Image from Cactus Corner
How did the Grand Canyon form?
How did it form according to the Flood Model perspective?
How did it form according to the Evolution Model perspective?
The Grand Canyon
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The Grand Canyon
Post #1Image from Cactus Corner
How did the Grand Canyon form?
How did it form according to the Flood Model perspective?
How did it form according to the Evolution Model perspective?
Last edited by otseng on Thu Sep 02, 2004 9:27 am, edited 2 times in total.
Re: The Grand Canyon
Post #21Don't confuse the specificity of the Grand Canyon area with the earth's crust as a whole. There are Pre-Cambrian layers elsewhere in the world, such as the Hamersley Basin in Australia. (link leads to a commercial mining company) These layers are from the Archean era, over 2.5 billion years ago.otseng wrote:The oldest rocks in the GC, according to UM, is the Vishnu complex. It's estimated to be 1.7 billion years old. According to my version of the FM, the Vishnu and Zoroaster rocks comprise the pre-flood rocks in the GC area. One question about the UM - why do layers only appear after these base rocks? If it's dated at 1.7 billion years old, and the earth is dated at 4.55 billion years, why were layers not formed during the first 2.85 billion years?
Granite is an igneous rock, and is composed of cooling magma from the mantle. It is typically formed when an upwelling of magma forms in a subduction zone. The Grand Canyon area happened to be exposed to such activity during this time. Any layers that might have formed here would have been consumed or overridden by the magma.
Post #22
Having read this thread, now I'm confused about something. At the Great Unconformity, the layers below are tilted, while the layers above are horizontal. Geologists explain this general pattern by the model that the bottom layers were tilted by seismic events, and then were eroded down to form the horizontal surface. This kind of horizontal surface on tilted layers is easily seen in places like the western edge of the Medicine Bow mountains.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems from the above posts that, according to Flood Geology, the rocks below the unconformity were early sediments, which were tilted by underwater seismic activity. There was still a huge amount of sediment in the water, so it seems that it should have continued to settle on top of the tilted strata. It seems unlikely that seismic activity tilting a huge mass of the earth's crust would do so in such a way as to leave the edges of the tilted region neatly smooth and neatly horizontal. Yet the upper bound of the tilted strata is smooth and horizontal, which suggests that something kept further sediment from being deposited while something else rubbed at the surface to "polish off" the rough edges.
What would have done this during the Flood?[/quote]
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems from the above posts that, according to Flood Geology, the rocks below the unconformity were early sediments, which were tilted by underwater seismic activity. There was still a huge amount of sediment in the water, so it seems that it should have continued to settle on top of the tilted strata. It seems unlikely that seismic activity tilting a huge mass of the earth's crust would do so in such a way as to leave the edges of the tilted region neatly smooth and neatly horizontal. Yet the upper bound of the tilted strata is smooth and horizontal, which suggests that something kept further sediment from being deposited while something else rubbed at the surface to "polish off" the rough edges.
What would have done this during the Flood?[/quote]
Post #23
Over Christmas break, I had the opportunity to visit the Grand Canyon. While I was there, I made some interesting observations that are relevant to this thread.
1. The Vishnu Schist is layered!
My photo doesn't really do it justice, since it was a hazy day, and I used only a 4 megapixel camera with a zoom, but this image shows the layering. The strata have been turned on their sides, as is often seen in more recent strata, but there are definitely strata. A good photo looking up at the Vishnu Schist from below is here .
This observation is at odds with the ICR’s description of the Grand Canyon. The Global Flood scenario envisions that all layered strata were laid down during the Flood; pre-Flood rocks are not supposed to be stratified. The Grand Canyon is suggested to be a good example of Flood Geology, with the post-Flood strata lying on top of the Vishnu Schist, which is said to be pre-Flood basement rocks. Yet, if the Vishnu Schist is itself layered (from metamorphosed sandstone and shale, with occasional layers of lava, and occasional granitic intrusions), then the Vishnu Schist must also be post-Flood…except that it is tilted, and clearly was already tilted before the overlying strata were deposited. How could the Flood deposit strata, then tilt them, erode them to a smooth surface, then deposit more strata on top?
2. The view looking east from Maricopa Point (just west of Grand Canyon Village) looks directly upstream along the Colorado River.
It is evident while standing there and looking around that the Kaibab Plateau to the north and the Coconino Plateau to the south are of similar elevations, but the most distant edges of the plateau (upriver) are lower down. Indeed, in driving to the park from Cameron, AZ, one leaves the lower desert (around 5600 ft) and climbs up into the Coconino Plateau (around 7000 ft). The river plows right through the plateau.
Where I come from, water flows downhill. The Colorado River is currently doing so. The geological explanation is that the Kaibab/Coconino plateau was uplifted gradually, in a series of earthquakes, and that the river eroded its way down at about the same overall rate—so the river was always flowing downhill.
The Flood Scenario proposes that the strata were lain down during the Flood, then, when the mountains were lifted up by tectonic forces and the water receded, the water carved the canyon. If this is true, wouldn’t we expect that the river would pretty much follow the contours of the land, so that it is generally flowing through the lowest places? And yet, if we look at the Colorado River itself, we see that it flows southwest out of Page, AZ, then more-or-less south, with the Kaibab Plateau rising majestically to its west. Then, the river does an odd thing: it turns suddenly west, diving directly into the center of the plateau! This would be fine if the canyon were already there (which is accounted for in the geological explanation) but seems to be rather unexpected in the Flood Scenario. According to the Flood Scenario, there was no canyon, and the Kaibab/Coconino Plateaus were one, unbroken pile of sedimentary layers. To carve the canyon the receding flood waters would have had to flow uphill over the plateau!
On the figure below, I’ve identified the Kaibab/Coconino Plateau (described above) with arrow #1. There are two other places that I have visited that show similar things. Upstream, just as the Colorado River flows out of Grand Junction, CO, it flows southward into the northern edge of the Uncompaghre Plateau, where, again, it carves a canyon. Why would it go uphill over the plateau, when just a few miles to the north, it could flow easily through the Grand Valley toward Green River, UT? On the figure, this location is identified with arrow #2.
The third location, also in the Grand Canyon System, is the San Juan River, between Bluff, UT and Mexican Hat, UT. The river tootles along happily through beautiful desert, then crosses Comb Ridge and dives straight into the Monument Upwarp, where it carves the famous Goosenecks of the San Juan. Why flow uphill into the Upwarp to carve a canyon, when it could have flowed easily through Monument Valley? This location is identified on the figure with arrow #3.
I got out my topographic maps, and asked a simple question. If we imagine the surface of the sediments during the Flood right after the mountain-building, they should be pretty much the current contours of the land, minus the river canyons. (The river canyons were supposedly carved by the receding floodwaters.) On this surface, I asked myself, what are the most likely contours that the water should follow as it drains out of the Rockies? To the west, water drainage would form the Colorado River; to the southwest, it would form the San Juan. Where would these rivers be if they did not flow uphill over plateaus? My estimate is shown on the figure with red lines (vs the blue lines, which are the current river courses). The San Juan would seem most likely to flow south, to the east of the Chuska Mountains, then turn east, to the north of Mt. Taylor, eventually flowing into the currrent drainage of the Rio Grande. Alternatively, the San Juan might follow its current course past Bluff, but detour around the Monument Upwarp, joining the Colorado River somewhere near Page.
The Colorado River should avoid the Uncompaghre Plateau, and stay out in the Grand Valley, then turn south, where it should run to the east of the San Rafael Swell and the Henry Mountains. From Page, it should flow westwardly, avoiding the Kaibab Plateau, and flowing between the Kaibab Plateau and the southern end of the Wasatch Range. It should skirt the Shivwits Plateau, and then turn south toward the Gulf of California.
Yet, the rivers don’t do these reasonable-seeming things. Instead, they show this paradoxical pattern of flowing directly into plateaus, where they would have to flow uphill for quite some time in order to carve the canyons.
The only reasonable mechanism that I can imagine for how the rivers have achieved this seemingly-impossible feat is that the rivers followed their present courses before the plateaus were uplifted by geological forces.
maps are from the Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states.html
1. The Vishnu Schist is layered!
My photo doesn't really do it justice, since it was a hazy day, and I used only a 4 megapixel camera with a zoom, but this image shows the layering. The strata have been turned on their sides, as is often seen in more recent strata, but there are definitely strata. A good photo looking up at the Vishnu Schist from below is here .
This observation is at odds with the ICR’s description of the Grand Canyon. The Global Flood scenario envisions that all layered strata were laid down during the Flood; pre-Flood rocks are not supposed to be stratified. The Grand Canyon is suggested to be a good example of Flood Geology, with the post-Flood strata lying on top of the Vishnu Schist, which is said to be pre-Flood basement rocks. Yet, if the Vishnu Schist is itself layered (from metamorphosed sandstone and shale, with occasional layers of lava, and occasional granitic intrusions), then the Vishnu Schist must also be post-Flood…except that it is tilted, and clearly was already tilted before the overlying strata were deposited. How could the Flood deposit strata, then tilt them, erode them to a smooth surface, then deposit more strata on top?
2. The view looking east from Maricopa Point (just west of Grand Canyon Village) looks directly upstream along the Colorado River.
It is evident while standing there and looking around that the Kaibab Plateau to the north and the Coconino Plateau to the south are of similar elevations, but the most distant edges of the plateau (upriver) are lower down. Indeed, in driving to the park from Cameron, AZ, one leaves the lower desert (around 5600 ft) and climbs up into the Coconino Plateau (around 7000 ft). The river plows right through the plateau.
Where I come from, water flows downhill. The Colorado River is currently doing so. The geological explanation is that the Kaibab/Coconino plateau was uplifted gradually, in a series of earthquakes, and that the river eroded its way down at about the same overall rate—so the river was always flowing downhill.
The Flood Scenario proposes that the strata were lain down during the Flood, then, when the mountains were lifted up by tectonic forces and the water receded, the water carved the canyon. If this is true, wouldn’t we expect that the river would pretty much follow the contours of the land, so that it is generally flowing through the lowest places? And yet, if we look at the Colorado River itself, we see that it flows southwest out of Page, AZ, then more-or-less south, with the Kaibab Plateau rising majestically to its west. Then, the river does an odd thing: it turns suddenly west, diving directly into the center of the plateau! This would be fine if the canyon were already there (which is accounted for in the geological explanation) but seems to be rather unexpected in the Flood Scenario. According to the Flood Scenario, there was no canyon, and the Kaibab/Coconino Plateaus were one, unbroken pile of sedimentary layers. To carve the canyon the receding flood waters would have had to flow uphill over the plateau!
On the figure below, I’ve identified the Kaibab/Coconino Plateau (described above) with arrow #1. There are two other places that I have visited that show similar things. Upstream, just as the Colorado River flows out of Grand Junction, CO, it flows southward into the northern edge of the Uncompaghre Plateau, where, again, it carves a canyon. Why would it go uphill over the plateau, when just a few miles to the north, it could flow easily through the Grand Valley toward Green River, UT? On the figure, this location is identified with arrow #2.
The third location, also in the Grand Canyon System, is the San Juan River, between Bluff, UT and Mexican Hat, UT. The river tootles along happily through beautiful desert, then crosses Comb Ridge and dives straight into the Monument Upwarp, where it carves the famous Goosenecks of the San Juan. Why flow uphill into the Upwarp to carve a canyon, when it could have flowed easily through Monument Valley? This location is identified on the figure with arrow #3.
I got out my topographic maps, and asked a simple question. If we imagine the surface of the sediments during the Flood right after the mountain-building, they should be pretty much the current contours of the land, minus the river canyons. (The river canyons were supposedly carved by the receding floodwaters.) On this surface, I asked myself, what are the most likely contours that the water should follow as it drains out of the Rockies? To the west, water drainage would form the Colorado River; to the southwest, it would form the San Juan. Where would these rivers be if they did not flow uphill over plateaus? My estimate is shown on the figure with red lines (vs the blue lines, which are the current river courses). The San Juan would seem most likely to flow south, to the east of the Chuska Mountains, then turn east, to the north of Mt. Taylor, eventually flowing into the currrent drainage of the Rio Grande. Alternatively, the San Juan might follow its current course past Bluff, but detour around the Monument Upwarp, joining the Colorado River somewhere near Page.
The Colorado River should avoid the Uncompaghre Plateau, and stay out in the Grand Valley, then turn south, where it should run to the east of the San Rafael Swell and the Henry Mountains. From Page, it should flow westwardly, avoiding the Kaibab Plateau, and flowing between the Kaibab Plateau and the southern end of the Wasatch Range. It should skirt the Shivwits Plateau, and then turn south toward the Gulf of California.
Yet, the rivers don’t do these reasonable-seeming things. Instead, they show this paradoxical pattern of flowing directly into plateaus, where they would have to flow uphill for quite some time in order to carve the canyons.
The only reasonable mechanism that I can imagine for how the rivers have achieved this seemingly-impossible feat is that the rivers followed their present courses before the plateaus were uplifted by geological forces.
maps are from the Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states.html
Panza llena, corazon contento
