Re: Sean Pitman and the Coconino Sandstone


Carsten Troelsgaard wrote:
> I copied the below from your site
>
> http://www.detectingdesign.com/fossilrecord.html
>
> Quote
> Other dry-land features, such as raindrop impressions, crisp and steep
> leeward dune fracture faces and cracks in the sand, and the preservation of
> spider trackways are often cited as evidence in support of this dry-land
> formation hypothesis in opposition to Brand's underwater hypothesis. This
> dry land hypothesis quite reasonable in many respects that seem to require
> open air exposure, but there are still a few other very puzzling features
> that do not seem so consistent with a true desert-like environment or dune
> formation.
>
> What is rarely mentioned in the literature is that the vast majority of the
> Coconino trackways all head uphill.66 Evidently the lizards/amphibians,
> arthropods, spiders and other creatures living in ancient deserts did not
> like going downhill much at all. Also, trackways often start and stop
> suddenly without evidence of sand-shift or disturbance - like the creature
> suddenly vanished into thin air (or swam off in the water).66,67,68
>
> Snip
>
> Ocean currents can and do make very pure quartz sand dunes with specific
> characteristics that match the dunes in the Coconino Sandstone.71 Heavy
> ocean currents can in fact amass huge quantities of sand in a very rapid
> timeframe. The sand dune angle found in the Coconino Sandstone layers would
> require a depth of water of around 300 feet and a fairly brisk current. In
> such a scenario, large dunes with cross bedding can be made very quickly.
> UnQuote
>
> You seem in part to acknowledge a desert environment recognized in the
> sandstone and appear to reconcile two different interpretations into one.
> Emplacing a large body of sand by ocean currents happens by entraining and
> suspending sand in /turbulent/ water. Your indication that a event like this
> still leave fragile trace-fossils inspite of the violent nature you try to
> impose as a caurse leave me in great awe for your imagination, and little
> respect for your geological insight.

Where is your explanation for trackways that go uphill pretty much
exclusively? Given the complex nature of a series of closely spaced
watery catastrophes, such as massive tsunamis traveling around the
entire globe, short episodes of violent inundation could be followed by
open air exposure for a time - time enough for those surviving
creatures to walk around for a bit. The returning sediment filled
water would bury these delicate prints quite nicely.

If such prints were left in a desert environment, they had to have been
made in wet sand by animals that pretty much walk uphill all the time,
and these footprints had to be preserved from bioturbation. Where is
this being done today in any desert-type environment?

> The sedimentary environments between 300m marine depth and dry desert leave
> a host of recognizable characterietic facies (shore, bermcrest, ripples, ..
> you name it ..).

The footprints were clearly not made on dry desert sand dunes. The sand
had to have been very wet for an extended period of time in order for
such prints to have been formed, much less preserved.

> You may put my attention to it, if I missed their presence.
> To weight your choise between the two, I suggest you take up on 'sequence
> stratigraphy', as a tool to put separate formations into a relative
> geological context to each other ... or simply make a more educated pick
> between one of the two interpretations.

And what is so convincing about your sequence stratigraphy? Much of
the geologic column seems to show, at least as far as I can tell, clear
evidence of rapid sequential deposition without time for the expected
erosion to alter the surfaces of the layers before the next layer was
put down. These layers also cover vast extremely level regions,
sometimes spanning multiple continents. I'm sorry, but the notion that
the Earth was that flat for so long over so great an area stretches
even my credulity.

> The geologist

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

.

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