Geological megasequences: data pointing to 500+ million years of evolution? Or to the year-long biblical Flood?

You have not explained why sediment must remain in suspension.

The link from the University of Georgia site explains clearly the processes involved in creating an unconformity.

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A mega-tsunami does let explain why different species with the same hydrodynamic properties get sorted differently.

Evolution plus the carefully worked-out stratigraphy, by contrast, explain the sorting extremely well.

Best,
Chris

It doesn’t.

Sediment is constantly being produced. You can observe this just from hiking. Mountains yield talus. Talus yields scree. Scree yields gravel. Gravel yields sand. Sand is constantly conveyed by water, always downstream. As water releases its grip, sediment builds up and water simply obliges by changing course.

When subsidence and/or sea level rise brings about ocean flooding of previously dry ground, sea life will take hold in these basins, and will produce carbonate sediment in place for as long as the sea is present. There is no need of transport from other oceanic locations.

What we observe is fully consistent with the science of geology.

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Without any uniformitarian assumptions, can you identify which fireplace is made of river rock?

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During the Zuni (Cretaceous) megasequence, over 2300 feet of sediment was deposited on the North American continent–most of it is shale, from clay off the ocean floor. A large percentage of the sediment is also sand–and the sandstone layers contain lots of marine life (molluscs, bi-valves, gastropods, various kinds of fish, and marine reptiles); so we know this was not just terrigenous sand.

You deny tsunamis had anything to do with this. So, what kind of hydraulics do you believe accounts for 2300 feet of mostly ocean sediment, deposited during the Zuni megasequence (and, by the way, this megasequence transported and deposited the greatest ocean sediment amounts even on other continents–especially Africa)?

Yes, I noticed Timothy’s reference to the K-T boundary. This boundary corresponds to the unconformity separating the Zuni from the Tejas; it is an erosion zone caused by the regressing (or retreating) waters of the Zuni megasequence, though some might argue it was caused by the transgressing water flow of the Tejas.

It is referred to as one of five “mass extinctions”–each one of which was actually an erosion zone, an unconformity separating one megasequence from another. However, instead of saying it represents millions of years, we catastrophists say the extinctions were simply times various kinds of life forms were destroyed by the flooding waters of that megasequence. In the first three megasequences, the ocean level was fairly shallow, so land animals could flee to higher ground (thus, layers of these sequences contain almost entirely marine life). However, beginning with the Absaroka, the sea level was high enough to begin overwhelming land animals. Then, the Zuni and Tejas–with the highest sea levels–overwhelmed even massive dinosaurs; the dinosaur “graveyards” portray their en masse efforts to flee the rising, turbulent waters.

So, yes, I believe the species Timothy named did become extinct after being drowned out of existence by these inescapable waters.

I still would.

You get a partial credit here. You may be pleased to know that geologists do not associate the K-T boundary with millions of years, but accept catastrophism in this case, with extinctions happening in very abrupt fashion in geological terms. The meteor which created the Chicxulub crater truly wrecked apocalyptic havoc on Earth, and most agree it was the precipitating event in the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs, although there is discussion of other factors such as the Deccan volcanism. The signature iridium enriched layer is found in locations all over the world. Dinosaurs, large or small, are never found above this layer, large mammals are never found below. So uniformitarianism or catastrophism is not about presuppositions, but about compelling evidence.

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YEC catastrophism is, I’m sorry to say. Their interpretation of Genesis is presupposed to be infallible, ■■■■ the evidence.

I don’t doubt this is what we all value the most.

So, Dale, here is our situation: we know that during the Zuni mega sequence (Cretaceous) some force of ocean water managed to transport and deposit upon the North American continent over 2300 ft. of mostly ocean sediment—more specifically, about 10.5 million cubic kilometers of such sediment (and much much more on the African continent). So, you and Ron have argued against tsunamis being that force of water. So what hydraulics do you believe moved such massive amounts of sediment upon the continents?

I will use the Sauk mega sequence to illustrate what I’m saying. We know that the flooding ocean waters were laden with over 3 million cubic kilometers of ocean sediment—plus billions of sea creatures from the marine shallows. Plus, we know it went from west to east—it thinned from the west coast eastward. And we know that as the water transgressed across the craton, it was depositing huge amounts of this sediment according to Walthers Law (fining-up); the Tonto group in the Grand Canyon exemplifies this. We also know that it managed to deposit its ocean sediment, along with the sea life that had been living in it, on both sides of the Transcontinental Arch, even into the New England states and Canada.

But according to old-earthers, it took about 56 million years for the Sauk transgression and regression to deposit its load of sediment and sea life. This means the flooding would have been super super slow. You seem to be saying it would just be picking up new sediment as it went. But at such a pace, it would not be able to even hold its own sediment load, let alone pick up new sediment. There is no way sediment from the Sauk would have been able to make it up to New England.

The individual grains washed off the yet-higher land and had the marine organisms live on them. Eventually, essentially all oceanic sediment is either terrigenic or biogenic. How long it took to turn into rock is immaterial to the issue. If the ocean lifted the sediment off the seabed and dumped it all over the continent, then every deposit would be highly sorted (which a cursory glance at most deposits would disprove), and all the fossils would be badly broken.

I will add materials composing the layers to my stratigraphic sequence.

The sequence (going down through layers which show unambiguous evidence of having been above sea level in between their depositions) goes from shelly sand to shell hash or limestone to shelly mud, shell hash or limestone, to mostly leached limestone for awhile, to an aquitard dense mud.

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It seems you do not accept the rise and fall of the land masses in response to the shifting tectonic plates. Obviously, the forces that transport sediment are gravity and tectonic activity. Ocean sediments sink to the bottom, the bottom is lifted up by shifting plates, and sediments are now above sea level. As mentioned, we can measure it happening today.

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As an example: with a megatsunami, why is Santeevoluta only found as molds in the Castle Hayne, and Triplofusus cronlyensis and Scaphella precursor are only found in the Waccamaw (which are within 10 miles of each other in some cases), given that they are the same size and of vaguely similar shape?

Why can I find 150 mm Mercenaria campechiensis and 2,000 2-7 mm Caecum at the same small quarry (if you want to help me sort them, let me know :slightly_smiling_face:)?

Why are Haminoea, Limacina, Raeta, Cochlodesma, complete Eulima, or any number of others, ever found, if everything is getting smashed by the boiling, churning slurry oceans?

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This paper registers many of the misconceptions @donpartain seems to has been proselytizing here:

Clarey, T.L., and D.J. Werner. 2018. Use of sedimentary megasequences to re-create pre-Flood geography

Also, this article for AiG
The Sedimentary Record Demonstrates Minimal Flooding of the Continents During Sauk Deposition

And from ICR
Grappling with Megasequences

Laurence L. Sloss would have been aghast at how his work has been appropriated and misrepresented.

Do you have a reference for your data here? Where is the evidence that there is any ocean sediment which was transported? The transport did not happen, so there is no need of any hydraulics whatsoever. What marine sediment is present is due to the presence of the inland sea for millions of years.

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I’m not a geologist, but I would think it would be the same processes that are slowly depositing ocean deposits right now.

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I do. Rational arguments based solely on the evidence, without the presupposition that your interpretation of Genesis is infallible, would be worth way more, because without that, the evidence is worthless.

YECism has at least one major theological problem in addition to its presumption of infallible interpretation. Since it doesn’t seem like you’ve been following this other conversation, “Is the fossil evidence modified?”, I would invite you to look at it, starting about here, perhaps, where we begin to address it.

Creationism in general does not value compelling evidence the most. From the AiG statement of faith:

No apparent, perceived, or claimed evidence in any field of study, including science, history, and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture obtained by historical-grammatical interpretation.

Timothy Clarey’s paper is a work of theology, not geology.

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And every YEC is an infallible interpreter except for their young earth colored glasses.