Growing the Geologic Column

Okay, you'll have to think about it when your mind isn't elsewhere, but you then go on to say: You say you've received the impression from standard geologic cross sections that volcanism was absent until after the Flood, or at least late in the Flood, but everyone else who looks at geologic cross sections has no trouble finding evidence of volcanism across all time. You could only become convinced otherwise by considering only *some* geologic cross sections. This happens because the geologic cross sections that contradict your views are ones you've said you'll think about when your mind isn't on other matters, or for a variety of other reasons. Or these geologic cross sections could be in messages from people you're currently ignoring.Until you start forming views in reaction to all the evidence instead of your own personal interpretation of Genesis, the odds of your views being consistent with reality are vanishingly small.I do agree with Moose that you are working very hard and making a magnificent effort (I may be giving away comments he's made to me privately, and if so I hope he doesn't mind). I admire your tenacity and ingenuity, and I wish more people here had your writing talent. But if you're sincere about finding scientific as opposed to divine explanations of the evidence then your efforts will be doomed until you begin considering all the data.I know you're outnumbered. It's remarkable you've been able to keep up with so many posts, something more noticeable to me now that I've fallen so far behind. Keep up the good work, but follow the evidence and don't worry so much about where it leads.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

You have to leave your assumptions aside. Even if you know in your heart that the Bible is true, if you're really doing science then you have to build your position from the ground up using scientific evidence and arguments.If it is assumed for the moment that the Bible is true and that there was a worldwide flood around 4300 years ago, then your main task must be explaining how it is that all evidence of that flood is missing. It makes no sense to point to ancient layers formed over millions of years and irrationally and mindlessly state again and again, "They say 'Flood' to me."--Percy

Whether it's a paleontologist examining a footprint from millions of years ago or a detective examining a footprint from a crime committed the night before, they're both interpreting evidence. In fact, all our conclusions are interpretations of evidence, whether for something that just happened, for instance the driver in front of you going through a red light, or for something that happened long ago, for instance the light from an ancient supernova arriving at a telescope.If you don't believe that evidence from long ago can be interpreted properly, then why are you looking at evidence from long ago? If you truly think that something happens to evidence when it becomes very old that makes it impossible to properly interpret then you should be focusing your attention on explaining to us just why that is. The "tilting while buried" scenario is absurd, and why it's absurd has been described for you many times, for example, Message 278 in the Depositional Models of Sea Transgressions/Regressions - Walther's Law thread. Above I used the example of a detective interpreting a footprint at a crime scene. You're like the detective who, after finding that the footprint belongs to his best friend, starts seeking "other interpretations."--Percy

I'm sure this question has occurred to everyone: If you're just now beginning to get a picture of the situation and are presumably still constructing that picture, how is it that you've already arrived at your certainty? In a scientific sense, that is, not a faith-based sense.--Percy

But you're describing precisely what you yourself are doing, trying to make the Flood fit "humanly created science." And going very, very wrong.You should stop doing what you just complained about others doing and stop insisting that the Flood followed the natural physical laws of the science.--Percy

Hi Faith,I'm still slowly reading my way forward through the thread. I've followed the discussion forward from Message 355 where you introduced this image: RAZD noted that the faults on the left do not extend to the top layers, and in reply you say: And just that one layer is sufficient to falsify your claim that there was no tectonic activity until after all sedimentary layers were deposited. Further, the leftmost fault extends through less than a third of the layers - there are about three kilometers of layers above the highest extent of that fault.On the right side of the diagram are four faults that whose vertical extent also stops several kilometers of sedimentary layers short of the seafloor.All these faults that do not extend to the top layers are strong evidence that the layers above were deposited after the faults occurred.By the way, the "base tertiary" layer at the top came after the age of the dinosaurs, so it must be less than 65 MYA (Million Years Ago), but it sits atop an Albian layer that would be from around 100 MYA, so there's an uncomformity between the two layers representing at least 35 million years. The faults that end at the top of the Albian layer likely extended into the layers that used to reside above but were eroded away. Later the base tertiary layers were deposited upon the eroded surface of the Albian.--Percy

This fits into the "I can call them names and say bad and nasty things about them, so I must be right" kind of thinking, and they can do the same to you. This is meaningless rhetoric.Organized religions can be notoriously fickle and so I find no comfort in the Roman Catholic Church's endorsement of evolution, an ancient Earth, and modern science in general, but it does represent a substantial other religion whose views on science differ significantly from your own. The Methodists are another. You can't all lay claim to God's endorsement of your scientific beliefs, and why would you want to anyway. What possible relevance could it have to the eternal salvation of the soul? I think he's referring to wars like the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War. You know, religious wars. I have to agree that you do provide a great many facts, but you tie them together in impossible ways, and when the impossible is pointed out to you then you continue to insist on the impossibilities anyway, so when you say something like this about evaporites forming during the Flood: All this means is that you've described some crazy ideas that have already been rebutted but that you refuse to give up. You keep saying this but have never been able to support it. If you're truly determined to explain the Flood in scientific terms then you cannot construct hypotheses upon a foundation of faith.--Percy

We can only wonder why you keep making assertions you cannot support. As I said before, someone else could claim "that the strata and the fossils are OBVIOUSLY excellent evidence," but for aliens instead of a worldwide Flood, and they'd have as much actual evidence and rationale as you.--Percy

Hi Faith,I devote a little time each day to this thread, and yet I'm still over 150 messages behind. But if it keeps raining today then I'll have to stay indoors and should have a little extra time. Well, your habit is to reveal what it is you're truly looking for only a little bit at a time, but evidence of volcanic layers in the form of basalt and tuff interspersed with sedimentary layers have been provided for you, and it's far more than just the Cardenas. I could browse through the thread and pick out the images showing this, but I hesitate to devote the time because I'm already so far behind. If you need me to find them for you please let me know.One thing mentioned at least once already in this thread (by Dwise1) bears repeating. Non-metamorphic sedimentary layers are not often directly amenable to radiometric dating. They're made up of material that tends to come from a huge variety of sources spread across an entire drainage region. The particles comprising sedimentary layers have their origin in many places and from many times. This origin means that radiometric dating of sedimentary material would be meaningless for purposes of determining the date of formation of a sedimentray layer, and so they are dated using the volcanic deposits contained within them. The originally molten state of volcanic deposits set their radiometric clocks to zero, making accurate radiometric dating possible.Volcanic layers appear infrequently in diagrams of geologic layers because most volcanic eruptions are local in extent. Most volcanoes don't leave lava and ash deposits extending across thousands of square miles. This isn't always the case, but it is certainly most often the case. A volcanic eruption affects a roughly (very roughly) circular region. Lava flows down the mountainside, but often not very far before it cools too much to flow. Volcanic ash will distribute across a broader region, but often not very far in any significant amounts. Here's a diagram of the lava and ash distribution from Mount St. Helens. Note that there wasn't any significant lava flow that would have left a basalt layer. There was a pyroclastic flow (which was 1/3 lava), there was a mud flow, and there was a lateral blast of ash that left significant deposits locally, but nothing of significance beyond 10 or 20 miles. The Mount St. Helens eruption devastated a vast region and yet left no evidence behind except in the region immediately nearby: So if an eruption as big as Mount St. Helens in 1980 produced virtually no basalt layer whatsoever, and a tuff layer in a rough 10-mile radius, you can see why basalt and tuff layers will not be anywhere near as common as sedimentary layers. Some eruptions produce almost no lava flow, some a little, some a lot. Some produce ash deposits locally, some across a broad region. It varies, and in most circumstances the lava doesn't flow far from the volcano, and the ash, though it travels further, doesn't usually travel that far. Events like the Siberian Traps where volcanoes erupted for millions of years and left basalt layers across a region the size of Greenland do not occur often.A coastline thousands of miles long can transgress and regress across the continent leaving sedimentary layers huge in extent, like those at the Grand Canyon, but in this relatively tectonically quiet region volcanoes occur only occasionally and on a relatively modest scale. That there were local volcanic eruptions during the formation of all the layers of the Grand Canyon will not be reflected in any generalized diagram of the geologic column. In a geologic diagram intended to be representative of thousands of square miles it wouldn't be accurate to show a basalt layer for a volcanic eruption that deposited only a square mile of lava. Even the huge series of eruptions that occurred geologically recently from 725,000 to 100,000 years ago in the western canyon isn't usually represented in diagrams of the Grand Canyon region.All this means that the volcanic deposits of basalt and tuff used to date sedimentary layers are usually local in extent and not represented in geologic diagrams, except when the diagram is for a small region, or when the eruptions were huge in extent, like the Siberian Traps. But of course these volcanic layers exist, and they're mentioned in the technical literature. Even the RATE group in their report Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth mentions volcanic deposits in sedimentary layers when they describe a "high priority experiment" they'd like to perform on page 16: Even the RATE group knows the sedimentary record is dotted with volcanic deposits.--Percy

I think I can help you find them. Here's the image again: Expand the image to full size. Tilt head sideways to the left. The sideways text on the left of each column should now be easily readable. It provides the time periods like "Late Triassic" and so forth. To clarify what you mean by "it", you're saying that the layers in that image were not deposited in the Triassic.One would have expected a little evidence to accompany so dramatic a claim. The evidence from radiometric dating and fossils says those layers were from the Triassic. The Triassic must predate your flood because it predates layers you claim were deposited by the flood, such as the Claron Formation at Bryan Head. Those Alaskan Triassic layers are underlain by Permian layers that are roughly the same age as the Coconino at the Grand Canyon.Any way you look at it your viewpoint runs into contradictions. If the layers in that image are post flood then obviously the building of the geologic column did not end at the flood, falsifying one of your claims. And if the layers are pre-flood or concurrent with the flood then layers of volcanic tuff are interspersed with sedimentary layers, falsifying a different one of your claims. If you're not wrong one way you're wrong another.--Percy

JonF pointed out where you said exactly that in another thread, and in this very thread you stated that the Bible is the final word, that you and others like you have the correct interpretation, and that though there are differences among you that you all concur on the important points, and that religions whose interpretations differ on important points (like the Roman Catholic church) are false churches.Your rule seems to be, "Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong." The rule everyone else is following is, "If you can't support your arguments with evidence, please go find some evidence before continuing the discussion." By the way, the evidence has to be connected to the arguments. You *have* cited a great deal of evidence, but almost none of it connects to your arguments. It's all non sequiturs as bad as, "I'll be faster if I carry Usain Bolt sports cards in my back pocket."You always emphatically insist that everything you say is correct, but only until the absurdity of something you've said finally dawns on you, at which point you switch to delivering a lecture on how we willfully misinterpret or exaggerate or overliteralize everything you say. Lecture time again, I presume?--Percy

Did I hear right? Did you just say that your interpretation of the Bible is not necessarily correct?If so, then how do you know you're fallen? Isn't that just *your* interpretation of the Bible? Is it possible you're wrong about being fallen?And how do you know there was a global flood 4300 years ago? Isn't that just *your* interpretation of the Bible?And how do you know the global flood followed all the laws of the natural universe and had no divine intervention? Isn't that just *your* interpretation of the Bible?And how do you know the world was tectonically inactive prior to 4300 years ago? Isn't that just *your* interpretation of the Bible?Etc.I have to say again that you only have faith in these things, no evidence. We can see you struggling mightily to twist some of the evidence into something supportive of the Flood while ignoring the rest, but you can't make it through even the shortest post without claiming that what really happened is something either in contradiction to all evidence or physically impossible and in violation of the known laws of physics.--Percy

The GC/GS region is not the poster child for all sediments everywhere. It is not the one true geologic history of what happened everywhere on the planet. The only reason there is so much data and so many images of this region is because it is so easy to study because the layers are exposed and easily accessible, both at the Grand Canyon and at numerous other locations in the area. This abundance of data about the GC/GS region has somehow fooled you into thinking that whatever happened there is, in broad outline, what must have happened everywhere else.But why on Earth would you think this? Do you think the weather in Seattle is typical of the world and that it rains everywhere all the time? Of course not. Do you think the volcanoes on Hawaii are typical and that there are volcanic eruptions all over the world? Of course not. Do you think Antarctica is typical and that it snows everywhere all the time? Of course not. Do you think the Sahara is typical and that it is hot and dry everywhere all the time? Of course not. Do you think Los Angeles is typical that there are earthquakes everywhere all the time? Of course not.Then why do you think the GC/GS region is typical? It isn't close to any tectonic boundaries, so tectonic action would be expected to be less there, and that's we observe, but there is not a total absence of tectonic activity. You won't admit there's any pre-Flood tectonic activity anywhere on the planet, but not for reasons that make sense to anyone but you.I hope you've addressed this question in the portion of the thread I haven't read yet, but if not maybe you'll address it now? If you can't justify with evidence your belief that the GC/GS region is somehow typical of the rest of the world, then it really is something you should drop until you find such evidence.--Percy

God, now I'm 180 messages behind! I'll try to reply to fewer messages, but it's hard. You keep saying this but never explain in what way we're misunderstanding the evidence, while we've explained our interpretation of the evidence many times. All you do is offer arguments empty of any evidence, or explanations contradicted by the evidence or in violation of the known laws of physics. The indication that evidence supports a hypothesis is that it follows known physical laws, and that the rationale makes sense to more people than just you.I don't think anyone understands why your failure to convince a single soul isn't telling you you're adrift in a sea of illogic. Almost anyone else, even those with no scientific background, understand the illogic of a flood sorting fossils by how different they are from modern forms, or the illogic of a flood transporting footprints, burrows and nests whole and undisturbed into layers where they fit in perfectly. Would in fact be embarrassed to be associated with such a views. But not you. Why? It can't be because the Bible tells you so, because not only does it say no such thing, even if it did you've already conceded that you're fallible and that therefore your interpretation of the Bible isn't necessarily correct. First, from a scientific standpoint, you have no evidence the Bible is correct. If you're going to continue trying to make valid scientific points then you have to stop invoking the fallacy of argument from authority by no longer citing the Bible.Second, you're again claiming infallibility in interpreting the Bible. But your fallen nature means you could be wrong about which parts of the Bible were intended to be interpreted objectively, and again, there's no scientific evidence the Bible is correct. If we're doing science here, and that's what you keep claiming you're trying to do with regard to the Flood, then you have to stop citing the Bible.--Percy

I don't think it's a good idea for you to invent your own definitions of terms that already have firm definitions within scientific disciplines like geology. When you do this it just invites argument and confusion. Most volcanic deposits do not appear as layers because most volcanic deposits are local. Occasionally (in geologic terms) volcanic eruptions are widespread and extensive and create a substantial layer in the geologic column of a region (the Cardenas or the Siberian Traps), but much more often the lava and ash they leave behind is local to a small area (Mount St. Helens). In such cases they would be appear as a little piece of a sedimentary layer.Also, as I think HBD mentioned earlier, it takes pressure for magma to push its way to the surface and form a volcano, and this pressure creates uplift. Uplifted regions are subject to net erosion, not deposition, and so volcanic deposits are often doomed to be eroded away, causing their underrepresentation in any region's geologic column.Nonetheless, volcanic deposits and layers can be found in geologic columns around the world, and we've provided many examples. If your criteria are anything other than scientific then they have no place in this thread.--Percy