Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
5 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,815 Year: 3,072/9,624 Month: 917/1,588 Week: 100/223 Day: 11/17 Hour: 0/7


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   The Geological Timescale is Fiction whose only reality is stacks of rock
Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.2


(1)
Message 1181 of 1257 (791609)
09-18-2016 11:13 AM
Reply to: Message 1178 by Faith
09-16-2016 6:39 PM


Re: The Great Martian Flood
I was hoping Dr Adequate would return to the discussion about Martian strata, but since he hasn't I'd like to reintroduce what I thought was his main point.
According to your view of YEC principles, only the Flood could have deposited the stratigraphic layers we see on Earth. Obviously there was no Flood on Mars, so why does it have stratigraphic layers just like Earth does?
Dr Adequate's Martian strata issue was introduced as another way of making the point that the stratigraphic layers we find on Earth today were deposited in the distant past by the the same process of gradual erosion and sedimentation that we observe all around us today, that it is a continuous process that began on the early Earth and has never ended, that the strata are continuous from the early Earth up to the present, and that new strata will continue to be deposited on into the future.
Please, no replies to this message. Hopefully Taq and Dr Adequate will continue discussing this sub-topic with you.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1178 by Faith, posted 09-16-2016 6:39 PM Faith has not replied

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1198 of 1257 (791711)
09-20-2016 10:17 AM
Reply to: Message 1187 by Faith
09-19-2016 6:13 PM


Re: Martian strata not caused by water but by volcano
Faith writes:
The Flood would be dramatically different from local floods is all I've ever said about that, because, well golly gee, it covered every scrap of land on earth while local floods just relocate some mud.
This would be an opportune time to describe your evidence for the different things a global flood would do, as opposed to local floods. What physical laws come into play that cause floods to have greater sorting and organizing power as they grow larger? Why do the largest floods carve canyons instead of spreading out across a landscape like smaller floods, and what is the evidence that this has happened? Since oceans cover nearly 3/4 of the world, how does our evidence of what oceans do support what a global flood would do?
I believe what I said was that the GEOLOGICAL COLUMN was finished when the Flood ended. I know there are sedimentary deposits still going on in odd places but they aren't the Geologic Column.
Since gravity plus the simple physical laws behind erosion and transport seem to require that sediments be deposited at the lowest elevations almost everywhere (basins, lakes and oceans, more than 3/4 of the world), what is your evidence that sedimentary deposits are only occurring in "odd places"?
The Martian strata are not the result of a flood. How about responding to the conclusion I came to that they are the result of a volcanic eruption?
From the Wikipedia article Composition of Mars:
quote:
Layered sedimentary deposits are widespread on Mars.
You've often said that sedimentary deposits can only result from a planet-wide flood, and you say here that, "The Martian strata are not the result of a flood," so how did those layers that are sedimentary arise? Upon what evidence are you basing your claims?
You can respond to this message, though I won't be participating in the discussion.
Edited by Admin, : Clarify my first response.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1187 by Faith, posted 09-19-2016 6:13 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1218 by Faith, posted 09-21-2016 3:42 PM Admin has replied

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1199 of 1257 (791712)
09-20-2016 10:19 AM
Reply to: Message 1197 by edge
09-20-2016 10:02 AM


Re: One date
edge writes:
Nevertheless, YECs present the argument that ages are based on 'assumptions', as though that is a bad thing in the real world.
It would be helpful to clearly identify those assumptions.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1197 by edge, posted 09-20-2016 10:02 AM edge has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1200 by edge, posted 09-20-2016 11:50 AM Admin has replied

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1201 of 1257 (791724)
09-20-2016 12:32 PM
Reply to: Message 1200 by edge
09-20-2016 11:50 AM


Re: One date
Playing devil's advocate, don't these assumptions completely undermine radiometric dating? If most of the daughter element dissipates, won't samples date much older than they should? And isn't it impossible to determine that hasn't happened?
And even if that problem were solved, if decay rates were greater in the past, won't samples again date much older than they should? And isn't it impossible to know past decay rates?
Given this, isn't it appropriate to ignore radiometric dates?

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1200 by edge, posted 09-20-2016 11:50 AM edge has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1202 by edge, posted 09-20-2016 1:18 PM Admin has seen this message but not replied
 Message 1203 by NoNukes, posted 09-20-2016 2:04 PM Admin has seen this message but not replied
 Message 1204 by Taq, posted 09-20-2016 2:42 PM Admin has seen this message but not replied
 Message 1210 by JonF, posted 09-21-2016 7:47 AM Admin has seen this message but not replied
 Message 1213 by Pressie, posted 09-21-2016 9:14 AM Admin has seen this message but not replied

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1211 of 1257 (791758)
09-21-2016 8:14 AM


Thanks for Answers About Dating Assumptions
Thank you for the clarifications about assumptions used in radiometric dating. Trying to summarize
  • Assumption 1: The sample has not been compromised in a way that has altered the concentrations of parent and daughter elements.
    The most common risk is probably escape of daughter element, which as someone noted causes younger, not older, dates. Where sample integrity is in question other dating methods can be employed and the correspondence between methods checked. So while a scientist *could* merely assume his sample's parent/daughter concentrations haven't been compromised, in reality that assumption is only made when warranted, and over the course of decades so many radiometric measurements using so many different methods have been made of so many samples from so many regions as to leave no doubt of the world's great antiquity, especially when considering whether the world is hundreds of millions of years old or just thousands.
  • Assumption 2: The rates of radiometric decay have not changed.
    This might properly have been labeled an assumption a century ago, but not for a very long time since. It's been verified nine ways from Sunday.
Arguments based upon radiometric dating that "The Geologic Timescale is Fiction" should at this point, 1200 messages into the discussion, be specific and fact based.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

Replies to this message:
 Message 1214 by Pressie, posted 09-21-2016 9:22 AM Admin has seen this message but not replied
 Message 1216 by JonF, posted 09-21-2016 10:36 AM Admin has seen this message but not replied

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1221 of 1257 (791801)
09-21-2016 7:02 PM
Reply to: Message 1218 by Faith
09-21-2016 3:42 PM


Re: Martian strata not caused by water but by volcano
Faith writes:
I could never have said that "sedimentary deposits CAN ONLY RESULT from a world-wide flood." ("A" world-wide flood?) What you must be misreading is my claim that the sedimentary deposits that make up the Geologic Column would have been the result of THE world-wide Flood of Noah.
I hope someone picks up this subtopic, but for now just let me correct your misunderstanding of the argument. Your position is that the sedimentary deposits found all around the world could only have resulted from the Flood (which was a world-wide flood according to you), yet sedimentary deposits are found all around Mars. If they weren't deposited by a Martian global flood then by what process did they form, and why is that process ruled out on Earth?
I already said what it looks like to me, that the layers on Mars are most likely predominantly volcanic.
I thought I mentioned this before, but if not let me say it again. "What it looks like to me" is not an argument. What that means here is that if you'd like to argue that "the layers on Mars are most likely predominantly volcanic" (presumably you mean the sedimentary layers I referred to are predominately volcanic) then you must describe how the evidence supports that view or drop the argument.
Ash and basalt are also "sedimentary deposits"...
Just a correction here: neither ash nor basalt are considered sedimentary. Where the Wikipedia article on The Composition of Mars said, "Layered sedimentary deposits are widespread on Mars," it definitely was not referring to volcanic ash or basalt.
They "LOOK" like they are all the same kind of material, as I said, and they "LOOK" like they are similar in thickness, nothing at all like the strata of the Geo Column.
As mentioned above, the way something looks to you is not evidence. First you need evidence for why all the Martian layers are the same kind of material, and evidence that they're all similar thicknesses. Once you have those then you need an argument for how that evidence has anything to do with the question: If world-wide sedimentary layers on Earth could only have formed from a world-wide flood, then wouldn't Mars-wide sedimentary layers on Mars have also had to have formed from an analogous Mars-wide flood?
And no matter how "widespread" they may be I see no reason to impute planet-wide extent to them as I do to the Geologic Column.
Just pointing out that it makes no sense to argue that even if Martian sedimentary layers were planet-wide that you would "see no reason to impute planet-wide extent to them."
I'd prefer not to become a participant in the discussion, so please don't reply to this message, but do please be cognizant of these comments in future discussion.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1218 by Faith, posted 09-21-2016 3:42 PM Faith has not replied

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.2


(1)
Message 1223 of 1257 (791806)
09-21-2016 8:22 PM
Reply to: Message 1222 by Faith
09-21-2016 7:34 PM


Faith writes:
"How it looks to me" may not be Grade A evidence but it IS evidence.
Opinion can be part of a consensus (that the Earth's history reflected a global flood *was* the consensus a couple centuries ago), but it cannot be evidence. You explain why yourself:
It's the only evidence James Hutton had for the great age of the earth when he pondered how Siccar Point "looked to him." He gave the particulars...
Yes, particulars, otherwise known as evidence.
Once everyone has stated "how it looks" to them, the only way to decide between opposing views is by constructing arguments around evidence. You've been skipping that step, you seemed determined to continue that way, I've made no secret of my desire for evidence-based discussion, so to discourage further efforts at avoiding evidence and its careful consideration I am suspending you.
AbE: Since Faith mentioned James Hutton, here's a link to his book Theory of the earth: with proofs and illustrations that begins with chapter 4 and accounts of his most famous evidence, such as Siccar Point. Here's another link to Theory of the earth: with proofs and illustrations that begins at the beginning. These links seem appropriate since Hutton was the first to provide a theory for how geological strata formed and came to have their present appearance.
Please, no replies to this message.
Edited by Admin, : AbE.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1222 by Faith, posted 09-21-2016 7:34 PM Faith has not replied

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1224 of 1257 (791810)
09-21-2016 9:23 PM
Reply to: Message 1194 by edge
09-19-2016 10:43 PM


Re: Martian strata not caused by water but by volcano
Faith replied to your message with questions, so I gave it a second look and am trying to think my way through this, but I can't tell if I'm on the right track.
Radiometric dates help determine the thermal history of a basin and when/where oil might be generated. If a date is too old, the oil might have already formed and migrated, or the heat from an intrusive might be too old to have affected a source rock.
Let's say a core is drilled down to a sedimentary layer that dates to 200 million years old, but that is not the age of the layer since dating a sedimentary layer gives you the age of the original igneous rocks that were eroded away to become sediments, or if the layer was heated sufficiently (became metamorphic) so that the radiometric clock was reset then it is the age since it cooled. The rock itself reveals whether it is metamorphic or not.
If the rock is not metamorphic then the age is of the original igneous rock and tells us nothing about the age of the sedimentary layer, but it also tells us that the layer has never reached a high enough temperature to become metamorphic. The formation of oil requires heat, but how much heat? If it requires more heat than that required to form metamorphic rock, then we know this layer cannot contain oil. But if the formation of oil requires less heat than that required to form metamorphic rock then the fact that the layer hasn't become metamorphic tells us nothing about whether it might contain oil.
If the rock is metamorphic then the age is when the layer cooled, but how would knowing that say whether it contains oil? Knowing the actual age of the sedimentary layer might provide clues, but how would that be determined, and what might those clues be?
I'm going to stop here because I'm concerned that I might be piling too many speculations upon one another, but I think everyone would benefit from understanding this better.
This kind of information is used as a filter to set priorities for maintaining a land position or when to drill a target.
I didn't understand this at first, so in case this isn't clear to anyone else I'll explain that by "maintaining a land position" you mean maintaining oil rights to a piece of property.
In some mineral exploration, age dates are critical in determining targets and prioritizing them. Too old or too young in the Rocky Mountains and no one wants to spend money on them.
I presume this is about minerals rather than oil. How does the age of a layer affect the presence of minerals, which don't require heat to form or migrate like oil?

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1194 by edge, posted 09-19-2016 10:43 PM edge has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1225 by edge, posted 09-22-2016 11:57 AM Admin has replied

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1226 of 1257 (791848)
09-23-2016 9:25 AM
Reply to: Message 1225 by edge
09-22-2016 11:57 AM


Re: Martian strata not caused by water but by volcano
Okay, that helps by simplifying out of the discussion my several misconceptions. About this:
edge writes:
The point is that you need to have pathways and traps for the formation of economic oil deposits. If those do not exist or have been destroyed, it is less likely that you will have success. By dating igneous rocks in the sedimentary section, one can get an idea if oil formed (for instance) before or after the formation of a trap. It is also possible that a reservoir can be destroyed by excessive heat, so if you know the age of that heat source, you have a better chance of success.
Let me make a guess about something and you can confirm whether it's true or not. Pathways and traps are frequently mentioned, so I'm going to guess that the original organic material occurs in relatively low concentrations in sedimentary layers, but that the application of heat either from deep burial or from magmatic intrusion causes both a change in the organic material toward becoming oil or eventually natural gas, and a migration along pathways of porous layers ("porous" is relative, right? The porous layers would look like rock to us?). If this migrating oil doesn't hit any natural traps it will eventually be lost, and even if located isn't worth exploiting because it will be at low concentrations. But any of this migrating oil that does hit traps will gather there and become greatly concentrated and worth exploiting.
Some examples of how different oil fields developed would help. Would it be a correct assumption that the Texas/Oklahoma/Gulf of Mexico oil fields formed in approximately the same way? How did they form? In more detail, where did the original material that became oil migrate from, what was the source of heat (was it heat from deep within the Earth or magmatic intrusion or something else), what paths did the oil migrate along, what material forms the traps, and why is there so much oil in the region, meaning why all the traps? Then the same questions for the Saudi oil fields.
I recall that in the earliest days of oil exploitation that oil was found on the surface in places like Texas, western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, which must mean oil migrating upwards along pathways that never encountered traps.
First you get as much information as possible together to provide a convincing model including the age of your oil source, the timing of oil formation, the timing of migration and the age of the trap.
How do you get the ages of all these things? By "age of your oil source" I assume you mean the age of the original material from which the oil was cooked - how do you get that age? How do you determine "the timing of oil formation," by which I assume you mean when the original material was cooked into oil? How do you determine "the timing of migration"? And how do you determine "the age of the trap", and does that mean the age of the material forming the trap, or when the oil itself was trapped?
There are other people here with petroleum exploration experience - come on people, don't leave it all up to Edge.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1225 by edge, posted 09-22-2016 11:57 AM edge has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 1227 by edge, posted 09-23-2016 11:36 AM Admin has seen this message but not replied
 Message 1228 by Taq, posted 09-26-2016 1:34 PM Admin has seen this message but not replied
 Message 1229 by edge, posted 09-26-2016 4:13 PM Admin has seen this message but not replied

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1251 of 1257 (792313)
10-08-2016 8:40 AM


Reopening for Summations
Thread has been placed in summation mode.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 1255 of 1257 (792413)
10-09-2016 8:17 AM


Thanks for the Answers
As this thread goes through the summary phase I want to express my thanks to those who answered my questions about oil formation. I found it helpful and very interesting. Even the most basic of information was new to me, for instance that oil gathers in traps. I greatly appreciated being given enough information to gain a sense of how complicated it can be without being flooded with an incomprehensible amount of information.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024