The TRVE history of the Flood...

OK but you seem to be saying that the Mississippi Delta, for instance, has sunk independently of the land around it? Or is it just that the information isn't available? I'm thinking of the weight of the very deep strata which of course is exposed in the Grand Canyon but apparently also underlies most (all?) of the Midwestern US and probably a lot more than that. Strata a couple of miles deep at this time in the GC area would be quite a load wouldn't it? Is perhaps the very lowest part of the canyon level below sea level? I think that is indicated on at least one cross section. Is the fact that the land is raised -- the Colorado Plateau -- the reason it hasn't sunk further? Are there other parts of North America that are known to have sunk beneath sea level? I can't digest all that yet, but I'm wondering about that "old, thick continental crust" if it is meant to describe Europe/Africa because the Americas split off along that coastline so the crust shouldn't be any older or thicker should it? A compliment from you could almost keep me from posting any more, knowing it's all going to go poof as soon as I do. Oh well, neither rain nor sleet nor volcanoes nor the wrath of geologists... Of course I always have some aspect of Noah's Flood in mind as the ultimate explanation for most geological information, but I'm aware I have to come up with convincing evidence so that's what I'm focused on.I've continued to think about this sequence of transgressions and continued to have questions, which I hope are as thoughtful as the others.Observation: Some statistics about the Tonto Group in Grand Canyon, made up of the Tapeats Sandstone, Bright Angel Shale and Muav Limestone. Various sources give its thickness as 1250 feet or 380+ meters, and it's shown to be continuous with the Cambrian Period.Pondering: That got me wondering how deep was the Sauk Sea, since that transgression is given as the cause of this formation, plus some above and below it. "No more than 200 meters" says first site to come up on Google. But the Tonto Group alone is over 380 meters thick. So this seems like an important discrepancy. The Sauk Sea spanned the upper Precambrian through Cambrian to part of Ordovician according to that chart of the cratonic sequences I posted in Message 477 So, to deposit sediment to that depth the water would have had to be at least 1250 feet deep, or probably more, wouldn't it?The Sauk Sea is identified as the source of the Tonto Group in the Wikipedia page on that group, so it would have to have been at least 380+ meters/1250 feet deep. That's a little under a quarter of a mile.Question: Is that a high enough rise in sea level to flood other continents? And to what extent?Question: Is there some formula that expresses how much weight will cause a land mass to subside? Or in other words, how heavy a load would cause the land to subside? Would the three rocks of the Tonto Group plus some of the Ordovician be heavy enough to do that? Would it sink a little, a lot? How much?Ponderings: If it didn't sink at all then it would be 1250 feet/380+ meters above sea level, and the next transgression would have to exceed that level by the thickness of the next group of sediments deposited. In the Grand Canyon that would include the redwall limestone which is 500 to 800 feet thick. The Kaskasia transgression laid down the Mississippian and the Devonian strata. the Devonian is maximum 100 feet so the Kaskasia transgression had to rise another 900 feet over the previous sedimentary deposits, laying it all down over about a hundred million years.And the next transgression would have to have risen above that level by some hundreds of feet or meters IF we haven't yet reached enough weight to cause subsidence. Of course if we have, then the level of the water required will be reduced by however deep the land sinks.So knowing what weight would cause subsidence to what depth is necessary for knowing whether a sea transgression has to rise some known amount to cover the previous sedimentary deposits, and add to them to whatever thickness lies above them. (My guess, admittedly worth nothing, is that it could take a couple or three transgressions before any subsidence occurred; which would mean that sea level would have to rise enough to transgress other continents to the same depth. (In fact this could already be the case with the first transgression of 1250 feet?)But if subsidence keeps pace with the sedimentary level and the sedimentary deposits keep sinking to the former level of that land, I guess then it depends on how fast they sink and whether the water ever had to get to 1250 feet to lay down the Tonto Group.Of course if the subsidence did not keep pace with the rising of the water and the sedimentary deposits, then other continents would also have been similarly flooded, even if for some reason the same kinds of transgressions don't seem to have occurred.Question: BUT again, wouldn't even that very first rise of 1250 feet also affect all the other continents?

This is going to be a rather half-baked post. I'm still not grasping what the chart of the transgressing seas (cratonic sequences) represents. It helped a lot for you to explain that the left side represents the center of the continent and the right side the margins (I kept asking myself "center of what?")So that got me as far as understanding that the horizontal dimension represwents the land, or space, and the vertical dimension represents time, but I still have to fight the tendency to see the shape of the water figure as representing the amount of space it covers.So the transgression only covered the center of the continent for a relatively short period of time, covering the rest of the continent out to the margins for progressively longer periods. The rest of the time the dry land was eroding.{It doesn't seem to take into the account the possibility that the center of the continent could be lower and the water could stay there a longer time than at higher elevations? Such as would be the case with the Inland Sea?But I need to think about this more. I still don't really understand it. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : punctuation, grammar

It's easy to get caught up in thinking about the Cratonic Sequences in relation to the continental positions as they are now, but in fact, according to Geology for most of the Phanerozoic Eon North America was part of a loosely organized Supercontinent called Rodinia: It looks loosely organized on that illustration anyway, but from what I've read its history isn't yet completely understood. But it is said to have existed throughout the Paleozoic and into the Mesozoic when another Supercontinent formed, known as Pangaea.Observation: According to the map of Rodinia, Laurentia/North America was connected on the south with what later became South America, and on the north with what later became Australia and South Africa.Pondering: This provisionally suggests that transgressions of Laurentia/North America would likely also have transgressed those other land masses. Yet apparently there is no evidence of such transgressions on those continents.Internet Information: Then Pangaea formed in the Permian or about 270 million years ago, and broke up in the Jurassic, about 200 million years ago, into the current arrangement of continents. Observation: So from the Permian to the Jurassic North America was part of this Supercontinent, and during that period, which looks on that chart of the Cratonic Sequences like it lasted about a hundred million years, the Absaroka transgression was receding, and then the Zuni had just begun when the continents split.Deduction:Since Pangaea was one united continent any sea transgressions on North America/Laurentia would of necessity have had to occur on the rest of the land mass. In fact, since there aren't any margins to the North America/Laurentia area it seems to me the whole system of cratonic sequences completely breaks down for the last three, the Absaroka, the Zuni and the Tejas, which span the periods from the Permian to the present.Putting all this together would take more thought, but on first impression it seems that some changes have to be made either in the understanding of the Cratonic Sequences or the history of the Supercontinents or both.Observation: The formation and breaking up of Pangaea would also have had tectonic effects, but these don't seem to be taken into account in the history of the cratonic sequences. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yes, it would but I don't see any alternative, given the timing factors we have to work with, but to proceed with the expectation that the tectonic activity had to be fairly violent. So I've calculated how fast the Americas split from Europe/Africa for instance, over the last 4350 years. I think it came out to ten feet per day on either side of the Atlantic Ridge, slowing incrementally to its current minuscule speed. An "impossible" rate I know, but there it is. We're told this would generate too much heat, but there have to be all kinds of unknown variables we can't guess at for the prehistoric past so all I think we can do is go with the Biblical timing. Or all I can do anyway. You are pursuing some different angles on all this and it's interesting to follow your thinking.So I also figure the travel of the Indian subcontinent from the east coast of Africa to its current position would have been fairly speedy too, although I didn't try to calculate that. Given the condition of the Himalayas it looks to me like it crashed fairly hard into Asia and raised the mountains a lot faster than is ordinarily considered possible. Best I can do with the information at hand.One thing to take into consideration is that if this happened right at the end of the Flood, as I think it did (haven't noticed the timing you are using), then Noah and his family on the ark were the only human beings on the planet and nowhere near the areas of all the tectonic activity. Of course by the time India reached Asia... I don't know, that calculation is beyond me at the moment.Thanks for the other information. It's a bit too technical for me though. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Hi Vimesey,
My remarks on the timing of continental drift were just incidental because CRR has a different view than I do. Without better reason than I now have to change it, I have to stick to the Bible's timing. All I was saying was that the biblical timing as I understand it requires the tectonic speed I came up with, but if I ever have a good reason to change my understanding of the timing then that estimate will also change. As I also said, however, I'm looking to the possibility of unknown mitigating factors. I'm not defending it right now; it's on hold.I did indulge in an attempt at defending it on another thread a couple years ago. HBD was telling me I have to abandon the whole tectonic argument for the reasons being given here and I attempted to find a way to justify it, no doubt inadequately, which I'm sure you could prove only too well. I don't want to pursue it on this thread but maybe could get into it on a new thread some time.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Somehow I missed Pannotia, reading Rodinia for the Paleozoic so now I have to rethink all of it.

Not exactly. The Cratonic Sequences look to me like evidence for the Flood that has been broken up by incidental details that prevent the whole story from coming together. Not intentionally, just because that's how geologists think, so I keep trying to think through the geological information from a floodist perspective. I don't particularly expect to find errors, but in this case it seemed that I did. It's not essential to anything I'm thinking about unless it helps further the Flood interpretation (which it doesn't seem to in this case).So when the first thing people said was that the six transgressions on North America were isolated to that continent and not evidenced on any other continent THEN I had my doubts. How can that be so? A transgression of one has to occur to all. And at first I had the idea, and argued it through in that first post, that the water had to keep rising because the land had to keep rising with each transgression's sedimentary deposition, which would of course bring the water eventually up to about the level of the Flood; raising the question how the mechanics of this series of incremental rises could be mechanically justified but the Flood couldn't.Then the argument was made that the water didn't have to rise if the land was subsiding. That got me into all the cogitations about whether the subsidence could prevent the water from rising at all. I concluded that at the very least the first deposition, the Tonto Group,laid down by the Sauk Sea, which required at least 1250 feet of water, should certainly be high enough to flood the other continents. But nobody commented on this point. I also suggested the level was probably higher in reality, the first two or even three transgressions having to rise to cover the former level, on the idea that subsidence might not have occurred before that. All speculation of course, but the focus remained on the depth of the water involved and how at any level it should have affected all the continents, including the first level, the Sauk Sea that formed the Tonto Group's 1250 feet thickness.Then I remembered the shifting around of the Supercontinents and realized that the closeness/continuity of the land masses in Pangaea (and Rodinia as I thought at the time) certainly implies that any flooding/(shallow) transgression of North America/Laurentia would mean flooding of the others.I don't yet have a picture of how Pannotia fits into all this, but your saying that its break-up "was accompanied by sea level rise" which "coincides with the start of the Sauk Sequence in North America [and also with] the 'Cambrian Explosion'" at least agrees with my conclusion that the Sauk transgression should have covered all the continents.My "doubts" are along the lines of supposing that Geology is likely to come up with evidence for the Flood without recognizing it, rather than any expectation of outright error. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

No comment on my preoccupation with the level of the water eh? I did keep reading that the sequences are marked by such unconformities but couldn't make sense of it and don't see its significance now either. Yes, those "unconformities" that are the supposed complete absence of a whole layer from the Geological Column, yes, I definitely doubt the presence of those absent layers, yes indeed. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Not according to Admin, when it's the foundational assumption for the arguments.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Both of which are imaginary, interestingly enough. Perhaps you could offer some specific evidence for these? Where for instance have these unconformities been identified? Unlikely they all exist in any one geo column, right? So you must have to jump around to locate them.And what about those "emergent" mountains? The Rockies did form rather dramatically to the west of the Cretaceous Seaway, but not until after all the strata were laid down as I think of it, and since your evidence is going to be more imaginary conjurings there's no reason to think it any better than mine. I think of course of the imaginary mountains Geology has erected from the angular unconformity at the base of the Grand Canyon. Nothing but airy fantasy but you expect us all to treat Geology as evidenced Science. I've given more reasonable evidence for the Flood over my time at EvC. You could try spelling it out, if you could bring yourself to lay aside your tendency to make things as hard as possible for a creationist. I am capable of entertaining a hypothetical, though I've found that most here haven't that ability when it comes to getting anything right that a creationist says. Ah, more imaginary stuff, what fun. Let's see, we've got imaginary layers, imaginary mountains, imaginary time period landscapes, what else?ABE: Oh yes, imaginary erosion in those tight contacts between layers. Imaginary shallow seas, imaginary supercontinents (except for Pangaea which probably represents something real though probably not in that shape, and of course in the wrong time frame), and more I'm sure. /ABE Quelle surprise.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The core from a borehole might suffice where the strata are not exposed.

Since you recognize these imaginary unconformities so easily, please identify the six that are supposedly represented on the chart of the Cratonic Sequences and give their geographic location. Thank you.

I've read this as meaning corroborating evidence for claims about the Flood -- although these may have originated in the Bible -- but not for the Bible itself. Edited by Faith, : ATTEMPT AT GREATER CLARITY

Your posts are too cryptic for me to follow, and I think you should post the link again instead of asking me to go find it.

OK, what do these unconformities look like? How would I recognize it?And tell me again what the significance of these unconformities is understood to be? Not if there is reason to think they all follow pretty much the same pattern Morris described.ABE: By the way, the link to the St Peter Sandstone article only goes to a tiny map of the US.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.