Rapid generation of layers in the GC

TB: I don't normally get involved in the geology discussions - not my field - but I do like following them. A question and an observation:1. I'm not clear what you're arguing. Part of it may be my limited geology background (I took one intro course 25 years ago), but are you claiming that the few examples of polystrate fossils that have been discovered here and there around the world represent evidence for a flood of global proportions? If so, wouldn't there be substantial evidence for rapid deposition literally everywhere, rather than isolated incidences separated by space and time? I mean, wouldn't all polystrate fossils be found in the identical layers? The Yellowstone polystrates are found in Tertiary volcanic breccias, the Nova Scotia polystrates are Carboniferous, etc. It doesn't appear to this geology neophyte - regardless of the rapidity of the deposition - that these deposits occurred anywhere remotely at the same time.2. I had the opportunity to view the results of the Nov. '98 lahar on Casita volcano that buried the town of Posoltega in Nicaragua. In some places the resultant deposition was over 10 meters thick. Because of the vagaries of the terrain, several spots included the lopped-off stumps of trees - some of which were up to 3-4 meters tall - standing upright as though rooted. The entire event took less than 6 minutes, with an average flow-wave speed of 50 km/h. The outflow covered an area of some 30 sq km, beginning with a subsidence of a mere 100 meter-wide slab of rock and soil. Rapid deposition is quite common. In a couple million years, after petrification, erosion, and further deposition, some future geologist will dig up those trees and find exactly the same thing as we see at Yellowstone: upright trees, fully "rooted" (and even preserved leaves), in a series of Holocene deposits. I wonder if someone then will add the Nicaraguan deposits to Yellowstone et al as evidence for a global flood?

Hey TB:I'm not a geologist, so I'm not even going to try and answer your questions. However, you might find this webpage (a series of links to relatively recent mainstream geology articles that cover a fair selection of your topic) on Weathering and Paleosol References interesting. I'm still working my way through them, but in general the ones I've managed to digest appear to pretty much kill your argument. This one, Late Eocene detrital laterites in central Oregon: Mass balance geochemistry, depositional setting, and landscape evolution seems particularly germane to your questions concerning alluvial deposits. This one, Pliocene pedosedimentary cycles in the southern Pampas, Argentina also talks about different types of sedimentation in a single location in the GC over time. What I like about it is that it goes into some detail on the "how we know" - which I think was one of your questions on the other thread. I haven't finished them all (I'm only down to the "K"s) so there may be others that you might read that are even more appropriate.Just my $.02.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Thanks Quetzal. You do realize that your 2nd and 3rd papers you link refer to only single Cenozoic epochs? But I'll check them out for info on how the layers go there - thanks. We really don't have the big problem you guys think we do with soils. The flood occurred in surges and washed soils from higher regions step by step. So we get soils washed down and layering at different levels with each surge.

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Umm, yeah I knew that. What's your point? We're still talking tens of millions of years. The key point in those two articles is that the pattern is deposition, followed by erosion, followed by deposition, etc. Are you now postulating some kind of incredibly rapid eolian erosion as well as rapid deposition? With different soil types?