Evidence that the Great Unconformity did not Form Before the Strata above it

Thanks for investigating this and providing very useful additional information.I do have a comment about one thing: While the layers might be ash rather than sediments, and while the boulder may have been blasted from a volcano rather than dropped from a glacier floating above, the principles otherwise seem the same.Also, it seems possible that the rough direction of flow can be implied from this image: We can tell the rock hit the ash layers while travelling through the air roughly from left to right, because the layers became stacked up and compressed to the right of the rock. Assuming the boulder was blasted from the volcano, and assuming that the ash is flowing away from the volcano, and assuming the ash is from the same volcano as the boulder, then it too must be flowing roughly from left to right.

There's no need for hostility. I'm only trying to help.In his The prodromus of Nicolaus Steno's dissertation concerning a solid body enclosed by process of nature within a solid Steno wrote:

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2. That a solid differs from a fluid in that in a fluid the imperceptible particles are in constant motion, and mutually withdraw from one another;

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He differentiated when necessary between air and liquid fluids:

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But if the crystal had indeed grown in an aqueous fluid...
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I would not venture to affirm whether the surrounding fluid is aqueous...
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...formed from bodies secreted by atmospheric fluid...
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...as may easily be shown of those fluids which form the atmosphere...
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...By the term external fluid I mean that fluid in animals which not only surrounds the surface exposed to our eyes, as the atmosphere,...

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You go on to say: I think everyone here would agree with you, but the way we determine who has the best grasp of reality (at least at a discussion board) is through discussion, not through bald declarations. Steno doesn't give any details of the interface between strata and solid bodies. What I'm looking for from you is an rationale for how sediment falling on a rock won't cause the sediments around the perimeter of the rock to be deeper with an upward slope. I'm trying to move the discussion back onto a constructive plane. Rather than just giving us your conclusion that it's nuts to note the similarity between snow falling upon a sloped roof and sediment falling upon a sloped surface, you have to provide your rationale for why it is nuts. Else you're just engaging in name-calling.

Hi Faith,I've been trying to take a soft touch in this thread, but I'm beginning to feel that you're just taking advantage. I'm beginning to reconsider whether I should continue ignoring contributions like these: Please constructively discuss the topic or don't post.Edited by Admin, : One more.

Faith, if you somehow missed my Message 1165, please read it now. I've already read ahead to your Message 1171 ("But you aren't interested in truth or reality..."). Please focus on the topic, not on the people you're discussing with. Everyone is treating you with great restraint and respect. I'm not going to repeat this again. If you see some way in which strata of variable thickness could maintain horizontality then you need go beyond requests to, "Open your eyes," and provide an explanation.Edited by Admin, : Add missing period.

Asgara was replying to your Message 1174 where you quoted Faith saying, "ALL the strata are 'highly variable in thickness,'...". Asgara was only saying that the "highly variable in thickness" portion was just Faith quoting Edge's words.Maybe Asgara is implying that when Faith called it nitpicking that she meant that she doesn't really believe the layers are variable in thickness, but I don't really know. I hadn't considered that interpretation, given that measurements of the thickness of layers in different parts of the canyon isn't something that can be legitimately challenged.

If someone wrote "vehicles such as cars" would you then conclude that all vehicles are cars?I quoted Steno using the word "fluid" in a general context, a liquid context, and a gaseous context. ThinAirDesigns provided a couple definitions clearly stating that a fluid can be a gas or a liquid. It's time for you to give this up and move on with discussion of the topic.

But Steno didn't say "fluid such as water," someone at Berkeley said that, and it still only means that water is one type of fluid. We've provided you Steno's own words using "fluid" in both gaseous and aqueous contexts, and we've provided you actual definitions. You have provided nothing but your insistence that you are right. It is time to move on. It isn't the main topic, but it is a side-point on which I was hoping to achieve some clarity before moving back to the main topic. I was hoping to see some explanation from you for how sedimentation upon a rock protruding above a surface would not produce deeper sediments around the rock's perimeter.

Hi Dwise1,Well expressed, but Faith is not the topic.To everyone:This thread presents the puzzle of how to debate with someone who rejects much evidence and knowledge. It's a much more difficult problem then just lining up your ducks of evidence and knowledge and presenting them.

If I'm discouraging other participants from making comments about you personally, I have to also discourage you from doing the same.

Hi Edge,I recognize the effort it takes to compose complete responses that contain all the necessary information in one message, and I know that the demands of time and the desire to not waste one's time are good reasons for slipping into extreme brevity, but I was unable to understand your responses across most of this message, and Faith has indicated she didn't understand much of it either. If it helps, I didn't understand what the request for a reference to 'The Strata' was meant, and I'm guessing it's sarcasm, but I'm not sure. I also didn't understand the comment about gravel deposits. And about the Mississippi River Delta part, I don't think Faith was trying to imply that she believes sediments should be accumulating on the continent, though I should caution that I often find it hard to be sure what Faith is saying.

Yes, except that the sedimentary layer formed around the perimeter of the rock would be deeper (and therefore tilt upward) because sediments that fall on the rock slip off the rock and fall beside it, and the rock can tend to trap sediments from any currents. Here's a diagram:

Hi Faith,This was posted by Coragyps in Message 1191: Since you have the necessary equipment, could you perform this experiment:

• In an empty tank, place sand in the bottom to a depth of about an inch.
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• Slowly add water to the tank to a depth of five or six inches. Add the water slowly enough so as not to disturb the sand, and/or even out the sand again after adding the water.
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• In the center of the tank embed halfway into the sand a small rock a couple inches in diameter.
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• Add sand very slowly and uniformly to the surface of the water until an additional half inch accumulates on the bottom.

You should find that the sand near the rock slopes up its sides and is not horizontal.

Until you're able to perform the experiment, perhaps you could respond to the diagram in Message 1207 and explain your rationale for how sediments would fail to accumulate more deeply around the perimeter of the rock.

You're applying your view of what happened, a flood rushing across a landscape, and treating it as if it were the definition of a transgressing sea. A flood and a transgressing sea are nothing alike at all. Transgressing seas take hundreds and thousands of years to cross any significant distance, and they do it by biting away very slowly at the boundary between land and water, leaving behind a characteristic pattern of sedimentary deposits that are found world-wide. Floods occur in a geological instant and leave behind a completely different and easily identifiable sedimentary signature.Far from shore where waters are quiet sediments accumulate as outlined in the experiment, but since you're replying to my Message 1207, let me again present this diagram: The sedimentary layer formed around the perimeter of the rock would be deeper (and therefore tilt upward) because sediments that fall on the rock slip off the rock and fall beside it, and the rock can tend to trap sediments from any mild currents.

You need to get a handle on the character of your flood. You're describing a flood that attacked the land everywhere with such energy and ferocity that it denuded the landscape down to bedrock and ground it up into into tiny particles. However long it took your flood to "rise to its height," in order to denude landscapes down to bedrock it would had to have had a great deal of energy, and energy requires speed.Here's a video of the Japanese tsunami of 2011, I've set it to begin at an aerial view of the water moving over the land. Starting at around the 1 minute point you can see cars driving on roads. The water seems to be moving at roughly the same speed as those cars, so the water is moving at least at 30 mph, and yet it did almost nothing to the land, as we can see in this aftermath image: The man-made structures were all destroyed, but the land, including the roads, was largely unaffected. How fast do you imagine your flood would have to move in order to denude the landscape in this image down to bedrock? 100 mph? 200 mph? Whatever speed you choose it will have to be a large one, and at that speed it will take less than a day for your flood to completely cover the landscape. It was nothing like the very slow and very gradual erosion of land by a transgressing sea over millennia, and however long the flood subsequently took to rise to its full height is irrelevant.Edited by Admin, : Typo.