You are clearly overstating your case. Such does not help your credibility.
There are two types of fining upward patterns associated with tsunamis, but neither matches the standard pattern of Walther’s law, nor would the tsunamis of flood geology imagination produce such patterns. Generating tsunamis able to flood the whole earth would also generate enough heat to melt the earth, so the word “imagination” is justified.
As a tsunami, or any other wave, washes up onto land, the water slows down. Right near where the wave hits, there can be a a jumble of all sorts of things, but soon the wave will be moving too little to carry the biggest and heaviest stuff. So the farther up the beach/land you go, you tend to see smaller pieces plus less dense pieces (such as bits of wood, seaweed, or plastic). Similarly, when the water draining back from a wave washes into the ocean, the bigger/denser pieces washed with the wave settle out faster while the finer material takes longer to settle. But the pattern from Walther’s law is to have sandy at the beach and finer somewhat deeper, the reverse of the pattern from a large wave washing onto land. Likewise, the deposition after things have settled is a distinct pattern of smaller-scale vertical fining upward throughout the area that got stuff washed to it, without the side to side change associated with Walther’s Law. Again, Walther’s law is that the pattern of facies that you see if you go horizontally along an environmental gradient at any one point in time is also the pattern of facies change that you see if you go up or down through a section, because the different environments have all shifted together. Global flooding by tsunamis would not produce a gradual shift from lowland swampy areas to beach dunes to beach to shallow water to somewhat deeper water to somewhat deeper still and then back again. Likewise, the constant tsunamis should wash away the deposits from each previous wave - there would be no chance for the fine material to settle out until after the flood, just as the line of deposits from each wave on a beach keeps being shifted by the next one. (Also keep in mind how well the ark could stand the waves that you’re suggesting.)
Based on the claims of young-earthers and former young-earthers who have worked for oil companies, I am confident that the estimate of at least hundreds of young-earthers being in the business is not an overestimate. But none of them have ever given any example of how a young earth model helps them find oil. If you think that is an overstatement, try finding any examples of a young-earth model actually working to find natural resources. When confronted with that point, John Reed, who has worked in the oil industry, invoked the presence of many young-earthers in the industry but did not give any example of how they used young-earth models to find anything. He also claimed that someone had found some resource to be present in older and younger layers but not in between. Besides being too vague to assess, no evidence was given that this pattern would be supported by a young-earth model.
Try predicting, based on young-earth models, where to find oil. There’s not enough information there - the models aren’t designed to give a good description of how the earth works, but only to try to persuade people that the earth is young.
It is true that some oil has been found just by stumbling across it. But no oil has ever been found based on applying a distinctively young-earth model. Oil companies aren’t out to support the scientific consensus - they are major funders of climate denial. They are going to use whatever methods work. They don’t use young-earth models.
1 Like
And you know this how, Don? Have you worked as a geologist in the oil industry?
Also, did you read the links provided to you about Glenn Morton, an oil industry geologist who was a prominent figure for a while in the YEC movement?
Blessings,
Chris
4 Likes
"Flood geology claims that catastrophic flooding occurred which should have jumbled everything together, yet oil and gas exploration finds distinct layers that have different types of microfossils, different chemical properties, different magnetism, etc., etc., and this sequence is consistent globally."
The Sloss sequences constitute “flood geology”…with “distinct layers that have different types of microfossils,” etc. However, it’s up to us to interpret the data. Does it point to one big Flood over a year–or does it point to six floods, over 500 million years. In either case, they are “distinct layers”–in fact discrete “packages” of sedimentary layers. And, the same basic packages are found on every continent.
Actually, megasequence studies reveal that the Zuni (Cretaceous) saw the highest ocean levels and the largest sediment deposits on all continents. In fact, the transgressive water flow was so catastrophic and overpowering that it wiped out whole herds of dinosaurs (like the Maiasaura, in western Montana)–burying them alive. It also catastrophically buried thousands of dinosaurs in Alberta, Canada, where arguably the largest dinosaur “graveyard” on earth is found. But it wasn’t just in North America. China, too, has such mass dinosaur graveyards, dating to the Zuni megasequence. Some have proposed flooding rivers (wiping out a whole herd of these giants??), tropical storms, or hurricanes. However, this would not account for the amounts of ocean water and sediment that would not only suddenly kill, but also bury and fossilize, these gargantuan creatures. But mega-tsunamis, with a sea level 800’-1000’ above present-day levels, would be capable of catastrophically drowning and completely burying them in ocean sediment.
Bacteria have biodegraded ocean oil spills in a matter of days. Bacteria that biodegrade oil are also found in oil reservoirs. So, you insist that such oil has remained in its reservoirs for “hundreds of millions of years,” somehow escaping being biodegraded by bacteria over all this time?
Are you talking about any anaerobic bacteria?
Detailed fossilization in clay sediments tells us that clay settles much quicker than you seem to be thinking. Many highly detailed, soft-bodied life forms are found, for example, in the Burgess Shale (and, of course, shale is formed from clay sediments). If the clay sediments didn’t quickly compact and cement together, such detail would not be possible, especially with soft-bodied organisms–like fish and jellyfish, which would decompose in just a matter of hours.
Both, but mostly aerobic.
Chris, uniformitarianism is basically a filter through which one sees the world–it is not empirical science.
To say that a geologist can’t do his work effectively unless he is a uniformitarian, is simply not true–in fact, it’s just arrogant.
I appreciate your thoughts, @donpartain . Thanks for your participation. I am curious what you thought of the worm holes? Morton specifically addresses if the sediment seemed likely to deposit quickly or not.
Thanks. Blessings on your day!
1 Like
Hours to a few days is how long silt and clay take to settle in still water. Violent tsunamis are not particularly still, nor can they deposit anything fragile intact, whether it is Cambrian cnidarians, or Plio-Pleistocene pteropods, Atlanta, and Anatinellids.
3 Likes
I pointed out what the underlying assumption is behind the work of geologists (and astrophysicists, and biologists, and climatologists, and…). Do you remember what that was?
That one principle is what allows all the empirical evidence to be analyzed and assembled into models of how the universe works. I also pointed out how, in the absence of that assumption, there is no possibility of performing scientific investigations.
Thus, when you say “uniformitarianism is basically a filter,” I am actually not sure what you are asserting. I don’t even know if we’re talking about the same thing. And you certainly have not shown how it is that scientific investigation could be conducted under an alternative paradigm.
I asked you how it is that you are qualified to make assertions about the work of geologists in industry.
Your responded by repeating your assertions, then you doubled down by saying that anyone who disagrees with your assertions is arrogant.
Do you think this is a productive way to conduct a conversation? What exactly do you think you can accomplish by adopting this communication strategy?
Blessings,
Chris
2 Likes
Let’s use the Bright Angel Shale, in the Grand Canyon (Cambrian/Sauk megasequence)–and try to “solve” the mystery of its deposition. It contains fossils of trilobites, brachiopods, and molluscs. And they are all life forms from ocean shallows.
All these fossils are encased in what was once clay sediments (plus some silt and sand), from the ocean shallows. But Bright Angel Shale today is about 500 feet thick. So, we know there had to be some powerful hydraulics to move such amounts of sediment from the ocean shallows inland (in fact, the Tapeats Sandstone upon which it lies, ranges far inland).
The uniformitarian (deep time) interpretation of this data is that the ocean rose slowly, slowly over millions of years to intrude upon the continent (or craton). And, through this super slow process somehow managed to transport these massive amounts of sediments across much of the continent–somehow, catastrophically burying trilobites, brachiopods, molluscs, etc. etc. in the process.
But the math simply is not there, is it?
How would you know how to assess the tectonics, mountain formation, and erosion models, @donpartain? Are you saying that you grasped in just 24 hours (after I posted links) the science of geophysics that graduate students require years to understand?
Best,
Chris Falter
1 Like
No limestone has ever been documented to form from floodwater – either in the laboratory or from field observations.
Speaking of Bright Angel Shale, how is it that just above it is the Muav Limestone layer?
Without references to papers on reservoir biomes, this is just a vacuous response. The purported flood was about 4500 years ago. How is there still oil, if bacteria degrades it in a matter of days? As far as that goes, why is anyone concerned about oil spills if they are promptly degraded away?
The paper I linked was written by qualified experts who make their living by virtue of success of their model. Do you not think it hubris to dismiss it by this rhetorical deflection, without even addressing any of the actual research?
1 Like
This is just what Walthers Law would call for—a fining up of the transgressive phase of the Sauk sequence
I wasn’t suggesting that bacteria would biodegrade oil reservoirs also in a matter of days but that it seems doubtful such oil would survive intact over hundreds of millions of years, with bio degrading bacteria feeding on it all this time.
The real “hubris” is becoming indignant and offended by being questioned about matters like this.
First, you are wrongly assuming that your articles were my first exposure to plate tectonics, mountain-building, etc.
Second, plate tectonics would account for much stronger hydraulics than a sea rise upon the craton at a rate of about .05 inch/week, as one uniformitarian source has it.