Summations Only

I'm really not to sure why Faith wrote this. They look different. They are different things. After all they are different layers. Easy to see. Even in photo's different strata are different layers. They even do LOOK LIKE different things.Faith doesn't make any sense.

A thin layer could be the remnants of a thicker layer that was deposited and later eroded.

Perhaps that is simply not knowing what to actually look at. In reality it's as easy to tell they are different things as it is to tell that the layers of cake are different things then the layers of icing or filling. But usually it is what is visible to the naked eye and for most of the history of geology it was only those things visible to the naked eye that could be known.Go Back to the images you posted in Message 711As I mentioned earlier, that picture was meant to illustrate talus or scree, the weathered and eroded material seen in sloping piles at the base.Now look at another example of talus or scree. Notice the difference between the two examples. The former is made up of fine particles that flow freely forming relatively regular fans while the latter is big chunks of material that form irregular piles.The former talus visually and even from a distance shows that they came from a relatively soft material that had not undergone complete lithification while the later example shows the material came from a very hard substance and broke off in large pieces most likely because a softer under layer was eroded away.So even from a distance to can tell quite a lot just from photographs without even knowing where the image was taken.I have to include on of my favorite rubble pictures (it was taken by Ansel Adams). This is not quite talus or scree but again, the image tells us a great deal about what was once there and now is no longer visible at all. Maybe you can tell us a little about what the original material must have been like. Here is a great 15 minute video that might help you understand what can be seen as well as the landscape and environment that produces what can be seen.AbE: If you then click on related found in the upper right of that link you can find additional videos each about 15 minutes long covering Igneous, Metamorphic and general minerals.Edited by jar, : add link to video.Edited by jar, : see AbE:

A few suggestions:

1. Faith's objections to geology's view of how landscapes (both terrestrial and marine) become strata turned out to be terminology issues, so it would be helpful if her remaining objections could be clarified. The ones I'm aware of are that the strata are too flat and the boundaries between them too razor sharp to be the lithified remains of landscapes like those we see today.
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2. Edge's closing comment from Message 733 requires elaboration:
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   Edge writes:

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   As PaulK(?) said, terrestrial landscapes such as those in the illustrations are subject to erosion unless 'frozen' by burial.
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   What must happen for such a burial to occur? Are there any examples in the geological record?
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   Otherwise, they would eventually look like old, eroded terrain such as the Canadian Shield.
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   Some geological history of the Canadian Shield might be helpful.
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   Marine deposits, on the other hand, are entirely depositional and form different types of continuous strata.
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   But the Canadian Shield might not be the best example. I think Faith is wondering how terrestrial landscapes become embedded in a sequence of layers with flat razor-sharp boundaries, especially given that the landscapes we see today (like those here in New Hampshire and many other places around the world) are anything but flat.
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3. A clear statement of how terrestrial landscapes become strata is needed. Here's my own as a starting point:
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   1. Terrestrial landscapes do not often become strata because they are not the lowest level, and sediments are eventually carried to the lowest level, which is lake or sea floor. Almost everyone living above sea level today resides upon a terrestrial landscape that will eventually disappear through erosive forces and not be preserved in the geological record.
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   2. An upland (meaning a couple hundred feet above sea level or more) terrestrial landscape can become preserved somewhat intact if it experiences a relatively sudden (tens of thousands of years or less) descent in elevation relative to sea level. This could occur through a rise in sea level that inundates the land, or through subsidence where land sinks to a lower level and eventually beneath the waves due to internal forces within the Earth.
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      Another way an upland terrestrial environment could be preserved in the geological record is if the upland region is in a local depositional environment (a large basin, perhaps) that accumulates deep sediments, then the region subsides. Erosive forces could remove some of the upper layers as the region subsides, but if the region subsides fast enough and far enough at least some of it will sink beneath the waves and be preserved.
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   3. Coastal regions are the most likely terrestrial regions to be preserved in the geological record. At the Grand Canyon the Coconino was a lowland desert terrestrial region, while the Hermit and the Supai were coastal swampy areas and lagoons. The rest of the Grand Canyon layers, including those of the Supergroup, were primarily lake or marine environments.
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4. More generally, many of the explanations tha have been offered contain large informational blanks. These are readily filled in by any reader who understands *and* accepts the views of modern geology. The blanks are even readily filled in by information from prior posts. But it isn't reasonable to expect someone who rejects the views of modern geology to fill in the blanks or keep past rejected explanations from prior posts in mind. Explanations must be repeated, or at least cut-n-pasted. Just a link to an old message is often insufficient - even in short messages the appropriate portion often isn't obvious.

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.

There are several real issues with your understanding. First let's consider the Grand Canyon. The Canyon itself is really not all that old an example of major erosion; in fact the Canyon itself is still relatively young having begun only about 17 million years ago. Remember the Great Unconformity that is exposed by the erosion that produced the Grand Canyon? There is over a billion years worth of material that was eroded away there leaving absolutely nothing at that point.Second, the talus in your picture is almost certainly not indicative of millions of years of erosion. Most of the eroded material over time has been carried away and what you see remaining is simply the recent erosion. Again, both deposition and erosion go on constantly and so there is never a time when only one process is happening. The change is gradual and there is always another place critters can go. What we see in fossils are those critters that died and so did not move on their own. And often that is exactly what is found. Edited by jar, : not all that an example of major erosion ----> not all that old an example of major erosion

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.

And, of course that too is simply false.Geologist do really test stuff and yes they really can know stuff. It's very possible to check erosion rates, observe weathering, determine material movements, date materials by a variety of methods and to observe reality instead of fantasy.

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.

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.

Science does not prove stuff but it does check conclusions and so once again, reality simply shows you are wrong.We can test just about everything to see if things in the past were the same as they are now.We know that you don't like the conclusion, not opinion, that the Earth is old and would love to find some way to make your fantasy true but unless you can overthrow all of physics, chemistry, geology, paleontology, astronomy and every other area of science you ain't got a chance. And no, I'm not contradicting anything. Both erosion and disposition go on at the same time. The material being deposited has to come from erosion and weathering. And again, we can test that by looking at reality. The Andes and Rockies and Himalayas are being raised right now while the Appalachians and Adirondack and Smokies and Catskills are being worn down. Even those mountains that are still rising and also at the same time being worn down.BUT, at a given location you can point to a general trend. Even there though you often see both processes, as material is eroded from the walls of the Grand Canyon it is carried and deposited along bend in the river and eventually reaching the Gulf of California where it forms a delta.Edited by jar, : not Cascades but Adirondacks

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.

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

Again, reality simply shows that you are wrong. No where can you show anyone but you forgetting the huge stuff.A billion years of missing material generally is not called minutia or microscopic level stuff. Things like the Appalachians and Andes are generally not called minutia or microscopic level stuff.

I thought you asked for a moratorium on this kind of stuff. Are we to return to judgment mode again?