angel and then the Muav. I have drilled though a few of these things and I can tell you from experience that transgressive sands are generally thicker and more continuous than regressive sands. A great regressive sequence is the Hermit --> Coconino, as I mentioned before. There, we have a great erg (desert) encroaching across lowland swamps of the Hermit as sea level subsided. Keep in mind that these are the great cycles that we see in the geological record. There are many minor transgressive/regressive cycles throughout the record that give us things like stacked coal beds.
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024