----- Original Message -----
From: Darryl Maddox
>It's a simple piece of logic; when a person asks a question about a
particular formation you either answer it directly or say you don't know but
you may have an analogous formation for which you do have information that
may be relevant. But at least be sure you have read the literature on the
formation requested and that the answer to the specific question isn't
there.
Wow! We scared you up out of the woodwork!
I figured that it was self-evident that by referring to an analogous
formation that I would do so because it would be relevant. I had read the
previous Creationary account in CRSQ by Howe, and felt that it did not
address Morton's concerns. However, the Tavrick publication in the latest
CRSQ (Dec. 2001) did address Morton's concerns in the same kind turbidite
formation.
>As for Allen asserting that since turbidites represent rapid deposition in
high energy environments, if he will read the section on turbidites in the
Encyclopedia of Sedimentation, 1978, ed by Fairbridge and Bourgeois,
published by Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross Inc. I think he will find that only
the sand portions are deposited rapidly - the intervening clays and shales
are deposited slowly and this agrees with both the observation of the
behavior of these materials in natural environments and in laboratory tests.
Allen, as I remember you don't believe clays can only be deposited slowly,
but until you can come up with some field observations or lab work to verify
your assertion that they can be deposited rapidly I think Glenn has you in a
corner. Yes, I know there are rapidly deposited finely laminated
volcanoclastics near Mt. St. Helens, and I know that AiG published some
articles on self organizing interbedds of coarse and fine materials; but
finely laminated - high flow regime- volcanoclastics are not
hydrodynamically the same as clay and while I have read the AiG material
several times I fail to see how it applies here or really to any other clay
settling problem. I'll check again to see if I can find the relevance. What
I do know and think is relevant is that as slow as swamp water moves, the
clay doesn't settle out of it at anywhere near the rate you need it to. If
it did the channels would all be choked with clay while the water flowing
out of the swamps would be clear as those famous Rocky Mountain rivers and
in the swamp I saw that just wasn't the case.
A few years ago An earthquake near ------- caused a large tsunami to sweep
ashore leaving tsunami deposition far inland from the sea. Scientists were
at the site within a few weeks, to months and studied the deposition. I had
an email interchange with one of the scientists who studied the depositions.
In the general discussion, they mentioned that the tsunami deposit of sand
(5 to 10 cm thick) was intermittently covered with a thin layer of clay/silt
(2 to 5 mm thick). In their study they focused entirely on the sand deposit
and completely ignored the clay/silt layer. The scientist indicated that
they studied the sand because it was thick enough to be studied but that the
clay/silt was too thin. Even though the clay/silt layer had to have been
deposited very quickly (within just a few minutes) by the tsunami, it was
completely ignored as a tsunami deposit by the scientist in his publication.
Why? I think because it supposedly violates hydrodynamic laws of deposition
of clay/silt.
If one were to take a thick slurry (mud in layman's terms) of clay and poor
it out across the kitchen floor, besides having a very angry wife, you would
have within a few minutes to a hour or two a layer of sticky, thick clay
that would not have gotten there by hydrodynamically settling out of still
waters.
If you took the same thick slurry of clay and dumped it into a tank of water
with a sloping bottom, the slurry of clay, being much denser than the water,
will behave as a turbidite. It would flow along the sloping bottom and not
mix with the water, but for very minor boundary mixing. The slurry would
come to rest and quickly form a lay of clay which did not hydrodynamically
settle out of the water. I have not read the lab test results which you
mention above (, but my guess is that the clay/silt was a minor constituent
of the turbidite flow.
Creationary Catastrophists do not look to swamps or sluggish rivers as
models of deposition of clay/silt. Rather we look to rapid
Tsunami/Turbidite deposition models consisting of slurries of clay/silt/sand
I did an experiment about a year ago, which I reported to this ASAnet,
concerning the settling of various ratios of soil to water in jars. I found
that when the ratio of soil to water was about 1:12 the particles settled
out slowly to the bottom of the jar. However, when the ratio was reduced to
about 1:3 the mixture behaved as a thick mud. The particles did not settle
out of the water, the water seeped out of the mud which sat on the bottom of
the jar. This confirms the idea that clay/silt can be deposited quickly if
the soil to water ratio is below a certain threshold. I don't know what
this does to the hydrodynamic law of particle settling, but I know it is
real and happens all the time.
Allen
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Feb 09 2002 - 12:23:04 EST