Summations Only

I think that, after all of this, Faith still thinks that Palaeoarchaean "is a rock layer", the Mesoproterozoic "is a rock layer", the Neoproterezoic "is a rock layer", the Paleoproterozoic "is a rock layer", the Mesozoic "is a rock layer", etc. Faith got his/her information from always lying creationists who pretend that their definitions are scientific.Faith will always believe their lies. No matter how many times their lies are pointed out.

Why is the fact of millions of year nonsensical when it is observable and testable and has been verified repeatedly by many different means and technologies? And, as you have been told, no one but Creationist do that.

Exactly. That's why only creationists pretend that geologists do it. Creationists always tell untruths. A time period is not a layer, Faith. It's very basic.

The idea that a time period is a layer of rock is as silly as claiming the 60s and 70s were bell bottom pants.

Some brief suggestions about where to focus discussion:

1. Faith doesn't accept that landscapes experiencing net erosion can provide long term livable environments. She seems to believe that environments erode so fast that the inhabitants are left with no viable place to live. I think some time should be spent on this. That it's being argued that the slowness of net erosion in most places often produces visible change only over periods longer than thousands of years might not be apparent.
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2. While it's been stated a number of times that deposition and erosion can be happening simultaneously in the same place, I don't think it's clear to Faith how this could be.
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3. Faith's question about how the uneven landscapes we see around us today become flat strata is still a good one. She called attention to uneven sea floors and wonders where in the strata these can be found.
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4. In Message 755 Edge stated a distinction between strata and surfaces within strata when discussing the Green River Formation. This might invite confusion and could probably use some elaboration:
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   Edge in Message 755 writes:

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   However, to correct the narrative, the Green River Formation does consist of strata.

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   The topography (landscape) beneath the Green River Formation, and the modern topography cutting into it are not and will not become strata. They are surfaces within the strata and they cut whatever strata are older than the surface. They can be preserved in the strata just as a fossil is preserved in strata.
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   I think Edge is making clear a distinction between a surface (a topography) and a stratum, and he's pointing out that a stratum can contain many surfaces, and that a surface can cut into a stratum through erosion. But this might be a little too abstract. What connects a landscape we see today to something we see in ancient strata.
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5. In Message 759 Edge responds about non-flat sea floor topography. Images of strata showing such topography would be helpful.
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6. Also in Message 759 Edge mentions that formations have variable thickness and so couldn't possibly be "flat and straight." This is a good point that Faith should respond to. For example, the Redwall Limestone at the Grand Canyon ranges in thickness from 500 to 800 feet - it's upper and lower contacts could not possibly be "flat and straight".

Also, please let's leave the snarky stuff out of the discussion. The goal shouldn't be to convince Faith that geology is correct but to inform her what geology actually says.Information presented while the recipient is of a skeptical mind is often simply lost. When enough of or the right kind of information has been communicated and accepted then previously presented but rejected information must be repeated. That is the nature of discussions on controversial topics.AbE: Please, no replies to this message.Edited by Admin, : AbE

Well, I'm just not doing a good job of saying what I mean, or even keeping clearly in mind what I mean. It's not about erosion destroying livable places as such, it's about getting from a landscape to a rock that represents that landscape with fossils in it of the creatures that supposedly lived in that landscape. I'm not saying it clearly and will have to get my head together to say it better because I'm very distracted right now, but I wanted at least to say this much: it's about how the rock forms that represents the landscape, not about just any eroding landscape. Sorry, I'm having a brain cramp and will have to try again later.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The short answer is change over time but as usual it can be far more complex as well.First, understand that not all rocks are the same; and what you call strata and layers are also often quite different compositions and different states of those materials. That is why both the big picture generalizations and the specifics are important.What is more common are layers produced by deposition, sedimentation and they are relatively soft as rocks go.There are also igneous rocks that are produced by volcanic events.And then there is a third category, metamorphic rock that begins life as one of the two type above but then get buried deep enough, heated high enough and for long enough time to change state.The first step in most of what you are considering is just getting buried. Things die, Some get covered by water, by mud, by sand, by ash but covered so that they are not destroyed by other critters or rot away before leaving their impression in the surrounding material.Then comes time.That's the part you seem to object to but long periods of time, millions and billions of years is a fact.

Yes, the basic idea is that, say, we have some on-land topography subjected to a rise in sea level. As sea level rises quickly enough, it will inundate that terrain and allow sedimentation to occur, burying the topography.As to the 'livable' places being destroyed, in most cases, I would expect wave action and shore erosion to completely eradicate any soil or soft sediment or even forests, etc. to be completely lost.Think about what wave action and storm surges do to a shoreline. Then think about that shoreline advancing across the continent with the rising sea level.So, the life living on that terrain (landscape) would only be preserved in basins (in which I include sand bars and swamps, etc.) that some how escaped erosion. That is the whole reason why terrestrial fossils are more rare than marine fossils.Once again, I show this picture from the Oregon Coast: Note how the rocks in the foreground have been planed off by surf action. If sea level were lower, that would have been a 'landscape' with plants and animals on it just like the higher ground in the distance.Now, if sea level rose, the terrain (the terrace) would eventually go below wave base and start to accumulate sediments. If sea level subsided, then that surface would become a wave-cut terrace and form part of a nice flat landscape with a beach to seaward.In the background are some small to large high points that are slowly being eroded away. But if sea level rose quickly enough, they would form irregularities in the 'straight and flat' contact between the older rock and overlying sediments.And that contact would be an unconformity.I hope this helps.

We also need to remember that there are other factors involved in the big picture.The middle of the North American Continent went through being fully terrestrial to an inland sea and the rising land with transitions from sea to shallow sea to marsh to highlands to high desert and over a period of about 150 million years.Most of the Northern Hemisphere is also in a rising phase right now as a rebound from the glaciation and this has been a 10,000+ year trend so far and expected to continue for at least another 20,000 years.The West coast of North and South America are rising and that is a trend that has been going on as plates collide with the western edge of the North American Plate and that trend has been going on for at least 350 million years so far.Change is constant and little changes add up over long periods of time. Edited by jar, : appalin spallin

It might be worthwhile describing what happens with lake and pond succession, what processes take place and what the resulting layer composition would be.

Not quite sure what you mean, but a starting place would be to say that lakes are temporary, just like rivers and waterfalls. Generally, a lake is a water-filled basin in the topography of a land mass. It is a site of (local) deposition that receives sediments from the surrounding lands. It also receives the remains of organisms that live in the area, like this one from the Florissant Fossil Beds in Colorado: Eventually, a lake will fill in and essentially disappear.During its entire lifetime, a lake is subject to potential erosion unless it is protected or the effects of erosion never reach the basin. Here is a geological history for the fossil beds at Florissant" The beds are located in the depression that shows in the lower part of the diagram, near the Guffey Volcanic Center, but are now are being eroded by small streams which exposes the fossils for us to see.Here is a stratigraphic column (note that I do not use the term 'geological column') for the fossil beds. Note the presence of a basin in the oldest rocks (Pikes Peak Granite), then filled in by various rock types including stream gravels, ash flows, and a thick succession of lake sediments including thinly bedded mudstone and shale. The section is capped (possibly assisting in the preservation of the lake sediments) by a thick pumice unit dated at 34.07ma.So, when the lake first formed, the granite all around was being eroded and it still is being eroded. But in the meantime, a very much younger, small lake has been preserved in the high country.Eventually, it too will be eroded away. But there's still time to go see it. So, the pertinent points are that there was topography (a landscape) on very old rocks upon which a lake was formed at about 37ma ago. The strata lain down in this lake overlay older eroded rocks and now are being eroded themselves (as part of the new landscape).I'm not sure if this all makes sense. It is part of the discussion because it is a small basin in older rocks (granite) preserved beneath younger rocks (pumice) in a largely erosional environment (a landscape, terrain or topography, or what have you). Edited by Admin, : Make second image readable by providing a white background.

That all makes sense but Faith was asking about how particular specimens end up buried.Since many of the pictures she uses seem to me marine of lake or shallow sea materials I was thinking along the lines of what you should see incorporated during each stage of a life cycle for a location.Please correct my errors but this is generally where I was hoping to head.If we consider what later became North America's Mid-West beginning in the early Cretaceous it was all land with moderate hills and plains. At that time, a period of 20 million years, what lived and died in that area would be land dwelling plants and animals with spots of fresh water samples in limited areas.The the land subsided or waters rose or a combination of the two and a great bay formed extending all the way south to what today is Arizona. What would have lived and died there at that time would have been different. We would still see the land dwelling animals and plants along what are shores and likely a few examples of the land dwellers washed into the bay but for about 25 million years we would also see sea critters, fish, crustaceans, bivalves and other water dwellers. But it was a great bay , enclosed on three sides and so we would not see deposits similar to what would be seen in an open ocean or river.The after millions of years the passage opened up into what is not the Gulf of Mexico and the populations as well as the deposition would change yet again.The passage remained open for a period of 10-20 million years but then closed and the area returned to being primarily terrestrial.So if we could see a cross section of the North American Midwest, a vast ditch exposing the layers of materials and biological samples that got incorporated what would it look like?Would something like that help Faith with the question " It's not about erosion destroying livable places as such, it's about getting from a landscape to a rock that represents that landscape with fossils in it of the creatures that supposedly lived in that landscape." she asks in Message 771.

Just FYI, I'm not "asking" for anything, jar, and your "help" at this point is badly timed. Your post explaining about different rocks was totally unhelpful because identifying different kinds of rock is not a problem I have. Your exchange with edge so far is irrelevant to my concerns of the moment. I am trying to figure out how to say something and that's my problem right now, not asking for information. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Despite Faith's comments in Message 778, I think Edge and Jar are pushing closer to making clear how a landscape like those we see today becomes part of the strata buried within the Earth.In Edge's Message 776 I made his middle diagram of the Florissant more readable by providing it a white background. The non-horizontal sedimentary layers with curving interfaces in the former lake are worth noting.

Thank you for the modification of the diagram. What is easier to see now is how volcanic ash is falling from the sky and also coming into the lake in runoff. This kind of sediment is so fine grained that it can preserve the structure of fossils in fine detail.Anyway, what we are seeing is how topography (landscape) in the granite was filled in by the lake, and then the lake was eventually covered (preserved) by pumice from the volcanoes.Notice how this all happens in what is basically an erosional environment: the land surface. There just happens to be a depositional basin and a source of fine-grained sediment.