Summations Only

"no ultimate sense"You know that erosion and deposition actually do occur and by your own admission, the explanations are at least plausible. Accordingly your conclusion that the results do not make sense is simply denial based on your principle that geology is not a real science. Quite frankly, once the discussion reaches that point, why is there any point in offering you anything more or in listening to your complaints. What's left to discuss? Why even start a thread like this one?

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.

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.

Faith, do you know what the term substance actually means?Is there something more that we could offer you?

We have discussed this before. Marine transgression, basically a rise in sea level would inundate a land surface and 'freeze' it in its topography at the time. Other means would be by burial beneath volcanic ash or encroachment by a sand sea such as the Sahara. Basically, old shield areas are places where the rocks have undergone erosion for a very long time and often look like vast expanses of 'flat and level' topography. They are the ultimate product of the erosion of a continent. The reference was to erosion, not deposition of 'strata' in Faith's usage of the term. Exactly correct. I might quibble over the 'do not often' part, but essentially, yes. Terrestrial landscape are erosional except in the case of local basins. Such a basin might be as small as a sandbar, or as large as the lakes in which the Green River Formation was deposited.And remember, a landscape, such as the one we live on is an unconformity. By definition. At present, however, the Green River Formation is being eroded and carried to the sea (with a temporary stop in Lake Powell, etc.). So, as you indicate, deposition above sea level is ephemeral in geological terms.However, to correct the narrative, the Green River Formation does consist of strata. The topography (landscape) beneath the Green River Formation, and the modern topography cutting into it are not and will not become strata. They are surfaces within the strata and they cut whatever strata are older than the surface. They can be preserved in the strata just as a fossil is preserved in strata. Both have happened, but it's hard to tell which, sometimes. These are the lakes, swamps and rivers that I have discussed. I liken the Coconino to the Namib desert. It is a coastal desert that could expand to the west if sea level were lowered and the climatic conditions were correct. It would, in that case, overlie marine sediments. Some of these blanks are due to disregard for previous posts. If prior posts are rejected on philosphical basis, there really isn't a lot of hope that more data will remedy the situation.In my own case, I have spent hours trying to figure out what Faith is saying, creating all kinds of scenarios for understanding, only to find that they are also rejected.And no, I do not expect 'someone' to accept my explanations going forward. My only objective is to educate and inform anyone who might be reading my post. If someone has questions, I will go out of my way to answer (this post being an example), but until then, I'm not sure that someone might even read my posts. Edited by Admin, : Replace Green River Formation image with a larger version.

I don't believe that anyone is saying we should do that. But, in a way, you are ...

But it appears that you are doing just that without the benefit of any principles or evidence. I think this has been explained a number of times.Even in a largely erosional regime, there are local base levels, such as lakes and swamps and even rivers, where deposition occurs. Sorry you missed the explanation. I could go on and on about exceptions to every rule, but it would be beyond the scope of a discussion board.

Well, generally, we don't do a lot of geology from photographs. If you don't want to believe what we say, fine.I'm not sure what you would expect to see from such a distance as these images show, other than horizontal bedding, but I can tell from the slopes, color and texture that these are barely lithified lake sediments. Of course. What do you expect from such an image?Believe it or not someone has actually studied these formations. Correct. Well, at least from these images. The naked eye is a valuable tool in geology. It shows us a lot about textures and compositions and bedding features, as well as color.

Nevertheless, this has been explained. In some cases, terrestrial deposits can be depositional, extensive and undisturbed. However, if there is a landscape, with topography such as the the Great Unconformity landscape (topography ... hills, etc.), the surface can be highly irregular. Certainly there are conditions, primarily around shorelines with previous topography or coral reefs, that seafloors are not flat or extensive. If there is no disturbance, or previous topography, there is no reason that a steady rain of sediment will not form flat and extensive deposits. The only force acting is gravity, which will attempt to even out a surface just as it does to water. Then when we show you a flat surface, you deny it. Many of the surfaces you refer to are not so straight and flat in either detail or in gross geometry. When formations have variable thickness, how do you explain that as 'flat and straight'?

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.

And that about tells it all. Faith simply rejects all of the evidence, all of the science, all of the physics, geology, astronomy, chemistry, paleontology, archeology, all of the reality that does not confirm her myth of a Young Earth.

And when you reject evidence in favor of myth, you can't claim to be doing science.In fact, you are doing the exact opposite of science.

Actually, I never said that some contacts are not straight and flat and extensive. I'm just saying that it's not necessary and not as common as you seem to indicate. In fact, I've told you why contacts are straight and flat in some cases. I don't remember things as well as you. Could you document this? Is there something wrong with studying details? I mean other than the fact that details are where YEC breaks down? I do?I thought I was saying that there is erosion occurring throughout the geological record. Well, that pretty much settles it, I suppose. I don't remember saying anything like that. Yes, that's what I said. Again, I do not remember discussing talus cones or hoodoos. "Just no". Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? I'm sure that everyone would have been convinced on day one. Why is that nonsensical? I can't figure out why you reject so many things. However, you are free to do so.

If so I must have rejected the interpretation. And please don't just say you told me this or that, show me what you actually said and where.And I haven't yet seen you or anyone acknowledge just HOW straight and flat so many are, such as those in those two pictures, both of them. No, the photo does not distort that. Probably, but not right now. Yes. They mislead you into absurd theories about the history of the rock. Yes. But that IS denying the implications of the large-scale erosion I'm talking about. Perhaps I confused someone else with you. Then again I must have confused you with one of the other geology experts posting here. I rarely reject anything in Geology that is real science, accurate observations of actual phenomena etc.. (Except I do dispute your observation that those are not razor-edge sharp contacts and flat flat flat straight layers in those pictures, and your weird inability to grasp the implications of the large-scale erosion I've been talking about.)I know you don't see any distinction but it's very clear to me. What you actually observe and make use of in the present is testable and provable, real science.I don't even ALWAYS reject some of your interpretations of the past but that's where I do object when I object. It's all imaginary, although it purports to be an accurate description of realities. Such as how you get from a landscape to a rock.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But of course. But then what happens when your case turns out to be utterly worthless?We all form hypotheses. That's how science works. We observe what's happening, we formulate a hypothesis of what's happening, and we test that hypothesis. If it works, then we keep it, but if it doesn't work, then we eliminate it ... or modify it and test it again. But not for you, Faith, the dogmatic.Here's an example:

quote:

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The Physicist and the Metaphysicist

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In the 1920s, there was a dinner at which the physicist Robert W. Wood was asked to respond to a toast. This was a time when people stood up, made a toast, and then selected someone to respond. Nobody knew what toast they'd be asked to reply to, so it was a challenge for the quick-witted. In this case the toast was: "To physics and metaphysics." Now by metaphysics was meant something like philosophy -- truths that you could get to just by thinking about them. Wood took a second, glanced about him, and answered along these lines: The physicist has an idea, he said. The more he thinks it through, the more sense it makes to him. He goes to the scientific literature, and the more he reads, the more promising the idea seems. Thus prepared, he devises an experiment to test the idea. The experiment is painstaking. Many possibilities are eliminated or taken into account; the accuracy of the measurement is refined. At the end of all this work, the experiment is completed and ... the idea is shown to be worthless. The physicist then discards the idea, frees his mind (as I was saying a moment ago) from the clutter of error, and moves on to something else.

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The difference between physics and metaphysics, Wood concluded, is that the metaphysicist has no laboratory.

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(reportedly from an essay by Carl Sagan)

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Faith, what happens when your case proves to be worthless? Perhaps the only saving grace of this entire abortion of a topic that you have created is the collection of superlative responses to your inane misunderstandings.