Dating Question For Members

I suppose there could have been a law of supposition, but if so then I think it may have been superseded. --Percy

I think that by "minerals or surrounding sediments" that Buz was referring to sediment deposited contemporaneously with the organism. He understands that the sedimentary material is particles broken down from older rock, so he's asking how you can date the organism if the sediments containing it are made up of much older material.Of course, this question has already been answered at least several times in nearly identical ways by you and others. At one point JonF mentioned a method by which one might extract the date of sedimentation from the layer itself, see Message 15, but Buz didn't respond so that may not be the source of his confusion.The trick in this thread won't be answering the question - that's already been done. The trick will be getting Buz to understand the answer.--Percy

Obviously as sedimentary layers form, the newest layers are always on top. This is how things always start, with newer layers atop older layers. The layers start out like this: Now you're proposing that some catastrophe might come along and leave the layers in some other order. For the sake of discussion I'll assume inverted order, like this: Though the majority of geological formations have not experienced this kind of topsy-turvy past, we do find inverted formations like this in many places around the world, but turning trillions of tons of rock upside down leaves a lot of evidence behind. What kind of tectonic process or even catastrophe are you imagining that could do this without leaving any evidence behind?And more importantly, what has this got to do with your original question?--Percy