At 11:09 AM 9/1/98 -0700, Joseph Mastropaolo wrote:
>Hi Pim:
>
> If the loessian nodules had been formed by any of the mechanisms that
>you have listed then there would be no problem, but clearly they were
>not. To begin with these nodules have no nucleus, although they are not
>exactly hollow on the inside like geodes.
Nodules do not absolutely require a nucleus. Speaking of the Vadose
Diagenetic environment, Clyde Moore, a man who taught me a whole lot about
carbonate diagenesis, wrote:
"In regions of high rainfall and porous sediment, water tends to move
through the zone quickly, and dissolution is probably the dominant
process. In this situation, the air-sediment interface may show little
evidence of subaerial exposure. The CaCO2 removed by dissolution may be
transported downward into the zone of capillarity, or the lower vadose
zone, where calcite cements are precipitated.
"In arid to semi-arid climates, however, the potential for carbonate
dissolution, evaporation, and subsequent calcite precipitation under
near-surface conditions results in the formation of distinctive surface
soil crusts variously called caliche, calcrete, or duricrust. Caliche
soils have been the subject of intensive research over the past 10 years
because of their potential usefulness in environmental reconstruction.
Fig. 7.1 is a sketch of a typical caliche profile showing its major
characteristics.
"The central features of the crust include, a laminated hardpan
usually developed on the top of the sequence, followed successively by a
zone of plates and crusts; a nodular or pisolitic chalky sequence; and
finally a chalky transition into untouched sediments or country rock. The
caliche profile is the result of intensive dissolution of original
sediments, or limestones, and the rapid reprecipitation of calcite, often
driven by organic activity. Original textures and fabrics are generally
destroyed and are replaced by a malange of distinctive fabrics, textures
and structures, such as: nodules, pisoids, rhizoids (concretions around
roots), teepees (pseudo-anticlines), crystal silt (microspar) and
microcodium (calcified cells of soil fungi and higher plants)." ~ C. H.
Moore, "Carbonate Diagenesis and Porosity," Developments in Sedimentology
46, (New York: Elsevier, 1989), p. 178-179
>
>Hi Glenn:
>
> I am bit surprised and dismayed that you would offer such a simplistic
>mechanism to account for the loessian nodules. Certainly this reasoning
>would carry no weight whatever before an audience that had Plates 32 to
>40 of Petersen's book before them.
I am shocked that a man of your intelligence would only be familiar with
one side of the argument never having read any geologic literature on how
nodules form. If you were truly interested in learning whether or not
Petersen's views were correct then you would have read BOTH sides of the
argument.
> Concerning Barrow and Tipler's Anthropic Cosmological Principle: If
>they concluded that our communications in three spatial dimensions could
>not traverse into the fourth dimension, they would be correct because
>our carriers are three dimensional and thereby constrained. If you are
>saying that because we can't send email they don't exist, then of course
>that is false. Or if you are saying that given four dimensions there
>could be no communication in three, that also is false.
This clearly shows that you have not bothered to even do the simple and
intellectually honest thing of going to the library and looking at what I
referred you to. I would challenge you to mathematically prove the last
sentence above. Barrow and Tipler are NOT saying that our 3D communications
could not penetrate a 4th spatial dimenstion; they are saying that NO
fidelitous communication could possibly exist if there is a 4th spatial
dimension. Unless you already have your mind made up, and no data could
possibly move you, or you are knowledgeable in all things, I would have
expected a professor emeritus to have gone and done his research. I quote
Barrow and Tipler, (since you won't go look at the actual data preferring
your own already preformed conclusion),
"Only three-dimensional worlds appear to possess the 'nice' properties
necessary for the transmission of high-fidelity signals because of the
simultaneous realization of sharp and distortionless propagation. This
situation led Courant and Hilbert to conclude that
'...our actual physical world, in which acoustic or electromagnetic signals
are the basis of communication seems to be singled out among other
mathematically conceivable models by simplicity and harmony.'
"If living systems require high-fidelity wave propagation for their
existence to be possible, then we could not expect to observe the world to
possess other than three spatial dimensions." John D. Barrow and Frank J.
Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1986), p. 269
They show the mathematics on page 267-268. If you disagree with this
mathematics please present a mathematical argument that falsifies their
conclusion. If you are unable to present such an argument, then I would
respectfully submit that you are unable to really judge the issue in spite
of your claims!
Their work and the work of Courant and Hilbert (Methods of Mathematical
Physics (Interscience 1962), shows clearly that any universe with a
dimensionality other than 3 spatial and 1 time dimension cannot convey
information via a sound or electromagnetic wave.
And if nothing could 'penetrate' this 4th dimension, then why can a comet
communicate its existence to our 3d world along this plane?
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm