Long build up of Sediments

My mistake, I thought you were suggesting that specific phenomena within strata occured all over the world. That certainly would be true for global (i.e. environmental) events, but not all strata all over the world. There would certainly have been regional phenomena captured in the rock.That said, one can still get a picture of the world going back in time. Your commentary strays from that to assumptions about geology and geologic structures which are not accurate. My first post to you here was due to your commentary of how strata exist... when they most certainly do not.If you are trying to create an argument using a model of geology with consistent sedimentation rates, and straight strata... then your argument is against a strawman. The old earth model is not based on that.Early in geology some worked with a form of uniformitarianism which may have included such concepts, but that doesn't exist any more. If I remember right it didn't even last long then.This message has been edited by holmes, 03-12-2006 01:48 PM

---

holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

I am not BASING any ENTIRE theory of anything on anything. I'm raising questions about how discrete sediments could possibly be thought to have characterized an entire period of multipled millions of years. It's a very limited topic.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-12-2006 07:52 AM

1) You are not confining yourself to such limits. Your answers here indicate (if not explicitly state) you are using assumptions about what geological structures look like and how geology determines ages, in order to raise your question.2) They are not "thought to have characterized an entire period of multipled millions of years". I don't believe anyone has suggested that is the case.The proposition is that discrete sediments contain the remaining material of a depositional environment which lasted a period of time (not necessarily millions of years) at some point in time in the past. Geologists try and place that point in time by comparing/contrasting it with other strata, and perhaps length of deposition (period of time) based on size and content of strata, compared with other "dated" strata.It would be hard to just look at one strata and say because it is so thick and contains X, that it must have occured Y years ago and lasted Z years. It is the accumulation of evidence by comparing strata that creates this ability. And no depositional environment could be thought to characterize everything within a period.

---

holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

The answers are pretty unsatisfactory it seems to me, as they are all quite local. Mountain building, raising and lowering of sea level, etc. We're talking a prodigious amount of sediments after all, supposely accumulated over a billion or so years. Seems to me it is an enormous problem for the old earth time frame, as you have to keep having mountain building -- and that's a very local thing -- and a lot of repeated washings of sediments into the sea, which implies one and only one sediment for millions of years and how can that be accounted for? And then the raising of the sea floor to become layered land, and then THAT would supposedly also erode into the sea, but I would think that would mix sediments rather than keep them so separated as is seen in the geo column. LOTS of questions.Whereas the Flood explanation simply relies on the land mass already present for the amount of material that ended up in the geo column -- plus material stirred up in the sea as well probably. In that case there is always the question how the sediments got so neatly sorted out into identifiable layers, same as how the fossils did -- but that's a question for either theory. I'm not sure what all it includes, but all the layers known as time periods at least. No, I understand that there are variations in types of sediments and fossil contents too that are identified nevertheless as belonging to one time period all over the globe, although I don't know all the factors that go into this or how they CAN identify it as the same time period given the differences. I have to assume that whatever length of time applies to this time period in one part of the globe also applies elsewhere even though the contents may differ, which means that the same question applies about the length of time it took to accumulate the sediment and how just one kind of sediment could characterize such a long period of time. I don't know. I'm thinking only in terms of quantities. Sorry I missed it. I'll check it out. Thanks, Moose.

I still have this question. KILOMETERS of depth of ONE kind of sediment? How can this be explained even by tectonics -- or anything else?

Faith writes: Faith later writes: It seems to me that you have answered your own question. If the quantity of sediments is so massive they must have had a source. Mainstream geology explains this very well in that there has been continuous mountain building since the beginning of plate tectonics to create a continuous source over long periods of time. As near as I can see, your 'prodigious amounts of sediments' have neither a source nor the time to accumulate in a flood scenario.

Faith, in the last two million years the Front Range in Colordo has experienced at least 7000 feet of uplift. And this is the third episode of uplift in the region... So, if you think that tectonism cannot produce such variation, I am sorry, but this is what the data tell us.Furthermore, accumulating sediments do not just sit there on a rigid plate. They have tremendous mass which will depress the crust, especially thin parts such as occur in ocean basins, creating room for more deposition. This is one of the facts that we have seen during the whole Katrina misadventure: the Mississippi delta is compacting and depressing the crust of the Gulf of Mexico, but we have not allowed more sediments to be deposited there for hundreds of years. It's called subsidence. Now, if we look at the average depth of the ocean and consider filling it to the brim then allowing for subsidence, several kilometers of sediment could easily be accomodated.NOw the fact that such a depositional environment can last for such long periods of time seems to trouble you. I am sorry, but the evidence shows that this is possible. I have tried to give you several examples of very slow, in human terms, change. That you cannot break out of this short-sighted viewpoint is sad, but very common among YECs. There is not solution for you, I am afraid.It is also clearly evident that the depositional environment can change relatively abruptly. There are many cases of this and there are many cases of gradational contacts as well. This is not a problem for mainstream geology and it is doubtful that you have put more time into this than geologists over the last three hundred years. Your incredulity is not evidence.

Please define for us 'discrete sediments'.Your topic may be limited, but it does not exist in a vacuum of outside data. You may be able to ignore structural, paleontological, radiometric, and stratigraphic evidence, but the geologist simply cannot do so.I could make up any number of wishful stories, if I could ignore 90% of the geological evidence on any given topic. And I could even ignore the fact that today's story conflicts with yesterday's story on a different topic. However, that goes against my training, knowlege and the work of thousands of geologists before me.

I don't see that you have answered my basic question about the humongous QUANTITY of sediment involved to a depth of KILOMETERS which you suggested could have occurred. No matter how the stuff was contained or behaved, subsidence or whatnot, that's a prodigious AMOUNT of stuff, and ALL ONE KIND of sediment yet (which is clearly shown by all the diagrams that associate one kind of sediment with one time period of scores of millions of years), and spread over some enormous distance horizontally too in many cases such as the Southwest USA. I do not see that you addressed this at all. Feet of uplift says nothing about it. Accommodating it is not the question. The questions are WHERE COULD IT HAVE COME FROM, and can you really think that only one kind of sediment could have accumulated at such a depth over such a broad swath of land by slow increments? (I guess I'm questioning that it ever was kilometers deep).

All limestone in one layer, all shale in another, all sandstone in another, all a different kind of limestone in another etc.

Sure. It doesn't. I thought we'd cleared that up several posts back. In my opinion, every bedding plane represents a hiatus in deposition. Do you really visualize deposition in all environments to be a continuous steady rain of sediments? That may be a convenient simplification for large periods of time, but at the scale of beds or laminae, it kind of breaks down.

This is how geologists appear to talk about it, seeming to discuss erosion only between the layers, even talking about "horizons" and "landscapes" that occur only at the surface of a given layer or "time period."

I'm not sure that I can make it any simpler. Basins exist. They can be very deep. They can further subside under the weight of sediments. If you cannot even attempt to understand this, I am wasting my time. Once again, your incredulity is not evidence. I am sorry that your mind is so closed. (Sigh). Okay look at it this way: if one block is uplifted, what happens to the adjacent block? It is relatively depressed and automatically becomes a potential receiving basin... I can see this is going nowhere. As long as there is uplift above sea level and subsidence below it, there will be erosion, transport and deposition of sediments. I have given you the mechanism of plate tectonics to help explain this. Apparently you have seen fit to ignore what anyone else says on this thread. This is disrespectful and hopeless. It doesn't really bother me; you can beleive what you want, but I do feel that I have wasted my time here.One one hand we have YECs complaining that there is not enough sediment in the oceans. Here we have you telling us there is too much. Could it be that there is just the right amount?

From the way you have interpreted my post and others' here, it is clear that you read what you want to read. It is no wonder that you come up with a garbled hash of factoids that make no sense when pulled together. Perhaps I will return here later, but as others have warned me, your case appears truly hopeless. Have a good day.

When you find you are out of discussion with others, I invite you to address my earlier post which points to how geologists actually came to discuss what they discuss.That said erosion from wind or surface water can only occur at the surface. Not sure why that would not make sense. There are discussions of loss of material that is not at the surface. Underground rivers and other ground water issues can erode material beneath a surface. Also movement from faulting and folding, as well as intrusion can alter or remove existing material below the surface.

---

holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)