The Flood - Angular Nonconformities

[Vance]

We are going to begin addressing the numerous scientific issues which have been raised and claim to falsify a recent global flood. Tim has chosen "angular non-conformities" to tackle first. An angular unconformity is the result of tilting and eroding of the lower layers before the upper ones are deposited. first, here is the challenge from Ardipithicus:

Here is a 200 year old illustration of the Hutton Unconformity:

The Grand Canyon threads note such an angular unformity in the Grand Canyon. 

Such structures immediately falsify any Flood Geology that requires the Earth (or the fossil bearing formations) be under 10 thousand years old.   

It is thus not surprising how dead quite the YECs are on the subject. 

The question becomes to any YEC: how can an angular unconformity form?"

Here is Tim's response:

First, for those unfamiliar with angular unconformities, the observable facts:

"The sedimentary rocks, which were originally deposited horizontally in accordance with the Law of Original Horizontality have been deformed by structural forces, tectonics, uplift, and then erosion has taken over, truncated and cut off the edges. Later, the seas return and new layers were deposited on top.​

Now one must identify what evolutionists claim the significance of angular unconformities is?

"So the implications of angular unconformity is that there has been a great time lapse between the original deposition and the subsequent deposition."​

While reading extensively on this topic, mostly from the evolutionist point of view, one theme resonates over and over. There is not enough time to account for the original layers and subsequent erosion prior to deposition of sediment on top of the "unconformities" thus "proving" that there was no recent flood. In order for this theory to stand, a few things must be presumed:

Plate tectonics are a constant (uniformitarianism)
In the event of a worldwide flood, hydroaction is consistent worldwide
The bulk of the water was deposited by atmospheric condensation
Very little geologic change has occurred since the flood
The original layers in the angular unconformities were supposedly layed down by the same flood that deposited layers on top of them

I have highlighted three issues the Bible directly addresses: fountains of the deep "broken up" indicating a cataclysmic event on the crust of the earth, waters prevailing "exceedingly" on the earth , indicating enormous potential for erosion and deposition and finally, all the mountains covered by water.

Do the facts .... does the evidence support this? YES! YES! and YES! With the possibility of a literal translation of the flood account, taking into consideration the "fountains of the deep" having "broken up" we would expect to see some dramatic evidence of such. Ironically the existence of angular unconformities SUPPORTS this possiblity. The original deposition could easily be explained in the original creation as earth was described in "chaos". The massive amount of erosion required by "excessively prevailing water" is not only present and consistent with the flood, but is questioned by old-earther's by it's very magnitude. Finally, even old-earther's admit that there is compelling evidence that every part of the dry land including the highest mountain peaks were at one time underwater (even if before upheaval). Is this not exactly what the food account details? YES!

Finally, on the issue I raised above about the presumption that little geological change occurred since the flood, Several issues contradict that. First the 15 cubit height of the risen waters does not account for today's highest peaks, indicating that the known mountains of Noah's day were significantly lower. (although I personally believe that the way the passage reads - the waters toped the highest peake of the time by 15 cubits) Redistribution of land animals suggests many land bridges existed which have since submerged (Existing historical accounts refer to a time when Great Britain was joined to Europe for example). Finally, by the mention of man's lifespan before and after the flood, we may reasonably conclude some catastrophic and major changes to the surface and atmosphere of the planet took place - having a detrimental effect on all life. Again, we have an abundance of current evidence supporting all these claims including but not limited to decaying ozone layer, decaying magetic field and rapid field reversals, increasing distance between the earth and moon, and the effect of the moon on the earth's slowing rotation and deteriorating, corrupted gene pool.

So ironically, what the old-earther's use as questionable evidence against a flood, is actually as strong an evidence FOR the flood as you could expect - if it did indeed happen as written. Now I have one final potential fomula supporting the literal flood. First - what the Bible says happened

Now if this flood actually happened as written, then population statistics should also reasonably coincide with a re-population beginning with the family of Noah - the survivors of the flood. Do they hold up under scrutiny?
Lets' take a look:

The present rate of population increase in the world is more than two per cent per year, and the population is now over four billion. [This figure was correct when Dr. Morris wrote this. The figure is now much higher. — Creation Tips editor.] However, the average rate would only have to be one half of one per cent per year to produce the present world population in 4,300 years.

To put it another way, an average family size of only 2.5 children per family would suffice to develop the present population in just the length of time since Noah, even with an average life-span of only about 40 years per person. These figures are very reasonable, and in fact extremely conservative, showing that the Bible chronology is quite plausible in every way. http://www.users.bigpond.com/rdoolan/flooddate.html​

There are pages upon pages of debates on this topic but one can hardly deny the obvious -given almost any scenario, the population (adjusted for periodic catastrophy) is very close to what would be expected given the recorded history of mankind and population statistics along the way.

These are but a paltry few of the recognizable facts as easily supporting the literal flood as anyone claims they disprove it. One does not have to become a rocket scientist to understand them either. The creation account and the flood account leave us to expect to find evidence of catastrophic changes on our planet, and when they are produced, they are questioned by virtue of their very magnitude. How ironic.
​

 

[Vance]

The initial response in the other thread was Gluadys, who said:

There is one basic problem this sort of explanation of the flood runs up against time and time again: heat.

Breaking up the fountains of the deep through some sort of catastrophic effect on the earth's crust implies two things: there was enough water held under the crust in the first place to contribute significantly to the flood.

Something happened to break up whatever was keeping it under the crust. This implies significant earth movement.

Water under pressure (like most anything under pressure) gets hot, very hot. Water that has been kept under pressure, emerging through a newly-created fissure, would emerge as very hot steam. Enough of it would raise the temperature of the atmosphere enough to steam-broil every living thing on earth including whatever was in the ark.

Any catastrophic effect on the earth would only add to the heat.

This scenario would contribute to the extinction of all life on earth, not just terrestrial life, but ocean life as well, and would include everyone in the ark among the victims.

 

[Vance]

Here is a better picture of these disconformities in the Grand Canyon:

I found another image of the unformities of the Grand Canyon.  This image should make it obvious why the disconformities represent times of erosion:

An angular unconformity (see Figure 13) develops when younger sediments are deposited on older sedimentary rocks that have been tilted. The older sedimentary layers intersect the bottom surface of the younger sediments at an angle. The tilting of the older layers indicates that a period of uplift, folding, erosion, and subsidence occurred between the time the older beds were deposited and the younger sediments accumulated on top of them.

[size=-1]Figure 13: Angular Unconformity[/size]


A nonconformity (see Figure 14) develops when sediments are deposited on an erosion surface that cuts across igneous or metamorphic rocks. Sediments rest directly on igneous or metamorphic rocks that originally formed in the Earths's crust deep below surface. The difference in rock types above and below the nonconformity indicates that the older rocks were uplifted several kilometers, eroded, and then subsided before deposition of the sediments occurred.

[size=-1]Figure 14: Nonconformity[/size]
No relative age-dating method can be used to determine how long the periods of uplift, erosion, and subsidence that are indicated by angular unconformities or nonconformities may have lasted. However, the rates of these processes observed today indicate that tens or hundreds of millions of years of geologic time is involved in formation of angular unconformities and nonconformities.


A disconformity (see Figure 15) is a third type of unconformity that is developed between parallel layers of sedimentary rocks. They represent a period of erosion in which no tilting of the older rocks occurred, or a period in which no material was deposited on top of the older rocks. Disconformities commonly are difficult to recognize because the same type of rock may be present above and below the surface of erosion or non-deposition. In such cases, identifying a disconformity may require close examination of the types of fossils that may be found in the rocks above and below the disconformity.

[size=-1]Figure 15: Disconformity[/size]
found here: http://cse.cosm.sc.edu/hses/RelatDat/pages/unconfrm.htm

 

[Vance]

Tim, the point is that you got the issues right up front correct, in order to show that a global flood could have occured recently, you have to disprove the following scientific conclusions, which are supported by a wide arrary of evidence:

"Plate tectonics are a constant (uniformitarianism)"
- actually, only that they are sufficiently constant to require more time than a flood would allow for. There is no need to show absolute contancy. We see the rates today, the evidence we have fits perfectly with the fact that they moved at relatively the same rates in the past (even allowing us to predict what we will find in certain places and then finding them, based on those rates). So, you would have to provide some logical reason to believe that they DIDN'T happen that way in the past.

In the event of a worldwide flood, hydroaction is consistent worldwide
- Yes, water should act the same in the same situations. If there is a different result in some place, then it needs to be explained with good science.

The bulk of the water was deposited by atmospheric condensation
- not really with this one. The point is that even if a huge deluge did take place from some other source of water, you still have to make that fit with the evidence we have today. This is where the flood geology falls down.

Very little geologic change has occurred since the flood
- I am not sure what you mean by this, but what we know to have happened since the flood is consistent with what we believe has happened over time.

Now the point you raise in support of a flood causing non-conformities just don't work. The erosion we see is the type that takes time to develop, not caused by a cataclysm. Second, the problem with the non-conformity being the "original" formation with others following doesn't work, since it does not explain a series of non-conformities or unconformities or dis-conformities within a given column. So, that is a non-starter from the beginning.

Next, you propose that mountains, etc, could have formed since the proposed time of the flood, but this is simply impossible. Mountains simply can not form that quickly, and we have to much evidence of intervening time and development for this too happen. There is a huge difference between a young mountain range and an old one. We can see how the young ones become old, through erosion by wind, etc, and we have a huge variety of ages of mountains.

No, this just won't do. I am sure Glenn, an actual geologist will have more to say.

 

[California Tim]

Water under pressure (like most anything under pressure) gets hot, very hot. Water that has been kept under pressure, emerging through a newly-created fissure, would emerge as very hot steam. Enough of it would raise the temperature of the atmosphere enough to steam-broil every living thing on earth including whatever was in the ark.

Any catastrophic effect on the earth would only add to the heat.

This scenario would contribute to the extinction of all life on earth, not just terrestrial life, but ocean life as well, and would include everyone in the ark among the victims.[/size][/color][/font]

You must presume too much. I have heard case after case use this example of "excessive heat" as proof that no subterranean water could fuel the flood. What is seldom considered is the simutaneaous atmospheric conditions which almost certainly resulted in the polar ice caps forming. We had tremendous convective air currents, massive cloud cover and condensation of residual steam, all of which had a dramatic cooling effect on the surface. This is consistent with the evidence once again. We see cataclysmic scarring, including massive volcanic activity, angular unconformities and other phenomonenon. What I submit to you in simple terms is that IF the flood happened as described, we would expect to see evidence of a cataclysmic event on the surface of the earth. And we do including mass extinction of life on earth. The main objection I hear is it's "too much" evidence to have happened in a short time. Once again....ironic.

 

[California Tim]

Next, you propose that mountains, etc, could have formed since the proposed time of the flood, but this is simply impossible. Mountains simply can not form that quickly, and we have to much evidence of intervening time and development for this too happen.

If the great deserts of the world formed over eons of time by the "gradual" uplifting of various mountains and such, wouldn't we expect to see evidence a vast variety of preexistent plant life? I mean if a desert was once a jungle, and the change happened from rain forrest to semi-tropical to temperate etc etc. - would we not see plant life fossils from all those types of climate to support the conclusion that the mountains responsible for the air currents drying out the land formed very gradually? What do you think? Of course if the desert formed almost immediately, killing off the predominant plant life before it, then one type of climate would be represented in the plant fossil life. What does the plant fossil record indicate?

There is a huge difference between a young mountain range and an old one. We can see how the young ones become old, through erosion by wind, etc, and we have a huge variety of ages of mountains.

You mean like this "wind"?

And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that [was] with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged; (Gen 8:1)​

You see, once again, God covers this possible question to His creation - almost as if expecting this issue to arise. And by your own admission, we have the evident differences in age in the various ranges. This is consistent with the much more recent development of many ranges "after" the flood and "after" the massive errosion potentially caused by the winds and receding waters.

And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. (Gen 8:3)​

You SEE the wind erosion, and SEE the water erosion abut refuse to see the harmony with the written account of it. Maybe you would like this account to fit neatly with the world's view on the evidence because it is easier than trying to overcome the vast array of misinformation. Perhaps a figurative account would be "nice" and neat except the mention of "150 days" for the receding water - makes NO sense. Why even bring in a time factor to an allegorical story? What purpose?

 

[Vance]

But the types of erosions and the sequence we see in the geologic columns all over the world are NOT the type that could have been laid down all at once. They show numerous non-conformities in widely spaced layers, which is impossible if caused by a single event.

Further the type of erosion from a single great wind is not the same type which would happen over a very long time, same with water erosion. It just doesn't work that way.

As for the variety of different climates within a given zone as caused by a wide variety of gradually changing conditions - YES, we do find that evidence of earlier climates, exactly as would be expected.

That is just it, Tim, when you look at the evidence as a whole, not just in bits and pieces, a young earth just does not work.

Now, what evidence do you have, other than just speculation, that the points you first raised are NOT the case.

 

[California Tim]

But the types of erosions and the sequence we see in the geologic columns all over the world are NOT the type that could have been laid down all at once. They show numerous non-conformities in widely spaced layers, which is impossible if caused by a single event.

Sorry, but your conjecture does no more equal proof than mine.

Further the type of erosion from a single great wind is not the same type which would happen over a very long time, same with water erosion. It just doesn't work that way.

Could you be slightly more specific. I'll even point you in the right direction. Check out the wind erosion of mountains in the Aleutian islands for example. Compare them with other land-locked mountains for starters.

As for the variety of different climates within a given zone as caused by a wide variety of gradually changing conditions - YES, we do find that evidence of earlier climates, exactly as would be expected.

Link with info please. Specifically I would expect to see representation of many different and long lasting climates by the presence of plant fossils from each climate in the one area.

That is just it, Tim, when you look at the evidence as a whole, not just in bits and pieces, a young earth just does not work.

Now, what evidence do you have, other than just speculation, that the points you first raised are NOT the case.

Well, we cover a broad range of topics here. I offer potential explanations from a layman's perspective, without having become and expert in any particular field - much like you I suspect. And as I mentioned, in detail in the previous posts here, there is an abundance of evidence all around you practically screaming "see it's just like He told you in His word". You just won't accept the possibility that God's way somehow wouldn't necessarily agree with what the popularly accepted alternative says about the evidence.

You periodically mention YEC'ism is "not good science". It is from that bias the world refuses to objectively consider the evidence. It' is why to this day, rarely is YEC'ism given equal footing in conversations like these. You claim all we have is "speculation" as if what you propose is speculation-free. LoL

 

[JohnR7]

Such structures immediately falsify any Flood Geology that requires the Earth (or the fossil bearing formations) be under 10 thousand years

What in the world does a flood 4300 years ago have to do with a belief that the world is under 10,000 years old?

 

[Vance]

Yes, I was giving it in layman's terms, but it is based on sound science, which I can present for you if you like. Your proposals, on the other hand, are just that proposals, based on sheer speculation and a need to conform to your particular reading of Scripture. And, no, the Bible does not scream out anything of the type. It does not scream anything at all about how a flood actually occurred, but cause it is not meant to be read literally.

But, regardless, unless Glenn wants to add anything (being a geologist) I am MORE than willing to allow the evidence above and speak for itself for all who view this. We can move on to another falsification of a global flood in another thread.

 

[gluadys]

You must presume too much. I have heard case after case use this example of "excessive heat" as proof that no subterranean water could fuel the flood. What is seldom considered is the simutaneaous atmospheric conditions which almost certainly resulted in the polar ice caps forming. We had tremendous convective air currents, massive cloud cover and condensation of residual steam, all of which had a dramatic cooling effect on the surface. This is consistent with the evidence once again. We see cataclysmic scarring, including massive volcanic activity, angular unconformities and other phenomonenon. What I submit to you in simple terms is that IF the flood happened as described, we would expect to see evidence of a cataclysmic event on the surface of the earth. And we do including mass extinction of life on earth. The main objection I hear is it's "too much" evidence to have happened in a short time. Once again....ironic.

Well, here is the math. And no, I didn't do it. This comes from Glenn's web site.

Suppose you placed the water under 10 km of crust, the pressure of the water would be 10 x 105 * 980 * 2.65 = 2.58 x 109 dynes= 2562 atmospheres of pressure.

The temperature gradient is 1 deg C for every 30 m so there is a 166 deg. C increase in temperature as we go deeper. 330 + 30 deg C (the surface temperature) =360 deg. C. (see below for justification of the temperature. For a layer of cave water 2 km thick all around the earth would contain 1 x 1024 cubic centimeters of water. At 360 deg C, the high temperature water would contain 3.3 x 1026 calories. (1 calorie per degree rise (330 degree rise)). The minute the pressure is released the water will turn to steam and you will cook the earth. Dividing the calories by the surface area of the earth shows that heat /cm2 = 3.3 x 1026 Calories/5.09 x 1018 square centimeters = 6.4 x 107 Cal/cm2.

...This enough energy to raise water to 64 million degrees C (assuming a specific heat of 1 cal/degree. ... No one could survive this event. It is a poor mechanism for a flood.

Now you suggest a cooling mechanism that would invalidate these figures. Ok. Give us the math to show that it would, indeed, absorb this amount of heat rapidly enough to avoid total extinction of all life, including Noah and everyone, every creature, on the ark.

Note, too, that Glenn's figures only deal with heat from released water. Other sources of heat would come from the actual energy of the breaking up of the solid matter which heretofore held the fountains of the deep in check. The volcanic activity you mention, and any event causing cataclysmic scarring, would all provide still more heat.

And all you mention to counteract this is cloud cover and convection air currents. Is it enough? Do the math and show us.

 

[grmorton]

But, regardless, unless Glenn wants to add anything (being a geologist) I am MORE than willing to allow the evidence above and speak for itself for all who view this.

Ok, California Tim, let’s first establish the RATE erosion takes place on this earth. The first attachment is a picuture of Bowknot Bend on the Green River in Utah.


A close examination of the original photo shows that some of the rocks in the foreground are identical today as to shape as they were 100 years earlier. Clearly erosion, even with a major river going through these channels, doesn't do much eroding in 100 years. Even in a thousand years (ten times what you see here), it doesn't look like much geologic work would be done to these rocks.



Given the tiny tiny difference between these two photos, one must wonder how long it would take to have eroded away the cliff material seen in the background. That rock, you must realize, used to cover the area and it was eroded away by this slow eroding river.



Even the unconformity which is forming on the earth’s surface today has occupied millions of years just to form the present surface of the earth.



Now, lets look at a real unconformity in the seismic data. The second picture is from a basin in the North Sea.





John Morris has tried to explain away unconformities by saying:



"The answer can't always be obtained in the local setting. But, the erosional episode, either the disconformity or the unconformity, can usually be traced laterally through the use of information from oil wells or other outcrops. This may take a lot of work, but as the layers and formations, which themselves may cover vast areas, are traced laterally, they will either pinch out into a zone where they were not deposited at all, or to an area where they were not tilted or eroded. in such cases, an erosional sequence can eventually be resolved into a conformable, continuous depositional sequence." (John Morris, 1994, p. 105 )



Morris hopes that by doing this he can eliminate the erosion time between the two sediments and claim that because there is a place where the sediments are conformable, therefore there is no time between them. In the first place, Morris' assertion that all erosional unconformities lead to conformities, is simply wrong. Quirk and Aitken write:



“Subsidence continued during the early Tertiary when a thick succession of fine-grained marine sediments was deposited. However, a significant period of inversion occurred during the early Miocene and led to the formation of a major unconformity which intersects the present UK land surface farther west.” (Quirk and Aitken, 1997, p. 145)



Secondly, even unconformities which become conformable show evidence of tectonic movements during the time in which the unconformity was forming. This movement simply can't be explained really as the result of a rapid tectonic event. In the seismic data (second picture), looking at the Cretaceous strata (green) one can see that it is thickest in the syncline (where the double arrow is) and that the sediment thins a bit towards the left (thinning means that the sediment is a bit thinner--i. e. less thick). But the underlying Jurassic (upper yellow) does exactly the opposite. it is thinnest where the double arrow is and thickest to the left of that point. This relationship has tremendous implications for the length of time it takes for this unconformity to form.



The thin area of the Jurassic sediment shows that this area was originally the top of a hill. Sediment always deposits thicker in the valleys than it does on top of a hill. What caused the hill? Triassic salt. There used to be a mound of Triassic salt between the Triassic (red) and Jurassic (upper yellow). Salt is mobile and was squeezed out of that area causing the Jurassic hill to become a valley by the time the Cretaceous (green) sediment was deposited. What had been a valley in Jurassic time became a hill by Cretaceous time. While that hill was rising, it was also being eroded. The amount of eroded sediment is shown in the third picture:





All of this activity, the tectonic motion, the erosion, the faulting all occurred PRIOR to the deposition of the horizontal Tertiary sediment. Notice that the faults (the black lines) terminate at the unconformable surface. They terminate there because they didn't move after the end of the Cretaceous Era. If the sediment was the result of a single year of massive tectonic activity and massive sedimentation event, why do the faults ALL suddenly cease moving on exactly the same day? That is very unlikely.

One other indication of time, which can't be seen in seismic data but can be seen in cores taken from oil wells drilled into the Jurassic sediments are the burrows. A core is a cylinder of rock which is cut out of the rock while the well is drilled. These cores show much evidence of burrows which would require much time to explain. The cases I will present are from the Jurassic.



The Upper Jurassic Ula Formation and Fulmar formation contain Thalassinoides burrows. Some of these burrows have encrusted shells and serpulid worms washed into the open burrows.. The Jurassic Ror Formation contains burrows of Skolithos, Chondrites, Anconichnus, Planolites, Teichnichnus and Palaeophycus burrows. The base of the Broom Formation (the bottom of the Brent Group) contains Planolites burrows which have a pyrite fill. Only the burrow has the pyrite fill. It must have been deposited during the time the burrow was open, thus indicating a certain amount of time in the deposition of the pyrite. (Taylor and Gawthorpe, 1993, p. 324) Some of the burrows found in the Brent Group have dynocysts in the walls of the burrows showing that the burrow was open to marine conditions. (Taylor and Gawthorpe, 1993, p. 321-322).



That these burrows took time and were not escape structures as many young-earth creationists believe can be demonstrated by what is found to line the burrows:



"Typical dwelling traces include: Skolithos (a simple, unpaired pipe), Ophiomorpha (lined with faecal pellets - which determine a nodular outer surface to the burrow - usually associated with crustaceans), Teredolites (bivalve borings cut into driftwood), and Gastrochaenolites (bivalve borings cut into firm or rock substrates).”



http://www.ucl.ac.uk/geolsci/edu/ugrads/image/fieldtrips/TraceFossils/morph.htm accessed 9-21-02.



It would take time for the burrowing animal to line the wall with fecal pellets!



The fourth is a picture of such a burrow taken from Martin and Pollard (1996, Fig 6D, p. 176). It would take time for the animal to deposit that much excrement along his burrow's wall. This was not an animal trying to escape burial but an animal taking his time feeding, so all this activity did not occur instantly.



One thing to remember if you try to put this all into a 1 year flood, then you have 22,000 feet of sediment which means 60 feet of sediment must be dumped per day and 2.5 feet per hour. At such rates, burrowing organisms would simply be squashed and not be able to take their time lining their burrows with fecal pellets.



The last example of an unconformity comes from the Appalachian Mountains along the Alabama/Mississippi line. The last picture is a seismic line from that area.



The line was one shot by Texaco along the Alabama/Mississippi border just NE of Meridian, Mississippi. The reference is A. W. Bally, _Seismic Expression of Structural Styles, Vol. 3, AAPG Studies in Geology Series, #15,, p. 3.4.1-82. It shows a wonderful example of why slow sedimentation must be the rule and presents a big problem for the global flood. A word about seismic. The black peaks and grey troughs are the reflections of sound off of various rock layers which are in the earth. By reflecting the sound, we can produce a picture, like this, of what the earth looks like under one's feet. The picture is about 20 km of seismic data. It can be seen that the valley in the unconformity is about 3 km wide. The thrust block is about 16 km or 9 miles long. Such pictures are no different than what a doctor produces when they do a sonogram.
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At the top of the section are the sediments of the Atlantic coastal plains. They are flatish-lying dipping slightly to the SE. They are about 3500 feet thick and consist mostly of sands and shales. They lie on top of a major unconformity which separates the Paleozoic Appalachian sediments from the Atlantic Coastal plain sediments. Below the unconformity is the Paleozoic sediments which consist not only of sands and shales but also very thick piles of carbonate and dolomite. dolomite. They are around 18,500 feet thick. This is determined by the velocity of sound in those sediments. Rocks in the Paleozoic are almost always faster than rocks in the younger Mesozoic and Mesozoic rocks in general are even faster than those from the Tertiary.
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If you look below the unconformity you will find a thrust fault having thrusted the Paleozoic sediments over on top of themselves Bed a is marked on both sides of the thrust fault and one can clearly see that it is overthrusted on top of itself. The friction of the thrust plane against the upper part of the thrust caused the sediments to be folded. The fold was then eroded. Since bed A to the right is buried by 1.3 seconds of Paleozoic sediment (approximately 10,000 feet), yet it intersects the unconformity where it is covered by NO Paleozoic sediment, this means that 10,000 feet of sediment was eroded from the point marked 'hill'. If you look at the sediments just under the unconformity on the right and move to the left you will see layer after layer erosionally truncated by the unconformity until you get to hill where bed A is at the surface of the unconformity.
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Where I marked a hill, If you look at the unconformity, you will see that it drops down at that point. the flat reflectors above are clearly onlapping the unconformable surface against the hill. The valley was eroded into the underlying Paleozoic sediments PRIOR to the deposition of the Mesozoic sediment. If you look just to the right of the hill, under the word valley, above the unconformity you will see a black reflector which runs into the hill to the left and then into the unconformity on the right. The relationship between this reflector and the unconformity shows that the valley to the right of the hill was infilled in a rather gentle way otherwise the sediments would be chaotic. This valley was probably an arm of the ocean at one point because the sediments that fill it are marine as are all the Atlantic Coastal Plain sediments.
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After the Mesozoic sediments were deposited, the entire area was slightly tilted to the SE.
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The sequence of events cause great problems for the concept of a global flood. Global flood advocates always say that fossilization can only occur during catastrophic events such as the flood. Well there are fossiliferous Paleozoic sediments below the unconformity as well as above. Thus the flood advocate must hold that all the sediment in this picture is from the flood. This means that during the flood 18,500 feet of Paleozoic sediment must have been deposited. It must then have hardened. Why? Because of the way the thrusting deformed the rocks.


This is not a soft-sediment type of deformation. The upper thrust block moved as a solid block. If the sediments had been soft, this couldn't have happened. Soft ooze and mush won't transmit forces for 9 miles. Assuming that the Paleozoic constituted half of the flood's time, then in 6 months we must deposit 18,500 feet of sediment. This is a rate of 102 feet per day. There are slow-moving invertebrate fossils at the bottom of the Appalachian Paleozoic as well as at the top. All sorts of stationary shell-fish are found throughout the Paleozoic strata. Why everything wasn't at the bottom of the pile, after deposition of the first 102 feet on the first day, I can't comprehend. A further problem is the burrows which are found throughout the entire 18,500 feet of sediment. One must have exceptionally rapid burrowers in order to thoroughly burrow 102 feet of strata a day. That is enough sediment to cover a 10 story building each day. Next time you drive down the road, look at a ten story building and imagine it covered in sediment in one day and thoroughly burrowed by thousands of animals. Burrowed in such a fashion where the excavated sediments make a pile around the burrow which are then covered by the next layer which is a different lithology.
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After the deposition of 18,500 feet of strata, and it's hardening (it takes lots of time for shales to de-water, yet we see no mega water escape structures in this sedimentary pile either), we must then have the time to thrust the paleozoic section creating huge mountains (the Appalachians). After this, we must have time for the erosion of 10,000 feet of HARDENED sediment, which then becomes the unconformity surface. Then we must cover, in a gentle way, the entire area with 3,500 feet of Mesozoic sediment. This is a rate of 19 feet a day assuming that the Mesozoic here represented 180 days of flood deposition. One could hardly say that 19 feet a day of sedimentation is 'gentle'. 19 feet of sediment where I live would nearly cover my 2 story house.

I don't see how to explain any of this in a global flood/young-earth scenario.

 

[Vance]

Thanks Glenn, that was extremely helpful. Too bad I can't give you more reps! Maybe you could add your thoughts on the varves issue as well.

 

[grmorton]

Thanks Glenn, that was extremely helpful. Too bad I can't give you more reps! Maybe you could add your thoughts on the varves issue as well.

Maybe tomorrow night. I am in a formal debate with a guy on another forum and it is my turn to submit.

 

[California Tim]

grmorton,

Thank you for the information. I read the entire article, studied the set of pictures and tried my best to follow each argument to its conclusion. It was somewhat difficult as the language, while I'm sure is ordinary for you by now, is pretty new to me. I think I got a good overview however and am actually ashamed to even ask if any answer not as scientifically presented is even worthy of consideration. Your knowledge is out of my league on this issue.

However, I did notice a few statements and I offer my own very unscientific observation. Perhaps you'll consider them as well.
The first one concerns the second set of pictures:

"If the sediment was the result of a single year of massive tectonic activity and massive sedimentation event, why do the faults ALL suddenly cease moving on exactly the same day? That is very unlikely. "​

Can we absolutely rule out the possibility? I mean, with the flood account we are taking the precise hand of God who directed the flood from beginning to end - with a disticnt purpose in mind. Even this author leaves room for uncertainty.

The second quote concerns the burrows:

"It would take time for the burrowing animal to line the wall with fecal pellets!

The fourth is a picture of such a burrow taken from Martin and Pollard (1996, Fig 6D, p. 176). It would take time for the animal to deposit that much excrement along his burrow's wall. This was not an animal trying to escape burial but an animal taking his time feeding, so all this activity did not occur instantly."​

I still don't see a potential problem here. In any case rapid encasement of living animals in their original state at the instant of entombment is actually evidence of catastrophic influence - otherwise the burrows would be vacated and the absense of burrows in the deep sediment above those in question further bolsters that idea. But even if I misunderstood exactly what you referred to with the burrows, the entire hypothesis is that the amount of sediment above them could not have been laid by one cataclysmic event. That, again is not necessarily beyond debate.

Now for my simple-minded observation. This especially applies to the second set of pictures (cross -sections) with the unconformities: I looked at both pictures in the set before reading your explanation. I studied them both, admittedly from an elementary point of view. Then I read your explanation and hypothesis on them and studied both for a few more minutes to see if anything changed. You know what I saw at first and then again after reading your essay - even now? I saw the immediate beginnings of the flood in the lower,wildly bent strata, covered by perfect horizontal conformity placed by the flood as a result of rapid deposition.

Just for fun, let's take out all the time-based hypothsesis that seemingly disprove the possibility for just a moment. Think in your mind, IF THE FLOOD HAPPENED, what should we see? What would the cross section look like after the crust opened up to allows massive amounts of water to escape, and the tectonic plates moved at an enormous rate under the intense pressure of the waters, now above them? What would the effect be of the waters, full of new silt as they settled? Something happened in the lower half of those cross sections that was inconsistent with the top half. Why is it that ALL the unconformities are covered by conformities (at least vast majorities of them)? How else would they look if a flood of global proportions actually happened?

I can appreciate the effort expended in explaining your point of view. What I don't see is proof positive, but conjecture that what we are all looking at could not have happened in a relatively short time. Yet no one yet can conclusively disprove the possibilty either. It's all based on such vast time scales that - of course the flood would make no sense, because the time-scales are calibrated on the assumption of uniformity and the absense of cataclysmic tectonic movement. But once again, one look at those cross-sections reveals a different story to my eyes. How anyone can deny a cataclysmic event with those unconformities beneath a huge amount of conformity is beyond me.

 

[grmorton]

grmorton,

Thank you for the information. I read the entire article, studied the set of pictures and tried my best to follow each argument to its conclusion. It was somewhat difficult as the language, while I'm sure is ordinary for you by now, is pretty new to me. I think I got a good overview however and am actually ashamed to even ask if any answer not as scientifically presented is even worthy of consideration. Your knowledge is out of my league on this issue.

However, I did notice a few statements and I offer my own very unscientific observation. Perhaps you'll consider them as well.


The first one concerns the second set of pictures:

"If the sediment was the result of a single year of massive tectonic activity and massive sedimentation event, why do the faults ALL suddenly cease moving on exactly the same day? That is very unlikely. "​

Can we absolutely rule out the possibility? I mean, with the flood account we are taking the precise hand of God who directed the flood from beginning to end - with a disticnt purpose in mind. Even this author leaves room for uncertainty.

Tim, if you want to say that the Flood was miraculous from start to finish and did not follow natural law, that is fine. That would not violate any scientific data, any problem can be taken care of as a miracle. But if you do that, you can't then at the same time claim that the science supports a global flood. And you would have to cease trying to make the scientific data fit with your biblical interpretation. The problem I have with YEC is that they want naturalism except where there are problems then they appeal to miracle in order to ignore the problem.

The second quote concerns the burrows:

"It would take time for the burrowing animal to line the wall with fecal pellets!


The fourth is a picture of such a burrow taken from Martin and Pollard (1996, Fig 6D, p. 176). It would take time for the animal to deposit that much excrement along his burrow's wall. This was not an animal trying to escape burial but an animal taking his time feeding, so all this activity did not occur instantly."
​

I still don't see a potential problem here. In any case rapid encasement of living animals in their original state at the instant of entombment is actually evidence of catastrophic influence - otherwise the burrows would be vacated and the absense of burrows in the deep sediment above those in question further bolsters that idea. But even if I misunderstood exactly what you referred to with the burrows, the entire hypothesis is that the amount of sediment above them could not have been laid by one cataclysmic event. That, again is not necessarily beyond debate.

Animals burrow only centimeters per day think about that. Secondly, everyone talks about how erosive the flood is, how it eroded the entire landscape. That means hard rock is being eroded. What chance does flesh have of staying uneroded when hard rock is pulverized? That being the case, the only place we should expect burrows in the flood is in the very oldest sedimentary deposits---those most deeply buried. THis is because any animal exposed to the erosion should not be deposited and then make a burrow. The fact is that burrows and footprints of animals are found all through the geologic column.

Now for my simple-minded observation. This especially applies to the second set of pictures (cross -sections) with the unconformities: I looked at both pictures in the set before reading your explanation. I studied them both, admittedly from an elementary point of view. Then I read your explanation and hypothesis on them and studied both for a few more minutes to see if anything changed. You know what I saw at first and then again after reading your essay - even now? I saw the immediate beginnings of the flood in the lower,wildly bent strata, covered by perfect horizontal conformity placed by the flood as a result of rapid deposition.

The lower can't be the antediluvian world if you beleive that fossils only form in a global flood. The lower section has lots and lots of fossils. Secondly, the lower section was moving and being contorted while it was being deposited. Thus you can't claim that the contortion started when the flood started. I know it was moving because of the thickness differences. You don't get thickness differences in this pattern unless the earth is moving while the sediment is being deposited. People do such experiments in tanks all the time.

Just for fun, let's take out all the time-based hypothsesis that seemingly disprove the possibility for just a moment. Think in your mind, IF THE FLOOD HAPPENED, what should we see? What would the cross section look like after the crust opened up to allows massive amounts of water to escape, and the tectonic plates moved at an enormous rate under the intense pressure of the waters, now above them? What would the effect be of the waters, full of new silt as they settled?

Boulders at the bottom, cobbles above the boulders, sand above the cobbles, shale above the sand. That is what we would see, but that is what we dont' see in the geologic column. Go mix pebbles and sand and shale of various sizes in a mayonaise jar. fill with water and shake it up. You will see exactlyi the pattern I describe. This is an experiment you can personally do so go do it and then tell me what you think the flood would deposit if you did the same thing globally!

Something happened in the lower half of those cross sections that was inconsistent with the top half. Why is it that ALL the unconformities are covered by conformities (at least vast majorities of them)? How else would they look if a flood of global proportions actually happened?

They aren't. I have on my web page a picture of two vertical unconformities. And I can find downlaps against unconformities as well.

I can appreciate the effort expended in explaining your point of view. What I don't see is proof positive, but conjecture that what we are all looking at could not have happened in a relatively short time.

Part of this is that you don't want to see it. If you did, you know that you would have to reassess your entire world view and that is a pain no one wants. Neither did I.

Yet no one yet can conclusively disprove the possibilty either. It's all based on such vast time scales that - of course the flood would make no sense, because the time-scales are calibrated on the assumption of uniformity and the absense of cataclysmic tectonic movement. But once again, one look at those cross-sections reveals a different story to my eyes. How anyone can deny a cataclysmic event with those unconformities beneath a huge amount of conformity is beyond me.

Yes we can disprove your view. Explain the cyclical pollen I posted on in antoher thread today. As to that section showing catastrophism, it doesn't. Where is the graded bedding of boulders to shale I mentioned above? Show it to me.

 

[grmorton]

How anyone can deny a cataclysmic event with those unconformities beneath a huge amount of conformity is beyond me.

OK, Tim, I went to find a particular seismic section which shows multiple layers of motion. This hopefully will illustrate for you why time is necessary. I actually went to the trouble to try to mimick what our programs do to seismic, but since these are jpg's the reconstructions of geologic history are going to be a bit less good than I could do at work with real seismic. But, if all you are going to do is run to AIG for some sophomoric explanation that doesn't really explain anything, then I am wasting my time here.

On the first seismic line down at the bottom you see the blue horizon. That is the top of the Rotliegendes. This is a dune sand which is 1200 miles east west, 200 miles north south in extent and up to 1000 meters in thickness. It lies on top of the Carboniferous, which is not seen in the sesmic data due to the seismic running out of signal but is seen on outcrop. The Carboniferous-Rotliegendes contact is an unconformity.

"The base of the Permian succession comprises a
widespread unconformity (often on reddened Carboniferous)
overlain by lavas or breccias or desert sands (Rotliegendes
and equivalents). These early sediments may be interpreted
as the products of Variscan volcanism and of extensive
fluvial erosion and transport (e.g. as flash floods)." A.
H. Ruffell and R. G. Shelton, "Permian to Late Triassic
Post-Orogenic Collapse, and Early Atlantic Rifting,
Deserts, evaporating Seas and Mass Extinctions," in Nigel
Woodcock and Rob Strachan, editors, Geological History of
Britain and Ireland, (London: Blackwell Science, 2000), p.
305

The sand grains in the Rot are coated with magnesium dioxide, a desert varnish which takes about 400 years to form. We know this from some crosses made in the deserts of the Southwestern US by early Catholic Friars. They went out to the desert and turned rocks over creating huge crosses by exposing the underside and uncoated side of the rocks. But the crosses are just about gone now because desert varnish has formed on the rocks erasing the large crosses.

After the Rot was deposited, it was faulted making a basin and range province. The geologic structure you see in the Rot is just like what is seen in Utah and Nevada. The second picture shows what the world looked like at that time, if you ignore the pink which will become important later. You can see huge mountains and huge valleys. This may have been underwater by this time because the next layer to be deposited was the pink Zechstein salt

Above the Rot, after the faulting, the Zechstein salt was deposited. It covered the entire set of mountains and formed a flat surface above the Rotliegendes. At that time, the North Sea was a huge salt pan with several thousand feet of salt having been evaporated and deposited ABOVE the desert sands. The second picture shows what it was like at the end of the salt deposition. The pink represents the salt at the end of salt evaporation It was a flat surface upon which the sediments above were deposited.

We know that the salt was originally a flat surface because the the internal beds in each of the blocks above the salt are sub-parallel. When rock layers are deposited on flat surfaces, they stack like pancakes. If you look at the Triassic through middle Jurassic, it is basically the same thickness across the section (don't pay attention to the distortion in some places. Rocks once distorted can't easily be unfolded).

This time was the Jurassic time. I have attempted to cut out and place in order the structure as it was just as the Zechstein salt started to move out from under the Jurassic beds. The sedimentation was mostly on a flat surface but there are a couple of indications that when the yellow upper Jurassic sediments were laid down that there was a topographic hill off to the right. This is seen in the third and fourth picture where you can see the Upper Jurassic (yellow) strata thinning to the right and it actually onlaps the Middle Jurassic (terminates) where the yellow arrow is.

You need to understand what is in the Jurassic. There are burrows--I showed that the other day in another post. The Fulmar is a Jurassic strata and it has animals burrowing in it. In the upper Jurassic are Oxforidian,Kimmeridgian and Tithonean source rocks. These are dark, organic rich shales which is the source rock for most of the oil in the North Sea. The entire ocean went anoxic at that time. You can find upper Jurassic source rocks throughout the Entire North Atlantic region including the Gulf of Mexico where it is 1300 feet thick. These shales are made of small particles which would require a long time to sink to the ocean floor, something that Creationists don't think about. You can demonstrate this by putting sand and shale in a mayonaise jar, filling with water and shaking. The sand drops out almost immediately. The shale may take days or weeks to drop out and the water become clear.

The fourth picture is at another unconformable surface. This is what the North Sea looked like just before the chalk was deposited. You can see to the two areas of Upper Jurassic which were never covered by the Lower Cretaceous (green) strata. These areas were being eroded until the chalk was deposited and that is when the North Sea in this area settled down a bit and you have more laminar sedimentation. Don't think of that as horizontal. Every single rock layer in the North Sea gets thicker towards the Viking Graben in the center of the North Sea right along the UK Norwegian boundary.

Now, the chalk above the Green layers is composed of nothing more than several thousand feet of coccoliths. Coccoliths are tiny microscopic animals which live and die, leaving their tiny skeletons on the ocean floor. The last picture shows a microscopic look at the chalk. The tiny disks are skeletal elements of the microscopic creatures. You can see that the entire rock is formed of broken plates from these microscopic animals. Such things require calm, still water and lots and lots of time. The chalk in the North Sea gets as great as 3000 feet in thickness in some places. That is a lot of dead microscopic animals. And what is more, the chalk is also the result of worms eating these microscopic animals which float to the ocean floor. All of this has been through the digestive tract of worms. Neat huh? And you want all this to happen in one year.

As I said, if you try to give me a thoughtless answer that all this shows catastrophism, I am going to be very very disappointed and I will understand that you dont' take the data seriously.