Geologic Time Scale

[blacklabluvr]

Alright I have a few problems with the geologic time scale for one. We never have found more than 3 layer in sequence anywhere on the earth.

Also the biggest problem. There are petrified all over the globe found in the upright position through layers that are supposed to be millions of years apart. Don't you think the tree's would rot over millions of years? How come we find ten's of thousands of these tree's found standing up?

[QED]

Do you really believe that the geologic time scale is right?
yes (I happen to be mentaly ill)

Well, if you wanted to get the attention of a Moderator, you certainly knew what you were doing. Is it too late for you to go back and edit this option to something more civil I wonder?

You know, I think there's a convergence of evidence and physics that makes your problem go away if you look into the work that's gone into the Geologic Model. For a highly entertaining and fairly light read of the history behind the finding of the age of the planet (and just about everything else!) I highly recommend A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. Rather than expose yourself to a potential conspiracy in the "scientists" take on the data, I think it would help for you to see the full context of the investigations as they were conducted throughout history. You will see the various bits of the puzzle and how they fell into place -- not through the demands of one overarching philosophy, but because you simply can't beat the laws of physics.

[micatala]

Also the biggest problem. There are petrified all over the globe found in the upright position through layers that are supposed to be millions of years apart. Don't you think the tree's would rot over millions of years? How come we find ten's of thousands of these tree's found standing up?

I would suggest reading the discussion of polystrate fossils here as a starter.

One of the main points is . . . .

As for Malone's "problem" with the "thousands of years" for the tree to remain upright for "slow accumulation" to occur, it is a non-problem - he is simply interpolating the average depositional rates for an entire formation down to the scale of metres. This is not the correct way to do it, because individual beds can be deposited rapidly (say, sands and mud during a levee breach), and then little deposition can occur for a long time (e.g., a soil horizon), as is observed in modern river floodplain environments where trees commonly occur. In short, he is assuming conventional geologists would interpret the occurrence the simple way he has interpolated - they do not.

It would be helpful if blacklabluvr would provide an example where such petrified trees do actually go through millions of years worth of layers. We would need to consider whether there is evidence, as cited in the examples from the link above, that the tree roots grew into the layers, or whether we have only a 'petrified trunk' that can be determined to have had layers form around it.

[Confused]

http://www.geo.ucalgary.ca/~macrae/time ... scale.html

Geological Time Scale
Few discussions in geology can occur without reference to geologic time. Geologic time is often dicussed in two forms:

Relative time ("chronostratic") -- subdivisions of the Earth's geology in a specific order based upon relative age relationships (most commonly, vertical/stratigraphic position). These subdivisions are given names, most of which can be recognized globally, usually on the basis of fossils.
Absolute time ("chronometric") -- numerical ages in "millions of years" or some other measurement. These are most commonly obtained via radiometric dating methods performed on appropriate rock types.
Think of relative time as physical subdivisions of the rock found in the Earth's stratigraphy, and absolute time as the measurements taken upon those to determine the actual time which has expired. Absolute time measurements can be used to calibrate the relative time scale, producing an integrated geologic or "geochronologic" time scale.
It is important to realize that with new information about subdivision or correlation of relative time, or new measurements of absolute time, the dates applied to the time scale can and do change. Revisions to the relative time scale have occurred since the late 1700s. The numerically calibrated geologic time scale has been continuously refined since approximately the 1930s (e.g., Holmes, 1937), although the amount of change with each revision has become smaller over the decades (see fig. 1.5 and 1.6 of Harland et al.) and a few numerical estimates were available previously (but often for the duration of the entire scale rather than its individual subdivisions).

In addition, like any good scientific measurement, every dated boundary has an uncertainty associated with it, expressed as "+- X millions of years". These can not be included in the diagram for practical reasons, but can be found in Harland et al., 1990, along with a detailed description of the history of earlier-proposed time scales and the terminology, methodology and data involved in constructing this geological time scale.

Because of continual refinement, none of the values depicted in this diagram should be considered definitive, eventhough some have not changed significantly in a long time and are very well constrained (e.g., the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary has been at 65+-1 Ma for decades, and has been tested innumerable times, with almost all dates somewhere between 64 and 66 million years). The overall duration and relative length of these large geologic intervals is unlikely to change much, but the precise numbers may "wiggle" a bit as a result of new data.

This gelogical time scale is based upon Harland et al., 1990, but with the Precambrian/Cambrian boundary modified according to the most recently-published radiometric dates on that interval, revising the boundary from 570+-15 million years to 543+-1 million years ago (Grotzinger et al., 1995). Other changes have been proposed since 1990 (e.g., revision of the Cretaceous by Obradovich, 1993), but are not incorporated because they are relatively small.

The time scale is depicted in its traditional form with oldest at the bottom and youngest at the top -- the present day is at the zero mark. Geologic time is finely subdivided through most of the Phanerozoic (see Harland et al., 1990 for details), but most of the finer subdivisions (e.g., epochs) are commonly referred to by non-specialists only in the Tertiary. Because of the vast difference in scale, the younger intervals have been successively expanded to the right to show some of these finer subdivisions.

geological time scale

http://www.geo.ucalgary.ca/~macrae/time ... _scale.gif

[Confused]

yes (I happen to be mentaly ill)

If the validity of the convergence of evidence and science is a contributing factor to being mentally ill, then sure, I will be mentally ill. I don't think your post is sarcastic, rather a fallacy: argument from personal incredulity. Quite simply, you opted to attack something without researching it and determining the facts behind the conclusions. Your conclusion is false due to lack of information.

[Furrowed Brow]

Alright I have a few problems with the geologic time scale for one. We never have found more than 3 layer in sequence anywhere on the earth.

You don’t define what kind of layer you mean. Anyhow go here . You'll see a nice image of four stratas - Pennsylvanian, Mississippian, Devonian and Cambrian at Lake Mead.

As your first assertion supporting your “problem” is clealry false, I think there is little more to add.

[olivergringold]

The biggest problem with the geological time scale is not the science which supports it, but rather the PR which purports it. On an unrelated note, hooray for unintended internal rhyme.

Folks like Dwane Gish and, prior to being locked up, Kent Hovind have made their bread and butter wandering around telling people that the only place to find the "geological column" is, and I quote, "in the textbooks." The problem with this line of reasoning is that they are using as their base for the geological column the notion that, all throughout the Earth, scientists ought to find the exact same layers in the exact same order. This notion was only hypothesized by science, and was never accepted. The actual geological column is incredibly varied, and if you've ever read papers by two contemporary scientists with conflicting views of how old an artifact is, you'll note that, in addition to bickering like children, the time, consideration, and evidence that scientists put into a claim-of-age based on geology is just about airtight, and that whenever new evidence comes along it is always, always incorporated.

The only place where a unified geological column can truly be found is in the minds of deceivers like Hovind and Gish, and the flocks of believers who swarm to them.
_________________

[Jose]

yes (I happen to be mentaly ill)

If the validity of the convergence of evidence and science is a contributing factor to being mentally ill, then sure, I will be mentally ill. I don't think your post is sarcastic, rather a fallacy: argument from personal incredulity. Quite simply, you opted to attack something without researching it and determining the facts behind the conclusions. Your conclusion is false due to lack of information.

Dang, you're good. I agree: it's hard to be sarcastic when you only know one point of view. It reminds me of a discussion we had a while back about lying. Some people said it's lying to say something that's not true, even though you said it because you really believed it was true. Others said, no, it's just being wrong and not knowing enough.

It's interesting, given the odd claims that are often made about the geologic column, that there are quite a number of places on earth where the entire sequence exists unbroken. The Williston Basin in North Dakota is one such place. How do we know? It's those darned oil geologists. In their prospecting for oil, they drilled bazillions of wells, keeping well logs, and creating rock cores. Now that we've used up our oil, most of them have donated their cores to university libraries. You can check 'em out, if you've got a way to carry a few tons of rock on your bicycle.

Now, one might be able to quibble with "scientists" about their rocks--maybe they are in their heads, you might think. But can you quibble as easily with people who absolutely depend on the science to make money? Absolutely not. Their lives depend on it--and, ironically, so does the current Administration, and its political support by anti-evolutionists. Isn't it weird how something like the great age of the earth can be so important to those who insist the earth is only 6000 years old?

[micatala]

yes (I happen to be mentaly ill)

If the validity of the convergence of evidence and science is a contributing factor to being mentally ill, then sure, I will be mentally ill. I don't think your post is sarcastic, rather a fallacy: argument from personal incredulity. Quite simply, you opted to attack something without researching it and determining the facts behind the conclusions. Your conclusion is false due to lack of information.

Dang, you're good. I agree: it's hard to be sarcastic when you only know one point of view. It reminds me of a discussion we had a while back about lying. Some people said it's lying to say something that's not true, even though you said it because you really believed it was true. Others said, no, it's just being wrong and not knowing enough.

It's interesting, given the odd claims that are often made about the geologic column, that there are quite a number of places on earth where the entire sequence exists unbroken. The Williston Basin in North Dakota is one such place. How do we know? It's those darned oil geologists. In their prospecting for oil, they drilled bazillions of wells, keeping well logs, and creating rock cores. Now that we've used up our oil, most of them have donated their cores to university libraries. You can check 'em out, if you've got a way to carry a few tons of rock on your bicycle.

Now, one might be able to quibble with "scientists" about their rocks--maybe they are in their heads, you might think. But can you quibble as easily with people who absolutely depend on the science to make money? Absolutely not. Their lives depend on it--and, ironically, so does the current Administration, and its political support by anti-evolutionists. Isn't it weird how something like the great age of the earth can be so important to those who insist the earth is only 6000 years old?

I thank Jose for the link to the discussion of the Williston area geology. I can't say I read the whole thing , but I did find the conclusion very informative and a quite compelling refutation of the global flood concept.

Another compelling argument against the global flood can be found at Hugh Ross' Reasons to Believe website. Ross is an evangelical Christian and not a particular friend of evolution. However, he makes both scientific and Biblical arguments against the global flood.