Summations Only

It's utterly trivial, all it means is that we have to end up with what we see that we ended up with. Why Faith considers that a problem she has yet to explain.

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As I keep saying I'm looking at the strata and trying to figure out what events had to occur to fit the standard geological scenario

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It is worth pointing out again that geology works backwards from the evidence to the scenario, invoking known processes to do so. So this really shouldn't lead you to find any problems.

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If you look at the strata, understanding that geology represents a time period with a landscape based on the contents of the rock for that time period, then you realize that the landscape has to sit ON the rock just as the rock for that landscape does.

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I think that you are confusing yourself trying to fit reality to something you've already decided. Reconstructions of the landscape are based on the evidence from the rock. They are not even attempts to represent the local area for an entire period of geological time. The textual descriptions are much more informative than the pictures, because they are closer to the evidence.Now the landscape obviously does not sit "on" the rock of the layer being deposited at that time. It doesn't even have to sit on the rock of the next layer down. It has to sit on the next layer, but that layer does not have to be rock.

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I'm looking only at the strata, not thinking about the Flood, just thinking about the strata and the idea that Geology constructs for each rock a "depositional environment" or what I'm calling a landscape (based on the illustrations for each time period some of which I posted in Message 333)

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They aren't exactly the same. Many landscapes will not exist in a depositional environment at all (as you should have been able to work out). The depositional environment is the environment that is doing the depositing.

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There has been some confusion that needed to be sorted out. For instance the illustrations are presented as depicting a whole time period...

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Which you seem to be reading far too much into. Just accept that it represents a - in some sense typical - landscape from that period. Taking is as anything more would be a mistake.

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Now it seems clear that there shouldn't be any illustrations for a whole time period but for individual rocks. The rocks are different so the depositional environments are different so the illustrations should be for the rocks and not the whole time period.

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If the illustrations were meant to in any way give a complete picture of the period you would be correct. However, they are not. If you would just take in the facts you are given you would not confuse yourself so.It should come as no surprise that the prehistoric world had a variety of landscapes or that those landscapes changed over time. The only surprise is that anyone would think otherwise.

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Nothing to do with the Flood; just trying to deal with the claims of Geology as I grasp them, sometimes not very clearly, but since I'm using illustrations that are wrong in themselves that isn't entirely my fault.

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I am afraid that your habit of jumping to odd conclusions is your fault, and is responsible for your confusion here. For instance look here
That is one of the images you chose. Is there anything in the description that justifies your idea that it is intended to represent an entire geological period ? I do not see anything. It seems, instead, to illustrate a particular dinosaur in the sort of setting it would have lived in. It is rather clear that the fault is yours.

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What I'm trying to deal with is how the strata formed, and I always have to refer to the Grand Canyon walls for what I mean by that -- the deep stack of sedimentary rocks piled one on top of another looking to my eye so very straight and flat. Yes, in some cases even up very close, even knife-edge sharp up close in some places

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I think that you may be forgetting that we have to explain what we actually see in the strata. And that includes the terrain features and other evidence found in terrestrial strata which really do indicate that there were landscapes there, rather than featureless stacks of sediment.

Well here's the simple outline although we will probably have to consider specific examples to get into the details.Sediment is deposited. On land it will be subject to weathering, and on land or sea material produced by the life living there - including shells and bodily remains - will be mixed in with it.Eventually conditions will change. On land this may mean a period of erosion which will tend to flatten and even remove layers of past sediment (consider the hoodoos as a particularly dramatic example - their removal by erosion is a flattening of the local landscape). Or it may just mean the deposition of a different sediment.As the sediment builds up, the lower layers will, under the pressure of the material on top of them - be converted to rock.

Not in the abstract, especially given the limitations of the photographs, and the fact that we know that they are far from the whole story.If you want to get into a detailed discussion then let's do that. But simply pointing at a couple of photographs is not nearly enough.

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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.

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I think you mean that it could not be seen from your photographs, or perhaps even a casual on-site view. However, a detailed and methodical examination could reveal a lot, especially if the examiner was experienced and informed.As I said before, the photographs are not enough because they show so very little - both in extent and in detail. The descriptions in Wikipedia may be second or third-hand and incorporate a good deal of interpretation, but at least they cover the scope that needs to be covered, and have the advantage of coming from experienced and informed sources who are well able to interpret the observations.Edited by PaulK, : Typo fix (no additions)

Square One seems to be just going back to simplistic ideas of geology that - certainly at this point must be counted as misrepresentationWe know that the strata are not just featureless slabs of rock - there are preserved terrain features.We also know that there often is "blurring" of one sort or another between strata (which would obviously be invisible on the sort of photographs you prefer.

Shinumo Quartzite790 feet high. And you call that microscopic ?Edited by PaulK, : Fixed quote tag

Faith, you have not exactly made much of an effort to prove your case here. If anyone should be condemned for failing to provide anything of substance it is you.Really you should be thanking us for providing you with some sorely-needed education.

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Not with the regularity necessary to producing a stack of strata over hundreds of millions of years

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Regularity is not necessary because we have hundreds of millions of years. No terrestrial locations have seen continuous deposition - that is for the sea floor, where you would expect it.

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Also there is no reason at all why a landscape should ever be completely obliterated by deposition,

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There is also nobody who says that landscapes are "completely obliterated by deposition". Covered over, maybe but isn't that what deposition ought to do ?

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And of course since it's needed to rationalize what is seen in the strata, therefore that's what must have happened. No, it makes no sense that a marine encroachment should end up as a rock on to

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Following the evidence is not a rationalisation, Faith.

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Very very rarely. And not at the boundary between "time periods." However, when I say blur I don't mean "grading into" I mean NO DIFFERENCE between.

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You say that it is rare but you don't offer any reason to think so.And since there are no convenient markers for the boundaries between time periods, how can we say what happens there ?The third point is obviously silly. If there was no difference we wouldn't have a boundary between formations which is what you usually mean. (And if you mean something else I want to know why the Green River varves don't count)

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There is no reason whatever that there should be completely different environments for different eras of time.

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You think that environments should remain constant for hundreds of millions of years ? It's bizarre - at the top of the post you complain that constant deposition is impossible, and now you insist that we should expect it.

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The evolved creatures should just join with the earlier forms without anything to mark the changing times. And besides, when an environment starts changing into a rock because of being buried everything in it has to die. Yeah yeah yeah, move somewhere else. Where? Where are their fossils except in THIS rock representing THIS environment?

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Aside from being a confused mess I have to ask how we can possibly give an answer that you will find satisfactory when everything is abstract. Especially as I have already tried that. Give us a concrete example of what you mean.

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No need for the environment to turn into a rock, to die. Forget the rock, just let the creatures evolve so that whole genera are fossilized together instead of neatly separated. That's what a realistic scenario would have been

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You will have to explain why you find this realistic. I don't find it realistic that nature should only do what you find "necessary" or that genera should always be found fossilised together - especially when your "realistic" scenario doesn't seem to allow for fossils to even exist.

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Lot of "changes" seem to have occurred at more or less regular intervals over those hundreds of millions of years, almost like clockwork, all with changes in sediment, and with a remarkable suddenness from one to another too.

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I am afraid that this is just another case where what "seems" to be true to you has no basis in reality.

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Dry sediment? And what about erosion? Why so consistently flat and straight as if there were some rule that erosion would have to totally obliterate a mountain range before anything could be deposited in its place. (Tapeats sandstone, VERY VERY nice and flat in most pictures, on both top and bottom, on top of "Great Unconformity" which is said to be the root of a former mountain range.

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Of course it doesn't have to be obliterated as you admit. However erosion does tend to level mountains and - on land - sediment is not often deposited on high places. So there will be a definite bias in favour of flattening mountains.

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I don't see any reason for me to continue this thread. I've made about the best case I can make to this point.

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The biggest problem with this thread has been your failure to make a case.We have seen your opinions about the evidence - which are usually wrong (but very little dealing with specific cases even when the discussion seems to demand it).We have seen you make strange assertions which are never supported by any reasoned argument. And if you could provide reasonable arguments to support those assertions it is certainly false to say that there is no point to continuing or that you have made the best case that you can.And, having said that, I will conclude that we have not seen anything from you that I could call a case, not in this thread.

I don't see how we can be expected to address "difficulties" you won't even explain.

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Try imagining the depositional and erosional processes that would have to occur for each transformation from landscape to rock keeping in mind a particular stack of rocks as they exist today.

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Have YOU done that ? If so, why have you not produced an example in this thread ?If you were actually trying to make a case you would have done it to show us these problems that you think you see. The fact that you have not is quite telling, I feel.But to deal with your issue, you are obviously imagining problems out of prejudice. There is simply no basis for your claims and your avoidance of concrete examples suggests to me that you know that.

So basically you can't make your case so you want us to do it for you. You can't be bothered to look at real examples. You can't be bothered to show us a single real problem. You can't even give us a good reason to think that we will find your alleged problems.That is not how you make a case. That is how you make it obvious to everyone that you don't have a case.

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It's futile to keep trying to explain of course, but oh well. Yes I can't make the case because it's too unwieldy, but what I said about my attempts is nevertheless true -- I kept running into insurmountable problems

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Trying to "explain" something that is pretty obviously wrong is never going to be easy.But if it is too much work for you to do here - to even produce one example - why should we bother ? It's not as if you'll believe us if we came back and said we couldn't find a problem. You'll just accuse us of being biased and not seeing the problems.And, of course it should be easier for you. You can choose a small example which shows a problem - if you can actually find one. If one of us chooses a small example which doesn't show a problem you could dismiss it, without even being unreasonable. There wasn't a problem there, but there "must" be one somewhere else.So, if you were correct it should be easier for you to make your case than for us to refute it. But you won't even try. You insist on us doing all the work. Well, why should we ?You're the one trying to make a case. If you refuse to support it in any way then you fail. And that is exactly what you are doing.

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Eventually the landscape itself becomes the rock. If there is soil on top of it, that too is going to have to become rock or be eroded away, both of which destroy habitat. The problem is in the fact that it all becomes a rock in the strata that we see, a barren rock. No matter how long the landscape lasts or the soil keeps on accumulating, eventually it has to become that rock we see in the stack. The slowness and the length of time just put off the inevitable.

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If the material that becomes rock ceased to be the surface millions of years ago, it's becoming rock makes no difference to the creatures living in that location. So why is this a problem at all ?