...

read more »

    GENESIS DOES NOT ASSUME AN OMNIPOTENT/OMNIPRESENT "GOD"

    It is clear from the Genesis story that its writers never thought
    that the "God" in their story was either omnipresent or omniscient,
    nor did they believe in immortality.

    According to the story, "God" told A&E that they would die the
    SAME DAY, if they ate from the forbidden fruit. Obviously, if
    they had been created immortal, this could not have happened,
    anyway. BUT, the story tells us that the snake knew it better than
    "God", so, indeed, they did NOT die but lived on to have lots
    of children. So, "God" was NOT "omniscient". Also, "God" did not
    know where A&E were hiding in the garden, when he was walking
    through the garden and looked for A&E.

    Also, "God" was obviously not present when A&E ate the fruit,
    nor when they decided to hide.

    As for immortality, the story tells us that "God" chased A&E
    out of the garden so that they could not eat from the Tree of
    Life and become immortal.

    Libertarius
    ==================================
    DON'T CONFUSE FICTION WITH REALITY
    ==================================

Yes, it was.

--
Jim Lippard    lippard@(primenet.com ediacara.org skeptic.com)
Phoenix, Arizona  http://www.primenet.com/~lippard/
PGP Fingerprint: B130 7BE1 18C1 AA4C 4D51  388F 6E6D 2C7A 36D3 CB4F

Glenn's response:

From grmor...@ns.waymark.net Sun Aug 17 13:57:18 1997
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 1997 13:13:52 -0500
From: Glenn Morton <grmor...@ns.waymark.net>
To: Creat...@creationscience.com
Subject: [Creation Forum] Re: Proof of Subduction (long)

Dear Walt,

I hope you are well.

At 06:37 PM 8/16/97 -0500, Walt wrote:

Why would you assume this?  No where did I write a retraction.  When I
retract, you will know it because I will write it. (see below for an example)

I didn't say your math was good.  I said it was irrelevant.  The meaning of
irrelevant, according to my dictionary does not mean  "good".

Not when the Alaskan earthquake can move surface rocks  200 km or more from
the epicenter which is 50 km deep.  As a manager of Geophysics for my company,
I deal with lots and lots of geological experts in structural geology (indeed
I use seismic data to infer structure).  The experts I deal with have no
problem such as you describe.

As I noted before, water is NOT a lubricant for faults. it actually increases
friction. let me quote this again.  You obviously didn't see it.

"Concerning the lubricating effect of water, Terzaghi (1950, p. 91) has shown
that water definitely is not a lubricant on rock materials, and its presence,
if anything tends to increase the coefficient of friction"~M.K. Hubert and
W.W. Rubey, "Role of Fluid Pressure in Mechanics of Overthrust Faulting,"
Bulletin Geol. Soc. Amer., 70, February, 1959, p. 129.

Well I am a geophysicist, not per se a geologist. Profesionally, my group uses
seismic data to infer the structure of the earth.  Thus, you cannot dismiss me
as having "little interest" in these things.   I am interested in forces and I
know that the strength of material's increases with increased confining
pressure.  Your model ignores that fact.

Here is how it begins.

The first thing one needs to know is a simple geometric fact we all learn in
high school.  The shortest distance between any two points is a straight line.
An arc, connecting two points is longer than the straight line. Remember that
the earth's surface is a curved surface. In the diagrams below, the original
surface is marked by the -.  The uplifted surface or the depressed surface is
a +.  In the case of an upwelling, the curved surface of the earth is extended
or ripped apart. The length of material connecting A and B on the original
surface is insufficient to connect A and B on the Uplifted surface.  The arc
length is greater.

                        gap     gap             gap
                  ++++++ ++++++++ +++++++++++++++ +++++
               +++                -----                +++
          +++++   ----------------     ----------------   +++++
      ------------                                     ------------
  ----                              ^                              ----
--                                  |                                  --
A                               upwelling                               B

The gaps form because there is not enough material to bridge the longer
distance.
Now for downwelling

                                 -------
                  ----------------     ----------------
      ------------                                     ------------
  -----                                                           -----
--                                                                     --
A+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++B
                                 downwelling
                                     |
                                     V
Since in the downwelling portion, as the mantle material flows down, there is
no support for the arch and it sags.  This means that an arc length of 1000
km, must now fit into 995 km.  This means that there is compression and the
brittle crust will break and form an overthrust.

                                 -------
                  ----------------     ----------------
      ------------                                     ------------
  -----                                                           -----
--                               ++/                                      --
A++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ / +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++B
                                 /++
                                downwelling
                                     |
                                     V
The symbol  / marks the plane of the thrust fault.

The stress will break the rock and cause an overthrust which initiates the
subduction process.

Since the Benioff zones are thousands of kilometers long, you are saying that
movement can occur over that distance, yet your math says it can't.

Yes it is and I explained why.  Why does not the shallow angle at which the
plate subducts, and the depth of their maps not suffice as an explanation?
simple trigonometry calculates that at 1350 km deep, the subduction would no
longer be under the trench.

Walter, the front cover of that Science News shows four depths and the
subduction.  The shallowest is 700 km deep, then 1000 km, 1300 km and 1600 km.
At 700 km the subducting plate is in the center of North America.  As one goes
deeper, the cold subducting plate moves eastward. In the diagram below, S
marks the subduction location for that depth

North America
       W.Coast                                                   E. Coast
surface   S
700 km                       S
1000 km                                    S
1300 km                                                 S
1600 km                                                          S

The subducting slab gets deeper as one goes eastward.  The subduction is not
at the east coast. Except as an extension to the subduction which occurred
formerly at the west coast.

A look at the figure on p. 46 of July 19, 1997 Science News, shows a region of
higher velocity dipping to the east.  This is consistent with subduction.

No, the angle of earthquakes (the Benioff zone) and the mapping of faster
material makes me say that. It is observation, not theory.

Why would you withhold knowledge until someone explains ...

read more »

On 17 Aug 1997 "James J. Lippard" <lipp...@primenet.com> wrote:

  <snip>

[Walt responds:]

Such displacements, producing structures known as overthrusts, would
be expected to occur during uplift of thick sediment piles, such as
those typical of many mountain areas, at the end of the flood. Slabs
of partially consolidated sediment would probably slide downslope over
other sediments, away from uplifted areas, where fluid sills or
unconsolidated layers were present in the sediments.

On the question about whether or not the alleged subduction process is
real, S.W. Carey, (prof. emer. University of Tasmania), leading
advocate of the earth expansion theory, says: "Subduction is a myth".
As well, David R. Oldroyd repoted:

    According to Carey (pers. comm., 5 March 1994), the
    National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
    has been making measurements between Easter Island
    and Peru. According to plate-tectonic theory, there is
    only the Andean subduction zone between, and the
    intervening distance should be decreasing. By earth-
    expansion theory, it should be increasing. The results
    were not made available to Carey by NASA (in 1992) as
    they were thought to be 'anomalous'. Search was under
    way for a hitherto undetected spreading zone in the
    area. The situation was intriguing, to say the least.

Reference:

David R. Oldroyd, 1996. Thinking About the Earth, Harvard University
Press, Cambridge Mass., p. 344.

--
Douglas Cox
http://www.sentex.net/~tcc

In article <5t7ooh$...@nntp02.primenet.com>, lipp...@primenet.com says...
[Glenn Morton <grmor...@ns.waymark.net> wrote]:

Glenn, have you ever heard of the beer-can experiment? You take a can of
beer, and put it on a piece of window glass sloped at an angle to the
horizontal (try about 30 degrees to start). When the bottom of the can
is dry, if the angle is right, the beer can does not slide, but wet the
bottom, and it begins to slide down the glass!

Could this mechanism apply here?

--
Douglas Cox
http://www.sentex.net/~tcc

In article <5t82ai$...@drn.zippo.com> you write:

Douglas,

Certain clays and clay minerals swell when they get wet.  The swelling acts to increase the local pressure field,
which in turn tends to lock up the fault. Water lubricates beer cans, but not rocks.

In article <Pine.BSI.3.96.970816220819.10331A-100...@usr07.primenet.com>,
[much deleted]

Is that really Walt Brown who said that?  If so, he has just demolished
his own theory, since his theory depends on huge amounts of high
pressure water staying pooled under the crust for several decades at
least.
--
Mark Isaak            a...@best.com            http://www.best.com/~atta
    "To undeceive men is to offend them." - Queen Christina of Sweden

First of all, I'd like to know why all the measurements of seismic
waves bouncing around within the earth, haven't detected Brown's
water reservoir.

As to subduction, the Pacific Coast, where I live, has an impressive
chain of volcanoes just east of where the Pacific Plate is thought to
be going under the North America Plate.  Besides that, there are all
those "plutons" -- big bubbles of beautiful smooth granite, which one
sees high in the Sierras.  Maybe water did that somehow?  Some water
would have been included in a subduction too.  We have a lot of
Serpentinite scattered all over the coast; it's basically squeezed
seabottom mud; it is very slippery.

Anyhow, if the water is still there, and still lubricates continents,
shouldn't we have another Great Flood any day?  Why not, Dr. Brown?

In article <5t82ai$...@drn.zippo.com>, t...@sentex.net says...

No... since one would need to completely overcome confining
pressure so that the two fault surfaces are hydraulically
separated. The beer can in your analogy is floating on the
water and  that is not what Hubert and Rubey are saying in
their paper.  It is not free water it is pore fluid pressure.
In fact if you read the paper carefully you will notice  that
they give reported values for pore fluid pressures in fault
zones under differential stress and it does not exceed
0.8-0.9 confining pressure, usually much less than that
(they also give a better beer can anology than yours).
And I believe they explain why that is the case and it
is that the rocks will brecciate if the  pore fluid
pressure is high. For you see a pore fluid in a fault
zone does not  act as a lubricant but is an effective
stress. Here is the equation as it applies to fault
surface:

t (shear stress at failure)= C(cohesion constant) + u (coeffecient
of friction)*(sigma(normal stress)- P(pore fluid pressure))

(sigma(normal stress)- P(pore fluid pressure)) is called a
effective normal stress.

Now this is off particular interest to a Mohr’s circle stress
analysis. On the first diagram (figure 1) a Mohr’s diagram is
presented, the vertical axis represents the shear stress on a
plane and the horizontal axis is the normal stress acting on
a plane which transects the principal stress plane containing
sigma1 (maximum principal stress) and sigma3 (minimum principal
stress) in figure 1a .

Figure1
             ^
             | Shear Stress
             |
Tensile      |      Compressive
             |
             |                                      * Failure Envelope
             |                            *
             |                     *
             |             *               +    
             |       *               +            +
             |   *                +                  +
             |*                 +                      +  Mohr Circle
           * |                +                          +
         *   |               +                            +
        *    |              +                              +
-------------|----------------------------------------------- Normal Stress->
             |            sigma 3                          sigma  1
             |
         <----------------------------------
                          Effective stress (pore fluid pressure)
                          Necessary to overcome confining pressure

Figure 1a

            \ shear plane
             \        sigma1
              \      |
               \theta|  
                \    |
                 \   |
                  \  |
                   \ |
                    \|
         ------------\---------- sigma 3
                     |\
                     | \
                     |  \
                     |   \
                     |    \
                     |

The half circle is the Mohr circle, which its diameter
represents the differential stress (delta sigma= sigma1-sigma3).
Each position on the circle represents the normal stress and
shear stress acting on a posible plane of orientation theta
from sigma1. The angle theta represent half the angular distance
from a line connecting the point on the Mohr circle and the
center of the circle and sigma1 on the horizontal axis
(figure 2). The line represented by the asterisks is a failure
envelope as defined by Coulomb failure criteria. If the
Mohrs circle touches that envelope the rock will fracture
and shear along a plane at an orientation of theta from
sigma1. In the diagram no fracturing or shearing is occurring
since the Mohr circle does not make contact with the failure
envelope. This is were a pore fluid pressure comes in... From
the above equation we see that normal stress is reduce by an
 amount equal to the pore fluid pressure  and that includes
both sigma1 and sigma3. Therefore the Mohr circle is shifted
to the left and towards the failure envelope thus pore fluid
pressure becomes an effective stress.  And if the pore fluid
pressure is large enough it will shift it right into the
tensile field of deformation and completely on the other side
of the failure envelope... the rock will disintegrate by
extensional fracturing. This is what you are suggesting will
occur if you think that the fault surfaces are hydraulically
separated by pore fluid pressure. Remenber that confining
pressure increases by about 30 Mpa per km in crustal rocks.
The deeper a fault is the more that Mohr circle is shifted
in order to overcome confining pressure by pore fluid
pressure.

Figure 2

         ^
         | Shear Stress
         |
 Tensil  |      Compressive
         |
         |                                      
         |                            
         |       shear and normal stress on plane at angle theta from sigma1
         |                         \    +    
         |                       +  \         +
         |                    +      \            +
         |                  +         \             +  Mohr Circle
         |                 +           \              +
         |                +             \   2 theta    +
         |               +               \              +
---------|------------------------------------------------ Normal Stress ->    
|            sigma 3                          sigma  1
         |  

Now in the third diagram  (figure 3) we see another curve
below the failure envelope. This curve represents the shear
and normal stresses acting on a pre-existing plane necessary
to cause shearing. Wherever the Mohrs circle touches that
curve a fracture (if it exists) at that orientation will
begin to shear. This is what Hubert and Rubey and other
researchers are saying in their papers... that a small pore
fluid pressure shifts the Mohr circle by a small amount so
that the pre-existing fault surface shears not so that the
pore fluid pressure is so high that the fault planes
separate and the rock disintegrates. From the diagram we
can see that high differential stresses are not very likely
as well (and this is generally an indication of the strain
rate... fast strain rate=high differential stress) for the
rock will also brecciate and disintegrate.

Figure 3

             | Shear Stress
             |
Tensile      |      Compressive
             |                                        Failure Envelope
             |                                      *
             |                            *           initiation of
             |                     *              ~   shear on pre-existing
             |             *           ~     +        facture surface
             |       *         ~       +           +
             |   *      ~           +                 +
             |*    ~              +                     +  Mohr Circle
           * |~                 +                         +
         *   |                 +                           +
        *    |                +                             +
-------------|----------------------------------------------- Nornmal Stress
             |            sigma 3                          sigma  1
             |
                                      <------  
                          Effective stress (pore fluid pressure)
                          nessesary to initiate shear on a pre-existiong
                          fracture surface

High pore fluid pressure, high differential stresses and  fast
strain rate all make rock very very very very brittle. This
hydroplate theory is  nonsense on a basis of simple rock mechanics
that Brown claims is rarely investigated. This is completely false
since any modern structural geology textbook usually have a
detailed section on effective stress.

Archae Solenhofen (jmcar...@gtn.net)

In article <33f7cb8c.5617...@199.4.94.14>,

According to Brown's theory, the water isn't there anymore.  It all
came to the surface at the time of the Flood.
--
Mark Isaak            a...@best.com            http://www.best.com/~atta
    "To undeceive men is to offend them." - Queen Christina of Sweden

In article <5taqt9$...@drn.zippo.com>, Archae.Solenho...@zippo.com

[...]

Well, thanks for the explanation of the Mohr failure theory, but in
the case of the beer can sliding down the glass, brittle failure does
not occur; as you say, the can floats on the water. I suggest
something similar might have happened briefly in past conditions, when
thick sediment piles were not yet fully consolidated, during the
compaction process. After the accumulation of thick piles of sediment
in the flood, for example, and associated with de-watering of
sediments, sills of fluid could briefly form, that "floated off"
overlying sediments.

A mechanism for the formation of fluid sills is described in the book
"Fluids in the Earth's Crust" that you mentioned in one of your
previous responses. In that book, (I think it is chapter 11) it is
suggested that such "fluid sills" may have formed in sediments, and
emptied, perhaps without even leaving a trace. These would be  fluids
at lithostatic pressure, that formed an "underground lake". The
overlying sediment was supported by the fluid sills, just as in the
case of the beer can that slides down the glass. If there were uplift
of sediments that contained such sills, on the scale of uplifts that
resulted in the formation of mountains, a lot of lateral displacement
of sediment, or overthrusting might occur. The formation of fluid
sills such as this in past catastrophic conditions seems especially
likely in my Subcrustal Ice Earth Model (SIEM), which also provides a
mechanism for the uplift, by hydraulic pressure in subcrustal
conduits. Subsidence in one area caused uplift in another.

Now, perhaps some of the the large-scale overthrusts in mountainous
areas are actually evidence for the accumulation of these fluid sills
containing pressurized water, and for fluid-supported, unconsolidated
sediments sliding around during tectonic movements that occurred
during the compaction of sediments; this was followed by
lithification. Once the sediments became lithified, and uplifted, and
eroded, and the rock had become brittle, such movements would no
longer occur.

This fits the idea of rapid sediment accumulation and compaction of
thick piles of sediment at one time; it does not, however, fit very
well with the standard uniformitarian model that has sediment layers
forming and being compacted over long time spans.

--
Douglas Cox
http://www.sentex.net/~tcc

In article <33f97347.44774827@news>, t...@sentex.net says...

<SNIP>

No... a pre-existing fracture surface is activated in your
analogy. That is the normal stress acting on the beer/glass
interface was reduced significantly so that shear was possible
on the beer can/glass fault surface. I believe I mentioned
the activation of pre-existing fault surfaces by effective
stress in my post. Mohr’s applies here too.

Mohrs circle still applies here as well. Confining pressure
is still needed to be overcome and then some in order to
“float off” overlying sediments. Brittle behavior still
applies to sediment under confining pressure. Do you think
unlithified sand at 100 MPa (3km depth) of confining pressure
is not solid.

The key word there is “perhaps”.  If the rock has any
sedimentary structure  it will be strained from the
intergranular deformations mechanism associated with soft
sediment deformation. If the strian is high this should
be very noticeable to anyone looking at these rocks after
they have lithified and exposed at the surface by erosion.
No geologist will dispute the presence of fluid
overpressure and the role it plays in deformation. The
problem lies in your notion of strain rate... which you
claim is very very fast.  The problem in grain boundary
sliding is point contacts between neighboring grains and
point contact stresses are enormous in rocks at depth.
Point contacts are strain hardeners and must be overcome
by processes such as grain reorientation due to shear stress
or by cataclasis. The point contact stresses are very much
greater than that of confining pressure.  As a result pore
fluid at lithostatic pressure is not going to allow the
sediments to flow away like they do on the surface.  
The process is going to be very very slow at differential
stresses and pore fluid pressures low enough not to induce
faulting and extensional fracturing in the sediments (which
would also be very noticeable).

That’s  pore fluid not as free water. There is a difference.

What like a decouplement fault/gravity slide? The stress  
in a decouplement faults is mostly extensional. Please
present evidence that the formation of mountains is dominated
by a stress field that was extensional any time in its
deformational history.  Strain is recorded in the rocks
that are deformed both at the macroscopic and microscopic
fields and pre-existing strain structures are generally
superimposed by the strain structures that follow. This
is called a strain history.   Do you actually think that
all this occurs and does not leave any trace of its
existence in the deformed rocks? The geometry and kinematics
of mountain belt folds and faults and their structural
elements all indicate horizontal axial compression as the
dominant stress field.

You missed it.... I will say it again high pore fluid
pressure, high differential stresses and  fast strain rate
all make rock very very very very brittle. This is clearly
demonstrated in the Mohr diagram. The differential stresses
the fluid pressures need to keep the Mohr circle within
the feild of stability for the most part. your theory has
high pore fluid pressure and high differential stress and
fast strain rate... Why is not all rock disintergrated?

Particulate flow, a form of grain boundary sliding under pore
fluid pressure, allows for the formation of soft sediment
deformation structures. The deformed sediment will preserve
these structures when they lithify. I do not believe we see
overwhelming evidence of soft sediment deformation in these  
rocks... if  you have evidence of this then now is the time
to present it.

On the otherhand, for example, we can look at the nappe
structures of the Helvetic region of Switzerland which show
very interesting characteristics. For example they are
metamorphosed showing increasing grade from the center of
the zone to the west and east. The limestone matrix is
strongly deformed. Universal stage and X-ray goniometer
texture determination show strong preferred  crystallographic
orientations (pco) in c-axes and e-twin planes of calcite crystals,
reflecting intragranular deformation in a specific stress field. Strong
preferred dimensional orientations (pdo) of the calcite grains
are also observed and are related to the pco. Slaty cleavage
is also observed and is structurally related to the observed
folding. Pressure solution cleavage is observed and also
structurally related to the folds. The limestones contained  
strongly (plastically) deformed fossils (echinoids,
belemnites, ammonites, gastropods) as well as plastically
deformed pebbles, ooids and syntectonic fibers in veins and
pressure shadows. The rocks show large translation  ductile
shear zones with characteristic pco and pdo fabric
structures.

Your model seem to be suggesting is a deformation by
particulate flow or superplasticity that represents steady
state flow dominated by intercrystaline sliding. The above
majority of structural characteristic of the Helvetic
nappes are not suggestive of either. Superplasticity only
occurs at very high temperature and  particulate flow occurs
at low temperature under very high pore fluid pressure. Do
you not find it odd that a flowing unconsolidated or
partially consolidated fine grained limestone would show
extensive plastic deformation at the crystallographic scale,
but very little intercrystaline sliding ?  I certainly do.
Your assumption that these rocks were deformed by rapid
tectonic uplift due to high pore fluid pressure in rock or
sediment has no basis in the mountains of Europe or the
rest of the world.

Gravity sliding at depth is also not rapid. In high
pore fluid pressure regime a trade off is obtained between
reduced frictional resistance and  lowering of the rock’s
fracture strength. The rocks of the Swiss Alps are not highly
brecciated as would be the result of the enormous hydraulic
force necessary to rapidly produce the structure that you suggest.

So they do not occur today? Why would they not occur... from
the Mohr diagram all that is needed is a sufficiently high
differential stress or in combination with a ...

read more »

On 19 Aug 1997 19:38:42 -0400, a...@best.comNOSPAM (Mark Isaak) wrote:

I figured that.  But then it went .... where?

If it didn't evaporate into space, it had to go back into Brown's
alleged reservoir in the rocks.  If it did that, we really should
be able to detect it.

I realize Brown is a creationist.  But he claims to be arguing
science.  If so, he can't just speculate.  

In article <33fc3478.31780...@199.4.94.14>,

The waters (supposedly) became our present oceans, which were quite
shallow before the cataclysm.

I saw no mention of how they achieved their present salinity, while
the polar ice caps, which came from the same source, are not salty.
--
Mark Isaak            a...@best.com            http://www.best.com/~atta
    "To undeceive men is to offend them." - Queen Christina of Sweden

: In article <5taqt9$...@drn.zippo.com>, Archae.Solenho...@zippo.com

: >>>>If you study the hydroplate theory you will see that one common element in
: >>>>the proposed mechanisms for overthrusting and mountain building is vast
: >>>>quantities of water acting as a lubricant.  

: >>>As I noted before, water is NOT a lubricant for faults. it actually increases
: >>>friction. let me quote this again.  You obviously didn't see it.

: >>>"Concerning the lubricating effect of water, Terzaghi (1950, p. 91) has shown
: >>>that water definitely is not a lubricant on rock materials, and its presence,
: >>>if anything tends to increase the coefficient of friction"~M.K. Hubert and
: >>>W.W. Rubey, "Role of Fluid Pressure in Mechanics of Overthrust Faulting,"
: >>>Bulletin Geol. Soc. Amer., 70, February, 1959, p. 129.

: >>Glenn, have you ever heard of the beer-can experiment? You take a can of
: >>beer, and put it on a piece of window glass sloped at an angle to the
: >>horizontal (try about 30 degrees to start). When the bottom of the can
: >>is dry, if the angle is right, the beer can does not slide, but wet the
: >>bottom, and it begins to slide down the glass!

: >>Could this mechanism apply here?

: >No... since one would need to completely overcome confining
: >pressure so that the two fault surfaces are hydraulically
: >separated. The beer can in your analogy is floating on the
: >water and  that is not what Hubert and Rubey are saying in
: >their paper.  It is not free water it is pore fluid pressure.
: >In fact if you read the paper carefully you will notice  that
: >they give reported values for pore fluid pressures in fault
: >zones under differential stress and it does not exceed
: >0.8-0.9 confining pressure, usually much less than that
: >(they also give a better beer can anology than yours).
: >And I believe they explain why that is the case and it
: >is that the rocks will brecciate if the  pore fluid
: >pressure is high. For you see a pore fluid in a fault
: >zone does not  act as a lubricant but is an effective
: >stress. Here is the equation as it applies to fault
: >surface:

: >t (shear stress at failure)= C(cohesion constant) + u (coeffecient
: >of friction)*(sigma(normal stress)- P(pore fluid pressure))

: >(sigma(normal stress)- P(pore fluid pressure)) is called a
: >effective normal stress.

: >Now this is off particular interest to a Mohr’s circle stress
: >analysis.
: [...]

: Well, thanks for the explanation of the Mohr failure theory, but in
: the case of the beer can sliding down the glass, brittle failure does
: not occur; as you say, the can floats on the water. I suggest
: something similar might have happened briefly in past conditions, when
: thick sediment piles were not yet fully consolidated, during the
: compaction process.

What thick piles of sediment?

: After the accumulation of thick piles of sediment
: in the flood, for example, and associated with de-watering of
: sediments, sills of fluid could briefly form, that "floated off"
: overlying sediments.

: A mechanism for the formation of fluid sills is described in the book
: "Fluids in the Earth's Crust" that you mentioned in one of your
: previous responses. In that book, (I think it is chapter 11) it is
: suggested that such "fluid sills" may have formed in sediments, and
: emptied, perhaps without even leaving a trace. These would be  fluids
: at lithostatic pressure, that formed an "underground lake". The
: overlying sediment was supported by the fluid sills, just as in the
: case of the beer can that slides down the glass. If there were uplift
: of sediments that contained such sills, on the scale of uplifts that
: resulted in the formation of mountains, a lot of lateral displacement
: of sediment, or overthrusting might occur. The formation of fluid
: sills such as this in past catastrophic conditions seems especially
: likely in my Subcrustal Ice Earth Model (SIEM), which also provides a
: mechanism for the uplift, by hydraulic pressure in subcrustal
: conduits. Subsidence in one area caused uplift in another.

: Now, perhaps some of the the large-scale overthrusts in mountainous
: areas are actually evidence for the accumulation of these fluid sills
: containing pressurized water, and for fluid-supported, unconsolidated
: sediments sliding around during tectonic movements that occurred
: during the compaction of sediments; this was followed by
: lithification. Once the sediments became lithified, and uplifted, and
: eroded, and the rock had become brittle, such movements would no
: longer occur.

Of course, the fault lines present in the structure of all overthrust
features always show clear evidence of the interface being a rock/rock
one, and never any indication of it being a mud/mud one.

: This fits the idea of rapid sediment accumulation and compaction of
: thick piles of sediment at one time; it does not, however, fit very
: well with the standard uniformitarian model that has sediment layers
: forming and being compacted over long time spans.

Which doesn't matter, since it assumes that the rocks in the world are
unlike the rocks actually are.

--
---------------------------+----------------------------------------------- ---
Ring around the neutron,   |  "OK, so he's not terribly fearsome.
A pocket full of positrons,|   But he certainly took us by surprise!"
A fission, a fusion,       +--------------------------------------------------
We all fall down!          |  "Was anybody in the Maquis working for me?"
---------------------------+----------------------------------------------- ---
"I'd cut down ever Law in England to get at the Devil!"
"And what man could stand up in the wind that would blow once you'd cut
down all the laws?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---
This message may not be carried on any server which places restrictions
on content.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---
e-mail will be posted as I see fit.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---