Re: Polystrate trees

Glenn Morton (grmorton@psyberlink.net)
Mon, 17 Feb 1997 18:56:52 -0600

At 09:36 AM 2/17/97 GMT, David J. Tyler wrote:
>
>You may remember that I responded with a question about whether
>anyone had seen a fossil tree passing through any coal seam. The
>quotes Glenn provides illustrate the point I was making:
>
>> "Since this particular tree at Blackrod was described more than fifty trees
>> fossilized in position of growth have been observed in Lancashire, mmostly
>> on opencast coal workings. These trees are found at various horizons
>> between coal seams, and they occur, also in partings within coal seams.
>> Where trees occur in the roof beds of a coal seam the root system is
>> developed in the beds above the top of the coal; in no case has a tree been
>> observed to pass from the roof into the coal itself.
>
>This is VERY important observation. The old idea of trees being
>fossilised in growth position surrounded by a peat soil do not match
>up to observation. The root systems of these trees are not in seat
>earths.
>
Wait, David. The observation in Lancashire was that the roots of the trees
above were not in the coal at all. How does this argue for a rapid
deposition of the coal/sediment system? Randy was arguing for that. I am
not sure you and I are in disagreement.
It seems to me that this lack of projection out of the coal might argue for
a rapid deposition of the sediment above the coal, which is coarser-grained
and higher energy than is the coal below. The coal, under this circumstance
is not required to be deposited rapidly with the beds above.

>Glenn writes:
>> The interesting thing is that the fossil trees are not found in the slowly
>> deposited, fine grained, organic rocks . The trees are found in
>> coarse-grained rapidly deposited sediments,
>
>You are right. This also is VERY interesting. The sandstones
>enclosing these trees is high energy.

By contrast the coal is lower energy so like shales, how do we explain the
deposition of fine-grained material by a global flood? The chalk at Dover
in your country is approximately the same age as the white chalk upon which
Dallas is built. Here the chalk is around 400 feet thick. Chalk consists
of about 80% dead, microscopic coccoliths. These coccoliths require lots of
time to fall to the ocean floor, like several years if they are falling by
themselves. Hooked to other coccoliths it can fall faster. but in a flood
how do such fine grained, organic remains like coccoliths fall in a year?
This is the same problem one would have explaning an organic rich shale or
coal for that matter.
>
>Fred Broadhurst summarises the observational evidence:
>> "The significance of the upright trees in Lancashire, so far as this study
>> is concerened, is that they were all found enclosed by fine sandstones,
>> siltstones, and coarse-grained mudstones but not by the fine-grained
>> sediments, including those containing shells.
>
>Glenn, these field evidences, in my opinion, are consistent with the
>idea that these trees are allochthonous. They are consistent with
>the idea that (local) catastrophism is involved. Those who want to
>defend the idea that these tree were buried in situ have a bit more
>work to do to show that their models match up to the test of
>observational data.

This has been my point.We do not disagreee here. Polystrate trees ARE
evidence of local catastrophism, but do not require the Global Flood for
their explanation. The point of Randy's use of them has been to suuport a
Global Flood.

glenn

Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm