Grand Canyon and the Flood

[Mechanical Bliss]

Today at 03:18 AM Micaiah said this in Post #174 
I want to understand your views on how the lamainae in the Redwall were formed. If there were several mechanisms, give me an explanation of several of them.

This information has already been given to you.

At the moment I've seen no mention of the time required to form one lamina.

Okay, this is the last time I'm going to repeat this: the Redwall limestone is not a varve formation, so your question is meaningless.

Each lamination does not necessarily represent one specific amount of time and then counting the laminations does not give you the age of the Redwall. The reason for this is because counting laminations does not take into account the effects of erosion during its deposition.

The reason we can count laminations in varves is because they form in relatively calm lakes without substantial erosion. Limestones are formed in shallow marine waters, and erosion is bound to occur when sea level changes.

Furthermore, you haven't even pointed out what these laminations are or where they are. The variability in the Redwall that forms "mini-layers" as subgroups inside of this single stratum are due to changing rock types. This occurs when sea level rises (dolomites) or falls (sparite and paleosols). There are about three distinguishible transgressions and regressions of the sea level during the formation of the Redwall that account for this layering.


So again, they are not the same.

 

[Mechanical Bliss]

Today at 09:10 AM Micaiah said this in Post #177

Okay, that is the admission I wanted to hear.

What admission?!? We have already pointed out to you that the Redwall is not a varve so ages cannot be directly assigned to each lamination (although you haven't pointed out what laminations you're even talking about). This information was already laid out on the table early on in this discussion.

I hope your colleagues will follow suit in acknowleging this limitation in their theory.

What limitation? Arguing from laminations is irrelavent. We don't use laminations to date the Redwall. I feel like I have to keep repeating myself because you don't read the posts.

OE geologists don't have a detailed explanation on how the layers in the Redwall were formed.

Because the Redwall is very complex. We do know how the dolomite, micrite, sparite, chert, paleosol layers formed in the Redwall. That is the detailed explanation.

Yet they reject the YEC explanations. Why? Because they have faith in their theory, much the same as I have faith in God. They claim the weight of evidence is on their side, but I suspect that even if I were able to dismiss every one of their arguments they would still cling to the concept of an old earth. After all, the fossils prove that the earth is old!

It's not about faith. It's about evidence and falsification. There are now twelve major points here that clearly debunk the global flood mechanism. The Redwall didn't form quickly because we observe sparite forming at a rate of cm/yr. But there are many other points that falsify a young earth flooding mechanism. You have yet to address them.

Photographs of the Mt Saint Helens formation show laminae (plural of lamina) in the canyon wall.

SO WHAT? Volcanic ash is not the same as a lithified chemical precipitate.

The photographs of the cut away beach sand show laminae that formed as a result of dredging operations in an adjacent area.

SO WHAT? Sand is not the same as a lithified chemical precipitate.

While I recognise you do not accept the GC laminae were formed in the same way as the examples I gave, you should recognise that the GC layering is also catagorised as laminae.

Laminae are layers, nothing more, nothing less. Just because you see layers in ash or layers in sand does not mean the layers in those two examples are the same nor does it mean that those two examples of what happened during a limestone formation.

Something is categorized as having laminae if it has layers. That means nothing substantial.

You are ignoring basic geology if you think pyroclastics, beach sands, and chemical precipitates are all equivalent.

Your argument is essentially "look! there are layers!" but that argument is meaningless as we have shown.

You have twelve points that falsify your position regardless of laminae.

 

[Mechanical Bliss]

Today at 09:20 AM Micaiah said this in Post #178

After my last post, I noted the above from MB. Apparently MB knows of examples of the GC type laminae forming in todays environments. I'd be interested to read your references!

No, you wouldn't. You could look up my provided example on your own.

And there better be a perfect match in fossils, texture, particle size, and chemistry, or else of course this explanation won't apply.

Well considering the fossils in the Limestone are of creatures now extinct, that's impossible. However in my provided example, the "hard parts" of modern day marine creatures are being included into the sparite. In terms of texture, it's a sparite just like the Redwall. In terms of particle size, that's the most laughable of all considering chemical rocks don't really have a particle size. In terms of chemistry, considering a sparite is forming in a shallow marine environment, I'd say the Bahama Banks are spot on.

That's a far cry from saying it's volcanic ash or beach sand. The example I pointed out is actually a location where limestone is forming.

 

[Micaiah]

This thread is getting long now and I propose we change to a new thread to investigate the processes you blokes say are responsible for the formation of the Redwall, and compare them with the processes suggested by YEC's.

What do you think?

 

[Zadok001]

Micaiah:

Either you are amazingly dense, and have failed to register the explanations given thus far, or you are actively trying to divert the topic from things that falsify YEC.

I think poor Mechanical Bliss has typed 30+ posts repeating the EXACT same message, which you have thus far failed entirely to take into account:

Your examples are not, repeat NOT, viable analogies for the Redwall formation. They simply cannot be reasonably compared. And yet you cling to them, either skipping over those parts of MB's posts, or forming the largest cognitive dissonance gap in the history of mankind, all 100,000 years of it.

Were I in MB's place, I would summarily refuse your offer of a new thread on this subject. Your argument has been deconstructed more times than I can be expected to count. Rather, I would say any new thread should orient YOU answering questions.

 

[Micaiah]

Today at 01:28 AM Zadok001 said this in Post #185 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=662750#post662750)

Micaiah:

Either you are amazingly dense, and have failed to register the explanations given thus far, or you are actively trying to divert the topic from things that falsify YEC.

I think poor Mechanical Bliss has typed 30+ posts repeating the EXACT same message, which you have thus far failed entirely to take into account:

Your examples are not, repeat NOT, viable analogies for the Redwall formation. They simply cannot be reasonably compared. And yet you cling to them, either skipping over those parts of MB's posts, or forming the largest cognitive dissonance gap in the history of mankind, all 100,000 years of it.

Were I in MB's place, I would summarily refuse your offer of a new thread on this subject. Your argument has been deconstructed more times than I can be expected to count. Rather, I would say any new thread should orient YOU answering questions.

I'll concede to being rather dense, if that makes you happy, but I look for answers to my simple questions. Are you afraid that such questions will further expose the soft underbelly of your theory?

 

[Zadok001]

You mean the answers that have already been posted here? Because the problem isn't a lack of answers being presented, it's your failure to note those answers.

 

[Mechanical Bliss]

Today at 10:55 AM Micaiah said this in Post #184

This thread is getting long now and I propose we change to a new thread to investigate the processes you blokes say are responsible for the formation of the Redwall, and compare them with the processes suggested by YEC's.

What do you think?

There is no comparison.

YEC's use two mechanisms that you say can explain the formation of the Redwall limestone:

1. The eruption of a composite volcano.

2. Sand migration on a beach.

Geologists know one mechanism that does explain the formation of the Redwall limestone:

1. A shallow marine environment with water of high salinity and marine organisms to precipitate calcium carbonate like we observe in locations today.

The problem is that the YEC mechanisms have nothing at all to do with limestone. Of course the "laminae" formed quickly at Mt. St. Helens--it's a volcano! Of course the "laminae" formed quickly in that sand--it's a beach that waves crash onto! But these laminae have nothing to do with each other and nothing at all to do with the Redwall limestone. This is basic Geology 101 stuff--the difference between pyroclastics (ash), terrigenous clasts (sand), and a lithified chemical precipitate (limestone). They are not all the same and not all comparable. YECs get into trouble comparing things like this showing their blatant ignorance of basic geology.

 

[Mechanical Bliss]

Today at 12:51 PM Micaiah said this in Post #186
I'll concede to being rather dense, if that makes you happy, but I look for answers to my simple questions.

And people have given you answers to your questions and have repeated themselves so many times it feels like banging one's head against a wall.

Geologists use modern day calcium carbonate formation to indicate the formation of limestones such as the Redwall.

Creationists use volcanos and beach sands which have nothing to do with limestone at all. Gee, I wonder which one is more likely...

 Are you afraid that such questions will further expose the soft underbelly of your theory?

LOL! What soft underbelly of our "theory"? We look at places where that type of rock forms and that indicates how the Redwall formed.

Your theory is the one with the soft underbelly--in fact it's nothing more than a falsified theory unless you care to address these following points:


1. The angular unconformity separating Precambrian from Paleozoic rocks.

2. The existence of metamorphic rocks and igneous intrusions.

3. The existence of basalts from the Cenozoic atop the Grand Canyon and in that vicinity (USGS: target=_blank>http://wwwflag.wr.usgs.gov/GCSympos...ents_table.html)

4. The stratigraphy of the canyon itself. That is, a global flooding event taking place in 1 year or less cannot account for the stratigraphic distribution of well sorted sediments--not to mention the distinct layering of rock strata which are separated by erosional unconformities and also represent vastly different depositional environments.

5. The chemical rocks in the Grand Canyon (limestones) which would have had to have formed at an unheard of rate.

6. The paleontological data: the fact that we see organisms not only stratified by age, but we also see marine strata with exclusively marine organisms (brachiopods and crinoids that no longer exist today, for example) separated by strata that clearly have terrestrial flora and fauna in them. We also see this distinction by looking at trace fossils (e.g., footprints). This stratification by age and discontinuous representation of marine and terrestrial life are not explanable by your mechanism.

7. The goosenecks, or sharp meanders in the Colorado River, which Rufus indicated and illustrated with several pictures.

8. The fact that the river has eroded lithified rock as evidenced by deltaic deposits at the mouth of the river (and older deposits from when the river flowed in an opposite direction) and that the river has eroded through both metamorphic rock and igneous rock at the base of the canyon, which are crystalline rocks and obviously could not have been unconsolidated sediments, but rather very durable rock.

9. Radiometric age dating of igneous features of the Grand Canyon reveal dates far greater than a mere 6-12 thousand years before present.

10. The presence of paleosols (ancient soils) throughout several layers of the canyon including the Redwall limestone indicating that it was not formed underwater all at one time but rather exposed.

11. Collapsed caves/remnant karst topography.

12. The deposits from the outwash of the Colorado River indicate that it removed lithified rock.

Whatever ill-conceived argument you are trying to make about laminae is entirely irrelavent in the face of these facts.

 

[ardipithecus]

9th February 2003 at 05:25 PM RufusAtticus said this in Post #75

Any creationist what to explain how the Flood explains these formations?

I have not looked at all of this thread, but I did see the other thread mentioning goosenecks in the Colorado river. 

Just for clarification, these goosenecks are in Goosenecks State Park in Utah and the river involved is the San Juan.  Of course the San Juan is upsteam of the Colorado.  (If you got on a raft and went downstream you would eventually get to the Grand Canyon if you could get past all the dams.)   The river is about 1500 feet down if memory serves.

The Grand Canyon meanders as well, though not to the degree that Gooseneck does. 

The view from the top is better than that of the Grand Canyon.

 

 

[notto]

How about this?
Horseshoe Bend

 

[ardipithecus]

Today at 03:39 AM notto said this in Post #191

How about this?
Horseshoe Bend

I like it.    And that is part of the Colorado River proper.   Though the Goosenecks in Utah are better.  It is sort of like that (though with no green) but repeat it several times.

Also note that one is in sandstone and the Utah example is in limestone.