TB brought this up on the "Solving the Mystery of the Biblical Flood thread. That thread is about wmscott's specific flood model and I think the Grand Canyon sediments deserve a separate topic so I took the liberty of starting one. Here are some of my favorite sites on
Here are some web sites on the Grand Canyon there are many others.
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/Grand_Staircase.html
http://www.psiaz.com/Schur/azpaleo/azgeology.html
http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/grand.htm
http://my.erinet.com/~jwoolf/gc_rocks.html
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Tranquility Base:
Edge
If your statements are made in good faith then why do you deny that most beds could have been rapidly genernated?
Let's not go and pick a problematic one for us - every theory has problematic aspects. Let's stick to the bread and butter of the geo-column. Let's pick most of the Grand Canyon strata.
You have more than problematic ones. There are many features of the world’s geology that falsify your theory and it is no wonder you want to stick to one that you incorrectly think supports it. At least you don't have to deal with massive salt deposits in the Grand Canyon though there are paleosols that creationists usually don't mention.
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What is stopping most of those layers being generated by erosion of recently laid soft sdiment?
[PS On the river delta point: how do you explain thousands of square miles of layered fresh-water deposits contiaining land plants? The only place thiscould happen is in a huge river delta but there is no sign of deltaic geometry in the freshwater layers of the Grand Canyon]
I am not sure what you mean by "eroson of presently laid soft sediments" forming layers. It doesn’t seem to quite make sense.
When you say most Grand Canyon strata do you include the Grand Wash Dolomites, Redwall Limestones and Kabab Limestones as flood deposits? You have never explained how any of them could be the result of catastrophic deposition.
You need more than rapid deposition of
most layers to get the Tapeats sandsones, Bright Angel Shale, Muav Limestone, Grand Wash Dolomites, Temple Butte Limestone, Redwall Limestone, Surprise Canyon Formation, Supai Group(Watahomigi, Manakacha, Wescogame, and Esplanade), Hermit Shale, Coconino Sandstones, Toroweap and Kaibab limestones all deposited during the flood year.
Are the ferns you referred to before and the land plants you refer to here those found in the Hermit Shale, which also has salt crystals, raindrop impressions and animal tracks?
Account Suspended
The Hermit Shale represents accumulations of mud and fine sandy material deposited probably by streams flowing from the northeast. Here and there are found evidences of pools and arroyos with wavy ripple marks on their borders and a thin film of shiny slime covering the surface. The trails of worms, the footprints of small salamander-like animals, and the fronds of ferns, mostly mascerated or wilted, are found delicately preserved in this slime. Raindrop impressions, the molds of salt crystals and numerous sun-cracks also add to the picture.
Were the salt crystals brought in by flood? More drying out between flood surges and animals coming from high ground I quess. Surge after surge after surge over vast areas and all in only a year. Note also deposition by streams is postulated not from a single river delta.
We have also discussed the strong evidence that the Coconino Sandstones are not flood deposits.
http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/grandb.htmbesides the tracks
Lockley (1995) states:
"The weight of biological and paleoenvironmental evidence pertaining to the Coconino sandstone . . . strongly argues against a subaqeous origin for the tracks. There is very little evidence to suggest extensive bodies of water in Coconino deposits. Even those who support the swimming interpretation for Laoporus tracks cannot show conclusively that these vertebrate trackmakers were amphibians or that dry-land explanations must be abandoned" (p. 44).
And in 1999:
" . . . we should state clearly that the evidence for flooding is nonexistent. The protomammal tracks [in the Coconino - ed] are often found in association with with countless trackways of spiders, scorpions, and other desert arthropods that could not have been walking around underwater" (p. 69).
Further the bedforms are inconsistent with water formed dunes
"We cannot emphasize too strongly that sand waves possess low to mild slopes ... it is clear that the sides of the waves rarely dip more steeply than 10 degress overall and can slope as little as 1 degree ..."
The bedforms are also inconsistent with subaqeous deposition. Middleton et al. (p. 195) write:
The low height-to-wavelength ratio of the wind ripples as measured in plan view exposures of many foresets is consistent with those recorded from modern coastal and inland dunes.
The wind-ripples in the Coconino look just like these -- they are very parallel, as opposed to shallow water ripples which tend to be wavy and bifurcating. See photo in Middleton and Elliot, p. 194.
Cuffey notes:
"Careful examination of modern dunes [such as the Great Sand Dunes, White Sands (Collinson, 1986b), Monahans Sand Hills, Nebraska Sand Hills (Ahl brandt & Fryberger, 1982), or on Padre Island (Brookfield, 1984)] indicates that climbing translatent strata, with coarsening-up laminae and rare foreset laminae, form only by the migration and accretion of low amplitude wind ripples in eolian environments (Hunter, 1977; Kocurek & Dott, 1981). Such strata and ripples are ubiquitous in the [Coconino,] Navajo, Entrada, and similar sandstones (Kocurek & Dott, 1981), contradicting a subaqueous origin. Modern eolian sand dunes exhibit internal cross-bedding that is remarkably similar to that in the Colorado Plateau sandstones" (Ahlbrandt & Fryberger, 1982, p. 19; McKee & Ward, 1983, p. 147; Collinson, 1986b, p. 104).
You have again taken inconclusive evidence that one layer was formed by catastrophic deposition, ignored the contradictory evidence regarding that layer and with no justification extrapolated that most of the other layers in the Grand Canyon could been deposited in a year of flood.
Randy
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