Geology- working up from basic principles.

I'm having trouble following this thread. It starts off real well, of course, easy to digest but doesn't tell me much I don't already know. Eventually though it veers off into a Rugby match about what may be mere technicalities and semantics or else could be very important, hard to say.As I understand it, a good example of the laws of superposition and its relative faunal succession was found in the coal mines of 18th and 19th century Britain. Lot and lots of unbroken layers, lots and lots of fossils, no exceptions to the rules. Is it not true that these layers represent a chronology covering millions of layers, millions of years, and millions of fossils?If I'm understanding what the people stirring this thread are saying, unbroken superposition is no guarantee of chronology, transgressions and slurries and other things create the appearance of unbroken layers but aren't really, the geological column is arranged randomly rather than chronologically, and its just some sort of awesome coincidence that we only find trilobites near the bottom and grass near the top.I don't believe this, I think it's fraudulent. Someone make me smarter than I am right now.

Thanks!Yes, I think I'm getting it. The part I was missing is that you and petrophysics1 have been talking about what I would consider broken strata, not suitable for chronology like these nice flat layers we would point at in Wales or Devon or wherever, the Grand Canyon. (Correct me if I'm still missing a good part.)And pp is going even further, he is saying that even under these circumstances he can still determine chronology, because he is an expert, an engineer therefore an artist as much as a scientist, and/or has a Contract With The Old Ones. And that at least in his experience there are a tremendous amount more of these broken difficult slanty screwy layers than the nice clean flat ones I would consider "real" superposition.But regardless of all this, there's still no danger of anyone mistaking these for the layers we like to point at and call "the geologic column." Which leaves only stewartreeve and these slurries, which I'm pretty sure don't leave flat clean levels either and probably actually look like a single sloppy chaotic layer in comparison to any real layers above and below. I just don't want to be stupid about this, here's what I think I know about stratigraphy already if anyone cares to sharpen me up some more. Message 130Sorry for the confusion, thanks again