Doug, it's my pleasure, you're welcome.dougettinger wrote:To Viscount aero,
Thank you for your lengthy reply. I am just beginning to understand the controversy between gradualism and catastrophism in fossils. I read all your suggested references.
A question arose for me about the dating of a column of geological strata on Earth. Earth is really the only known solar system body with significant plate tectonics, continental drift, volcanism, along with wind and water erosion and the wasting of land masses. Hence, Earth may be the only celestial body in the solar system to have such strata that can reveal a timeline of catastrophies for the solar system. The other bodies can only show the build-up or accumulation of electrical arcing affects over the eons of time including those of actual impacts. Hence, it is difficult to create any timeline of major solar system events on the moons and other planets except for possible crater counting methods. Do you agree with this conclusion?
This is one of the most fascinating topics as it directly ties the Earth into the vast cosmological conversation. You are providing fertile ground for discussion. I must reiterate that for all purposes establishment geology insofar as dating of rock strata by "superposition" has been proven false. Sedimentary layering and boundaries are not epochal from bottom to top. The stratification represents a singular event as demonstrated in the documentary film links I provided above (as well as described in the articles). If you have not yet viewed the YouTube installments I implore you do so as it will change your entire perspective and suddenly. They tested this in a lab. It is therefore repeatable and incontrovertible. This was evidenced, furthermore, via the lake to which the Mount St. Helens catastrophe suddenly displaced. Telltale geologic strata were formed in that event and very instantaneously.
To your statements: "Hence, Earth may be the only celestial body in the solar system to have such strata that can reveal a timeline of catastrophies for the solar system."
I think yes and no. Earth has fluvial action not apparent on other bodies' surfaces. Whether this reveals a "timeline" is exactly the debate as concepts of age or timeline cannot be determined. Epochs can be seen to have arisen and gone but at what time? That isn't known. Mass extinction events are clearly true as there is evidence. But the how and the when isn't actually known. These events may not have happened in deep geological time, but instead much more recently. The YouTube installments explain this very clearly. In other words, evidence for catastrophes exists. But a coherent timeline for them actually doesn't. The Earth is actually too dynamic for a timeline to remain steadfastly recorded. This is my view based on what I have learned.
"The other bodies can only show the build-up or accumulation of electrical arcing affects over the eons of time including those of actual impacts. "
Again, are we looking at impacts? I think yes we are--in some cases. But clearly in other cases we are not, ergo, Hyperion (at Saturn). When you look at Hyperion and believe it is covered with impact craters, in light of the deep structures you can see going into the moon, then that belief entirely overlooks and ignores the moon's internal structure. Impactors could not have created Hyperion's surface appearance because these structures continue deep within the interior body.
Or Phobos (at Mars). There are myriad crater chains on that body (as well as on Earth's Moon and Mercury). How are these explained by errant impactors? These are more than likely made by electrical arcing events. But insofar as when--how can that be known? It cannot be. Surely some craters are old as they are half-buried under regolith (as is seen on Mars). Or are they? How long did it take the crater to become filled with dirt and when did the crater occur? Wind erosion could blow dust and silt into new craters and very rapidly. So where is the basis for an absolute timeline?
"Hence, it is difficult to create any timeline of major solar system events on the moons and other planets except for possible crater counting methods."
See above. And consider Mars again: Vallis Marineris. That is clearly a giant scar running across the face of the planet. That was created in a colossal event and probably all at once. It was excavated from the surface. That has nothing to do with crater dating methods. Even as the Martian southern hemisphere is higher above the baseline than the northern, as is festooned with craters (whereas the north isn't)--how can these craters be used as accurate dating markers? From what time do they represent? Clearly something removed them all from the northern hemisphere as well as trillions of cubic acres of geology. When? What?
You've suggested a lot in one paragraph. Plasma discharges tend to be formed in lighting or bolts, not sheets to my knowledge. There are also no such things as "field lines." Magnetic fields are a continuum, an envelope. The ionosphere or heliosheath is not composed of lines. These are bubble structures. Petrification may be a confluence of mineralogical/mechanical/fluvial processes with electrical. Life may continue to exist regardless of catastrophe but again there is evidence for mass extinction events, ie, a sudden disaster. The fossil record clearly shows this. These events, too, probably happen with "regularity" in terms of deep time. Yes life is extinguished yet it comes back and flourishes albeit in different forms. Life itself is endemic to Earth (including panspermia which also works in "reverse" whereby life leaves this planet and goes elsewhere) and will return regardless. That is my view.dougettinger wrote:I should assume if electrical plasma discharges were being released on the Earth's surface at various times to petrify fauna and flora into rock material, then the plasma only existed in broad linear finite sheets that did not cover the entire landmass. Otherwise, all life would have been extinguished. These plasma ribbon most likely following magnetic field lines on the Earth's surface running generally longitudinally. Do you agree with this conclusion?