Flood not the Cause of the Grand Canyon -- Not a Biased Opinion

The Tapeats Sandstone is stratigraphicly well below the Coconino Sandstone. The Tapeats Sandstone existed long before the Coconino did. There is absolutely no way that the Coconino Sandstone could have supplied material to the Tapeats Sandstone. PERIOD.What you are proposing is akin to taking framing material from the 10th floor of a building, to build the framework of the 2nd floor. The 2nd floor framework absolutely had to be there before that of the 10th floor. You do realize that your source page is that of a young Earth creationist organization? While GRISDA certainly does have their share of YEC quirks, I do think the are a little more in contact with reality than are some other YEC organizations. I suspect Loma Linda does not have a geology department. Still, a rather odd type of article to be coming from a biology professor.BTW, I think that DoctrBill is a Loma Linda graduate.Moose

I know this. That's what the unconformities represent - missing rock. The quartzite boulder is Shinumo Quartzite - a Precambrian metamorphic rock that resembles the Coconino only because they are both primarily composed of quartz grains. However, the Coconino has not been metamorphosed and therefore retains the name "Sandstone," while the Shinumo HAS been metamorphosed and therefore is called a "Quartzite." For anyone familiar with the textural [and hardness!!] differences between a sandstone and a quartzite, it's almost impossible to confuse one for the other.Additionally, one can simply collect hand samples from Coconino and Shinumo outcrops, take them over to the megaclasts and compare them. This has been done repeatedly. Therefore, there is no way those quartzite megaclasts in the Tapeats and Bright Angel Shale are Coconino - the are most assuredly Precambrian Shinumo Quartzite.Now, why are those clasts present in younger rocks?First of all, the Tonto Group, which is composed of the basal Tapeats Sandstone, overlying Bright Angel Shale, and uppermost Muav Limestone, has been interpreted to represent a transgressive marine sequence. Meaning that sea level was rising and the waters moving inland. The Tapeats represents a near-shore (near the beach) depositional environment and includes such things as ripple marks, trilobites, brachiopods, trace fossils, etc. The Bright Angel Shale represents a muddier and deeper marine environment and is composed promarily of clay (glauconitic), interbedded with sands, and is locally calcareous. The Muav Limestone is locally shaley and sandy, and represents and even deeper marine setting than the Bright Angel Shale.Now imagine you're standing on a beach facing the deep ocean with perhaps some high cliffs down the beach a ways. A transgressive environment means sea levels are rising and if you stayed on that beach, pretty soon you'd be under water. Eventually, with deeper water, you would get more and more muds being deposited while the beach sands would migrate further and further inland. Even deeper water means more inland migration of beach sands and other near-shore sands (Tapeats) and eventually even the shale (Bright Angel Shale) that was raining down on you would also migrate inland as well.So at this point, imagine you are buried up to your knees in sand (Tapeats) and from your knees to your shoulders you are buried in shale. At your knees, you have sand mixed with clay because of the transition from mostly sand to mostly clay. Now, with the water getting even deeper as the sea level rises, carbonate begins raining down on you, but because it's just started, clay is still falling down too. So you get a mixture of clay and carbonate raining down on your head. Even deeper water means that eventually the muds stop and only carbonate is deposited.At this point, your feet are in sand (Tapeats), waist in shale (Bright Angel), and head in limestone (Muav).Now, remember those cliffs located down the beach a ways. Those are actually outcrops of a hard and difficult to erode rock called quartzite. The quartzite cliffs, some of which were even out in the ocean a bit are like islands, surrounded by water. Some cliffs are up on hills behind you with large talus slopes sloping onto the beach. Even though the quartzite is strongly resistant to erosion, enough wind and freeze-thaw action breaks some blocks off and they fall into the water. And sometimes, during strong storms or even earthquakes, lots of material can break off the cliffs/talus slopes and they come tumbling down into the ocean as landslides/debris flows. Sometimes, even the largest boulders, which can build up some pretty wicked momentum even make it out further than the rest of the stuff.Because the cliffs have been there a long time and momentum carried the material far, these slides and rock falls left material on/in the sandy beaches and in the shale.Peace, even you noted: The boulders are associated with sand layers in the SHALE. The boulder likely didn't just plop in there all by itself, but with other material as well. Perhaps that sand is similar to a 'trail of dust.'Some beach pics to illustrate my example:See the boulders out in the water? See the talus slope? Imagine the sea level rising and burying it in beach sands. *
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How about a photo that shows this relationship rather clearly? It's even a photo YOU posted: (see your image for a larger picture)It shows a breccia unit sitting between underlying Shinumo Quartzite and overlying Tapeats sandstone. Not only that, the picture also shows that all the units, breccia, Tapeats, and Bright Angel Shale, pinch out against the Shinumo Quartzite, indicating the quartzite is a topographic high -- an island, so to speak, and the breccia is a talus slope.This message has been edited by roxrkool, 05-13-2005 02:20 PM

School of Behavioral Health | Loma Linda UniversityShows that LLU does have a geology department, that seems combined with the biology department.Dr. Chadwick wrote this paper on geology: Arthur Chadwick: Geology/PaleontologyHere's his site on "Who's Who in Creation"
Arthur V. Chadwick (biographical information) - Creation SuperLibrary - ChristianAnswers.NetHe got a Ph.D in molecular biology in 1969 from the University of Miami, so he would seem to have strong biology credentials. It doesn't list any geology credentials.Dr. Chadwick is currently chair of the Biology & Geology department at Southwestern Adventist University in Keene, Texas.Chris

Your point is far from being proven. You stated the Tapeats Sandstone and Bright Angel Shale are RECENT deposits resulting from rain erosion. Except that it's pretty dang obvious that those formations are solid ROCK (not unconsolidated sediment) and, along with the Muav Limestone, represent the Cambrian (basal) portion of the canyon. These rocks underlie the Temple Butte and Redwall Limestone formations across the ENTIRE Grand Canyon even where you can't see them in cross-sectional photos.Dig a horizontal tunnel through the Tapeats and Bright Angel and you'll be digging for miles.They are NOT talus slopes of eroded material from further up the canyon walls. Then you'd be wrong. And since others have done the field and laboratory work necessary to back up their claims, while you are simply looking at pictures on websites, I'm inclined to believe them and not you.This message has been edited by roxrkool, 05-13-2005 02:15 PM

In message 37, peaceharris wrote:"In general, sand is more dense than clay. But
according to Stokes' law, settling velocity also
depends on particle size. So after flocculation,
the size factor is dominant."There are some fundamental flaws with Mr. peaceharris statement:1. The Hermit Shale, as he falsely presumes, is **not** composed of shale derived from the compaction of a layer of pure clay. Instead, it consists mainly of complexly interbedded layers of **siltstone** and **mudstone**. Silt does **not** flocculate. As a result, flocculation cannot be used to explain the presence of finer-grained silt below the Coconino Sandstone. Also, flocculation and sorting cannot be used to explain the presence of layers of sandstone that are also found in the Hermit Shale.Go look at "HERMIT FORMATION" at CanyonDave.com is for sale | HugeDomainsThis web page stated:"Though it is often called the Hermit Shale, most of the Hermit is
not shale but siltstone or mudstone mixed with fine grained
sandstone.2. The size of a floc, an aggregation of very fine clay particles, is **not** a accurate indication of its settling velocity as the bulk of the floc consists of pore space filled with water. Since the water filling these pores is the same density as the water, through which it is settling, it contributes nothing to the weight of particle. As a result, the effective density of flocs can be extremely low because of their high porosity to the point that it significantly offsets any differences in size. Depending on the amount of pore space in them, settling velocity of a floc can range from **less** than that of the individual particles of clay composing it to a settling velocity slightly less than or equal to one of a grain of silt. Thus, it is utter nonsense and proved nothing to state categorically that "after flocculation, the size factor is dominant".Generally, the larger the floc is, the more pore space there is in it. Therefore, the density of floc decreases with size, which means that the weight and settling velocity of a floc does not increase directly with size. As a result, settling velocity of a floc increases quite slowly as it size increases, In addition, the size of flocs is limited. Flocs are very fragile and are easily broken up by turbulence, which greatly limits their size.3. peaceharris stated:"From the following website , I obtained the densities
of various sands and clays (in kg/m3)Clay dry excavated 1089
Clay wet excavated 1826
Clay dry lump 1073
Clay fire 1362
Clay wet lump 1602
Clay compacted 1746"These densities are meaningless in terms of the density of a floc. These densities are of clays that have already been deposited and extensively dewatered by drying, compaction, or some combination of thee processes. These values are totally useless in a discussion of the density of flocs and their settling velocity. A uncompacted layer composed of particles of recently settled clay flocs has the consistency and density of a thin soup.In terms of the Hermit Shale, a major problem is, as previously noted, sorting does **not** explain: 1. the complex interlayering and interfingering of layers of siltstone, mudstone, even sandstone; the specific sedimentary structures exhibited by these layers; the presence of terrestrial fossils in it; the presence of fossil tracks in it; the presence of other trace fossils such as vertebrate and insect burrows; the lack of any marine fossils; and other details of the sedimentology and paleontology of the Hermit Shale. It is revealing that Mr. peaceharris and other Young Earth creationists consistently overlook inconvenient facts, as in case of sedimentary structures unique to eolian environment found in the Coconino Sandstone, which contradicts whatever thesis they trying to argue.For example, in "HERMIT FORMATION" at CanyonDave.com is for sale | HugeDomains, it is stated:"Hermit Formation fossils include invertebrate tracks and trails,
insect impressions including a large dragonfly, and many types
of worm burrows. There are also plant fossils in abundance,
especially ferns and conifers."Some web pages of interestKarsts and the flood. Things YEC leaders never show their followers
Error | Christian ForumsSipes, C. R., and Peters, R. A., 2000, Giant desiccation polygons in
the surface of the Hermit Formation, Grand Canyon, Arizona.
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs.vol., 32,
no. 7, pp. 310-311.
http://rock.geosociety.org/...absindex/annual/2000/51311.htmBest Regards,Bill
Houston, TexasThis message has been edited by Bill Birkeland, 05-14-2005 12:44 AM

In Message 36, Nosy Ned asked:

quote:

---

"How do you do it?
I know that you are an expert in this stuff Bill but
I would like a description of the process you went
through to build that excellent post.

​

I don't think it is off topic because it would add a
bit to the back up for the point you are making.

​

Could you try to retrace the steps you took? Did you
just know all that off the top of your head? Or are
there steps that others could follow?"

---

This is a very hard question to answer. One part of it has to do with having had my first job in the oil business in Rocky Mountain region in 1980. Since then, I have had turned over many a rock, sometimes more then twice, and examined many a geophysical log of an oil well while looking for where an oil or gas field might be found. Because of that, I became acquainted with the geology of the region. The Explorer article about the Grand Canyon, I found during the normal, and seemingly hopeless task, of reading paper after paper in order to keep up with what is being published in geology. As I have read through the literature again and again over time, it was one of many others papers that I "bookmarked" as a potentially useful items in discussing specific Young /Old Earth creationist arguments.Another part was when the price of oil crashed, I was unable to find a job in the oil business for a few years. During that time, I worked for an environmental consulting company as their "expert" on whatever they were working on. In order to keep this job and not end up either homeless or working at McDonalds, I had to learn how to use a library and databases to become an "instant expert" on almost any topic. During the time that price of oil crashed in the late 1980s, it was either adapt or "die" for many geologists. Out of the 20 geologists, including me, who lost their jobs when the Rocky Mountain Office closed down, I was one of six who continued to work as geologist. The other 14 ended up getting jobs as high school teachers, going back to school to become lawyers: computer people, and so forth: or simply vanished from the geoscience community.Finally, like many geologists, I have gone on field trips whenever possible. For example, one university field trip, on which we watched, in person, two volcanoes erupt close-up and looked volcanic deposits for two weeks in Central America. It is a different reality from college lecture to be watching an erupting volcano and realize those large black specks flying out a volcano are boulders the size of Volkswagens. Nothing substitutes for seeing geology in person. Also, as part of my list of 100 things to see in person, which most geologists have, I have been on a seven-day raft trip of the Grand Canyon. If you cannot go on fieldtrips, the guidebooks published for these field trips typically have a cutting edge summary. Many of these fieldtrips guidebooks are now online. The fieldtrips, which I like are the "Friends of Pleistocene" (FOP) ones, even though they are outside of my expertise.One thing, which you can do is to archive web pages, which you find have useful information /articles on them. All of the major web browser, i.e. Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Safari (I am Macophile), and so forth have an option in the "print" menu for saving web page as PDF files. It is also very useful Also, Adobe Acrobat is wonderful software for the purpose in that it allows a person download and save as part of the PDF file pages which are linked to the original page. Also, it allows a person to remove and add pages to a PDF files. Having the PDF copies of web pages is useful as it allows a person to look at them without being online and have an archive copy of web pages, which have long since disappeared. I have about 5 CD-ROMs full of PDF files, sorted by subject, of web pages on various topics discussed by Young and Old Earth creationists. I have another 5 CR-ROMS of PDF files, including reprints on the aspects of geology that interest me.Using Google to find information is matter of knowing the keywords to use. One trick that people on this list can do is either use "ppt" with the keyword(s) for the topic being research or "lecture" and "PDF" with the keyword(s) for the topic being research. The use of "ppt" and "lecture" and "PDF" in Google will typical, but not always find lecture notes for university classes that can be downloaded. These notes can be a useful way of finding an overview / summary in a understandable format of current state art in an area of science.Finally, if a person has access to a university or college library, they often have GEOREF database available for people to use in the library. It is an incredibly useful tool in any sort geology research. The citation search engine at Geoscience World can be used by non-subscribers to a limited degree. It is found at http://www.geoscienceworld.org/ .Describing how the post was written is sort of difficult. At this point in any geologist's career, either government, academic, or private oil or consulting company, writing is an automatic process. Even the best geologic work is useless unless it can be conveyed in a coherent manner to other people. In case of the oil business, a geologist has to be able to be either an author, coauthor, or compiler, who can prepare a report, and presentations, explaining in clear English why management should spend a couple of million dollars drilling for oil at specific point on the Earth's surface.Similarly, in the oil business, a geologist often has to review proposals from other companies to sell your company either oil leases or part interest in a wildcat well. More often then not, the "science" / "geology" in such proposals are slanted, sometimes to the point of fabrication, to portray the economics of the deal in the best possible light. As a result, in reviewing such proposals, a person has to be skeptical of almost everything written in them when evaluating their merits. A person has to ask questions about the interpretations make sense from the data presented; is the science being used correctly; is the data too good to be true; is the data being twisted to fit a preconceived conclusion (oil likely will be found if a well is drilled in our lease); and so forth. As a matter of "survival" in the oil business, a geologist learns to be quite critical in evaluating written material of any type.The best I can do is say:A. Read the an article, proposal, paper, and so forth.B. Outline the basic arguments being made for a specific interpretation.C. Then go through each argument and ask the questions.
1. does the person have the basic facts /observations /data right. Are they disputed?
2. are the sources of the facts /observations /data credible?
3. is the interpretation based on sound science as discussed / documented in published literature?
4. are significant facts /observations /data either overlooked, ignored, or unknown.
5. does what is argued violate common sense? If so, is there something wrong with the arguments or with common sense?Part of Step C involves either having a background in what is being discussed from previous experience / education or looking up and evaluating what has published on the topic; or some combination of these.D. If an alternative interpretation, as either argued by other people or can be made by you, better explains what is going on, prepare the argument for such in a logic manner.E. Writing this all up in a coherent, easy to understand fashion.At this point in my life, a lot of this is automatic. It is hard to really put it into exact words. The above is my nest try.Best regards,Bill This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 05-14-2005 01:59 PM

In Message 36, Nosy Ned asked:"How do you do it?
I know that you are an expert in this stuff Bill but
I would like a description of the process you went
through to build that excellent post.I don't think it is off topic because it would add a
bit to the back up for the point you are making.Could you try to retrace the steps you took? Did you
just know all that off the top of your head? Or are
there steps that others could follow?"This is a very hard question to answer. One part of it has to do with having had my first job in the oil business in Rocky Mountain region in 1980. Since then, I have had turned over many a rock, sometimes more then twice, and examined many a geophysical log of an oil well while looking for where an oil or gas field might be found. Because of that, I became acquainted with the geology of the region. The Explorer article about the Grand Canyon, I found during the normal, and seemingly hopeless task, of reading paper after paper in order to keep up with what is being published in geology. As I have read through the literature again and again over time, it was one of many others papers that I "bookmarked" as a potentially useful items in discussing specific Young /Old Earth creationist arguments.Another part was when the price of oil crashed, I was unable to find a job in the oil business for a few years. During that time, I worked for an environmental consulting company as their "expert" on whatever they were working on. In order to keep this job and not end up either homeless or working at McDonalds, I had to learn how to use a library and databases to become an "instant expert" on almost any topic. During the time that price of oil crashed in the late 1980s, it was either adapt or "die" for many geologists. Out of the 20 geologists, including me, who lost their jobs when the Rocky Mountain Office closed down, I was one of six who continued to work as geologist. The other 14 ended up getting jobs as high school teachers, going back to school to become lawyers: computer people, and so forth: or simply vanished from the geoscience community.Finally, like many geologists, I have gone on field trips whenever possible. For example, one university field trip, on which we watched, in person, two volcanoes erupt close-up and looked volcanic deposits for two weeks in Central America. It is a different reality from college lecture to be watching an erupting volcano and realize those large black specks flying out a volcano are boulders the size of Volkswagens. Nothing substitutes for seeing geology in person. Also, as part of my list of 100 things to see in person, which most geologists have, I have been on a seven-day raft trip of the Grand Canyon. If you cannot go on fieldtrips, the guidebooks published for these field trips typically have a cutting edge summary. Many of these fieldtrips guidebooks are now online. The fieldtrips, which I like are the "Friends of Pleistocene" (FOP) ones, even though they are outside of my expertise.One thing, which you can do is to archive web pages, which you find have useful information /articles on them. All of the major web browser, i.e. Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Safari (I am Macophile), and so forth have an option in the "print" menu for saving web page as PDF files. It is also very useful Also, Adobe Acrobat is wonderful software for the purpose in that it allows a person download and save as part of the PDF file pages which are linked to the original page. Also, it allows a person to remove and add pages to a PDF files. Having the PDF copies of web pages is useful as it allows a person to look at them without being online and have an archive copy of web pages, which have long since disappeared. I have about 5 CD-ROMs full of PDF files, sorted by subject, of web pages on various topics discussed by Young and Old Earth creationists. I have another 5 CR-ROMS of PDF files, including reprints on the aspects of geology that interest me.Using Google to find information is matter of knowing the keywords to use. One trick that people on this list can do is either use "ppt" with the keyword(s) for the topic being research or "lecture" and "PDF" with the keyword(s) for the topic being research. The use of "ppt" and "lecture" and "PDF" in Google will typical, but not always find lecture notes for university classes that can be downloaded. These notes can be a useful way of finding an overview / summary in a understandable format of current state art in an area of science.Finally, if a person has access to a university or college library, they often have GEOREF database available for people to use in the library. It is an incredibly useful tool in any sort geology research. The citation search engine at Geoscience World can be used by non-subscribers to a limited degree. It is found at http://www.geoscienceworld.org/ . A major secret to making a post is not knowing something, but knowing where to find it in the vast geolgoic literature.Describing how the post was written is sort of difficult. At this point in any geologist's career, either government, academic, or private oil or consulting company, writing is an automatic process. Even the best geologic work is useless unless it can be conveyed in a coherent manner to other people. In case of the oil business, a geologist has to be able to be either an author, coauthor, or compiler, who can prepare a report, and presentations, explaining in clear English why management should spend a couple of million dollars drilling for oil at specific point on the Earth's surface.Similarly, in the oil business, a geologist often has to review proposals from other companies to sell your company either oil leases or part interest in a wildcat well. More often then not, the "science" / "geology" in such proposals are slanted, sometimes to the point of fabrication, to portray the economics of the deal in the best possible light. As a result, in reviewing such proposals, a person has to be skeptical of almost everything written in them when evaluating their merits. A person has to ask questions about the interpretations make sense from the data presented; is the science being used correctly; is the data too good to be true; is the data being twisted to fit a preconceived conclusion (oil likely will be found if a well is drilled in our lease); and so forth. As a matter of "survival" in the oil business, a geologist learns to be quite critical in evaluating written material of any type.The best I can do is say:A. Read the an article, proposal, paper, and so forth.B. Outline the basic arguments being made for a specific interpretation.C. Then go through each argument and ask the questions.
1. does the person have the basic facts /observations /data right. Are they disputed?
2. are the sources of the facts /observations /data credible?
3. is the interpretation based on sound science as discussed / documented in published literature?
4. are significant facts /observations /data either overlooked, ignored, or unknown.
5. does what is argued violate common sense? If so, is there something wrong with the arguments or with common sense?Part of Step C involves either having a background in what is being discussed from previous experience / education or looking up and evaluating what has published on the topic; or some combination of these.D. If an alternative interpretation, as either argued by other people or can be made by you, better explains what is going on, prepare the argument for such in a logic manner.E. Writing this all up in a coherent, easy to understand fashion.At this point in my life, a lot of this is automatic. It is hard to really put it into exact words.Best Regards,Bill

Thank you for the message. You will now probably get a POTM nomination for a message on how to write a POTM level message. You have just double posted the (more or less) same message. I think that ususally this is caused by using your browsers "back" button instead of using the forums "edit" button. In this case, it may well have been a good thing, as I was also editing version 1 of the message at the same time. Bad things happen when two people are editing the same message at the same time - Only 1 version will get posted.Or maybe the double posting was in part caused by my involvement.Anyhow, please see my comments at the bottom of version 1.Thanks again for posting.Adminnemooseus

If silt doesn't flocculate, please explain how clear water is supplied to our homes."It is usually not practical to remove small silt and clay particles (smaller than 0.002 mm), unless they are flocculated using alum and/or polyelectrolites. "
- quote from AE65/WI010: Settling Basins for Trickle Irrigation in FloridaGround water is very rich in iron. Ferric salts are good coagulants. The red color of the Hermit shale has been attributed to iron."In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second monthon that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened." - Genesis 7:11

quote:

---

silt doesn't flocculate, please explain how clear water is supplied to our homes.

​

"It is usually not practical to remove small silt and clay particles (smaller than 0.002 mm), unless they are flocculated using alum and/or polyelectrolites. "
- quote from AE65/WI010: Settling Basins for Trickle Irrigation in Florida

---

AFAIK clays will flocculate in naturally salty water. Silts are usually flocculated artificially using alum or artifical polyelectrolites as your site says. You will also notice that the site you linked to confirms that the settling velocity of flocculates can not be calculated using Stokes's law as Bill said.

quote:

---

Ground water is very rich in iron. Ferric salts are good coagulants. The red color of the Hermit shale has been attributed to iron.

---

Being relativly rich in iron and having enough iron to flocculate significant amounts of clay or silt are very different things. Concentration I have found for ground water said to be relatively rich in iron run from 0.1 to 0.2 PPM. Even 1 ppm is only 0.0001% and even a trivalent cation won't cause much flocculation at that concentration.Added in Edit: With some more looking around I did find that iron may reach 2 ppm in ground water. However even with aluminum, a more effective flocculator than iron, about 5 ppm is required to reduce the zeta potential of typical clays to around 5 mV where flocculation begins. (Added in Edit: The zeta potential for flocculation of clay to begin should be -5mv since clays carry a net negative charge.)RandyThis message has been edited by Randy, 05-15-2005 09:53 PMThis message has been edited by Randy, 05-16-2005 06:07 AM

PS: I am still waiting for you to tell us how the animal tracks in the Coconino Sandstones, which you provided a picture of were made while some flocculation process caused the hermit shale with its complex mixture of siltstones, mudstones, sandstones, plant and animal fossils and trace fossils to separate out from and deposit below the nearly pure sand that comprises the Coconino Sandstones.Randy

Why are the rivers of Clearwater County so clear?I strongly suspect that it is due to the high iron content."Most water contains less that five ppm iron but occasionally levels over 30 ppm are found. " - quote from Chemical anlaysis of Farm Water at Clearwater County.

huh?Who cares what you suspect? What, exactly, does this have to do with the discussion? What are the measured contents of the average water?
What is the actual content of sea water and the flood's rain water?What about the other quesions asked above?

In message 85, Randy wrote, "With some more looking around I did find that iron may reach 2 ppm in ground water. However even with aluminum, a more effective flocculator than iron, about 5 ppm is required to reduce the zeta potential of typical clays to around 5 mV where flocculation begins. "In other words, he is trying to say that iron content in groundwater is too low to cause flocculation.

And how do those pictures tell us what the content of the ocean, rainwater or the average ground water is?