Summations Only

In Message 646 Faith takes a sincere stab at trying to understand what is being described. Edge and PaulK make attempts to answer, but their answers are very short and assume that Faith will be keeping their earlier explanations in mind and integrating them into her understanding, which I don't think is fair. The explanations must be repeated whole.Faith appears to think that modern geology believes or at least requires these things:

1. Sedimentary deposits that form life-bearing landscapes can only be deposited upon bare rock, not upon already life-bearing landscapes.
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2. Sedimentary deposits forming a landscape are deposited upon bare rock suddenly all at one time, not gradually inch by inch over the eons. (not sure about this one, but if true it explains some of her thinking)
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3. Landscapes turn to rock immediately upon being buried.
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4. New strata can form beneath existing strata. As Jar noted, this violates Steno's first law of superposition. There are exceptions, of course, such as magmatic intrusions, but they are also easily recognizably distinct from sedimentary layers.

This paragraph from Faith's Message 646 is enlightening. Though phrased as questions, she provides a good summary of what geology actually believes happens as sediments accumulate upon a landscape: But the rest of the paragraph is very difficult to make sense of: Figuring out the thinking behind these questions is probably important.AbE: Please, no replies to this message (Jar replied before I added this - it contains some good explanations).Edited by Admin, : Fix point 4.Edited by Admin, : AbE.

One of the problems is that Faith edits material into her posts, often after someone responds but does not indicate which edits relate to the time edited. For example the paragraph you quoted is one I suspect (judging from the time stamps of her edits) was made after I had posted the next post in succession relating to the Law of Superposition.Unfortunately no one knows that she significantly changed the content of the post already replied to.When something significant and relevant like that paragraph is added it is probably best to make it a new post and maybe even a reply to those who had already replied.This is important because later she admonishes me for not acknowledging that she had addressed my Steno remark and I imagine she is referring to the paragraph you quote. And yes, until I saw it in your most recent post I had missed that and also yes, that is a pretty good summary of the conventional theory. Edited by jar, : fix sub-title.Edited by jar, : hide text

Faith, please look at Message 662 for a response related to the paragraph you added.The hidden content is reproduced here.Let me then start again. That's almost it with a few minor additions. But in addition to landscape getting buried and new landscape being deposited on top of it there are a few more things going on. There is existing landscape not getting buried beside the part getting buried and already buried landscapes that have already turned to rock being exposed by being raised and the overlying soil eroded away.The new landscapes may be similar but most often will be different and a great example is North America.Look at this map (remember it is just a snap shot) of North America during the Pennsylvanian Period. Note where there are hills, mountains, shallow seas, deep seas, swamps.Now move forward to the Cretaceous Period and see how the landscapes have changed locations. The move way forward to almost today and again, the landscapes have changed yet again. Landscapes change over time, where there were seas there are now plains but the old landscape, the shallow sea floor is still under there but now covered by aeolian surfaces.Edited by jar, : add hidden content from other message after Admin's request to not reply to his message.

The paragraph I added was not a response to your comment about Steno's law; I had already responded to that by simply saying I believed the unconformity occurred after both upper and lower strata were in place. You didn't take that as a response and went on about how what I believe doesn't matter and I just gave up.I'm still in given-up mode with respect to the whole discussion. Miscommunications are the rule in this discussion and yet I can't even say that without being contradicted.Percy keeps raising substantive issues and then saying I'm not allowed to respond to them.I am not up to dealing with all this right now. Every post has things I need to correct and my feeling right now based on experience is that's a lost cause. I usually get a second wind eventually but not yet.By the way I can't look at your maps. My eyes can't handle glare these days and those are blinding. Too bad because I'd like to be able to see them.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I highly encourage you to take as much time as you need and to go at a pace that seems comfortable to you. I may ask you questions, but one thing I will not do is harangue you for not responding to me quickly, or ever.Your last few posts do, in my opinion display a much improved grasp on what geologists are really saying. None of that means that you have to agree with the geologists, but perhaps you have improved the basis for continued discussion. Nice work.

Try the maps available at The Paleogeography and Geologic Evolution of North America that are in color and so may be easier on your eyes. There you can track the changes in landscape of what would become North America over a 500 million year history.AbE: What any of us believe is irrelevant. Beliefs are fine in the Faith & Beliefs areas but in Science areas all that counts is the evidence and the processes, procedures, models, methods and theories that explain the evidence that exists.No one is slighting your beliefs. All beliefs are irrelevant.Edited by jar, : see AbE:

Yes you can! Can't you turn down the brightness on your screen? On my laptop I can do that just by pressing F11.

I've read and reread this statement several times and I'm still trying to tell what Faith is saying. Does she think that each Period is defined by a single rock type? Or are we talking about hours or days during the fludde? Or both?

I think she believes the sandstone is somehow "pure" sandstone and changes to "pure" limestone without a transition = No changes in texture or composition, no physical or chemical weathering, no extraneous materials, etc.

Why oh why is this so difficult? "It has to be what we see in the strata" means "it has to be what we see in the strata." If we see sandstone the rock has to end up as sandstone; if limestone as limestone; if shale then shale; if gravel with silt, diamonds and popcorn, then gravel with silt, diamonds and popcorn. WHAT IS SO HARD ABOUT THIS? No, but I should be clearer about that I guess. Each time period is represented by one landscape but can be represented by many different sediments/rocks. (But sometimes only one rock: Grand Canyon Redwall limestone=Mississippian.) When I'm talking about what we see in the strata I mean what we see in the strata, kinds of rocks in the order we find them. However, since I'm also talking about how we get from a landscape to the rocks that occur in a particular time period I guess I need to remember to say that.abe: In fact you did just make me aware that I can't talk about just one rack undergoing lithification under deep sediment because in most cases there are a number of rocks associated with the one landscape for that time period. So I suppose there has to be a stack of sediments representing each rock in the series for a particular time period. ./abe I don't talk about the Flood unless I say I'm talking about the Flood. Just about everything I have to say on this subject is an attempt to figure out the order of events that would have to have occurred for a landscape associated with a particular time period/rock layer/rock formation/series of rocks to end up as that rock layer/rock formation/series of rocks as we see them in the geo column/strata.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

For purposes of this discussion why would it matter how pure the sediment/rock is? In fact for purposes of most discussions why would it matter? The rocks are labeled according to their predominant type: Coconino SANDSTONE, Tapeats SANDSTONE, Hermit SHALE, Redwall LIMESTONE, Kaibab LIMESTONE. What difference does it make if they aren't pure? In any case when I say the rocks have to end up as what we see in the strata they have to be those rocks exactly as what we see in the strata.

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Why oh why is this so difficult? "It has to be what we see in the strata" means "it has to be what we see in the strata."

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The problem is that it is trivial and if it has any significance to the argument it has not been explained. Hence some expect there to be more to it.

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Each time period is represented by one landscape but can be represented by many different sediments/rocks

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I have no idea why you think that a period would be "represented by one landscape" unless you are talking about a book. And since different sediments or rocks would seem to imply different landscapes - sandstone might mean a desert while limestone might mean a sea of a lake - it becomes even more unclear.

I was merely referring to those illustrations given for a particular time period, as I posted in Message 333. They represent the whole time period, one illustration for the whole time period. You are right it's a lot more complicated than that. So now it's a landscape for a rock and more than one for time periods that are represented by many rocks.I added an edit to that post by the way.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Note: ABE added at bottom. The point was that as everybody is talking about piling the sediments on very deep to create the rock it seems to be forgotten that the rock has to end up in the geological column as we see it. If there are many rocks in a time period then there have to be that many sedimentary depositions one on top of another that are getting lithified, and that would require a great depth of sediment on top of those too. Which then either has to be eroded away so that only the rocks in the strata are left, or has to be the particular sediments to be incorporated into the next series of landscapes/sediments/rocks representing the next time period in the strata. You need the sediment to allow the lower sediment to lithify but you also somehow need to account for ALL the sediment in relation to the geo column. It sounds to me like it's getting more physically impossible with each new requirement.ABE: Further complicated by the fact that living creatures are making the series of landscapes their home, some in a desert, some in a shallow sea, etc., which raises the question how the marine creatures can live when the landscape changes to a desert and what the forest creatures do to survive when the landscape becomes a shallow sea or a desert. Not to mention the requirement that the lithified sediments end up as quite flat and straight one on top of another in some cases covering a huge area as well./ABEEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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The point was that as everybody is talking about piling the sediments on very deep to create the rock it seems to be forgotten that the rock has to end up in the geological column as we see it.

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I see no reason to think that anybody had forgotten that.

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If there are many rocks in a time period then there have to be that many sedimentary depositions one on top of another that are getting lithified, and that would require a great depth of sediment on top of those too

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Which would in most cases be largely the exact same sediments.

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Which then either has to be eroded away so that only the rocks in the strata are left, or has to be the particular sediments to be incorporated into the next series of landscapes/sediments/rocks representing the next time period in the strata

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You still be stating the obvious, without any clear point.

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It sounds to me like it's getting more physically impossible with each new requirement.

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It doesn't seem at all problematic to me. Why do you think that it is "getting more physically impossible" when you aren't adding any new difficulties ?

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Further complicated by the requirement that they end up as quite flat and straight one on top of another in some cases covering a huge area as well.

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The area is there at the start so it isn't related to lithification (although some may be lost to erosion). And you keep exaggerating the flatness, too.