Growing the Geologic Column

Well, since you asked, yes. That would seem to be the problem.By analogy, we have the concept of European history. There is no single book, or tapestry, or painting that records all the details of our activities over the last, say, three thousand years. Yet out of many isolated records, we can assemble a composite that allows us to place those isolated observations in a broader context. If we read all the documents found in the area of an Italian village we would have a record of local births, deaths, mayors, murders, floods, famines, and so on. If we read the history of a French village, the details would be different.Yet, underlying the vast jumble of different details, there would be the common threads of seasons changing, the rising and falling of Popes and Kings, the waxing and waning of plagues, changing styles in art and technology, and so on. Out of this we could develop a mental image that we call "history" ("the geological column"). And, crucially, we could place seemingly unrelated and quite different small events, that took place in geographically isolated areas, into correct relationships with each other by referencing the larger flow of history around them.When considering this history, it would be, well, odd to consider an outbreak of typhus in a particular city in France as somehow presenting a challenge to our image of history because it was not recorded in a different city in Italy. To further claim that this occurrence ("intrusion") of typhus ("lava") into the records of the French town was not part of history ("the geological column") would also be odd, to say the least.What Faith cannot seem to grasp is that her questions and objections about the geological column (read, "the broad, overall history book of the earth") are very much like this. Going on, and on, and on, about a collection of discontinuous geological minutiae is precisely as ridiculous as complaining that the birth records of Luigi's ancestors in San Gimignano don't address the details of Jose's Spanish ancestors in Madrid. Proceeding to then complain that, since neither record can be found in Europe - A History by Norman Davies, history texts are somehow dishonest, is, well, make up your own adjective.Throughout history, some churches and palaces have burned ("eroded") and local records have been lost. In other places, detailed local histories have been written and preserved, and information is contiguous for generation after generation. None of these local variations and discontinuities change the broad, clear picture of of our history that can be developed by integrating all the information available. The fact that Faith gets hung up on the word "column", and manages to throw sand in her own eyes by conflating the different linguistic connotations and physical implications of this word when used in different contexts, suggests that your comment above goes directly to the point: the map is being crumpled and torn and strewn about in a willful attempt to obscure the road.ABE: As always, though, the information provided by the more geologically literate is appreciated by the honest learners reading here.Edited by Capt Stormfield, : No reason given.

That's because you apparently just redefine any igneous layers as sills. More than one person has explained how to tell the difference. If a volcano spews lava all over the surrounding countryside, and that countryside subsequently becomes covered with sediment - perhaps because it is in a river valley - how would that qualify as a sill?

How would it not? What do you think a layer is? How is that not what I described? Layers of sedimentary rock in a river valley. Volcano sprays lava 10 feet deep all over the valley. River, swamps, rain forests, etc. subsequently bury lava in sediment. Even more sediment crushes this into sedimentary rock. What do you think that would look like in cross section? How would you differentiate this from a sill? Hint: It has to do with the relative temperature of the layers when they interface. Untranslatable.

And therein lies the problem. You are using very oversimplified representations of reality to draw conclusions about a subject that is much broader than your understanding.

Ooooookay. And why is it again that substituting a narrowly focused study of a map for a broad understanding of the actual territory is going to be a fruitful path to the truth?