Formations really do match detailed lab expts of sorting under rapid currents

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
The AIG videotape from Berthault has much better video of the formaiton of layers. The stuff on the web is quite poor. Without getting that videotape you'll just have to trust my descriptions in previous posts. Superposition (other than at a fixed verticle coordinate) is clearly violated (as it is during progradation anyway).

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Only in the minds of creationists. The diagrams, animations and lecture pieces clearly showed superposition in action. Nowhere was a grain deposited on another that was not there first. Besides how else does on sample a depositional system other than at one point in space at a time? This is s silly exercise in sophistry.

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The really new things that Bertahult/Julien show is:

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(i) That the progradation effect can occur under rapid flow rather than slow inundation

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Funny then that we discussed this in my first classes nearly 30 years ago!

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(ii) It occurs for individual strata as well as facies. On the videotape you can watch mulitple strata extend horizontally at the same time. So a single stratum (not just a facies) has an age difference along it's length.

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How then do you extend this to an entire depositional facies? Where was this shown in the experiments? I saw only the equivalent of a beach facies during a storm event.

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You may have a good point about the limestone deposition rates. You'd have to take that up with Austin.

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Actually, you should take it up with him. You are the one he has left out here trying to defend his story. He knows where we are if he has a problem.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
You continue to purposefully ignore the sense in which superposition is violted. I have explined it with Xs, Ys and layer numbers and will not do it again. You pretend as if the subtlety has no bearing on stratigraphy or how the starta arose when it at least potentially does.

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You have completely ignored both my explanations of why this is not a violation of superposition and that we have know about this phenomenon for years. I did not say that it has no bearing on stratigraphy at all. It is however, readily explained by mainstream stratigraphy.

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Do you really think that paleontologists regularly consider that a trilobite found in strata 1000 feet below sponge-bearing strata could have actually been buried after a sponge found in the upper strata some kilometres away? It rewrites paleontological method and results.

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I don't know what you are saying here. If a fossil really is younger, then it will be found in a higher time-stratigraphic unit. No exceptions to this are found in the fossil record. We may have some that LOOK like older fossils such as the modern coelacanth, but they are clearly not the same creatures.Try thinking of the bottom of a channel or body of water at one instant in time. Then think of the fossils that would be deposited at that time. Then move to a later time and see where the younger fossils would be deposited. They are ALWAYS in a younger unit. Perhaps not necessarily higher in the stratigraphy, but definitely above. The boundaries may be irregular, but they can be recognized by a trained stratigrapher.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
You continue to purposefully ignore the sense in which superposition is violted. I have explined it with Xs, Ys and layer numbers and will not do it again. You pretend as if the subtlety has no bearing on stratigraphy or how the starta arose when it at least potentially does.

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YOu have edited your message to which I have already responded elsewhere. However, I just thought of something. In one of the videos we see an imaginary core of a stratigraphic succession extracted and compared to the advancing foreset beds. Just one question here. Isn't that piec of core just like a single point on the map? Do you really think that the lower rocks in that core were deposited after the higher rocks in the core?

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Look Edge, I think we are agreeing with each other but you keep trying to make it out that I think layer 4 at X could have formed before layer 1 at X. I do not.

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What I think is new is that under catastrophic flow one gets something that bears similarity to a gradual inundation.

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Actually, not. Under a gradual inundation we would see shales and limestones. These experiments do not address this aspect of nature. You have committed another hasty generalization that this flume experiment extends to all geological formations.

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Fom this post it is then clear that a 'time-stratigraphic' unit for you can cut across bedding planes. Is that true?

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Depends. Normally, internal laminations of the type you see forming in the flume experiments are cut by bedding planes. They are found within beds. They may cut across compositional layering, but usually not across bedding joints.

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It is what is seen in Berthault's experiments. How do you identify time-stratigraphic units since progradation of any sort makes it difficult?

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I hate to bring this up again, but to experienced geologists it is practically second nature. That is why we spend years studying these things.[This message has been edited by edge, 12-10-2002]

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
You may, or may not, have a good point about the limestones. I don't know how Austin accounts for that.

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Well, if you can't answer it, then it is a good point.

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In Julien's experiments the time boundaries are at about a 60 degree angle within a stratum to the bedding planes so it is a very difernet sceanrio than you are used to.

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How do you know what I am used to? I have seen this phenomenon in the geological record, probably thousands of times. How do you think this has escaped the notice of geologists for the last 200 years?

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The time boundaries cut across compositon boundaries and stratum bedding planes.

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Show me where they cross true bedding joints.

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TB: It is what is seen in Berthault's experiments. How do you identify time-stratigraphic units since progradation of any sort makes it difficult?

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Edge: I hate to bring this up again, but to experienced geologists it is practically second nature. That is why we spend years studying these things.

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If it was laid by Berthault's mechanism it would be very difficult to succesfully do without simulating the entire deposition.

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Not at all. As I have said, we see these things frequently (but not everywhere, just why is that?) in the geological record.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:

Edge writes:

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How do you know what I am used to? I have seen this phenomenon in the geological record, probably thousands of times. How do you think this has escaped the notice of geologists for the last 200 years?

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Are you talking of cross-bedding for example?

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I am tired of answering your questions when you refuse to answer mine. How do you know what I am used to? How do you think geologists have missed this phenomenon over the last 200 years?

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Show me where they cross true bedding joints.

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In Berthault's video-tape they clearly do. We can only surmise that where paleocurrents reveal rapid depositon that the bedding planes in these cases are only apparent or are not what you would normally consider a bedding plane.

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Nope, you cannot see this. Please point out where cross laminations actually cut a bedding joint.

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Not at all. As I have said, we see these things frequently (but not everywhere, just why is that?) in the geological record.

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Our model has plenty of room for deposition under zero-flow too.

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Non sequitur.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
It has not been completely missed by generations of geologists but you have so emphasized gradualism that I beleive most formations are automatically forced into stratum at a time interpretaitons.

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Not at all. I simply do not ascribe rapid deposition to ALL systems as you require. I have seen and understand rapidly deposited sands that form beaches etc. The point is that the sands were probably deposited many times before they were preserved by overlying deposits. Just as todays beaches will sometime look like those in the geological record if they are part of a transgressive sequence.On the other hand, if you allow what you call zero flow deposition for the Pierre Shale, for instance, you are instantly out of a one year flood scenario.

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So, is cross-bedding what you are talking about?

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Basically, yes. I'm trying to think if there are exceptions but can't come up with any right now. What you are seeing in the experiments are cross beds.

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
"Nothing in Berthault's website show any evidence that such crosscutting relationships have been found to violate superposition, despite his many claims of having done so."

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--What really would be Berhault's accomplishment by violating the principle of superposition? I am slightly confused as to what exactly the issue at hand is here.

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The issue is superpostion as defined by mainstream science, not superposition as defined by Berthault.

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--And I had the impression that superposition is a principle in sedimentology which is only applicable in vertical successions. Unless ofcourse there was the scneario in geomorphologic influence where an earlier deposited stratum be lapped over a younger one.

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Every sediment must overlay an older sediment at the same location. If that bed overlies something younger in another location, then it is even younger at that location.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
At the risk of repeating myself here is what Berthault's experiments show in black and white (OK, blue and white):

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t=0

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*********
&&&&&&&&&&&&

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t=t1

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************
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

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t=t2

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^^^^^
***************
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

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The right-most parts of the &-layer occur after some of the ^^^^ layer. The mechanim turns out to be hydrological sorting and preferential friction with the current layer at X. Note that sorting neatly puts new ^^^, new *** and new &&& all in a line. The time-boundary is not the bedding-planes but crosses it and may be evident as cross-bedding I imagine.

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The problem is that the sloping line is now your time-stratigraphic horizon. The bedding is not time-bound as wehappy and I have been saying ad nauseum. The sloping layers will be laminai that are readily recognized by geologists in the field.{Fixed quote structure - AM}[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 12-12-2002]

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Edge writes:
The problem is that the sloping line is now your time-stratigraphic horizon. The bedding is not time-bound as wehappy and I have been saying ad nauseum. The sloping layers will be laminai that are readily recognized by geologists in the field.

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Why is that a 'problem'. Why do you keep telling me that this is what you're telling me when it is I that have maintained this since the very first post in this thread?

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Because you don’t seem to treat sediments below the time line as older than those above. You seem to think that being vertically higher means younger. This is not the case. You repeatedly tell us that you understand this but you clearly do not.

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Tranquilty in the first post of this thread writes:
The lower layers at the end of the flow direction are formed after much of the top layers at the start of the flow area but the layers are trackable from start to end.

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Just as I have said. You are saying the lower layers above the time line should be older than the higher sediments above the time line according to us. This is not so.

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Your sloping lines will produce laminai. I essentailly agree but wha tare these laminai identifiable by? Composition? 3D Texturing? What? Is this an example of cross-bedding?

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They are discontinuities in the depositional sequence. Compositional and/or textural. Depends on the environment.

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Do these sloping laminai, easily recognized by the pros, cross bedding planes that separate compostionally differnetiated laminai?

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Sometimes.

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Key point: Are you agreeing with us or not? Why make this all such a mystery?

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I’m not sure who ‘we’ is, but basically, no. I disagree entirely with the meaning and significance of the observations. This is basic geology and Berthault has taken a common, but non-intuitive geological observation and turned it into an issue that does not exist, but can be used to deceive the layman.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Here is the point of all of this.

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If you tracked a stratum for 800 km (let's say a small group of starta since that is probably unrealistic) would you normally assume that there could be a 70 million year time differential between one end and the other? I doubt it.

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Who does this? I never make such assumptions.

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Progradation is one thing, applying it, and understanding the mechanism, for individual strata is another. Showing that such progradation starta can occur under rapid currents without neccesarily requiring sea-level changes is another thing again.

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These are the novel features of Berhault and Julien's experiments that you pretend are not novel or significantly expanded on.

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Sorry, but they aren't. If you think they are, you have been deceived by your professional creationists. I have an almost thirty year old text that talks exactly about this phenomenon. The only people who don't understand this are creationists. And thus it will always be.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Why not post an excerpt from your 30 yo book?

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Actually, I think I have. But I will try to find it again soon. It is on the same pages as one of TC's quotes from Blatt and others. For some reason, TC didn't seem to read this part or paid it little heed because he found something to support his just-so story and dropped everything. It states something to the effect that we know sands can be deposited more rapidly than silts and muds. This has been known for a long time as I have seen pictures of trenches in sand deposited by storm surges.

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
"Actually, I think I have. But I will try to find it again soon. It is on the same pages as one of TC's quotes from Blatt and others. For some reason, TC didn't seem to read this part or paid it little heed because he found something to support his just-so story and dropped everything. It states something to the effect that we know sands can be deposited more rapidly than silts and muds. This has been known for a long time as I have seen pictures of trenches in sand deposited by storm surges."

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--Oh really? Please cite this reference and the post where I made the quote or even a quote like it, I have no text authored by a 'Blatt'. Until then this is completely false.

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Sheesh! A little bit of a chip on the shoulder here? I was pretty sure it was you, but I guess it was TB. After all, you both have the same stubborn streak with a liberal delusion of grandeur.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
I am the one who has read Blatt et al.

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I am still intereseted in the quote if you can find it but yor summary of it does in no way detract from the novelty of Bertahult and Julien's work!

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Well it isn't going to say that exactly. It just points out that some deposits occur rapidly. Since it doesn't say exactly what you need to hear, I will not post it. I should know better than to deal with absolutists on things like this. It starts out saying, "Some strata must have been deposited very rapidly..."

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You are incredibly biased Edge. Their work shows step by step the mechanisms of sorting by which layers of differnet compositons can be simultaneously and rapidly laid down under varied regimes of particle size and currents.

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There is nothing really new here. If it was so ground breaking, Berthault would be cited in every publication and textbook about sedimentation. Nothing biased about it. Just a fact.

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You are like the party poopers at the departmental coffee table where you tell them about a new paper and they say

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'Oh but that's been known for years'.

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And then I say: 'Funny how it got into PNAS this week then isn't it?'

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They say 'Oh?'.

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And I say, 'Maybe their work significantly added to the field'?

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Then they don't say anything.

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It's nothing short of jealosy.

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Or amusement. Actually, there are a lot of publications that don't really break ground. They simply rehash old experiments or data. In fact, have one like that... old stuff, but it got some press.[This message has been edited by edge, 12-17-2002]

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
"There is nothing really new here. If it was so ground breaking, Berthault would be cited in every publication and textbook about sedimentation. Nothing biased about it. Just a fact."

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--I would expect there is isotopic analysis of the formation and its inclusions. I don't think that even if Berthault is right on the ability to rapidly deposit such strata that it would be excepted by the mainstream.

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What? What formation? Why would there be an isotopic analysis of it?Actually, we do except Berthault's experiment. It works for some sandstone, except it is not universally applicable.And no, we categorically do accept rapid sedimentation. Just not in EVERY case. You have been told this repeatedly by several of us. I think you are well into the 'willful ignorance' category at this point.