>Occasionally, there are overthrusts, in which older rocks are thrusted over
>younger rocks. Creationists have tried to make a lot from them. Rarely do the
>creationists draw what the rocks look like for their readers. (most have never
>personally seen an overthrust) In overthrust regions the roch are NEVER flat.
>They look like:
>
> region of
> overthrust
> | |
>....../ / \ \ \
>////c/b/a/\a\b\c\
>//////////\\\\\\\\
>/////////----------------d
>////////-----------------c
>///////------------------b
>/////--------------------a
>
>The letters represent layers which have unique lithological, paleontological
>and depositional characteristics. a above looks like a below and so forth.
>Christians often teach that overthrusts look like the first diagram. Nothing
>could be further from the truth.
>
>In all the creationists books I have read, and I have read a bunch, only two
>of them attempted to diagram what an overthrust looks like. One, Eric Von
>fang's Time upside down drew a diagram like the first on. He is wrong. The
>other, Earth Science for Christian Schools, by Mulfinger and Snyder,
>diagrammed it correctly, but stated that overthrusts do not exist.
Out of sequence layers are not always like this at all. Sheet thrusts such
as the Vinini in Nevada and the Heart Mountain in Montana are thrust sheets
that extend out over huge areas with no evidence of tectonic activity at all
in the region far from the decollement. If you look to understand the
overthrust nature of beds, you will find an area that is disturbed
tectonically, but that may be many tens or hundreds of km from any given
outcrop. Often times out of order layers are not tectonic thrusts at all,
but are just slides or slumps. My favorite is a layer in the Tertiary
strata of Apennines in Italy containing a slab of limestone, reported to be
inverted, that covers an area of over 200 square kilometers! Many of these
deposits could only have traveled over slopes of at most a few degrees,
since they are postulated to have traveled hundreds of km. from the source
area. Do overthrusts exist? Absolutely. They are not uncommon. This is
another example of creationists not seeing the significance of the data that
stared them in the face. Overthrusts are not evidence for out of order
fossils, in fact they more clearly establish the order of the fossil record.
They are however huge scale evidence for catastrophism, a fact largely
overlooked by those who would stand to gain the most from this evidence!
Art
http://chadwicka.swac.edu