Thread: Are the Geological Eras merely outdated science?

I've always thought that if there was some kind of world-wide liquification, there would have been signs of a massive extinction rate of some kind at the time. Animals and plants are strong, yes, but many, many species of plants, for example, would die off, I think? All at once?

Anyway, last time I saw something to do with Liquification, it was something to do with the ground shaking, which makes the ground liquify momentarily and then solidify again, a little like snow does in an avalanche, or the way wet sand sucks your feet down if you jump up and down on the beach. If this were true, wouldnt that require some kind of world-wide shake-up. A global earthquake. A meteor. A HUGE meteor. Quite possibly one that would have just as easily went straight through the planet, nevermind cause worldwide liquification. I, honestly, can't think of any physical force that would make a global earthquake of that calibre. Unless someone can think of something, I really cant think of any way that worldwide liquification would in any way be possible.

Not only that, but if I'm right about all of that, and Liquification is half of what its made out to be, it would have completely decimated areas it affects, and there would, surely, be noone left to tell the tale, or have seen it?

... And if anyone wants to get into the religious/spiritual side of things, I doubt an Ark would float on liquificated form. xD It'd wiggle like crazy, wouldnt it? I feel a lot of old tales of immense destruction on certain civilisations are either 'garnished' legends that pre-historical people told eachother, or were based from actual natural events that CAN be explained, but just, again, with a little bit of garnish added. Fire and brimstone. All that stuff. And~ I actually think, if you look back on the history of the entire world, the Earth floated through space dead for a heckuva long time, before life EVER came to appear on it. Which I thought a little weird.

Well as that... I was just thinking.. liquification.. I always thought that affected only materials that were in small granules that could be seperated. (Ie; mud, sand, snow, gravel.) I've never actually heard of solid rock liquidating. Solid rock being what most fossils are actually set in. Fossils having basically turned into solid rock for all intensive purposes. Wouldnt perhaps fossils break up, if at ALL the area around them liquidated?

I'm not a big expert on this area, but thought I'd just throw some stuff in.

Remember, people tended to believe in a lot of things that weren't particularly real back in the ancient times.

Grumble Grumble Grumble

On the other hand, during the middle ages, it was the official policy of the Church that fossil bones entombed in rock were the remains of demons that were drowned during the great flood...

The liquefaction idea would be valid if you assume that everything would liquefy. But rock doesn't liquefy very well. It also contradicts the observation that in many many locations in the world, you have layers of sandstone above layers of shale. (And doesn't sand settle out of water before clay and silt???)

Then you have the very obtuse and complicated observation of measuring the decay products of radioactive isotopes... Radioactive Carbon 14 dating is only valid for dates less then 20,000 years old. but potassium and uranium decay can date rock layers much further back...

Well you have to take into account that there are literally hundreds of Earthquakes every day all around the world, most of which we can't feel, how ever little ones over time, not to mention throwing in a few large ones here and there will in fact cause slow to fast liquefaction of soil. You also have to look at erosion and uplifts in the Earths crust, caused by one layer going over or under one another which constantly pushing up creating these uplifts that carry ancient material back to the surface. You can't always rely on the layer of which the said fossil was located in because it’s heavier then the sediment around it, there for will "sink" faster, and erosion and geological uplifts will push these materials back up.
Example: Many people believe that the meteor caused a mass extinction event of most living creatures such as the Dinosaurs and plants and other animals and the evidence is the layer of "alien" material that is in the layer of soil found through out the world. But then you also have evidence of volcanic material also found through out the world that would also be as devastating as the meteor impact. How ever, despite the reasons for the extinction, there are many fossils that are found above or below said layers at which many people believe to be the time period of which the organism had lived. Making relying on sediment layers as a kind of time scale of which an animal has lived in some what unreliable. How ever, carbon dating with the fossil as well as isotopic readings of the fossil, compared to the soil and the various layers gives a much more accurate reading. Not perfect but much more accurate.
Also every area around the world has different types/consentraction of soil, some being more compact then others. If you find a T-Rex skull in North America could be in one layer while another skull of an animal that shaired the same time as the T-Rex could be found in a different layer.

Dinosaurs were around for millions of years. What was an hour to the time of the dinosaurs is like, a single second to human history thus far. And crocodilians existed around the dawn of dinosaurs, as far as I'm aware. So it isn't perhaps against any good judgement to say that you could get fossils of particular crocodilians from any period. One might say there are fossils of those same crocodilians forming even now.

Well as this, I think most geologists/archaeologists work in the factors of continent shift and such as well, considering all the time thats passed, when their trying to date creatures. I think I remember reading an article somewhere that they thought they found a fossil which might have actually just been forming at the dawn of man, or something, and yet most people will tell you dinosaurs and man never crossed gaze. Once.

I dont really know thats true or anything, but yeah.

Theres a lot of different things to take into account as to the actual location of fossils that may be found. One being rivers. Rise and fall of land. The continents. All that stuffs.
Lol, I remember someone said that Venus Flytraps were aliens because they were only found/first evolved in an area where a meteor was meant to have hit, or something. xD!!

Originally Posted by Redsquire

I've always thought that if there was some kind of world-wide liquification, there would have been signs of a massive extinction rate of some kind at the time. Animals and plants are strong, yes, but many, many species of plants, for example, would die off, I think? All at once?

Anyway, last time I saw something to do with Liquification, it was something to do with the ground shaking, which makes the ground liquify momentarily and then solidify again, a little like snow does in an avalanche, or the way wet sand sucks your feet down if you jump up and down on the beach. If this were true, wouldnt that require some kind of world-wide shake-up. A global earthquake. A meteor. A HUGE meteor. Quite possibly one that would have just as easily went straight through the planet, nevermind cause worldwide liquification. I, honestly, can't think of any physical force that would make a global earthquake of that calibre. Unless someone can think of something, I really cant think of any way that worldwide liquification would in any way be possible.

Yes, it would involve a huge earthquake but then haven't scientists been saying that they've happened? This is the type of liquification found on the beach but it is actually caused by the tides. As the water rolls in it both lifts sand and compresses it at the same time. Massive quakes combined with a flood would not only break up rocks and other soils the massive waves would cause massive erosion, compression, liquification, and liquification lenses.

Originally Posted by Redsquire

Not only that, but if I'm right about all of that, and Liquification is half of what its made out to be, it would have completely decimated areas it affects, and there would, surely, be noone left to tell the tale, or have seen it?

Well there is a reason the legends say only one family was left alive. One (very large) ship on the water with family, plants and animals, and enough food for a year. Our current set of animals can be traced back to a rather small tree can they not and current beliefs on slow long term microevolution (breeding for specific traits) has been disproven by current animal breeders. Changes/new species can be created in a matter of years or decades not millennia.

Originally Posted by Redsquire

Well as that... I was just thinking.. liquification.. I always thought that affected only materials that were in small granules that could be seperated. (Ie; mud, sand, snow, gravel.) I've never actually heard of solid rock liquidating. Solid rock being what most fossils are actually set in. Fossils having basically turned into solid rock for all intensive purposes. Wouldnt perhaps fossils break up, if at ALL the area around them liquidated?

That is the point, with this theory the species became fossils after they were compressed in liquification lenses not before. The compression of the world wide tidal waves would compress each level as it was laid down into that solid rock.

Originally Posted by LenMiyata

Grumble Grumble Grumble

On the other hand, during the middle ages, it was the official policy of the Church that fossil bones entombed in rock were the remains of demons that were drowned during the great flood...

No kidding? That is kinda .... funny considering the theory of world wide liquification.

Originally Posted by LenMiyata

The liquefaction idea would be valid if you assume that everything would liquefy. But rock doesn't liquefy very well. It also contradicts the observation that in many many locations in the world, you have layers of sandstone above layers of shale. (And doesn't sand settle out of water before clay and silt???)

I believe liquification lenses take care of that (combined with the earth quakes). If I understand what I have read as earth started sorting into layers in the water types of soil that doesn't allow water through as easily would compress together trapping water in a lens underneath it. These lenses have been observed in nature. The pressure on the water in the lens not only spreads the water out in a single layer covering large areas (miles even) but it causes water to actually run uphill and takes anything "floating" in the water with it. As a result if say, a heard of 'cows' were caught in a flood during some kind of say, tsunami that continued to come in and out multiple times, and they were drowned and started sorting by density they would float up to their natural level or until they hit a lens. The more water tight layer of earth above would prevent them from sorting any higher and the lens would then spread the carcasses over miles instead of them staying in one space. Then as the lens drained the upper level would press down an entomb the bodies. The lensing could also explain things like sandstone above shale or clay if layering caused a layer of clay (which very much resists letting water through) resulted in a lens trapping other things below it, the lens collapsing, and then later smaller waves (as the force of the tsunamis recedes) washing over it causing additional sorting above the watertight layer. With something of this size there would not just be one set of compression waves but multiple as it traveled and returned.




I know, I know, it's a major shift in thinking. Try it. If the world wide flood/liquification is correct then the geological eras are completely incorrect. There was no Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and the Cenozoic eras, instead all these plants and animals all lived at the same time and died in one massive extinction (rather then many successive ones) involving a worldwide flood and massive earthquakes that then sorted them into layers of amphibian, reptile, mammal, and then birds as well as laying down layer after layer of varying soil over a period of hundreds of days as the tremors and tsunamis moved across the entire world.

I might edit this and talk more on it later, right now its half two in the morning, and I'm extremely tired. ;__;

I just wanted to say in the mean-time, that micro-evolution, or 'breeding for specific traits', involves a lot of in-breeding. Or breeding animals with quite similar genetic patterns, in my opinion anyway. I think a lot of breeders (obviously I cant vouch for centuries ago-type breeders), but I've had a HUGE number of instances of people just throwing sister-and-brother animals together to keep the same characteristics of a certain animal.

I feel this is what causes a lot of problems in animals nowadays. Pelvic problems in Alsatians. Skin problems in Shar Pei's. Eye problems in bloodhounds. Neurological/spinal/feelings of inadequacy in Chihuahua's. xD

... And I also thought actual genetic line breeding was figured out by a monk or something just one or two centuries ago, growing vines or flowers or something a certain colour in the gardens. I'm a little hazy on that, I forget. i think years ago, dog keepers might have bred dogs simply that were the fastest, or the strongest, or the best at hunting. I think the only true decently bred dogs are duck-hunting dogs, the ones that actually have webbed paws for swimming in bogs for the ducks bodies after they've been shot.

GOD I'm tired. -___-;;;

Edit: I'm baaaa~ack. xD
As for animals like the warcharger horses and stuff, yes, I can see that, but actually changing physical traits, and defining a whole new species, is two completely different things in my opinion. That said, again I say, I feel that there is something wrong when you breed an animal against what nature generally intended it to do. Horses are flighty. Their nimble. Their meant to be lean, thin perhaps, as lightweight as possible to take them great distances to the gallop. War chargers had thick chests, and far as I've seen, had comparably stumpy legs and were quite muscular. Not to mention the fact that they were bred to hurtle INTO the field of battle, when any right-thinking animal would have fled from all that. I'll bet those horses didn't live HALF as long as a 'normal' horse did, and if they did, then they certainly had many physical ailments, or illnesses, as a result of their breeding.

I think that goes along with my saying how men bred dogs and such to be the best hunters, strongest runners or whatever, its the same thing, I suppose? Overall it might be intended to some degree, but creating new species wasn't the original goal. Creating stronger, more powerful, more out-of-control lines in terms of genetics were the goal, to make them more useful to humans. Only as humans began to settle as a species and didn't require as much attention in actually surviving, did differing species of dog begin to appear, and one could argue this was more intentional than simply breeding strong horses, or web-footed dogs. One could argue for or against this forever, simply saying they ARE different species in their own right, or that they are perversions of nature, mutants fashioned to be tools for humans.

Evolution is a dynamic force; but its purely out of the necessity of need. If something changes in the immediate environment, specialized species will die off immediately, and only those of random mutation/differences which aide them in the new changes in said environment, will allow them to thrive. It CAN happen fast, but generally, it happens slowly. There WAS a time during one of the mass extinctions when there was literally no true predators at the tippity-top of the proverbial iceberg. This was what started a swift race, in which mammalian ancestry began to spark. Mammals were evolving at the sidelines during the dinosaur-latereptile stages of evolution, but they were more like lizards with fur. It was only after there wasn't much of a predator count that things really picked off for them. When there is spaces to be filled in the web of life, a creature will turn up to fill that spot. That, in my opinion, is evolution. People making muscular female animals breed with muscular male animals to get muscular puppies or something, that's what I'd think of as selective breeding.

But back on the actual subject, I dont find how, even with all of the energy pent up in the planets core, why there would be a massive, worldwide tsunami, or earthquake, or anything like that. Pressure is released all the time, all over the globe, and I just dont really think enough pressure would build up to shake the whole planet. It would cause an extensive amount of damage, and I think more indisputable physical evidence would have shown itself in some way. The only thing that could inspire such a destructive event would have to come OUT-WITH the planet itself, I feel.

Len was right about the dragon thingy, I've heard about it too. People thinking they used to be dragons or demons/monsters or whatever.

.. If theres this much pressure and everything in liquification lenses though, wouldnt this in turn, stretch, crack, or completely destroy fossils? Distort them?

Our current set of animals can be traced back to a rather small tree can they not?

No. They can't.
Different species spread like wildfire. It'd be silly to say that the first fossil records of bacteria were the only ones available at the time - they must have begun changing immediately. Because this is what micro-organisms do most. They change. And if I'll wager there were more species in the world during the time of the giant insects, when the oxygen levels were much higher, than even during the times of the dinosaurs. I'll wager there were one or two species of flatworm or silkworm the length of a TRUCK, but simply due to the fact that their bodies decayed quickly, no trace of them has ever been found.

Fact of the matter is, the world is so dynamic and inter-changing that both accounts can happen. Scientifically, not in the religious sense. I'm keeping waaaaayyyyy out of the religious stuff here, because I'm too blunt and I'll cause an arguement. x_x;; ... Umm, can I just say this one thing, about the religious way of thinking? Whether it be Christianity, Buddhism, Muslim, some ancient belief, some extinct belief, or pantheistic qualities, I believe that if there was, or is, some kind of great intelligence out there, some great awareness, then I've often believed that pointing the finger at humanity and basically saying "Bad boy!" and flooding over the planet for whatever reason would be a little... I dunno. I can't see that. If there is some kind of great awareness in the universe, then its manifestations would be so unimaginable, its intentions so unfathomable, its reason so unTHINKABLE, that we will never be able to understand a fraction of it all. People tend to blame or point the finger at "pure good" or "pure evil" or some kindof awesome otherworldly power for the things that happen in the world - the truth is, we don't know. And we never will.
The thing that makes us who we are is in trying to explain it, and not fully succeeding. The greatest piece of knowledge is in knowing, that we know nothing.

Actual scientific liquification might be able to disclose SOME of the things that happen in the world, but I dont think it'll explain all of them. Just like I dont think any OTHER theory will solidly explain ALL of them either. Whatevers happening in the world is greater than a single theory. The world wont revolve around a single force, or a single way of moving. A thousand and one different causes can be found for these types of things.
Basically said, all theories are in their own way, right and wrong. We weren't present at the time, and I just dont think anyone can ever really say for sure what happened - because we just simply weren't there. It's always good to have an idea of whats happened, but an idea will only be an idea, and I dont think any of us can ever pinpoint anything with 100% accuracy.

I love these kindof topics mind you. xD It's always fun listening to new ideas and stuffs. <3

Originally Posted by Redsquire

... And I also thought actual genetic line breeding was figured out by a monk or something just one or two centuries ago, growing vines or flowers or something a certain colour in the gardens. I'm a little hazy on that, I forget.

I'm sorry your so tired.

It is possible that breeding for traits with plants is more recent (I seem to recall reading about that as well) however man has been breeding animals for traits ever since they were first domesticated from all indications.

A pertinent example would be the war chargers for knights in plate mail. I remember when historians/scientists said that the horses could not have possibly been as large then as the records said they were because "evolution happens slowly and there was not enough time for them to breed them or for the breed to have disappeared already. If they existed they would still be around." Seriously. They also said that the armor would be to heavy for the knights to even walk in. Well we know better on the armor since some people recreated it accurately and found it was no heavier then what the average military infantry carries in the field now. As for the horses? Some horse breeders decided to test their claim and actually started breeding a line of horses for the same characteristics and size that the records said the war chargers had... and succeeded in less then 10 years. Think about it, less then 10. Maybe some scientists should stop thinking so much and actually go ask the real experts, the ones who do it.