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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The Geological Timescale is Fiction whose only reality is stacks of rock | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
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I would think I'd said it enough times by now that this isn't about what I think Geologists think. Good grief.
Then you shouldn't be telling us all of the things that geologists have wrong. Especially when they are not true.
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
I think that I have said plenty of times that net erosion is a generalization and that there some depositional environments can be preserved.
Yes, I know, and that's why it seems contradictory when you sometimes appear to be saying that a landscape can only experience erosion. The formation of soil is one part of erosion. If you were around long enough and the sea rose or a river encroached on your house, the soil would eventually disappear.
The scenario I've been pushing is the period during which the soil accumulates, as part of helping Faith see how landscapes can maintain livable habitats where life thrives while gradually rising in elevation with the accumulation of sediments. Faith isn't thinking of coastal habitat being very gradually destroyed while sea encroaches at the rate of a foot or two per century. She's thinking of sea rolling across the landscape and destroying habitat while creatures flee inland for their lives.
I'm sure that is the case. That's why we've discussed the underlying theme of a single catastrophic flood event in Faith's argument, though she denies it vehemently.
In the scenario I've been pushing the landscape *is* being buried everywhere in that local region, but at such a slow rate that that the habitat remains unchanged for centuries, even as it's elevation climbs annually millimeter by millimeter. Faith thinks this gradually accumulation of additional depth that slowly pushes the surface higher would destroy habitat, and we're trying to understand why.
Certainly.
Sure. It happens. Over the observation scale of human civilization, soils can accumulate to great depth from both the top and the bottom of the profile.
Unless this means that soils can accumulate at both higher and lower elevations of the landscape, I don't understand. I think it would help if Faith could let us know if this makes sense to her and whether she has any questions about it.
Most certainly. However, I will admit that it is confusing.
Returning to the example of a slowly transgressing sea, for an event so slow it passes unnoticed by the creatures inhabiting the region during their lifetimes, why would any creature have to "migrate or die"? Yes the transgression could happen fast, but it doesn't normally.
This is a question for Faith. Over time a species may migrate without notice to any individual. In the meantime individuals are dying in their environment all along.
Faith objected to the way others have seized on the last part of this, so just to state it clearly again, Faith thinks the views of modern geology require that fossils be found in strata that do not represent where they lived. On a couple occasions Faith said the fossils would have to move around after burial. We need to understand what it is in modern geology that Faith thinks forces this requirement.
Well, that's a little harder to imagine unless there is a major change of other factors such as climate. Nevertheless, that would still allow a species to migrate. Even humans do it. I think the discussion about whether a landscape of net deposition becomes uninhabitable would help resolve this. Here is another diagram showing how soil forms and erodes:
This was one of Hutton's early dilemmas. Clearly, soil was moving toward the stream, but the hills never ran out of soil. And, pertinent to our discussion, it shows how soil formation and transport is part of erosion. Now, if here were not slope, then there would be little transport and soil would accumulate upward due to accumulation. This would be the situation that you are pushing. If the situation changed due to uplift or stream formation, then the land would be rejuvenated (as per my previous image) and net erosion would start (again?).
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
Faith is not too bright. Some fossils found today are not found in the strata where they lived. For example those fossils fossils of unicelluar organisms found in the Dwyka. They were transported in the matrix from earlier rocks and redeposited in what is the Dwyka Group now.
Uh, oh ... transported fossils ... This may be too much for creationists to handle.
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
But the problem I was objecting to was that you can't just identify what's in the landscape without first of all noting what's in the rock, ...
What rock are you talking about? The rock that came before the landscape may have nothing to do with the landscape, and what came afterward may be completely different as well. The landscape, as we are defining it now, could be different from both. You could have a coal bed sitting on granite bedrock and overlain by a transgressive marine sandstone. "Noting what's in the rock" is not relevant at all.
... because it's the rock that determines what needs to be in the landscape. Just giving a list of elements you expect to find in the landscape misses the point that it's what's in the rock that dictates what has to be there.
We are able to tell what the landcaspe was like because there are some places (basins) where lake sediments or sand bars, etc. are preserved.
I hope that's clearer.
Not really.
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
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THE ONLY ROCK I'M EVER TALKING ABOUT HERE IS ANY ROCK IN A STRATIGRAPHIC COLUMN IN WHICH YOU GEOLOGIST TYPES THINK YOU FIND CLUES TO AN ANCIENT ENVIRONMENT OF WHICH THE ROCK IS THE FINAL RESULT AND EVIDENCE. THESE ROCKS ARE LAYERS IN A STACK OF ROCKS -- SEE GRAND CANYON FOR EXAMPLE -- THAT ARE FLAT ENOUGH TO DESERVE THAT TERM WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, AND EXTEND ENOUGH OF A DISTANCE, EVEN THE TERRESTRIAL ROCKS, TO BE DESCRIBED AS EXTENSIVE WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, GENERALLY CONTAIN FOSSILS THAT YOU INTERPRET AS HAVING LIVED IN THE ENVIRONMENT YOU THINK THE ROCK INDICATES AND SO ON AND SO FORTH. IF YOU JUST WANT ME TO TEAR OUT MY HAIR AND DISAPPEAR MAYBE THAT'S NOT A BAD IDEA.
All rocks are part of a stratigraphic column.
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
I felt that Edge's Message 1007, while not untrue, left the impression that the scenario being pushed by Stile and myself as a way of illustrating why an landscape of net deposition doesn't become uninhabitable can't happen:
That was a difficult post. I really didn't know what rocks Faith was talking about and I doubted that they would exist. edge in Message 1007 writes: What rock are you talking about? The rock that came before the landscape may have nothing to do with the landscape, and what came afterward may be completely different as well. The landscape, as we are defining it now, could be different from both. You could have a coal bed sitting on granite bedrock and overlain by a transgressive marine sandstone. "Noting what's in the rock" is not relevant at all. As I have said, even in an erosional (say, continental) environment there are basins which have net deposition. That is how we preserve the 'landscapes' that Faith is so interested in and terrestrial fossils. For instance, Lake Uinta in western Colorado and Utah collected sediments for about 5 million years in the Eocene. At the same time, on a geological scale, all continental rocks above sea level are eventually subject to erosion. Those sediments are now being eroded as this picture shows:
Fortunately, this does not happen because of geotectonics and fluctuating sea level.
That last sentence seemed particularly likely to mislead readers.
Okay, sure. I was referring back to my question about 'what rocks?' in that same post.
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
This from your Message 936 is one example:
In this case I think I was referring to the examples of unconformities in some of the diagrams. edge in Message 936 writes:
The surface environment is not represented by the rocks below it or above it.
Rephrasing this, you seem to be saying that the surface environment is always an eroded surface. But only an unconformity can be an eroded surface. Any paleosols recorded in a stratigraphic column must have been been net depositional surfaces for considerable periods, else paleosols wouldn't exist. It is recorded as an eroded surface in the geological record. [ETA: Either that or I'm just such an old hard-rocker that dirt just doesn't deserve mention ...] I have a tendency to think of landscape as topography.
Now I understand what you meant by soils accumulating from the top and bottom of the profile. Soil layers grind slowly across underlying strata like glaciers down a mountain range.
The soils creep when on a slope. Most of us have seen the effects, as in tilted trees and fence posts, etc. That means that the soil is moving. If there is no slope there may be no creep.
What puts so much rock and clay into the soil? We were glaciated for a considerable time, maybe a factor?
In brief, chemical weathering of minerals. Edited by edge, : No reason given.
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
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The only rock i'm ever talking about here is any rock in a stratigraphic column in which you geologist types think you find clues to an ancient environment of which the rock is the final result and evidence.
Okay, then, you are talking about certain rocks that preserve the terrestrial environment. Is that correct? In that case, what other evidence is there of the environment that existed at one time?
These rocks are layers in a stack of rocks -- see grand canyon for example --
Actually not. The Grand Canyon does not expose lake sediments or river sediments where your landscape environments would be preserved. So now you are talking about something else.
... that are flat enough to deserve that term whether you like it or not, and extend enough of a distance, even the terrestrial rocks, to be described as extensive whether you like it or not, ...
Actually, I love the term. It includes virtually all sedimentary rocks. So, now you are talking about all sedimentary rocks.
... generally contain fossils that you interpret as having lived in the environment you think the rock indicates and so on and so forth.
Where else would they have lived? And if they lived, they must also have died and left remains in that rock.
If you just want me to tear out my hair and disappear maybe that's not a bad idea.
I don't suppose you'd entertain the thought that maybe you should investigate some of our examples, would you? Faith, you have all of the tools you need to figure this out. You just have to rid yourself of the rigid dogma of YECism. You may be stubborn, but I don't think you are stupid. Edited by edge, : No reason given.
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
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One of the issues we keep coming back to here is the straight and flat nature of 'strata' in the usage of Faith. Apparently, to be 'strata' a sedimentary formation needs to have sharp, smooth and planar contacts and be continental in scale. The formations of the Grand Canyon are the prime example of exposed strata.
In that case, I submit that the Coconino does not classify as 'strata'. From Wikipedia (Coconino Sandstone - Wikipedia):
"It is also present in the Grand Canyon, where it is visible as a prominent white cliff forming layer. The thickness of the formation varies due to regional structural features, in the Grand Canyon area it is only 65 ft thick in the west, thickens to over 600 ft in the middle and then thins to 57 ft in the east". (emphasis added)
The thickness is, therefor, highly variable. How does that happen to a stratum that has flat contacts? It also looks like the Coconino thins out to the extent that it eventually disappears to the east and west. So, the Coconino cannot be classified as 'strata' by Faith, as near as I can tell. Furthermore:
"Either the Kaibab Limestone or Toroweap Formation overlies the Coconino Sandstone."
Now that's weird. It looks like the Toroweap isn't a stratum, either since it is not found everywhere in its region. It's starting to look like the Grand Canyon is not such an exemplar of 'strata'. Or could it be that Faith's definition of 'stratum' is just plain wrong? Nah!! Edited by edge, : No reason given.
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
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Thinking I'm wrong is one thing. The problem here is that nobody even knows what I'm saying.
And I'm sure that it's everyone else's fault. I thought you were talking about the 'landscape' preserved in terrestrial deposits that tell us something about the conditions and habitat that existed at that time. Please tell my why lake sediments, or sand dunes, or swamps would not do that. As far as the definition of stratum goes, I have never said that 'strata' include non-layered rocks. They would. however. include sand dunes, coal swamps, lake sediments and sand bars.
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
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The huge number of fossils is in itself evidence for the Flood, whose objective was to kill all terrestrial living things; and it's possible to account for the other things during the Flood as well.
Then please explain how tracks would be preserved in the middle of a global flood.
Most of the dating methods are some kind of illusion.
So, that's your argument? It's 'some kind of illusion'?
For one thing the very idea that it would take more than a few hundred years to get the kinds of varieties of, say, trilobites, from one "time period" to another is absurd.
This need clarification. I have no idea what you are trying to say.
Millions of years would simply wipe out all living things.
Why is that? This is just an assertion. What do you mean?
Well, there's time and then there's time and there are also different interpretations of everything you said. What I'm talking about is the basic absurdity of stacks of time periods, one on top of another with separate environments stacked one on top of another, containing separate collections of living things.
And yet, there they are.
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
So then, you ARE talking about the flood myth.
And it DOES affect your interpretations.
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
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So then, it's just a matter of 'flat-out' denial for Faith.
Fine with me. I'm glad we got that cleared up. Edited by edge, : No reason given.
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined:
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It's more than denial. That dogmatic declarative way of telling us what we're supposed to believe, ...
Nonsense, I have never told anyone what they should believe.
... about something that couldn't possibly be proved although it's mere science, ought to be rejected by all, including you.
Why must it be 'proved' to you? Now it sounds like you are telling me what I should believe.
It's an abuse of language and intelligence and even you should see that. It's a bamboozle, it's a way of forcing us to believe something without any effort even to try to persuade us. It's one thing to preach God, since there's nothing else that one can do but preach God, it's another to preach Science as if it were God, especially considering all those sanctimonious appeals to Evidence you all aiffirm.
Again, nonsense. If someone came along with a better idea than evolution that explains the fact, I would embrace it so fast it would make your head spin. Can you say the same thing about your beliefs?
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edge Member (Idle past 1736 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
Sure they work. That's because you consistently confuse the physical level of a rock -- or its depth or position in the geologic column -- with the ridiculous ancient age you assign to it. The level is all you need to know, the age is a lie.
Well, if things are that far off, then it shouldn't work. At least not in my world. You are being silly here.
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