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Author Topic:   Objections to Evo-Timeframe Deposition of Strata
Loudmouth
Inactive Member


Message 301 of 310 (191715)
03-15-2005 2:20 PM


To all:
I have done a few searches but have come up empty. Does anyone have access to pictures of strata that is not uniform in thickness across a cross cut? I think this would help the debate.

Replies to this message:
 Message 305 by PaulK, posted 03-15-2005 3:18 PM Loudmouth has not replied

PaulK
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Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 302 of 310 (191718)
03-15-2005 2:31 PM
Reply to: Message 297 by Faith
03-15-2005 1:34 PM


So now you are changing your story again.
WHich of course only proves that you were the one who needed to go back and read and THINK.
Perhaps then you would have admitted that I had accurately summed up the situation in Message 268 instead of continuing to argue.
If you would just bother to do what you tell others to do - instead of throwing a hissy fit just because you've been caught in an error - you would do a lot better here.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 297 by Faith, posted 03-15-2005 1:34 PM Faith has not replied

Admin
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Message 303 of 310 (191721)
03-15-2005 2:49 PM


Forum Guidelines Reminder
To everyone: please stay focused on the topic and avoid the "did not, did too" and "you don't realize how wrong you are" digressions.
Past experience teaches that by 300 posts most threads have drifted way off topic, but that's not the case here. This thread is a bit repetitive, but this seems natural. I don't know if one of the moderators will close this thread, but if they do I hope someone proposes a continuation thread. I think the questions being raised on both sides will find better answers if the discussion continues.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

Adminnemooseus
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Message 304 of 310 (191723)
03-15-2005 2:54 PM


Close to closing time
We're at 300+ messages.
Also, the topic has turned into quite a mess.
It is a rather heavy demand to the representative of the creation side, but it would be nice if Faith could mine the most essential points from his (default gender selection) messages of this topic, and submit a nice new message to the Proposed New Topics forum.
Right here, right now, I guess any individual member can make ONE final CONCISE reply.
Please make any replies to THIS message, to the preferred topic of the links below.
Adminnemooseus

New Members should start HERE to get an understanding of what makes great posts.
Comments on moderation procedures (or wish to respond to admin messages)? - Go to:
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PaulK
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Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 305 of 310 (191730)
03-15-2005 3:18 PM
Reply to: Message 301 by Loudmouth
03-15-2005 2:20 PM


It is hard to find photographs with clear strata at all - let alone those where we can clearly tell if the thickness is uniform or not.
The chert layer shown here (the left of the 2 bottom photos) looks clearly uneven to me:
Page not found | Theban Mapping Project
This is not so clear but the dark band about 1/4 of the way down on the left appears to be wider at the far left than anywhere else. And the strata here are definitely not flat.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 301 by Loudmouth, posted 03-15-2005 2:20 PM Loudmouth has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 306 by Joe Meert, posted 03-15-2005 3:44 PM PaulK has not replied

Joe Meert
Member (Idle past 5679 days)
Posts: 913
From: Gainesville
Joined: 03-02-2002


Message 306 of 310 (191735)
03-15-2005 3:44 PM
Reply to: Message 305 by PaulK
03-15-2005 3:18 PM


and if you look on this page at the boulder conglomerate beneath the Bonneterre limestone you will see variable thickness. In fact this pinches out near the edge of the outcrop.
Geology at 200 d
Cheers
Joe Meert

This message is a reply to:
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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 307 of 310 (191736)
03-15-2005 3:45 PM
Reply to: Message 296 by Faith
03-15-2005 12:38 PM


I'm a she.
My bad. I offer an apology with two caveats:
1) It's impossible to determine the gender of participants in an anonymous forum. You'd think "Faith", being a woman's name, would be enough to settle the issue, but I've lost count of how many EvC members have usernames that suggest the opposite gender. You might ask my neighboor PurpleYouko about that.
2) To the extent that one's writing offers cues about their gender, your writing comes off (to me) as forward, forthright, unambiguous, confident, and aggressive. "Masculine", in other words. That's just my own gender bias, of course.
If English had an appropriate non-gendered, animate pronoun, I would have used it. I will try to keep what you've told me in mind to the best of my ability. No offense was intended and I hope none was taken.
The great ages of the Geo Column model that mark off the particular deposits of limestones and shales and sandstones etc. REQUIRES that for enormous periods of time those deposits were at the surface.
Indeed, but there's no requirement that they remain there. They need only be at the surface long enough to be buried by other sediments.
before the next completely different kind of sediment starting depositing on top of it.
There's no requirement that one layer solidify before another can deposit. You could certainly deposit several layers worth of sediment before any of them had solidified.
Yes, I don't understand how a thin layer of "silt" covering the extent of the huge surrounding area of the Grand Canyon could remain undisturbed for 8000 years
It would be buried under feet and feet of other silt. Some of which might certainly have washed away, as you propose. But obviously not all of it; because we have the layers.
and my point is that there is NO WAY only one kind of deposit like that could have been the only thing laid down in such a huge span of time.
Why? You don't think the same general physical conditions could persist for that long?
You are refusing to think about what I'm saying.
I'm actually trying very hard, but you're arguing from so many misperceptions about the geological reality of the Earth that it's very hard to do so. I simply don't understand where you're coming from, and how you're able to misunderstand the geologic process of deposition to such a great degree.
I'm really trying, but you're really not making it very easy.
Think about the different rocks, in neatly horizontal layers, each one given a name designating HUGE HUGE periods of time during which supposedly they were laid down, and ONLY one kind of rock at a time.
Each one of those layers represents the effects of the general physical environment of the GC area, and it's entirely reasonable to suggest that those conditions might stay more or less the same for a very, veyry long time.
The disturbances you are talking about are MINUSCULE.
I disagree. They're quite large and obvious, to even the unaided eye.
LOOK AT THE ROCKS AND TRY TO FIGURE OUT HOW A FEW FEET OF NOTHING BUT REDWALL LIMESTONE COULD HAVE TAKEN TWENTY MILLION YEARS TO LAY ITSELF DOWN IN A NICE HORIZONTAL LAYER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All caps are very hard to read. I suggest the use of B or I tags for emphasis.
But to address your point - why would anything but redwall limestone have been deposited during that period?
Up to the job of explaining how ONLY redwall limestone in its presumably unhardened sedimentary condition stayed put for twenty million years until the next kind of limestone sediment came along?
Why do you propose that it would have had to stay in that unharded condition for 20 million years? That's what I'm getting at. Who on Earth told you that's how it works? That these layers are soft and pliable for millions of years before a timer goes off and suddenly ding! They're hard?
20 million years of one kind of sediment only? Followed by another 20 million or so years of another kind?
I'd like someone to explain to me what's different about these two sediments, exactly. It seems obvious to me that they represent different conditions in the mineral flow into and out of the area; I don't see why that is something that couldn't have remained relatively the same for 20 million years, or any other length of time, before a drastic change altered that mineral balance.
under some process you also have to explain
It's my understanding that pressure causes the solidification, which is how I know that the sediments have to be buried before they can solidify. And how I know that they aren't sitting around all soft and pliable and exposed to the elements.
I do have an objection to sedimentation under water over 20 million years of only one kind of sediment, say redwall limestone, followed by another span of millions of years of a completely different sediment.
If your question is "why do things remain the same until they change", I don't see how I could offer any coherent answer to that question, because I don't see why anyone with sense would ask such a thing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 296 by Faith, posted 03-15-2005 12:38 PM Faith has not replied

Loudmouth
Inactive Member


Message 308 of 310 (191761)
03-15-2005 5:19 PM


Faith,
Like Crashfrog, I thought you were a "he" as well. I always like it when my assumptions get turned on their heads, contrary to what you may think. Anyway, while you have been aggressive I think we can all agree that you have not been insulting, which is always a good thing.
Getting to the topic at hand, your whole argument seems to stem from your own incredulity. To paraphrase: "I can't see how these sediments could be around without being eroded, therefore an old earth can't be true." I am sorry but reality does not bend to what you think it should do or should not do. There is no reason that these sediments could not have stuck around for very, very long time periods, especially other sediments are stacked on top of them. And, btw, they are being eroded. The Grand Canyon is a perfect example. Can you explain why all of sediments in the GC area have not been eroded away just as they are in the Grand Canyon itself? It is a rhetorical question, but I think you get the gist.

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 309 of 310 (191781)
03-15-2005 6:36 PM
Reply to: Message 298 by roxrkool
03-15-2005 1:49 PM


Faith writes:
The great ages of the Geo Column model that mark off the particular deposits of limestones and shales and sandstones etc. REQUIRES that for enormous periods of time those deposits were at the surface.
Not sure what you mean here. Are you referring to unconsolidated sediment or lithified? What exactly is at the surface?
If the column was built up from the bottom to the top, then each layer was the surface of the column for some period of time, so whatever it happened to be composed of at the time was at the surface.
This column was built up, right? It started with a layer at the very bottom, and another layer was eventually built on top of that and so on, right? If underwater it might have a chance of remaining relatively undisturbed for long periods, but 8000 years? 20 million years? before the next completely different kind of sediment starting depositing on top of it. This is implied in the rock formations themselves, the different types one on top of another, and the theory that this represents huge spans of time during which one kind built upon another kind.
A column represents landscape evolution through time. At the 'bottom' of a colum you may have limestone (this represents a very specific depositional system and environment). Above that you may have a marine shale, which represents a deeper marine environment. Many times, you will see a gradation between limestone and shale, something that could be called shaley limestone or calcareous shale, sometimes you do not.
It won't help for you to give a hypothetical abstract scenario here. You should address the example of the Grand Canyon so we can know we are talking about the same thing. There being or not being a gradation doesn't matter here. What you have to explain is how that limestone at the bottom, if it represents millions of years of time, stayed put for those millions of years, how it hardened if it did, how it remained neatly horizontal as the column in the Grand Canyon certainly does for those millions of years, and how everything abruptly suddenly became marine shale instead of limestone.
A gradational contact implies a gradual sea level rise so that at that particular spot, limestone was deposited and then gradually overlain by more and more shaley constituents (shale = clay), until eventually the water was too deep, too poor in O2, too dark/murky, for deposition of carbonate to occur. If the sea level keeps rising, you may eventually get siliceous ooze (e.g., chert), etc. to deposit over the shale. If sea levels slowly drop over time, you will again get carbonate deposition, and if the sea level drop even further, sandstone (beach and eolian deposition), estuarine deposits, conglomerates (e.g., fluvial), etc. This is what Sequence Stratigraphy is all about.
The more sediment you dump in one spot, the more the ground and crust underneath deforms due to the weight. You can get thousands upon thousands of feet of sedimentary deposition as long as the basin is stable. It will simply continue to downwarp amidst the weight of the overlying material. However, tectonics will not allow the landscape to go too long before it takes effect, except in the stablest portions of the continents - the cratons.
You are not addressing my example of the Grand Canyon nor explaining the homogeneous content of each layer over the millions of years of each layer, nor explaining the horizontal disposition of the layers, over miles and miles of landscape. MILLIONS of years, horizontal, level, straight, ONE content.
If instead the contacts are sharp and abrupt between limestone and sandstone, that tells you deposition was punctuated by either erosional periods or possibly periods of non-deposition (those are generally contentious interpretations).
The problem with this idea is that the horizontal configuration of the layers defies the idea of erosion of any given layer (wish I could draw you a picture) and periods of non-deposition could be millions of years long depending on how long you think the deposition took. The idea of millions of years of non-deposition is just surreal, echoes nothing that happens normally on planet earth, and actually so does the idea of millions of years of erosion seem surreal. Erosion would leave a humongous hole in the layer at many points and in fact down through lower layers in many cases. Erosion doesn't occur by nearly invisible centimeters, it creates gullies and mudslides and leaves gashes in a landscape, the Grand Canyon itself being an example, not these (relatively) nice neat layers.
And the affected rocks may either be semi-consolidated or lithified. Meaning you are either eroding sediment or rock. If you bury limestone, it lithifies, and then bring it back to the surface, you will erode the limestone until it either erodes completely away, or depositional (instead of erosional) processes dominate. In which case, limestone (the lithified rock) will then be covered by whatever is being deposited at the time, be it alluvium, colluvium, conglomerate, sands, silts, etc.
But looking at the Grand Canyon layers we are supposed to imagine millions of years during which ONE limestone was laid down neatly and presumably lithified. These layers do not show signs of real erosion. They are neat and straight. And the huge ages that are supposed mean nothing covered it for millions of years. There is no evidence of covering. You have to read it into the scenario but there is no evidence of it. Why would a covering appear and then disappear anyway, leaving no trace in all those many many layers?
It is only in this scenario where you can have 20 million year old gaps between one depositional process and a preceeding (i.e., overlying) one.
You are reading in a gap that has no evidence for it whatever. The actual situation is a LEVEL surface of rock upon which another entirely different LEVEL HORIZONTAL rock appears. Erosion doesn't do that! A million years of non-deposition would not let the rock just sit there level and all. These are all jerryrigged explanations to explain what cannot be explained. They do not describe anything that could possibly happen on this real planet in real time.
Not only that, but 1,000 years later, all that stuff that originally covered the limestone, may be completely eroded itself.
There is NO evidence of such erosion in the layers of the Grand Canyon. You would have lumpy lopsided layers, not straight layers ANYWHERE if it happened. The actual appearance of the real world canyon defies your explanation.
The only records we have of some erosional processes are remnants of that eroded material. Therefore, the time implied in ONE geologic column is not only apparent in the amount of time needed to deposit the sections, but in the amount of time to deposit and erode sediments and rocks that we will never see represented in situ.
This is apparently how geology tries to account for the obvious irrationality of the geologic column idea, the clear demarcations and the sharply different kinds of rocks /sediments, but it doesn't work. You are postulating something that does not happen according to any known natural laws. You are postulating that erosion acting upon a perfectly flat surface over millions of years removed material in such a way as to leave perfectly even horizontal strata. Wouldn't happen that way in a month let alone a million years. It would disrupt layer upon layer of material. And why would ALL the additional material erode away anyway, in ALL those many many layers? This is fantasyland. This is not science.
You really are not addressing the actual visible situation of the Grand Canyon. There is NO evidence of erosion that amounts to a hill of beans in the layers themselves. The erosion all occurred after the entire column was built.
How do we know time/rock is missing? Because if you travel a few miles away to another section/column, that missing rock might not be missing.
I'm sure there are different deposits in different places even over a few miles, but there is no REAL reason to assume that rock that appears in one place was "missing" anywhere else.
We know the Rockies and the Uncompahgre Plateau were eroded down to almost peneplains several times each because we have the material from each erosional process - Maroon Fm. and Fountain Fm.
Well I'm talking about the Grand Canyon at the moment. I suspect there are other reasonable interpretations of the erosional materials in any case.
How long would it take to completely wear down the Rocky Mountains you think? How about doing it at least twice?
Well I rather doubt they were ever eroded away myself, but this is another subject.
So. You might look at a geologic column and be missing 90% of what was originally deposited in that one area. What you are seeing is simply what did not get eroded out.
Again there is NO actual reasonable way on planet earth that each or in fact ANY of those neat horizontal rock layers were left after erosion removed material from on top of them. Erosion does not happen that way. I don't know how you guys can think along these lines. Wish I could draw you a picture.
Now, that was BRIEFLY commenting on ONE of your paragraphs.
And I have briefly responded.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 298 by roxrkool, posted 03-15-2005 1:49 PM roxrkool has not replied

jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 310 of 310 (191784)
03-15-2005 6:43 PM


Okay, Witching Hour.
Time to close this down.
If there is any point in continuing let's start a new PNT. Also, if that step is taken please try to narrow the focus to one small part such as how an initial layer is created, eroded, modified and preserved.
Thanks to all the participants.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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