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

You might have the wrong earth, here. According to Britannica.com, the average depth of ocean sediment is only 1500 feet–a little over a third of a mile; not exactly “miles deep.”

But such sediment amounts do help us understand where all that marine (i.e., ocean) sediment came from that is now on all continents.

…or other @moderators

12000 meters = 7.456 miles

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/2015GC006143

https://rwu.pressbooks.pub/webboceanography/chapter/12-6-sediment-distribution/

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You have not been listening. Seabeds get lifted by tectonics to become mountains.

You might have the wrong earth, here. [Among lots of other things.]

Sure they do. Reread my post - carefully.

Not that your statement here is at all correct, but for the sake of it, all this ocean sediment you have posting about, how do you think it came to be in the first place?

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Um, instantly?

Yes, it is due to those sections of the continent being underwater for millions of years.

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Here is my wrapup for this thread. Although I have certainly been in the minority in my views on this, I want you all to know that I have appreciated your input and the links you have provided for further study.

The study of Sloss sequences (or “megasequences”), based upon actual geological data derived from borehole samples, leads us to recognize that at some time in our earth’s past, all continents were simultaneously subjected to increasing levels of ocean flooding. And after hitting the highest level, covering at least most of all continents, the sea levels (during the Tejas sequence) quickly fell as the flooding waters drained off the continents (producing, for example, “the Whopper Sands”—over 1,000 feet thick–of the Gulf of Mexico).

In the 1960’s Sloss, studying specifically the North American continent, pointed to six “discrete packages” of sedimentary rock layers—bounded below and above by “unconformities,” that is, layers of erosion (or, at least, non-deposition of sediment). From the bottom to the top, he called them the Sauk (corresponding to the Cambrian—middle Ordovician), the Tippecanoe (middle Ordovician—middle Devonian), the Kaskaskia (mid-Devonian—mid-Mississippian), the Absaroka (end of Mississippian—Permian) , the Zuni (Jurassic—Cretaceous), and the Tejas (Paleocene—Oligocene).

Each of these megasequences records a major “transgression”—or incursion of ocean waters over the craton (continent), followed by a major “regression,” when the ocean waters receded off the continent. The uniformitarian interpretation says that each transgression and regression of ocean water occurred over millions of years; that is, they envision a slowly, slowly rising sea level that spilled over onto the continents, then spread out, to increasing extents from Sauk to Tejas. Because they see each flooding period as occurring over millions of years, they interpret the slowly transgressing and regressing waters as “epeiric (that is, inland) seas”—“ancient seas that once covered our continents.” On the other hand, the catastrophic Flood interpretation sees these six transgressing/regressing cycles of flooding ocean waters as occurring with powerful hydraulics—possibly by mega-tsunamis set off by plate tectonics—powerful enough to drive 250-ton boulders (as found in the Sauk megasequence). Powerful enough for the Sauk transgressing waters to erode basement granite, leaving the “Great Unconformity.” Disarticulated and graded bone beds all over the world also testify to much greater hydraulics than proposed by uniformitarians.

Both the uniformitarian and global Flood views recognize the function of these flooding water sediments in producing fossils. However, the former believe fossils were formed when marine organisms simply died and sank down into their epeiric sea sediments; and terrestrial organisms were fossilized after dying (in most cases) a natural death, then falling into lake or river sediments. On the other hand, the latter believe the turbulent sediment flow itself killed most life forms—marine and terrestrial—quickly and completely burying them…thus accounting for, on one hand, many amazingly detailed fossils; but, on the other hand, jumbled-up bone beds.

While uniformitarians see the fossil record as a portrayal of a mostly normal life, much like today; Flood catastrophists see the fossil record as a portrayal of sudden and overwhelming death.

Neglecting the fact that shells and bones are shattered, ground up and destroyed in tsunamis. That does about wrap it up.

Completely unable to account for preservation of fragile things, or deposits sorted by ecosystem and time. Jumbled beds of smashed large things should be the only deposits found if this is the case.

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Dale, this does happen in many places.

Notice this quote:

"Chapter 3. GEOLOGIC EFFECTS AND RECORDS OF TSUNAMIS JOANNE BOURGEOIS Department of Earth & Space Sciences University of Washington 5 March 2008 edition

Presence of marine fossils in a deposit is one piece of evidence for a tsunami origin, rather than fluvial or eolian (non-marine) processes (Hemphill-Haley, 1995; S. Dawson et al., 1996; Hutchinson et al., 1997; Williams and Hutchinson, 2000; Sawai, 2002)."

Evidence of both is found, whether it makes sense to you or not.

The earth and the universe are of enormous antiquity, whether you believe it or not, and your interpretation of Genesis is not infallible.

Did you ever reply about girdled rocks? It looks like you have ignored or avoided it.

Tsunamis don’t sort fossils and igneous rocks so that certain fossil species and groups are always found below rocks with specific ratios of K/Ar, U/Pb, and Rb/Sr. A flood can’t explain the correlation between fossils and radiometric dating.

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…so many things. All of reality doesn’t fit into tunnel vision.

Thanks for sharing your perspective, Don.

Rather than re-litigate everything, I would simply summarize the position of the overwhelming majority of geologists this way: The scenario favored by flood geologists and the scenario favored by the scientific mainstream make thousands of differing predictions about fine details.

For just one example, the flood geology model would predict a chaotic fossil jumble of various kinds of relatively immobile creatures (trees, shrubs, other plants, microbiota, slow-moving animals like snails and shellfish); the scientific mainstream model would predict layers of differentiated fossils based on the different geologic eras in which evolving populations have lived.

Dozens of such examples have been mentioned in this thread. A deep and broad expertise in the fields of paleontology, geophysics, and geology is needed to weigh the vast evidential record and select the best supported model. No one person or even small group can hope to take on this task; a community of deeply studied experts in the various fields is needed.

For those who are interested in the question of which model fits the evidence, we are fortunate that a community of tens of thousands of Ph.D. scientists has indeed been working on the question for about 2 centuries. They have come to a conclusive finding.

I, for one, am not inclined to think I can overturn their judgment.

Best,
Chris Falter

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I just discovered that I embedded the wrong link to where I had posted about girdled rocks. This is the correct one: girdled rocks.

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Exactly, that is why a sequence of tsunamis is not a good explanation.

That is one deposit. There are thousands of deposits that do not fit with tsunami deposition.

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