RE: Whimpy Roots

>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
Behalf Of Bill Payne
>Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2004 10:10 PM
>On Wed, 3 Mar 2004 06:07:57 -0600 "Glenn Morton" <glennmorton@entouch.net>
writes:

>> Bill, I believe I have agreed with you that partings in Paleozoic coals
are
>> very tough to explain several times before.
>
>So I gather that you aren't buying Kevin's explanation? It's not that
partings are tough to explain, it's just that you
>don't like the explanation that fits the empirical data. If I can admit
that vertical roots may be in situ, then why can't
>you admit that the best (simplest) explanation for undisturbed partings may
be burial from a floating mat?

That doesn't follow, Bill. I have been busy on other boards so haven't been
following this thread so I don't know Kevin's argument. I don't find coal
to be that problematical. I find your insistence that the coal comes from a
global flood, regardless of roots in places that you can't explain to be
shear stubbornness.

I was discussiong this issue with a sedimentologist who works for me the
other day. He suggested much of the following. He said that in the mouth of
the Mississippi, rooted vegetation by the distributary channel becomes
floating vegetation away from the levee. A friend of his was leading a field
trip showing some oil industry execs how the vegetation was floating. He
jumped up and down on the floating vegetation to show them the waves, when
all of a sudden, the vegetation beneath him gave way. He fell completely
through the layer and disappeared. Everyone thought he was going to die
because he didn't come back up through the hole. It was a full 30 seconds
before he found his way to the edge of the floating vegetation and climbed
back on the raft to the relief of all those standing there.

It is clear that the Pennsylvanian cyclothems were deposited on a very flat
topography. Such situations of floating vegetation, which we see today,
probably would have applied to that situation. And that would allow an
explantion of the partings. The partings occurred when muddy water flooded
the area. It filtered through the floating vegetation, left its shale.

And you know something, Bill? None of this requires the silliness of
believing the unbelievable, which is what you constantly ask us to believe.

>> And I have no problem with some coals being allochthonous.
>
>OK, then will you admit that the coals with undisturbed partings are likely
allochthonous?

I will go with what my sedimentologist suggested. It explains those partings
without trying to create big mysteries. And creating big unexplained
mysteries is what YEC is all about.

>> http://home.entouch.net/dmd/roots.gif
>
>I have a few questions about this rock photo:
>What age is this rock?

Cretaceous

>What is the scale of the photo?

3 inches in height 5 inches wide (approximately). there was 250 layers like
this in a 3 ft core.

>Can you put this photo into Power Point and draw red lines across it where
you think the breaks between annual layers and
>then either posts it or e-mail it to me as an attachment?

I think you have my book (not sure) but that photo is in there and it has
the layers marked (I beleive, it is early and I don't want to go look right
now). Hint, count the dark layers.

>Do you have an extra piece of this rock I could look at for myself? I'll
be happy to return it if necessary.

>Will you agree that the Herren coal with the three partings which cover
~250,000 sq. miles is allochthonous? What about the
> Pittsburg coal which we discussed years ago; is the Pittsburg
allochthonous?

Not after speaking with my sedimentologist the other day. I suspect it was
much like the situation in which that field trip leader experienced. That
would make it autochthonous, but from an attached mat.
Received on Fri Mar 5 07:11:52 2004