Re: Polystrate trees
rycttb@sprynet.com
Sun, 26 Jan 1997 23:36:48 -0800I, Wayne McKellips wrote (almost sounds like a confession)
>To me, Andrew MacRae's explaining polystrate trees with
>roots and rootlets intact, rules out this happening
>durning a catastrophic flood. A catastrophic flood would
>have removed fragile rootlets.
I received several responses. Arthur V. Chadwick wrote
>...further study by numerous individuals, mostly in the past
>20 years or so, has shown that coal seams are not all generic,
>but must be explained by a variety of different models...
He mentions autochthonous and allochthonous. Thankfully he
defines them for us. I'll say formed in situ and transported.
He also says
>I think allochthonous coals are consistent with either model
>and do not represent by themselves an evidence for a global
>catastrophe.
Arther V. Chadwick also wrote
>We have lots of evidence to the point after Mt. St. Helens.
>Plenty of small rootlets preserved on trees transported
>and deposited upright there.
Sorry, I must have been wrong. I viewed Dr. Steve Austins
video "Mount St. Helens, Explosive Evidence for Catastrophism"
and didn't catch that part. I think portions of our earth
have experienced brief catastrophes from time to time. So
whether a particular event is best explained by
uniformitarianism or catastrophism might be debatable.
However, the polystrate fossils at Joggins, Nova Scotia
written about by John Dawson in 1868 which Andrew MacRae
mentions in
http://earth.ics.uci.edu:8080/faqs/faqs-mustread.html
seem to me to be local in situ. He quotes Dawson,
"The underclays in question are accordingly pentrated
by innumerable long rootlets, not in a coaly state,..."
"It is evident that when we find a bed of clay now
hardened into stone, and containing the roots and rootlets
of these plants in their natural position, we can infer,
1st, that such beds must once have been is a very soft
condition; 2ndly, that the roots found in them were not
drifted, but grew in their present positions..."
I also think "Dinosaur Footprints in Coal" by Andrew MacRae at
http://earth.ics.uci.edu:8080/faqs/faqs/coalprints.html
figures in this discussion. Here there are dinosaur
footprints on the top surface of a coal seam which have
been filled in by the deposits of river floods. It reads,
"Stands of large trees and palm thickets have been
preserved in growth position..."
Sorry, and thanks to Arthur V. Chadwick for pointing
out the autochthonous and allochthonous possibilities and
defining the terms for us. Wayne McKellips
http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/rycttb