Summations Only

Well, no, I don't. I'm surprised that all the times I have talked about deposition on landscapes is being overlooked.But in any case there is probably a problem in that I do have a habit of starting from a particular rock in the strata and that has me imagining deposition ON the rock below the rock in question as a starting point. But it doesn't have to be a rock, it can be the sediment from which the rock eventually formed. I shouldn't need a starting point, that confuses things. So I'm correcting this from rock to the sediment{s} that eventually become that rock. I don't call a rock a landscape. I do start from a bare rock in the strata but since that confuses things, make it the sediment from which the rock eventually forms.With the change to sediment from rock the sequence described represents what I've had in mind well enough.Grand Canyon:
While the particulars of the formation of any given layer of rock may help visualize the processes involved, I don't regard any particular site such as the Grand Canyon as an example except in the sense that it should provide an image of a deep stack of strata for the sake of visualization. 'But this is another thing I'm realizing I may need to change in this project: I'm considering that I may not need to identify time periods at all because the processes I'm trying to visualize are simply about getting from a landscape to a rock and the time periods assigned to formations may not be necessary to that effort. I'm not entirely sure yet and I may have to come back to the time periods, but for now the idea is to stick to the strata alone and leave out the time periods. It's the time periods that the illustrations of pMessage 333 are intended to represent, rather than layers of rock so I may find that I have to return to the time periods. But for now I'm thinking just in terms of the layers of rock as the former landscapes, and the problem is just getting from landscape to rock without regard to the time periods involved (except, yes, it would help to keep in mind whether I'm talking about a marine environment or a land environment).And in that case any example of strata should do, such as this stratified hill in a picture from the Geomorphology site Moose linked to. It's an illustration of the formation of talus but the strata are quite clear in it: And here's the Chinle formation again, because it too shows a clearly stratified hill and it definitely contains fossils: Nice straight tight strata in both of those pictures.So to reformulate the problem here: if all strata represent a deposituional environment, the problem now has become explaining how such strata were ever a landscape populated by creatures now represented by their fossils within each layer of rock, and how that landscape became that rock with those fossils in it.The Grand Canyon is a nice neat example because of the variety of rocks and the many time periods represented, but perhaps any strata will do for what I'm trying to figure out. Perhaps. You can tell me why or why not.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

May I ask whether anybody besides me has a problem with the idea of landscapes (whether marine or terrestrial) resolving down to such neat straight tight contacts between strata as shown in those pictures in my post above (Message 711)?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I wondered about that myself. But I've been getting the impression1) that every sediment implies its own depositional environment,2) and even a very thin layer of sediment could represent a very long time according to the reckonings of the Geological TimescaleBut it's a question: Perhaps someone will come along and give the official answer from Geology.ABE: And to anyone who is impatient to get the discussion going, I'm still becalmed in the doldrums. But eventually I suppose I can resume.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Percy has also said that you need to give more information than you've been doing.How about commenting on the question in relation to the layers in the Chinle formation?

OK. But am I wrong or doesn't its sequence of sediments suggest both terrestrial and marine periods/landscapes?

I don't know what you mean. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I have no idea how this is shown in that photo. Is this hypothetical or do you see it in the Chinle photo?And I don't get how there could be so many differences in depositional environments from one sediment/rock to another while the layers all look exactly like they were laid down by exactly the same processes. Where are the rims of the "basins" such as one would expect from a lake for instance, that you mention in some cases? All I see is long straight beds, no curved rims, sloping shores etc.ABE: Landscape as rock: Different meanings. You noted times when I talked about the rock as the remains of the landscape, but I was talking about the surface of a rock as a landscape, which isn't something I say. Language is frustrating. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

OK, something to ponder.

The thing is they don't LOOK LIKE different things, they simply look like strata, layers. But there is no way to see that from looking at exposed strata, which all look like... strata, layers. Saying they are different things depends, I would suppose, on things you know about their composition and fossil contents, but that isn't something that's visible to the naked eye.However, a marine environment would probably undergo a somewhat different series of events on the way to becoming a rock than a terrestrial environment would, which is a difference I would have to take into account. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I don't really know where to go with this at the moment. I've kind of been waiting for some kind of insight or inspiration I guess. Maybe it will still come along.As Admin says, yes, I have a big problem with the idea that any landscape or environment could end up so straight and flat as the strata we see, either terrestrial or marine. Marine has a better chance of it but seafloor isn't all that straight and flat either. My cynical opinion is that Geology just doesn't try to explain this straightness and flatness. In fact the main effort here seems to be to deny it, to pretend it's a photographic distortion or some fault of mine that it looks straight and flat to me.For Pressie: They are different kinds of rock but they all form layers that look like layers. If you have a box of doughnuts they will all look like doughnuts, same shape etc., even though some are puffy, some are cakey, some are glazed, some are sugared, some are chocolate and so on. I'm talking about the FORM of the strata as being the same. The terrestrial and the marine are the same as far as their form as layers goes.And I still keep coming to the same conclusion when I try to think through the steps from landscape to rock. In brief if a landscape is erosional then the livable environment for the creatures is going to be eroded out from under them at some point, whether it takes hundreds or thousands or millions of years. If it's eroding I assume it's not also depositing. So the same question occurs: where do the creatures go? If they move somewhere else, shouldn't we find their fossils there instead of in the rock that represents their landscape? Or ALSO there at least.Oh well. I've been doing my best to try to stick to the geological interpretations and terminology, but oddly it hasn't really changed much in the problem of getting from landscape to rock. If you stack up sediments to bury the landscape, one kind of sediment on top of another kind of sediment, you interfere with the creatures' living space, and if you erode it all away you interfere with their living space. If they move somewhere else why don't you find their fossils there as well as in the rock under discussion?Just another problem to add to the problem of the straightness and flatness which no lumpy landscape or proicess of erosion could create.As I ponder all this all my other objections also come back. Why is it that major erosion occurs to a stack of layers as a whole, most tellingly in the Grand Canyon area where they stack to a great height before all the major erosion occurs, the cutting of the canyon being pretty major erosion, the cutting of the stairs of the Grand Staircase being pretty major erosion, the scouring of the Kaibab Plateau being pretty major erosion. Over a supposed five hundred million years of accumulating layers before such major erosion occurs, but you all just shrug that off with a "why not?" And try to pretend that a little bit of rubble between layers is erosion enough to prove the standard interpretation.The pictures I posted a few posts earlier also show hills that are eroded stacks of sediments, far from the depth of the Grand Canyon of course but still, why do millions of years of layering happen, even with those nice straight tight boundaries before erosion carves a mountain oir hill out of the whole stack? And of course those are sitting on a plain beneath which more layers are laid out straight and flat, that plain having been carved by erosion just as the hill was.Also that doesn't look like millions of years of talus formation to me either, looks maybe about the same degree of erosion as the hoodoos show and other formations of the Southwest; but then I'm no geologist.Just a little side trip for now I guess. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

In general I've also always wondered how anyone can accept the idea of eras of time being physically represented by separate layers of sediments or rocks stacked one on top of another with just about no blurring or overlap. No matter how you are able to explain it in terms of deposition and erosion and depositional environments it makes no ultimate sense. Different kinds of sediments with different sorts of fossils. Nor does the idea that erosion makes flat surfaces. Yes I know the rap, no need to repeat it.And all anyone has to say about it is "why not?" or "I don't see the problem" and so on. Well, none of this can be proved, it's all a matter of plausible scenarios and interpretations because none of it is testable like the hard sciences. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You can do all that in the present, but you can't prove any of it applies to the past.And you don't even seem to know that you are contradicting edge with some of the stuff you say. Is a terrestrial landscape an erosional surface that would ultimately become like the Canadian Shield, or do erosion and deposition go on together all the time? He said the former, which is what I responded to. You say the latter. I think you just make up stuff as you go.

Yes, minutiae, microscopic level stuff, forget the huge stuff like the cutting of a canyon and a plateau and a series of cliffs, or the carving of hills out of a stack of strata, it's all *really* in the itsy bitsies. It would be funny except it's not.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I start such threads to try to prove my case, what else? I thought there would be more substance coming from the other side, but so far not.

Well, you did what I said you'd do. You deny that the strata are as straight and flat as I see them, partly on the basis of its being shown in a photo, as I said you'd do. You claim processes that couldn't possibly create that flat and straight a surface nevertheless can and do. You defend the kind of study that has to be up close and personal while denying that it's the minutiae that you are studying. You utterly deny the implications of the large-scale erosion after all the strata are in place that I pointed out for the umpteenth time. You didn't say this time "I don't see your problem" but you might as well have.The point I was trying to make, about strata looking like strata no matter what their composition or contents, "depositional environment" and so on, is the implication that they were all formed by the same process and not a variety of processes.Yes you "explained" many things, which settles it in your mind so that there is nothing that could contradict the explanations, but to my mind they are just highly unlikely stories.You all explain that a very thin layer was probably eroded down to that thinness, but it's so flat and straight erosion is the least likely explanation for it. It looks pretty clear to me that all those thin layers, all the layers shown in those two photos as a matter of fact, had to have been deposited that way. By water.The talus cones, wherever they are found, including the scree in the Grand Canyon from each layer, and the erosion of the hoodoos -- you rationalize all that to fit millions of years, but just as they stand they suggest a much shorter span of time. You can't prove your millions of years, I can't prove my thousands. As I keep saying none of this can be proved, it's all interpretation and I didn't mean to exclude myself from that.I didn't really mean for the posts about Square One to end the thread but in fact maybe it's best if they do. Unless something new comes up, probably all that can be said has been said. All the scenarios you can describe for how a flat straight layer got that way from a landscape or series of landscapes, either by erosion or by deposition, is just a lot of imaginary adding and subtracting of sediments to bring about lithification and make it all come out at particular rocks in the end, by destroying one landscape after another.... A seafloor on top of a desert on top of a lake on top of a forest, all sandwiched into the rock layers.... All in a stack of rocks ....Managing to make such very very straight flat tightly connected surfaces.... No. Just no.Millions of years is nonsensical for a time period -- you could stick a hundred, even a thousand, whole Geo Timescales into one time period. Defining a time period by layers of sediments/rocks is also nonsensical.Yes I know, I'm just a cheeky creationist, you're the geologist.Sorry to waste your time. I did learn quite a bit more about how Geology explains these things for what it's worth, which I guess isn't worth much since I end up as usual rejecting it.abe: On the basis of the physical evidence as I see it, not on the basis of any "myth" as you'd all like to have it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.