Did the Flood really happen?

You're noting a reality, not a problem. Why would sediments deposited in the Grand Canyon region have anything to do with those deposited in the UK or the South China Sea or Australia or the North Atlantic or South Africa? In other words, why would sediments deposited in widely separated locations have anything to do with each other? Surely you're not still clinging to the silly belief that the same stack of sedimentary layers were deposited worldwide. And yet the continents are mostly marine strata. These strata do not look like marine detritus washed up onto land because that's not what they are. They look like former sea floor, because that is what they are.--Percy

The Gulf of Mexico. The image can be found at A Visit to the Gulf Core Repository. The main website is at IODP (International Discovery Ocean Program) Core Repositories. I don't know. It would be very unlikely to closely resemble Cretaceous deposits anywhere else, whether marine or terrestrial. Once you get far enough away from one location the conditions become different, and so the sediments deposited become different, though certainly you can count on the K-T boundary standing out in some way in all cores that span that point in time.Another factor is whether that part of the Gulf of Mexico was ever above sea level, i.e., did it ever experience Walther's Law? Or was it always marine? If it was always marine and far from shore then it would consist primarily of layers of pelagic ooze and perhaps of limestone if conditions permitted. If it helps, the oldest part of the core is at the top of the image, the youngest at the bottom.--Percy

I have to understand the above better, because just this part all by itself deserves at least one diagram in the sequence. Here's the UK diagram again: Snowdon is in the extreme west of the diagram. How would Snowdon rising way over there "uplift the whole block of strata" all the way to Harwich?There are a couple things we must be careful to consider. First, rock on a scale of miles is plastic and wouldn't break.Second, the vertical dimension of the diagram is greatly exaggerated. The diagram makes it look like Snowdon is so high that you could see it all the way from Harwich 200 miles distant. But that's not really true, because the vertical dimension isn't to scale. It's exaggerated by between 50 and 100 times. If the diagram had equal scales in both horizontal and vertical directions then since it is 200 miles from Snowdon to Harwich, and since Snowdon is 3500 feet high, the height of Snowdon would be 0.3% of the distance to Harwich. That's probably about the same as the width of the lines used to create the diagram. The land surface from Snowdon to Harwich looks much more like this: You might have trouble making out the little horizontal line that is Snowdon, so look carefully. That tiny thin line is much closer to the actual height of Snowdon than that diagram. So the question becomes, how do you imagine granite uplifting by that tiny 3500 feet is going to lift up the entire stack of strata 200 miles all the way to Harwich? Why won't the rock around Snowdon just bend a little bit to accommodate? Please explain and I'll draw the diagram to match.--Percy

Please explain how tectonic forces know not to uplift sea floor? Just looking at this diagram alone reveals that there were several periods of uplift/falling-sea-levels (erosion) and subsidence/rising-sea-levels (deposition): There are many local columns showing deposition that followed tectonism, faulting and volcanoes. I'm sure everyone agrees that all strata in existence at the time would be subject to whatever tectonism occurs in the region. But this contradicts your claim that the Grand Canyon Supergroup was tilted by tectonism while all the overlying layers were not. And magma also rises only part way, such as intrusions and dikes.--Percy

The geologic column or time scale is conceptual and worldwide. It is not a specific physical column of rock formations. It's about time.Local geologic columns of actual strata and rock formations can be superimposed on the geologic time scale. It is almost always the case that a local column will not include all time periods of the geologic time scale. Pretty much, though once you get deep into the Precambrian you begin to find periods of time for which no strata have ever been found. As I said before, the UK cross section alone gives the lie to this: Just look at this closeup where strata were first tilted and bent, then eroded, then deposited upon: No, they actually look like sea floor.This is incomplete and I can't tell what you were going to say: Suffice to say that just as your favorite region, the Grand Canyon, can experience uplift, so can the sea floor. Tectonism is global, not just on the continents.--Percy

Because why? It is true that the Gulf of Mexico was once continent, but it has been submerged since the Jurassic. The K-T boundary layer at the end of the Cretaceious was deposited in a marine environment.You asked why strata found on continents are not also found on the sea floor, and the answer is that they are. That deep sea core from the Gulf of Mexico is an example.--Percy

But partial geologic columns must be explained. If you're talking about this cross section then that is incorrect: There are three separate tectonic events recorded in the diagram, likely part of orogeny formation. Here are closeups. This one's roughly center bottom, showing uplift and tilting followed by erosion followed by deposition: This one's about a quarter of the way from the right side in roughly the middle, again showing uplift and tilting followed by erosion followed by deposition: This one's very close to the right side, again showing uplift and tilting followed by erosion followed by deposition: These events of tectonism followed by erosion followed by deposition had to occur in sequence, the lowest one first, then the middle one, then the highest one. They could not have occurred simultaneously, and they all would have taken a great deal of time. Without looking it up and in just rough terms going by the labels on the diagram, the lowest occurred around 400 million years ago (MYA), the middle occurred around 280 MYA, and the highest occurred around 200 MYA.--Percy

Even in your warped view of reality this is wrong. The judgment of a fallen genius armed with facts is still far superior to that of a fallen nincompoop working hard to maintain ignorance. Yes, Faith, that is correct, that's exactly what the description of Leonardo's thinking says, that the shells "could not have been transported up a mountain." Try reading for comprehension. Yes, that's almost exactly what Leonardo determined, though of course the term "tectonic" did not exist at the time.You're now disagreeing with yourself. In Message 1047 you excluded sea floor from uplift, saying, "Uplift, sure, and the raising of mountains, sure, but not sea floor." PaulK showed that even hundreds of years ago that Leonarda da Vinci had divined that sea floor had been uplifted into mountains, and now you're agreeing, saying that those sea floor fossils were already embedded in strata when they were uplifted.So make up your mind. Which is it? Is the uplift of sea floor impossible (which is an outlandish position requiring that the forces within the Earth that drive tectonism somehow turn themselves off beneath sea floor, and it's contradicted by the mere existence of mid-oceanic ridges and Hawaii), or is that how sea shells find their way miles above the sea on mountain tops?--Percy

This is nonsensical. Mountains are not where seashells (bivalves, in this case) originate, and neither Leonardo nor you think that. Stated clearly, Leonardo believed that seashells originate on the sea floor, and that sea floors can be uplifted to become mountains.--Percy

The bottom of the Gulf of Mexico isn't sea floor? Really? It certainly isn't land. Sea life lives on its floor and in the water column above. The surface teams with boats. It's huge. If the Gulf of Mexico is not a sea, then what is it? According to Wikipedia:

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The Gulf of Mexico is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent.

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You'll get a core different in character to the one from the Gulf of Mexico. The K-T signature will be weaker since it is much further than the Gulf of Mexico from where the asteroid struck. The Gulf is shallow and warm, so limestone deposits are likely, while the Atlantic is cold and deep so pelagic ooze is likely. It depends upon which continental strata you mean. You usually mean the strata of the Grand Canyon region, so no, the Gulf strata are not similar to them. This isn't because they're from different time periods, though they are (the Gulf strata all postdate the Triassic, the Grand Canyon strata all predate it). It's because the Grand Canyon strata formed from repeated sea transgressions and regressions creating strata that follow Walther's Law, while the Gulf strata formed while relatively far from any coast, except at the margins. Limestone is a common Gulf deposit, which doesn't form from processes related to Walther's Law. That would be this image: What is it about this image that says the Gulf of Mexico is not a sea?About the salt, according to geologists, before the end of the Triassic the Gulf of Mexico was continental, but as Pangaea broke up and North and South America separated the Gulf region stretched and subsided below sea level. Still mostly blocked off from the Atlantic, the flow of water into the Gulf was restricted, and evaporitic processes (it was an arid region) caused salt to rapidly accumulate, perhaps a couple kilometers in just a couple million years.If the Flood was real, how did it deposit the salt? Of course there's rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico. There's rock beneath all sea floor as soon you go deep enough for pressure to begin the lithification process. What did you think was down there except rock?You haven't said anything to indicate that the Gulf of Mexico is not a sea, no one but you would ever make such a claim, and you're avoiding the original point: sediments were and are deposited upon all sea floors everywhere and everywhen (barring unusual conditions), whether they eventually became part of continents or not.How does your Flood explain how those sediments got on the sea floor? And why, if the Flood really happened, isn't there a discontinuity between marine Flood deposits and deposits over the past 4500 years? When you look at deep sea cores, why does 4000 years ago look pretty much the same as 5000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, and so forth?--Percy

If what the Flood would do can't be imagined, why are you telling us what it would do?Why would water covering the entire planet do anything much different from the oceans that currently cover 71% of the planet?Why would a Flood do anything other than what the practical aspects of the laws of physics call for? Like I said, for something that can't be imagined you sure have no trouble imagining it. You have no evidence that anything like you describe ever happened. It's just your imagination.--Percy

Why don't you stop saying incredibly wrong things and start showing that the flood really happened. The Gulf of Mexico is a sea. Certainly it wasn't always a sea, but it's been a sea for a very long time, a couple hundred million years at least.To prevent discussion from bogging down on this point I've opened a thread called The Gulf of Mexico is Not a Sea.--Percy

This is just a baseless assertion. You will next claim that you've already presented the evidence, but you haven't. You've said ridiculous things like that the Gulf of Mexico is not a sea, but you haven't said anything true or even relevant. So the Flood would do things that floods would not. And you know this how? You said, "The whole surface of the land would be so defaced just from the forty days and nights of rain it would be unrecognizable and then the strata piled on top of it would further erase any recognizable remains." How long were you imagining that life was treading water during the 40 days and 40 nights of rain, after which the deposition of strata began (that's what your words that I just quoted say)?Where is your evidence that anything like this ever happened? Surely there should be defaced surfaces somewhere that have been exposed or that our core drilling has reached. JonF is asking if what we observe in the geological strata looks like the result of a flood, referring indirectly to, for example, the way the different types of strata are ordered with sandstone overlain by shale overlain by limestone overlain by more sandstone then more limestone and so forth. Or for another example, the way the fossils are sorted into strata, and also sorted by increasing difference from modern forms with increasing depth. Or for another example, why are land fossils never found in limestone strata? If the Flood really happened then you should have evidence and explanations for these things that make sense, more sense than almost deranged declarations like "The Gulf of Mexico is not a sea" (whose discussion please take to the The Gulf of Mexico is Not a Sea thread).--Percy

Please take discussion about the Gulf of Mexico to the The Gulf of Mexico is Not a Sea thread.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

I gave you the explanation hundreds of messages ago in Message 696, here's the explanation again:If you take these sedimentary layers A (on the bottom) through H (at the top): And then you tilt them upward on the left and erode the tops off like this: Then the formerly vertical ordering will, at the surface, appear to be left to right. That's all you're seeing is tilt followed by erosion.But let's get back to your conception of how the UK cross section happened and see if we can complete the diagrams so that it can be easily visualized. You said that you believed that the uplift at Snowdon would a) crack the rocks; b) uplift the entire stack from Snowdon to Harwish; c) cause the horizontal strata to go away; and d) cause the strata to fall away. I know what a would look like, but I don't understand b and c, so I need you to provide more detail about them. I also still don't understand d, but let's address b and c first.It will help if you remember the exaggeration of the vertical scale in the UK diagram. This is a more realistic representation of the height of Snowdon relative to the distance to Harwich: I just need to understand how that tiny bit of elevation at Snowdon could cause all the effects you've described.--Percy