Re: Canadian Coal - depositional setting

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Bill Payne <bpayne15@juno.com>
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:52:03 -0600
>Glenn made the point, as did you, that disconnected, detrital roots would
>tend to lay horizontally to subhorizontally. It has since occurred to me
>that vertical detrital roots could result from floating plants with their
>roots still attached. In a swamp setting with saturated soil, if the
>swamp were overtopped with strong currents of water the soil would be
>eroded from around the plant roots as the plants were being uprooted. As
>the plants went into suspension, their roots would still be attached,
>hanging down in the water. Given the fluidity of the turbidity current I
>described in the acidified glass vial, it is quite possible that if the
>plants had settled to the bottom, still floating but with their roots
>touching the bottom, the sediment from a gentle turbidity current would
>settle around the plant roots without significant distortion. In fact,
>if the water were turbid from previous currents as the plants settled to
>the bottom, the sediment would collect around the roots (and plants) with
>no distortion (until the sediments were compressed during burial). This
>process would work for fine-grained sediments, but may not for sand.
>

Bill, when one wants really badly to beleive something, one will go to great lengths to explain discrepancies. Face it, the simplest explanation is that the roots grew in place.
Received on Sun Feb 29 10:05:51 2004