Re: The Santana Formation - Rapid or Slow Burial?

In message <1149614360.046645.162860@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Seanpit <seanpitnospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes

OvC wrote:
On 5 Jun 2006 16:23:54 -0700, Seanpit posted in article
<1149549834.345247.196260@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> ...
>
> OvC wrote:
>
> > > I leave it up to you to explain how one can make a nearly 9,000m tall
> > > mountain out of 4,000 meters of sediment without increasing the
> > > thickness of the layers.
> >
> > By stacking the layers along a series of thrust faults, as is
> > documented for the Himals, Alps, parts of the Southern Appalachians,
> > etc. In the Himals, the stacked thrusts accommodate somewhere around
> > 170km of N-S crustal shortening.
>
> Again, the highest layers atop Mt. Everest are not thickened by stacked
> overthrusted sediments.

Why do you fixate on the highest layers and ignore what's underneath
them, i.e., the same layers over which the 'highest layers' were
thrust? That's where the bulk of the Himalaya's elevation comes from,
not the top few 100m.

My question is, why are these highest layers, which cover Mt. Everest
without any significant thickening or stacking, still there? They
should have been eroded way several times over by now.

Quite possibly they have. As has been pointed out to you the Himalayas, apart from being composed of folded rocks, is built up of several thrust sheets. It is quite plausible that the top few thrusts have been eroded away in the vicinity of Everest, including outcrops of what are now the highest layers.


> The thickness of the layers atop Mt. Everest
> are pretty much the same thickness as the same layers found elsewhere.

Yes, both laterally and vertically.

Exactly my point. They have not been significantly thickened or
protected from erosion by overthrusts. The same is true of the Rockies.

OvC

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


--
alias Ernest Major


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