Trilobites, Mountains and Marine Deposits - Evidence of a flood?

I'm not going to respond to your fantasy post except for one paragraph. So, you cite Stuart Nevins (er, Steve Austin ...) the known prevaricator as support for your odd scenarios?Sorry, but even Austin would not sign on for the complete absence of unconformities, or the fault interpretation of the Great Unconformity, and not even the post-flood tectonism/magmatism theory of yours. And no, it takes more than that to bother me. What YECs say never surprises me any more, it's just a matter of degree.

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The far left formation with the Claron lying horizontally on top of the tilted strata is a perfect example of an angular unconformity in which the lower strata tilted under the upper, in this case the Claron

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That is a perfect example of the disparate rationalisations you invent to try to explain away contrary evidence. And let us note that you do not offer any reason why that did not happen to the Claron formation to the right of the fault. (Aside from the obvious lunacy of the idea).I suppose that you will insist that I am just being biased - because you can't believe that something you made up could be wrong. Yes, you did make up the claim that there was no tectonic movement before all the strata were deposited - you certainly didn't base it on viewing the actual evidence.And the idea that all such disturbances "appear" to be caused by the same event is also a ridiculous falsehood. The ideas you impose on the data despite the actual appearances is just another example of putting your inventions before the evidence.

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The far left unconformity is also like the Great Unconformity at the bottom of the Grand Canyon which you know I've interpreted in the same way, as tilted while all the strata above were in place, in this case confined by the weight of what would have been about three miles of strata above, the tilting forced by the tectonic pressure that produced all the disturbances seen on the cross section, all of them AFTER all the strata were in place. What's remarkable of course is that the main depth of the strata remained roughly horizontal and parallel during all this activity, which is what makes this area such a good place to see such things.

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That IS the Great Unconformity at the Grand Canyon. And we still see no reason to suppose that the upper strata were in place when the original tilting occurred. The fact that they were not affected is not amazing at all - just solid evidence that they were not there. They were, after all, affected by the later faulting as can easily be seen. As I said it is a good place to see that you are wrong.

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And since the Great Unconformity covers a huge distance, well beyond the Grand Canyon area, it looks like when the continents separated there was quite a shaking in the Earth

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The Great Unconformity generally refers to the hiatus in deposition, not the tilting, which is far more local.

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I'm more and more convinced this had to have occurred simultaneously with the receding of the Flood waters,

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Of course that is how you often react to contrary evidence - by clinging more strongly to the original belief.

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You and edge should really start recognizing all this and joining us Floodists in renovating Geology.

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There is no way that I am going to accept obvious falsehoods. No way that I am going to put a crazy fantasy before the evidence. And no reason why I should.

Using a pseudonym as a creationist in the current scientific environment should hardly brand one a "prevaricator." Austin has done a lot of good geological work, and put together a good book on the Grand Canyon too, where his own study of the nautiloid layer I find very convincing. Probably not, but some ideas are my own and I wouldn't expect anyone to agree with them right off the bat. I've been doing a pretty good job, if I do say so myself, of evidencing my peculiar views nevertheless. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Akshully, there's nothing desperate about it, I don't even know what the contrary view is in this case. I just look at the cross section, ponder it, and report what I see. A horizontal layer with tilted layers beneath it is what else but an angular unconformity. The tilted layers are easily identified as those that on the right are lying horizontal just beneath the Claron there too. Wouldn't have occurred to me that it needs a reason. Just looking at the diagram I conclude that the strata to the right (South) of the fault line were raised up -- and those to the left (North} appear to have dropped. For some reason the strata split at that point, at the fault line, dragging the strata beneath the Claron on the left (North) into their tilted position, but the Claron itself simply stayed in its horizontal position, probably originally with many other layers above it. I usually explain that kind of formation elsewhere in terms of the friction between the tilted or buckled lower strata and the upper causing the two to "stick" together, so I'd apply that here too.All this of course is just one of the many results of the tectonic activity that occurred after the strata wree all in place, which order of events ought to be clearly enough evidenced on the cross section. Oh I've been wrong a lot, and I'll even grant that you are honestly seeing things as you see them, even if I would love to be able to get you to see things my way. Well, this happens to be completely untrue. I got it from studying this cross section. What is seen there is NO disturbances except at the top of the Grand Canyon and underneath it, and the canyon itself of course. The walls of the canyon and the strata stretching from there to the Grand Staircase are all neat and parallel. Then note the raising of the whole area from north to south, peaking over the Grand Canyon. Note the fault line to the extreme north where the strata north of it tilted under the Claron while the strata south of it is penetrated by a dike of magma that spills out at the very top. This obviously all happened after the strata were all in place.Then note the steps of the Grand Staircase, arranged on the incline from north to south, where the slope then turns upward to the Grand Canyon. Lot of shaking going on in that movement of the land, which coupled with the receding of the Flood waters is sufficient explanation for the eroding away of all the sediments above the steps, and the cracking that is Zion Canyon. And farther South there is the Grand Canyon itself sliced into the side of the apex of the raised land there. Again the tectonic disturbance plus receding Flood waters explain very nicely the formation of the canyon itself. A lot of strata had to have existed above the canyon originally, all the way to the level of the top of the Grand Staircase. The butte to the south of the Grand Canyon stands as another monument to that former height of the strata.That all had to have happened almost as one event, due to the tectonic shaking: the fault, raising of hte land, the dike and lava flow, the carving of the Grand Staircase and Zion Canyon, and then the carving of the Grand Canyon and the distant butte. All one acton basically.Then there is what went on beneath the Grand Canyon, which is usually interpreted as having occurred before the strata were built into which the canyon was later carved. But since the dike to the north clearly followed the building of the strata and so did the fault in that area, I find it more likely that the upheaval beneath the GC occurred at the same time as those events. The raising of the GC area itself can be seen as a contour right over the Great Unconformity, the same raising that caused the curved mound at the Permian/Kaibab level into which the canyon was cut, contributing of course to that event along with the receding water which would have taken huge chunks of the uppermost strata with it into the opening crack and carving out the immense width as well as depth of the canyon. Looks to me like the raising of the land and the tilting of the Great Unconformity occurred simultaneously, whatever tilted the GC also pushing up the whole area.Pondering that likelihood along with other angular unconformities led to the idea that the Great Unconformity itself would have been a great sliding between the Supergroup and the strata from the Tapeats upward, and when I saw that huge quartzite boulder on the British creationist video that clinched it, the boulder being a quarter of a mile from where it broke off the shinumo layer.And that focused me on the forces that caused all this: tectonic disturbance being the obvious main cause, pushing and buckling the lower strata beneath the upper strata that begin with the Tapeats. It also seems that the tectonic force would have caused the eruption of the volcanoes beneath the area, as now happens when the moving continents or the subduction of sea floor under a continent may trigger a volcano on the western side of the Americas, or just earthquakes. Tectonic movement does all that so it would have done it beneath the Grand Staircase/Grand Canyon area too.The magma had to have made the granite and contributed to the Vishnu Schist. They are both confined beneath the Tapeats so the pressure added to the weight of the strata would have had a part in colidifying them. The Vishnu must have involved the metamorphosis of some of the lower strata. I know this has been denied, but I can't think what else would have been available. And the layer of magma called the Cardenas in the Supergroup must have been an intrusion although that is denied too. The whole area would have been soaked because the Flood hadn't yet drained, though the weight of the three mile depth of the strata above would have consolidated the various rocks even when wet.That was fun, spelling that out. I wonder what I forgot.Anyway all that was to answer your assertion that "there was no tectonic movement before all the strata were deposited." Beg to differ. Not at all "despite the actual appearances" but entirely because of those appearances as I just spelled out. Truly truly I have derived all these ideas from my observations of the evidence and no prior ideas whatever. Yes it is. How odd since I've done a good job of mustering the evidence that shows that they were already in place before ALL the disturbances shown on the cross section, above and below the canyon area. Strata would not have been laid flat over that mound raised over the Great Unconformity. For just one objection. It had to be the movement between the GU and the strata that embedded the monadnocks too. Well it's local in a lot of places then actually it's how I react to the rehearsal of the evidence as I see it. The more I review it the solider it gets.ABE: Here's another copy of the cross section. If I don't have it in front of me I misremember parts of it: Alas, but this fond wish I did know is a pipe dream.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Akshully, there's nothing desperate about it, I don't even know what the contrary view is in this case. I just look at the cross section, ponder it, and report what I see. A horizontal layer with tilted layers beneath it is what else but an angular unconformity. The tilted layers are easily identified as those that on the right are just beneath the Claron there too

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The contrary view is the obvious one. That the lower, tilted layers were tilted first, then eroded and then the material that makes up the Claron formation was deposited on top. If you come to any other conclusion, I'd have to ask what evidence there is for it.That scenario is even more obvious in the angular unconformity on the right. And, if you remember a more detailed look at the unconformity at Siccar Point only confirmed the standard scenario.

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For some reason the strata split at that point, at the fault line, dragging the strata beneath the Claron on the left (North) into their tilted position, but the Claron itself simply stayed in its horizontal position, probably originally with many other layers above it. I usually explain that kind of formation elsewhere in terms of the friction between the tilted or buckled lower strata and the upper causing the two to "stick" together, so I'd apply that here too.

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Obviously there should be an explanation of why the situation is so different on each side of the fault. Why is it "obvious" that the tilt occurred when the Claron formation was present ? It seems obvious to me that it happened first (the fact that the Claron formation seems to be completely unaffected - and the flatness of the surface it rests on point to that). And since the contact surfaces should be the same, your ideas about friction obviously don't explain the difference at all.

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Well, this happens to be completely untrue. I got it from studying this cross section. What is seen there is NO disturbances except at the top of the Grand Canyon and underneath it, and the canyon itself of course.

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In other words you only looked at one small corner of the planet (which is certainly inadequate) and even there you have to overlook clear evidence to the contrary. I think that is quite sufficient to prove my point.As to your longer argument I will point out that you cannot prove a universal by cherry-picking evidence. The very fact of doing so is grounds for suspecting deception. To make the obvious point there is no reason why things could not occur after all the (currently present) strata were in place - so pointing to things that did is hardly good evidence for your claim.More we know that you are making false claims. The meanders in the Grand Canyon provide strong evidence that it was formed by the river - evidence for which you have yet to offer a coherent answer.Also:

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Looks to me like the raising of the land and the tilting of the Great Unconformity occurred simultaneously, whatever tilted the GC also pushing up the whole area.

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Is only a subjective personal impression and one very much at odds with what we see. The fact that the tilting did not affect the upper strata, while the fault did is one obvious piece of evidence that the fault was a later event - and reinforces the conclusion that the tilt occurred before the other strata were in place.And to top it all the chain of reasoning that leads to the conclusion is absent.

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Beg to differ. Not at all "despite the actual appearances" but entirely because of those appearances as I just spelled out. Truly truly I have derived all these ideas from my observations of the evidence and no prior ideas whatever.

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For that to even be possibly true you need actual evidence that - despite the obvious appearance to the contrary - all the angular unconformities we have looked at really did happen underground. Because quite frankly it looks exactly like a desperate excuse invented to explain away evidence that demolishes your assertion.

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How odd since I've done a good job of mustering the evidence that shows that they were already in place before ALL the disturbances shown on the cross section, above and below the canyon area.

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I would really like to see the evidence that the tilt at the Great Unconformity happened after the other strata were in p,ace. The evidence that it happened before is very, very clear. What do you have to overcome that evidence ?Edited by PaulK, : Tidied up quote, removing excess material

As I recall, edge once described the tilting of the layers on the left as caused by the fault itself dragging them.How could the Claron be deposited separately so horizontally and neatly on both sides of the fault a vertical mile apart? This suggests they were already together and the fault separated them, pushing up the right and possibly also dropping the left. I think that's one bit of evidence.Another is that the fault clearly cuts through to the top of the formation, showing that it was all deposited before the two sections were separated. Even the deposit above the Claron is partially present on both sides, both in a similarly eroded condition too. There is also a vertical drop of a mile between the two so the fact that the two horizontal strata are identical on both sides of the fault suggests prior formation and not new deposition. It's quite similar to what I think happened with all the angular unconformities where only a layer or two is left horizontally lying across the lower buckled or tilted strata. Just to be clear, the one on the right being the Great Unconformity?Yes I remember something about the spikiness of the lower strata supposedly proving the standard scenario? I'm not sure why though. It's exposed to the severe weather there which has splintered and desiccated the whole formation so severely it's hard to reconstruct it. But the idea of laying strata horizontally over that spiky picket fence formation isn't any more convincing than the idea that originally the lower buckled under the upper. Unless I'm forgetting something, which unfortunately does happen. I'm not sure what you mean by how the contact surfaces should be the same; which contact surfaces? I'm also not sure what flatness you are talking about. It's certainly there on the right, but the tilted strata on the left would be broken off and eroded and not exactly flat even though it looks pretty flat on the diagram. Yes the Claron does seem to be unaffected, but wouldn't deposition after the faulting cause it to pile up against the fault on the left instead of being cut off so neatly there? And it has been pushed up along with all the other strata up against the fault on the right, whereas fresh deposition should have left it thinner against the fault it seems to me. No, I studied this cross section very carefully to draw my conclusions about it, because this area is such an amazingly good exposure of the strata with many clues to the order of events. And you really haven't said what evidence I've supposedly overlooked. It seems to me what I've addressed answers the standard view quite thoroughly. I very thoroughly took it element by element as each showed up one after the other. Cherry picking would imply leaving something out, which I have no impression of having done. I went from one piece of evidence to the next, that's all, no cherry picking, no selecting, just one after the other. I didn't do so; you must be imposing your own view of the situation on what I did. I followed my view of it, not yours, that's all. The fact that they did is evidence for rapid deposition of the strata and against the Time Scale.
Order of events:
Strata laid down three miles above the Tapeats.
Water starts draining, tectonic pressure occurs, volcanoes erupt, land is raised over the GU and beneath the GC, and at the far north end of the GS, faulting separates north from south segments at that end. Dike penetrates to top of formation there and spills out as a lava flow. The land is raised under the Grand Canyon simultaneously with the tilting of the Supergroup which occurs as a result of the tectonic pressure under the weight of the overlying srata. It all hangs together. Well I think I've been pretty coherent about it myself. The receding Flood waters in combination with the tectonic shaking carved the canyon as deep water washed away all the upper strata down to the Kaibab Plateau. After most of it was gone streams contined to run across the plateau, making meanders as water does on a flat surface. They cut deeper and deeper to make the deep meanders we see today. And all this occurred at the eastern end of the canyon, after which the river straightens out for the rest of its trip. Not sure what effect you'd expect from the tilting, but since it occurred simultaineous with the raising of the whole column at that point, which is what shaped the rounded rise into which the canyon was cut I'd say that the tilting, as part of the raising of the land, did in fact affect the upper strata. And again, the Great Unconformity is right where the land is pushed up, and the strata are not going to lie flat on top of such a raised area. Clearly they were laid down flat and then the force occurred that tilted the GU and raised the land simultaneously. That same raising contributed to the forming of the canyon by causing the uppermost strata to crack and break up over the raised area. Perhaps I can improve it if you identify what's wrong with it. I thought my presentation was pretty orderly but perhaps it needs some improvement. Well all I have is the logic of it and the impression that in the GC it had to occur after the strata were in place as that's when all the shaking and disturbance occurred, judging by lots of evidence I've given. I'm not sure what other evidence there could possibly be for such a thing if it's true. Strange idea to me. Again all I can say is that I got it all from simply studying the cross section, nothing desperate about it. If I have to get desperate about an argument I simply don't make that argument, I go on to something I understand better. This cross section has been a delightful opportunity. The more I studied it the more I found evidence for the Flood. the fact that the land is raised over the GU and all the strata above it follow that contour, the fact that the canyon itself is cut into that contour, the fact that the Cardenas lava flows out at the far eastern end of the canyon at the uppermost level still standing there, which suggests it happened at the same time as the lava flow at the top of the Grand Staircase, ... I'm sure there's more but I'm getting tired and have to stop. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : fix quote codes

Quick comments:1) the fact that some tectonic events happened after all the strata were in place is not even evidence that all of them did. In particular the fact that the fault split the Claron formation is not evidence that the layers underneath were tilted at the same time.2) if you have no evidence favouring your alternative "explanation" over the obvious conclusion that the tilted strata in angular unconformities were tilted before the later strata were deposited your argument collapses.3) when you do try to make a case for the tilting happening later, it doesn't make sense:

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the fact that the land is raised over the GU and all the strata above it follow that contour, the fact that the canyon itself is cut into that contour, the fact that the Cardenas lava flows out at the far eastern end of the canyon at the uppermost level still standing there, which suggests it happened at the same time as the lava flow at the top of the Grand Staircase

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The raising obviously follows the faulting, but not the tilting. This is evidence against your view. As I asked, how does it make sense for the fault to affect the upper strata, but not the tilting of the Supergroup if they happened at the same time?As for the Cardenas, here is some actual geology: In short, the Cardenas lava was breaking through to the surface at the same time as the Dox sandstone was being deposited. RockhoundsI don't understand how you relate the Cardenas basalt to the flows on top of the staircase - even without the evidence cited above it is rather clear that the Supergroup rocks were eroded before the strata above them were deposited. And that includes the igneous rocks I take to be the Cardenas.

the topic is Trilobites, Mountains and Marine Deposits - Evidence of a flood?Not the grand canyon, not any fantasies about flood sediment layers but whether shells and marine deposits are evidence of a flood.Even Faith says the deposits were not made on the tops of the mountains during the flood. That the mountains were made after the deposits were laid in a normal marine environment, and they were then lifted to the tops of the mountains during the raising of the mountains.Thus the answer for this thread (so far) is no, Trilobites, Mountains and Marine Deposits by themselves are not Evidence of a flood.Enjoy

But he didn't have to say what he did. That was an outright lie designed to deceived people like you.If you like that, fine. Of course you would find it convincing.But no, Austin is not known for his research. I'm only putting it out there to show how far from the mother ship you are.

Unfortunately, YECs seem to have a fixation on the Grand Canyon. But you are correct. It would be best to remain focused rather than get into a morass of YEC claims about the GC.

Thank you. And thanks for replying. Okay, so what would have something to do with it? So if there were a series inland seas like the scientific explanation says, then what would you expect the geography to look like? Why not? I'm not sure what you mean; Can you describe what you would expect the geography would look like? What makes you think that? Don't forget about compaction...Also, sedimentation "runs downhill", so the valleys would get filled in from the lumps and things would get smoothed out even before compaction. I think you are missing some steps in your mental picture of how erosion and sedimentation works.You'd never get a complex landscape "frozen" in place as-is with hills and valleys and gorges and canyons all present in the resulting stratum. Everything is going to get flattened out and smooshed down during the process.

Good point.I'm having a hard time visualizing a tectonic event that includes both a normal fault cutting the Claron, and deforming rocks below the Great Unconformity while leaving the Paleozoic section intact. I wonder what the dynamics were behind that...Getting back more on topic, wouldn't it be more reasonable to interpret the situation as multiple mountain-building events?

I don't know how you get the idea that meanders are confined to the Eastern end of the canyon. Or how you get the idea that "receding Flood waters" would produce meanders - a feature of a mature river.Your previous position as I remember it admitted that the meandering sections were carved by the river, which so,bed that problem but raised a lot more - leading to the incoherence.

The deeply incised meanders we usually see are at the eastern end of the canyon where the river is starting. It isn't the receding Flood waters that produced the meanders, the point is that it would have been after the Flood waters had receded enough to leave the flat plateau where streams would continue to run for a while, and meanders form on flat plateaus.

The deeply incised meanders we usually see are at the eastern end of the canyon where the river is starting. It isn't the receding Flood waters that produced the meanders, the point is that it would have been after the Flood waters had receded enough to leave the flat plateau where streams would continue to run for a while, and meanders form on flat plateaus. I really don't know what the problem is. The river cut the meanders but the meanders are nowhere near the size of the wide parts of the Grand Canyon which it couldn't have cut. Seems to me the river formed after the receding Flood had carved out the wide parts of the canyon farther down river.