Re: Meaning of the Geological Column

Zoe wrote:

On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 05:42:05 GMT, "Ross Langerak"
<rlangerak@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

snip>

Strata below a certain level
may be tilted while strata above that level may be horizontal.

how does a tilted strata demonstrate that a layer was once there and
is now missing, please?

Let's take another look at my previous statement: "Erosion and other
geological processes produce inconsistencies between sequences of strata."
Then I said, "Strata below a certain level may be tilted while strata above
that level may be horizontal." We are looking for inconsistencies here, not
missing layers. It is the difference between the tilted strata below and
the horizontal strata above that is significant. Clearly, the tilted strata
below the inconsistency has experienced processes that the horizontal strata
above has not (tilting).


when you say "below the inconsistency," what is the inconsistency?
Clearly, it is not anything in the tilted layer that is the
inconsistency because you say it is "below the inconsistency." And it
is not the horizontal strata above the tilted layer, because there is
nothing inconsistent about a horizontal layer. So what exactly is the
inconsistency? A missing layer?

The inconsistency is the boundary between the tilted and untilted
strata. It's called an angular unconformity. Now there may not be an
entire missing layer, but there is definitely missing rock -- all the
parts of the tilted strata that had to be removed to turn the boundary
into a more or less flat, level surface. Angular unconformities are
among the most obvious falsifiers of the notion that all strata were
deposited by a single, global flood. Because in order to get one, you
need several events in succession, each of which takes more time than
the flood model makes available:

1. Deposition of the lower layers, which are originally horizontal.
2. Lithification of the lower layers.
3. Tilting of the lower layers.
4. Erosion of the tilted layers into an approximately horizontal surface.
5. Deposition of sediments on top.
6. Lithification of those sediments.

If the tilted strata terminates at the
inconsistency,

is this "inconsistency" a missing layer?

It's an erosional surface, at least.

this suggests that erosion has occurred.


can a tilted strata terminate because there was nothing more deposited
to that particular layer until the next layer was laid down?

No. You understand that we're talking about multiple layers of different
types, all terminating in the same horizontal surface. They sure weren't
originally deposited as tilted layers, were they?

While the lower sequences were tilting and eroding,
no deposition of fossils would have been taking place.
The result would be a gap in the fossil record between the
highest level of the tilted strata, and the lowest level of the horizontal
strata.

so there IS some standard of what should come next in the fossil
record. And if the expected fossil is missing, then the conclusion
must be that the layer was eroded?

He's not even talking about what fossils you find here, just about the
fact that an angular unconformity must, by simple logic, be an erosional
surface. And if it's an erosional surface, there must be some time
during which no sediments were being deposited in that location, and
thus there was no chance for whatever species were around at that time
and place to leave fossils.

And there is a standard: it's the known geological column. It just
wasn't, as you constantly imply, an a priori assumption but a conclusion
from vast amounts of data assembled through years of work.

Do you have, somewhere, some real-world series of stacked layers that
contain the types of fossils that generally, in succesion, span life
forms from trilobites, starfish, Pterygotus, Ichthyostega, Dimetrodon,
Placodu, Archaeopteryx, Tyrannosaurus, Brontotheres, Sabre-toothed
cat, Deinotherium, woolly mammoth, ending with primates?

This is the silliest sequence ever imagined. It's not an evolutionary
sequence, it's not a temporal sequence. It's just a random list of
names. I will just note that your second-listed group is still around
today, and that there are primates older than the oldest known
sabre-toothed cat.

Your position is that fossils in rock strata serve as evidence for
evolving species; that after these findings were made, then
evolutionists came along and merely recognized the ascending order and
interpreted such a progression as evidence for evolution of the
species from simple to complex. So please for this evidence from the
real world. Where have fossils beyond the shell level, been found in
this ascending order?

Once again you make the false assumption that biostratigraphy has
something to do with evolution. Why can't you get rid of this? It's
preventing you from understanding anything that is said to you, and
renders your questions and demands nonsensical.

Once again: index fossils are among the forms of evidence used to
correlate and order the geological column. Use of index fossils has
nothing to do with evolution. Once we have a geological column in order,
we can determine the ages of non-index fossils. The ages of fossils do
show vast transformations in biotas through time -- thus there are no
species in common between Cambrian and Recent. However, the ages of
fossils have very little to do with inferring evolutionary
relationships. Nobody gets together a list of fossils in order of age
and then uses that as evidence that this is also a list of ancestors and
descendants. Though in fact it's interesting and informative to see just
how well the order of groups in the fossil record fits the order
expected from phylogenetic analyses.


And if the fossils are not stacked but scattered, then please for the
index fossils that place these scattered higher-level fossils in
ascending order.

Once again, what exactly do you mean by "ascending order". Does this
refer to time or to evolutionary advancement, whatever that is?

I would like to see an example of a Tyrannosaurus,
for example, that is found in the same location as an index fossil
that has been relatively dated as belonging to a specific period. And
what determines that the particular index fossil is older or younger?

Index fossils are found in vertical sequences. That's one thing that
makes them good index fossils. But this is a multi-step process, and
there are many means other than index fossils for dating strata. If you
look at any paleontological report on a new fossil discovery, you will
find that it is referred to a particular stratum in a particular
formation. And there will then be references to that formation that will
tell you how the age of the formation was determined. The ways in which
that is done have been explained to you many times.

Strata below
a certain level may be interrupted while strata above that level are
continuous.

how does interrupted strata demonstrate a missing layer?

The interruption might indicate erosion had taken place. Using an
illustration similar to McBane's from your original post:

aaa aaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaa aaa
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc
dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

This is what we would expect to see if the upper layer - and any layers
above it - were exposed to erosion. Now, if this formation is submerged
again, a new layer would be deposited on top of the upper layer, filling in
the gaps.

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaahhhhhhaaaaaaaaahhhaaa
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc
dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

This would indicate that there had been a gap in deposition.


is this an example of a single location? If so, I understand and
agree with your illustration as an example of how to recognize erosion
of a layer for a localized stretch of rocks. However, if your example
is in answer to my question of how layers in North America are
identified as being from the same period as layers in Europe, then it
doesn't add up.

True. For any time after the opening of the North Atlantic, North
America and Europe will not share any layers (barring the odd iridium
anomaly). They might however share index fossils; many marine species
even today are found on both sides of the Atlantic. That's one way to
correlate layers on different continents. Radiometric dating is another,
and magnetic reversal intervals are another.

Over a wider scale, why would the missing aaa's imply only erosion?
Unless you are suggesting that water covered the entire area so that
the same material was deposited equally all over, it is entirely
possible for deposits to be made at intermittent and uncorrelatable
locations.

Not sure what that meant.

And I would still like you to explain why the period of time of
deposition is a period that carried only a certain type or mix of
material such that distinct layers are recognized.

It doesn't. It didn't.

Are you saying
that over a period of 25 million years, the only material being
deposited was the type of material seen in a distinct layer? Why?

You mean worldwide? Obviously not. Locally, you can indeed get the same
sorts of material, monotonously, for millions of years, simply because
the same erosional processes are removing material from the same source
rock and depositing it in the same basin.

.

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