Re: Oceanic salt evaporation

GRMorton@aol.com
Tue, 24 Oct 1995 21:52:12 -0400

Art Chadwick wrote:
>>Glenn writes
>For those who want this salt to be deposited by the flood, they often have
>pollen grains in them! This indicates subaerial exposure.
>

Not at all. For example, the Great Valley sequence, several kilometers
thickness of limestone turbidites deposited in deep water offshore of
California, (now part of the Central Valley) has abundant palynomorphs and
plant fossils, etc, as well as dinos. This is certainly not exceptional.
Art<<

Oh, it is difficult to get an error past Art, (and Andrew MacRae who wrote me
privately). Art (and Andrew) are quite correct that pollen is found in
marine sediments. However, as my Canadian friend pointed out pollen without
marine palynomorphs usually does indicate that.

However, let me take another tack with regard to the pollen suggested by
Andrew amplified by me. (If Andrew wants to disavow this he can be free to do
so). If the geologic column were produced by a global flood, this means that
the world was covered with water at the time the salts were deposited. Since
there was no land, there was no place for plants to grow and release their
pollen. there would be less of it. If you want to say that the plants could
float in the flood waters, leaves exposed, releasing their pollen, you have a
major problem. Salt water is lethal to most terrestrial plants. If they
die quickly from saltwater exposure, then they will not produce pollen.
Thus, this leads to the conclusion that where we find pollen in the salt, we
know that land was nearby.

Is this a better argument? Art, Andrew?

glenn