Summations Only

Or, would somebody please translate and explain this statement of Walther's Law: ...

Walther's Law is hard enough for new geology students to understand, but for YECs it is virtually impossible. Without going into detail, maybe I can put this into context of this thread and the one in the biology forum.

Basically, it is saying that if we have a sedimentary system such as a coastline, there are several sedimentary environments included from swamp to beach to silt to clay and limestone and eventually out to turbidites.

They are all receiving sediments at the same time. Now, Faith sees only the continental shelf sediments (such as the Grand Canyon sequence) as the 'geological column'; but deserts, swamps, limestones, deep-sea turbidites and even volcanoes are all part of the same system. They are all part of the geological column; just at different locations.

As sea level changes, these environments move around, and since we have a vertically growing succession, they start to overlap even though at any given time they are adjacent. This is the Walther's Law part of the story.

I get the general idea but I need to see it. It also seems rather obvious so it would help if someone also explained its significance. It also doesn't sound like what Moose is illustrating above.

Hopefully, this puts the discussion into context.

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Facies of course means "face" so we're talking about a visible presentation of strata as in the picture at that site, ...

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Actually, it is more like a 'related type' within a genetic set of rocks.

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... but exactly what "laterally adjacent environments" refers to I'm not sure.

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That means that if you walk far enough, you will go from a swamp to a beach to a reef to a continental slope, etc., all at the same time. They are adjacent in the horizontal direction.

Please stop referring to YECs as if we were some inferior species of ape. Thank you.

Well, we are all primates, of course. However, some of us have a little more curiosity about our universe and how it got to be the way it is. If you feel inferior, I'm here to tell you that it can all be fixed with some education and training in critical analysis. We can help.

{I pried this geology topic out of a biology forum topic. It is not to turn into a biology topic. - Adminnemooseus}

Edited by Adminnemooseus, : I pried this geology topic out of a biology forum topic. It is not to turn into a biology topic.

Her fight here is nothing more than a desperate attempt to maintain her own dignity. It's not easy admitting you've been duped.

Reason and evidence cannot trump revealed truth and faith (pun intended).

I think the best one can hope for is that YECs (and lurkers?) will realize that we have answers. Otherwise this is only an exercise in entertainment.

Unfortunately, I am between contracts now and time is relatively cheap. There are about a thousand other places that would be more productive than this ...

Planning a trip to Elko in the next month or so.

... I'd like to see actual examples of phenomena that this diagram explains. Can you relate this sequence to the strata in the GC area for instance?

Sure.

Eroding Land -> (unconformity) -> sandstone -> siliciclastic muds -> carbonate sediments.

Precambrian basement -> great unconformity -> Tapeats Sandstone -> Bright Angle Shale -> Mauv Limestone.

Yes, I know... you simply can't believe it.

Edge's answer was fine for the few lowest layers. After that the pattern doesn't seem to hold up.

I was simply showing an example of a lengthy marine transgressive sequence, as per your request. Beyond that it's variation on a theme. If you can't see it, then there is little to talk about.

Would it be possible for anybody to return to the topic and try to make a case for how Walther's Law applies to the Grand Canyon area strata?

That has been done and I doubt that anyone is going to bother going on with the explanation because your mind is obviously closed.

You'd much rather blather on about nonsense trying to discredit a Flood theory of deposition I haven't even thought about yet. You erect your own straw man Flood and shoot down your straw man. As usual.

Well, if you haven't even thought about it yet, what do you expect us to do? The more you conceal the more we have to guess what you really think.

Well, a worldwide Flood WOULD be like no other. Duh.

Well, since you are such an expert, please tell us what the Flood was like.

So perhaps someone else will come along who isn't as sensitive about OE Geology being criticized by a creationist.

You mean someone who is not so sensitive that she is offended by counterarguments, complains about insults, being dismissed, and not taken seriously? Someone who is eternally misunderstood?

Like that person?

Good grief, man, I listed all the sediments for you.

We know the sediments. Why do you need to list them?

I don't see a pattern there, the one Percy suggested sounds off the wall to me, ...

Of course it sounds that way to you. Are you able to entertain any notions contrary to your own?

I am VERY open to finding such a pattern, would really like to, ...

Is that why you said this, "I absolutely do not believe... "? Because you are open-minded?

... so your bitter complaint that my mind is closed is out of order, ...

Why is that 'bitter'? It's a simple observation, verified repeatedly by your own words. Do you confuse me with someone who cares what you think?

... and if YOU see a pattern in that list I'll first be amazed, but second, grateful.

But you "... absolutely do not believe...", so why should I waste my time?

Really, try it for yourself. Why would that be so hard?

Well, maybe someone YEC will come along who can think a little bit outside their religious box and use a few intellectual tools. Do you think we will be amazed and grateful?

Edited by edge, : No reason given.

Edited by edge, : No reason given.

Here, I even reversed the order so it will read from top down: ...

So, why can't the record go from sandstone to siltstone and back to sandstone and stay in the same model?

Edited by edge, : No reason given.

Well, if you don't see a problem with that I guess I'll have to ponder it more.

Why would that be a problem? Are you some kind of hyper-uniformitarianist?

The model suggests that there is a certain order to the depositions.

Please describe this order and document what the model 'says'.

Edited by edge, : No reason given.

Haven't we been over that?

Transgression/regression with some erosion.

ETA: By the way, this does not answer my questions. Please describe the order and tell us what the model says.

Edited by edge, : No reason given.

They aren't merely "not exactly duplicated," they are completely jumbled with respect to the order of the model.

They are 'jumbled' because you insist on a one transgression scenario. This is a clue that your premise is wrong.

Now you might get a slightly different arrangement depending on how you classify some of the layer rocks (sandy limestone for instance), but you should get the general idea: when the sand is being deposited for the sandstone layers there is also mud, carbonate and ooze being deposited somewhere else at the same time. This can, of course be tested.

One exception here is the fact that the Coconino is actually an eolian sandstone, deposited in the gray (erosional) part of the diagram.

So, the erosional zone might actually be called a 'continental' zone where you can get terrestrial deposits such as sand dunes, swamps, fluvial, etc. deposits, as well as erosion.

Of course the model still stands.

ETA: Oh, yes, the Hermit is probably also terrestrial.

Edited by edge, : No reason given.

Edited by edge, : No reason given.

I think so too. The interesting thing is that, if the Hermit Shale were slid to the left, there would be an obvious discontinuity. We'd see deep water deposition "suddenly" (in geologic terms) change to aeolian deposition. So between the Hermit and Coconino would be an obvious place to look for evidence of "intermediate" layers that transitioned between deep and shallow water but are no longer there because of erosion. Or maybe evidence of a "sudden" uplift or something.

Typically, I read red beds as indicative of continental deposits.

Siltstone beds are dark red and crumbly, and fill shallow erosion channels that are widespread. Siltstone beds form recesses between thicker sandstone beds; locally contains poorly preserved plant fossils in channel fills in lower part of formation. Sandstone beds thicken and thin laterally either as channel fill or low sand dune accumulations.

http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/...radoplateau/lexicon/hermit.htm

Note the existence of channel fill and plant fossils. Discontinuous sand lenses commonly locate stream channels. There is also the suggestion of dunes, I believe in the upper part of the formation.

All these things suggest that the Hermit was deposited above sea level, containing numerous erosional surfaces as streams cut through a swampy area or coastal plain, likely very close to the sea.

As regression continued, eolian sands innundated the swampy lowland and formed a coastal erg (Coconino Sandstone) similar to the Namib Desert.

Edited by edge, : No reason given.

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The problem I always have with the idea that the Coconino was deposited aerially is that it's so flat and straight on the bottom ...

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No one here has suggested that the Hermit represents a terrain of anything other than low relief and that the actual contact is an unconformity. I would expect that contact to be sharp, relatively flat (even though it is not completely so, as you indicate) and extensive.

ETA: Mud cracks in the top of the Hermit that are filled with sand from the overlying Coconino are kind of hard to explain any other way.

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... and the top. I have two pictures of it on my computer that I can't get to post here, which drives me crazy, but they show the extremely sharp tight contact lines, one of them between the Coconino and the Toroweap above, which I find extremely hard to explain if the Coconino is supposed to have been actual dunes before the deposition of the layer on top of it;

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The top of the Coconino grades upward and laterally (Walter's Law) into the lower member of the Toroweap, so the upper contact is not as sharp as you might think, though weathering accentuates the change. This is transition back toward a marine environment as the Coconino submerged. I have no problem with a beach or intertidal zone planing off the tops of any sand dunes that remained from the Coconino deposition.

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and the other shows the similarly straight tight contact line between the Coconino and the Hermit beneath it. If "eolian sands innundated the swampy lowland" to deposit the Coconino on top of the Hermit shale, and formed anything that looks like the Namib desert on top of a "swampy lowland," how could there have been such a neat straight flat contact?

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See above.

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That is what we expect to see from water deposition such as this model of rising and falling seas illustrates.

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And yet the evidence says otherwise.

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I know the Coconino has a crossbedding at an angle of repose that suggests it has to have been formed aerially, but this seems to me to be more than contradicted by its extreme flatness.

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On a regional scale, I'd say it's not all that flat and uniform.

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This link ought to go to a picture of the
Coconino sandstone that shows its straightness and flatness. Here, This link ought to go to a collection of pitures of the Coconino, one of which shows it submerged in water and the tight contact between it and the Toroweap abov

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I don't see anything in these photos that contradicts an eolian environment. In fact, while the formational boundaries are concordant, it is pretty clear that there is local erosion between the Toroweap and the Coconino where cross beds in the Coconino are cut by the contact. The Toroweap is transgressing over the Coconino and planing off internal textures.

Edited by edge, : No reason given.

Just have to comment here that the comparison she shows between the extent of the sandstone in the geologic column and the sand dunes in Africa assumes that such dunes could become strata like the Coconino sandstone, which I don't find at all likely, ...

Based on what?

On that other thread I was objecting to the idea of a gigantic rock pancake's representing a Time Period, ...

Why is that?

... and there are certainly more gigantic ones than the Navajo Sandstone, such as the Redwall Limestone that traverses the whole continent.

Really? Then perhaps you can point out the Redwall or its equivalent in New York state.

In any case, my objection now is to the idea that a huge area of sand dunes could ever become a gigantic rock pancake.

Why is that?

I think what you are telling us is that you simply cannot believe certain things based on limited knowledge and a religious framework.