Re: Meaning of the Geological Column

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:27:15 GMT, John Harshman
<jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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.

okay.

2. Lithification of the lower layers.

the question is WHAT cycles of deposition were there to cause later
layers to lithify lower layers? Repeated flooding, with each event
occurring over millions of years? How would a tilted or even
horizontal layer lithify if there were as yet no layers above it to
compact it?

So if a deposition sits out in the open for millions of years, with no
layers on top of it to compress it, it would more likely erode away
than turn into solid rock. Right? And the same thing would happen to
the next deposition.

3. Tilting of the lower layers.

not just tilting but sometimes literally turned on their sides.

4. Erosion of the tilted layers into an approximately horizontal surface.

that's the question. Erosion does not seem to produce a horizontal
surface. More like ragged ups and downs, depending on the varying
means of erosion and what particular elements hit what particular
spots in the layer.

5. Deposition of sediments on top.

finally..

6. Lithification of those sediments.

again, what would cause this next deposition to lithify if, for
millions of years, there was not another layer deposited on top of it?

I don't think you have managed to debunk a flood event.

As to your explanation for what an inconsistency is -- okay, I see
what you're saying. The inconsistency that McBane was talking about
was the missing part of the tilted layer; not an entirely new and
missing layer, but the peaked part of the tilted layer.

So I went and found some photos of these angular uncomformities. More
questions are raised than answered, however. Look at this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vallisvale.jpg

The explanation given for a missing layer is that it eroded. How
about the possibility that it could have been sliced off through an
onrushing cataclysmic action.

And what about the area left vacant at the angle where the rocks tilt?
What fills that area?

Here's the original scenario, horizontally laid layers:

----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------

would a volcanic eruption cause tilting? I'm not sure I can see how
an eruption would tilt rock. Wouldn't it merely intrude as follows:

---------------- ----------------
-------------- ---------------
----------- -------------
--------- -----------
----- --------

how about an earthquake, where the earth beneath layers of rock gives
way so that the original horizontal layers tilt at an angle? This
could happen in an instant. And, from the site below, it appears that
the layers continue on down under the earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vallisvale.jpg

How did that happen? I'm intrigued.

Also, erosion doesn't seem to be the best answer, considering that
erosion is not a consistent, evenly occurring process, where the top
of a rock layer flattens out. The eroding particles appear to come
from the sides, as in the following:

http://geoweb.gg.utk.edu/courses/HistoricalGeo/angular.html

Or this one:

http://marlimillerphoto.com/SrU-01.html

where the rocks have definitely been turned on their side, and the top
surface doesn't show the kind of erosion that creates a flat top.

Compare that, again, to the "inconsistency" or top of the tilted layer
in the photo below. The top of the tilted layer does not look like
the result of erosion, either. It is too clean a slice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vallisvale.jpg


(hey, I just got my geology degree from a coupla days of discussing
geology on this forum; hear me out)

snip>

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.

the above list of names is not random. Apparently, you're not
familiar with your own theory's evolutionary tree, John. I picked
them from the following site which gave the types of speces found in
each of the periods of the eras, going from trilobites on up to the
present-day species:

http://www.bobainsworth.com/fossil/palaeozoic.htm

http://www.bobainsworth.com/fossil/mesozoic.htm

http://www.bobainsworth.com/fossil/cenozoic.htm

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.

John, stop backing away from your own theory. You're trying to
divorce evolution from the fossil succession in the same way you guys
divorce evolution from abiogenesis. I expect one day you will divorce
evolution from evolution because none of it makes any sense.

I have early on changed and acknowledged that biostratigraphy was
ongoing before the theory of evolution came limping along. Let me
repeat.

I have acknowledged your claim that the fossil succession was firmly
in place before evolutionists came along and interpreted the
succession as meaning evolution from a single common ancestor. So
stop trying to insist that I am still saying that the geological
column was developed by evolutionists. I have retracted that and
refined my position to say that evolutionists, in the later history of
the geological column, began to apply their interpretations to the
finds such that the final version of the geological column reflects
their understanding. And if you read the history, there was much
controversy before that happened.

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.

the questions seem nonsensical because you are still back at square
one, when I have long since corrected myself and moved on.

Once again: index fossils are among the forms of evidence used to
correlate and order the geological column.

and once again, I am asking for index fossils higher than the level of
shells. How did they order the scattered fossils of vertebrates
through the shell index fossils, for instance?

Use of index fossils has
nothing to do with evolution.

but evolution has a lot to do with interpretation of the index
fossils. Don't try to divorce the two.

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.

then you might want to warn your disciples of evolutionary theory that
they should not cling so desperately to a fossil record that, as you
say, has nothing to do with evolution.


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?

ascending order has to do with evolutionary advancement, as supposedly
observed to occur through time, starting from simple organisms and
ending in modern, complex organisms. You say that geologists (not
evolutionists or evolution-believing geologists) first observed and
noted a progression of fossils that later corroborated evolutionary
theory. Can you show me this progression?

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.

so do you have references to locations where the index fossils are
found in vertical sequences, all the way to the present day?

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.

on paper, yes. It will say something like "Triceratops" was excavated
from a site noted as from the Cretaceous period. And that has been my
question all along. How do you determine that a site is Cretaceous or
Jurassic or Silurian, when it lies far away from the originally named
site?

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.

so you can correlate layers up to the point of shells that are common
to both North America and Europe. Beyond that, it is guesswork for
the higher-level fossils?

Radiometric dating is another,

I've resolved that to my satisfaction. Let's not talk about it any
further.

and magnetic reversal intervals are another.

magnetic reversal intervals could have occurred rapidly during an
extremely cataclysmic event.

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.

if the claim is that layers can be traced horizontally over extended
areas, it means that each layers must have been laid down at the same
time.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
ccccccccccccccccccccccccc

the aaaaaaaaa layer would have to be laid down through the same
deposition event in order for it to be continuously traced over wide
areas. Same for bbbbb and cccccc.

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.

How else does a layer get recognized as a layer if not by its
similarity of content? Even if it's a mixed content, it is correlated
with layers elsewhere because of its similar content,isn't it?

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.

so the conclusion, then, is that it is not possible to correlate rocks
worldwide because the materials differ.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Meaning of the Geological Column
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  • Re: Meaning of the Geological Column
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  • Re: Meaning of the Geological Column
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  • Re: Meaning of the Geological Column
    ... may be tilted while strata above that level may be horizontal. ... it is not anything in the tilted layer that is the ... debunk the biblical flood - it's you that's trying to debunk evolution. ... contain the types of fossils that generally, in succesion, span life ...
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