RE: Roots Below Coal

-----Original Message-----
From: bpayne15@juno.com [mailto:bpayne15@juno.com]
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 10:35 PM

>>>>Dark sandstone is not coal. The transition from light to dark sandstone
is gradational; the transition from dark sandstone to coal is abrupt.
However, after looking at the photos again, I believe the coal we can see
may be entirely reworked by the mining process. Therefore, I don't think
either of us can draw any conclusions about how abrupt this coal/sandstone
contact was. <<<<

The sandstone is not reworked, and as to transition, I didn't say that
sandstone was coal. No one said that. What I said was that you could see
the gradual transition to finer and more organic particles in the sandstone.
That is there. The uppermost, dark sandy layer has more organics in it.

>>> I also retract my earlier statement that I could see vitrain bands in
the right 1/3 of the photo at the base of the coal; that may just be a
fortuitous placement of coal fragments.<<<<

>>>Again, there is another possibility. The stringer of coal may be a piece
of flotsam that got buried in the sand, along with the roots and fine
organic material which became more predominant as the influx of sand
subsided. When the transport of sand ceased, the organics were all that was
deposited, hence the presence of coal and the absence of sand. The
transition from light to dark sandstone is indicative of an increasing
percentage of fine detrital peat, not increasing roots.<<<<

The transition from light to dark is indicative of an increasing organic
content. That is what I said originally. And so now you acknowledge that the
transition isn't abrupt. You are being inconsistent here with what you said
above. As to the roots, explain how soft unconsolidated sand can cling to
the veggie mat long enough for roots to grow into them when the sand is
soaking wet. And explain the roots. The dark color change is not due to
increasing roots. The only thing that are roots are the dendritic dark marks
the hand points to. You are ignoring those and now claiming that I said the
color change was increasing roots. Nowhere did I say that. So stick with the
subject and explain how the roots (the dark dendritic things) embedded
themselves in a sand on the bottom of the sea.

>>>>Glenn, I only know what I can see and what you tell me about this coal.
Using an assumed thickness of six inches, all that is visible of what's left
in the photos, and using the most rapid rate of peat deposition at 5 mm/yr,
I calculated 300 years to produce only 6 inches of coal. That's a best-case
scenario for your model. If the coal was thicker, say three feet, and if we
use a more commonly accepted rate for peat accumulation of 1 to 2 mm/yr and
a compaction ratio of 20x for peat to coal, then we are looking at more like
13,000 years to accumulate the peat for 3 feet of coal. I can live with 300
years, or 13,000 years, or any number in between. The original thickness of
the coal is completely irrelevant. You still need to explain the whimpy
roots beneath 300+ year-old trees (or however long trees lived back
then).<<<

If you can live with 13,000 years, then neither the global flood nor the
young earth is true. Thus there is no need to try to make this data out to
be a deposit of the global flood.

>>I assumed that the area had been mined. I did not understand that you
would label the disturbed remains of an old stockpile as a particular coal
seam - the J seam. >>>

What I labled disturbed was that single piece of coal on the left side of
the photo. Not the entire deposit. Don't extrapolate.

>>> What you call the J seam is not a crappy seam of coal, it is no coal
seam at all. Your label is misleading. I should have realized I was
looking at an interpretation by a biased observer and not data.<<<

I will ask the guy who sent me those photos to come and let him explain them
if he choses to. But I would like to ask about bias. You are the one who
seems to be biased towards massive catastrophes and floating coal meaning a
global flood, when no one else follows your chain of logic.

>>>Based upon the distinct banding (now vertical, but near horizontal when
formed) in the dislodged chunk of coal to the left of the sandstone, I think
it is safe to assume that the J seam was a banded coal, just like the coals
in the eastern US. Horizontal banding typically runs through these coals
from bottom to top, and consists primarily of sheets of bark interbedded
with less shinny leaves, pollen, impurities, etc. <<<<

First off without doing microscopic analysis you can't automatically claim
that any banding you see is due to bark. That is assuming evidence you don't
have. Secondly, in this very note, you said :
>>> I also retract my earlier statement that I could see vitrain bands in
the right 1/3 of the photo at the base of the coal; that may just be a
fortuitous placement of coal fragments.<<<<

Which is inconsistent with this part of the note.

 Thin bedding is characteristic of water-borne sedimentary deposits. Sheets
of bark sink through water and settle flat on the bottom, or follow the
contour if the bottom is sloping. Now, Glenn, how do you propose to
preserve this thinly-banded structure when you have root balls from mature
trees growing through the peat, and furthermore ripping the peat up if the
tree is uprooted? Look at Pefferkorn's photo of the Amazon swamp, or check
your Okefenokee swamp, and tell me how you will even propose to collect
sheets of tree bark on a planar surface that extends unbroken for miles,
when you have no extensive planar surfaces in modern swamps. This is an
important point, and one which you OECs love to ignore.

>>>>I don't understand what you are saying here. What do you mean "so the
roots wouldn't have penetrated below that?" Below what?<<<

Explain how roots originally in a veggie mat ended up growing in a sandstone
on the bottom of the ocean?

>>>>I didn't say transport the soft sand with the roots. Rather, as the
roots settle out the sand settles around the roots. Roots would tend to
settle first out of a mixture of peat since roots are designed to absorb
water more aggressively than trunks or leaves, and would therefore become
waterlogged first and settle first.<<<

You can't do that Bill. First, surely not every single root is so
gentlemanly as to fall from the veggie mat before the bark. Secondly, if
the veggie mat is shedding material, and sand is being deposited, there
should be sand in the base of the coal and coal in the top of the sand,
meaning the contact couldn't be sharp. Your explanation is a bit stretched.

> That wasn't the question Bill. YOu need to prove that no coal came
> from rooted beds. Finding oddities is a fun game but it doesn't
> lead to substantive explanations.

>>>>Glenn, roots below coal is exactly the question. I've sent you quotes
from the professional literature that the roots that do appear below coals
are often disarticulated and crumpled, photos that show that the roots below
coal, such as they are, don't look anything like intact tree roots either
from modern swamps or from ancient trees. <<<<

We are talking about these photos, with the dentritic roots.

>>> Intact, articulated tree roots don't appear below the coal, they don't
appear in partings, they don't disturb the horizontal banding, and vertical
tree trunks don't appear in partings or above coal seams, except in rare
instances when they settled out of suspension into a vertical position and
were buried.<<<

And this applies to these photos??? I don't think so.

> Once again, that wasn't the question. Your response was non
> responsive. You must prove that vegetation mats require a global
> flood. Partings have nothing to do with that question. There are
> floating vegetational islands in the Okefenokee, and there is no
> current global flood Bill.

>>>Actually, partings do require a flood to create a smooth, treeless
surface for the parting to lay on, but I can see you would rather avoid that
issue (and understandably so). <<<<

I will acknowledge I don't understand how partings take place but I don't
see the logic which requires me to think in terms of a global flood forming
the coal from that.

>>>Vegetation floating in the Okefenokee means only that there is vegetation
floating in the Okefenokee. It is a non sequitur to say that you must have
a global flood before you can have floating vegetation. But that's OK, I
know you're getting desperate when you throw the Okefenokee at me.<<<

Oh, I am always desperate. :-)

>>>In summary, I have presented a number of independent lines of evidence
which strongly suggest that your J seam of coal originated from a flood
deposit. You have only offered sparse, whimpy roots to support a forest and
your claim that this coal was in situ from a swamp. Your tree roots are
sparse, lack any consistent pattern we would expect to see if they were
articulated to individual tree stumps, appear to be disconnected, and one is
upside down. Limbs grow toward light, roots grow toward water. Water sinks
in sand. To get roots to grow up in a sandy soil would require perched
water, which would require an aquitard layer, which we don't see in your
friend's photos.<<<

First off, I haven't seen the evidence you say you presented. Secondly, I
didn't claim these were tree roots. They aren't at least the small ones
aren't. So don't try to claim that this was necessarily a forest. The roots
look more like shrubs than trees.

>>>One last thing: Behind the "t" in the word "roots" on the "J SEAM"
photo, and below the "n" in "rootzone" in the "camera case" photo is a
vertical root which is truncated by the horizontal dark bed. In the "camera
case" photo there appear to be one or two other roots to the right which may
also be truncated by this horizontal bed. If these were roots growing down
looking for water, how did they know to stop at the dark bed? <<<

Don't see any real significance to this observation.

Bill
Received on Tue Dec 2 07:02:10 2003