alternate varve formation possibilities

[VoxRat]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawkins

Actually ... you will find that I pay attention to and respond to people who have something substantive to say.

So...
Let's see how Dave "pays attention and responds to people who have something substantive to say":

Originally Posted by Dave Hawkins

Voxrat ... "Dave is WRONG about the early Third Sister researchers being mistaken."

OK, first he mischaracterizes what they've said. In this case, for instance, I didn't say whether the early researchers were mistaken or not. I said that Dave was wrong in concluding that Hammer and Stoermer had claimed any such thing

Faid ... "Dave is RIGHT about the early Third Sister researchers being mistaken."

I think this is another mischaracterization but, I'll let Faid speak for himself.

The important thing, though, is I asked Dave to support his assertions that H&S demonstrated that the earlier studies were wrong. Which I think is going to be pretty much an uphill battle, in light of the fact that H&S explicitly wrote that more studies and more data would be required to address that question. Remember?

Previous descriptions of sediment
banding in Third Sister Lake (Eggleton, 1931; Potzger
& Wilson, 1941) implied that earlier sedimentation
was annual, whereas our findings indicated that the
recent sedimentation was storm-induced. A longer core
of sediment may permit both accurate dating of sediments,
as well as provide clarification that arrhythmic
sedimentation was solely a recent phenomenon visually
distinct from observations noted in 1941 (Potzger
& Wilson, 1941).

So, rather than actually take responsibility for his assertions, Dave attempts a little cuteness as he attempts to slink away, playing the old "you evos get back to me when you've got your story straight"

Hmmm ... what to do?

Arm wrestling match?



Go, guys go!

Hilarious, Dave.

Anyway, Ian...
That's about as good as it gets in terms of Dave's "paying attention and responding" to substantive posts.

[Pappy Jack]

Originally Posted by VoxRat

That has not been my experience.

Nor mine.

[Faid]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawkins

Voxrat ... "Dave is WRONG about the early Third Sister researchers being mistaken."

Faid ... "Dave is RIGHT about the early Third Sister researchers being mistaken."

Hmmm ... what to do?

Arm wrestling match?



Go, guys go!

Is that how you "respond to those that have something substantive to say", dave? Sad.

Here are my exact words, that you dismissed as "extraneous", the same way you did to the main point of my post:

You just can't run away from that, dave, no matter how hard you try. I'll grant you that TS Lake was probably not a varve lake from way back (and for no other reason than the researchers say that their core had the same pattern as described in 1931)...

SO, I don't need to thumb-wrestle the Rat or whatever, dave (and it's a good thing, since thumb Vs. claw is not much to my favour). Voxrat and I agree that the paper does not redefine the nature of earlier sediments, it just contrasts them with recent ones.

[EDIT: Hell, I just noticed it after reading Voxrat's post- the authors themselves clearly state it! It's right there in black and white!]

However, I said I am willing to grant you that there's a good chance for earlier sediments to be non-annual too, based on the fact that the authors have seen banding patterns similar to the ones reported in the 30's and 40's (always according to them).

And I'm willing to grant you that, because IT DOESN'T MATTER.

Because, like we ALL try to explain to you, the REAL ISSUE is this:

...But STILL, the non-annual pattern of the lake is determined, in that paper, mainly by the lack of a distinct diatom assemblage that indicates annual deposition.

And THAT is the exact kind of diatom assemblage that SUIGETSU has.

There you go, dave. EVEN IF the Third Sister Lake researchers, in the 30s, were wrong, they were wrong because of the very reasons that make Suigetsu researchers RIGHT today.


Got it yet?

Of course you did. That is why you'll try even more to obfuscate things.

[Jet Black]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawkins

What??!! You're going to have to go through this slowly. I don't get what you're saying.

It was a comment to someone else. Basically column d has nothing to do with diatom concentrations in the layers. Rsting phase diatoms have little discoid frustrules in them, and column d shows the percentages of diatoms in the layers that have frustrules. Those with are in resting phase, those without are in active phase. This is indicative of the time of year, because diatoms rest when they're not on peak season, something like hibernation. None of your models can explain the clear correlation of resting phase frustrules with layer type.

[Febble]

Dave, however much you protest that you are interested in "substantive" posts, you clearly aren't, because you unerringly pick up the irrelevant and ignore the key points.

This thread is about "alternative varve formation possibilities". Perhaps it would have been better to have been entitled "alternative varve or-varve like formation possibilities", as some of those possibilities may not be annual. But I think you will agree that we can take that as read.

In connection with the OP, at least two examples have been raised in which something other than an annual diatom bloom resulted in the formation of varves.

The first example is Third Sister Lake. The Hammer and Stoermer paper is about distinguishing non-annual processes from annual processes when examining lake-bed laminae.

What is relevant to the OP is that the paper lays out the DIFFERENCES between what they found in recent laminae in Third Sister Lake, and what is found in other VARVED lakes, namely that in recent laminae in Third Sister Lake, the species frequency does not coincide with layer frequency.

What is NOT relevant is whether or not the older layers in Third Sister Lake are true varves (they might be) or whether anyone else mistook the recent layers for annual layers.

Similarly, it is NOT relevant that, as Quigley says, that some engineers (some time ago) called some layers "varves" that weren't - the relevant point Quigley was making, as Hammer and Stoermer make, is that there are clear CRITERIA by which varves and non-varves can be distinguished.

It IS relevant that by both the Hammer and Stoermer criteria and by Quigley's criteria, the Lake Suigetsu layers have the characteristics of true varves.

But whether or not this is the case (and you have provided no evidence that it isn't, and there is abundant corroborating evidence that it is), I also provided an example of a lake in which true varves were also formed, but not by annual blooming of diatoms, namely Lake Angulinuo in China.

These varves are formed because winter sandstorms leave rounded quartz grains on the ice each winter; these grains become trapped in the ice, and are released when the ice melts, resulting in a layer of aeolian quartz in the sediment. For the rest of the year, the sediment consists of silt and clay from the rivers that enter the lake.

So the researchers KNOW that the varves are annual (they see them forming); they are EASY to count (count the layers of rounded quartz crystals); and their core consisted of over 8 millenia's worth, without so much as a trace of a Global Flood at any point.

Lake Angulinuo therefore alone (just as any varved lake with more than 6 millenia's worth of varves) infirms the YEC hypothesis. It was thus a highly relevant AND substantive post. I also sent you the paper.

Dave, this too is a substantive post, as are the posts of many posters whose posts you have ignored.

Please deal with it.

[Jet Black]

Dave's current arguement against suigetsu being a varved sequence relies on the following logic:

A is not B so C is not B either, which is already an incredibly weak position, but he attempts to back it up with some comparison, so lets see how his comparison holds:

Originally Posted by Dave Hawkins

SIMILARITIES
1) Both have alternating light and dark layers
2) Both appear to have higher diatom density in dark layers than in light layers (Column C&D in first ref above)
3) Both have some thin bands
4) Both have some thick bands
5) Both have fairly significant differences in band correlation between different cores (remember Kato vs. Kitagawa cores)

These comparisons of similarities are overly simplistic, and I will demonstrate this to be the case by demonstrating that baldeggersee is not varved according to dave's argument:

1) baldeggersee has alternating light and dark layers
2) baldeggersee has higher diatom density in the dark, organic layers.
3) baldeggersee has some thin bands
4) baldeggersee has some thick bands
5) both have some fairly differences in band correlation in different cores. Like tha kato/kitagawa cores these differences are not in varve number, but in varve thickness across the area of the lake - some areas being slightly thicker than others, and these thickness differences of course cumulatively adding up over time.

So there we have it. Baldeggersee isn't a varved sequence either... only it obviously is, because we have actually seen the varves forming over the years, prodicing exactly the correct numbers of varves and even indicating major events such as chernobyl, and producing the correct number of varves between two tsting dates. The ease at which dave's claimed similarities have been used to come to an obviously wrong conclusion demonstrates the poorness of dave's attempted comparison.

Originally Posted by Dave Hawkins

DIFFERENCES
Can't think of any worth mentioning ... oh sure, we could talk about total depth of sediment, drainage area, the C14 dating of macrofossils, etc. but these seem like very minor differences, with the exception of the C14 dating. Can anyone really think of another difference that's really important?

Again, dave is not overly careful about his analysis of the difference. I did implore him to actually look at the papers in depth but he did not, cest la vie.

(1) While varve thicknesses are variable in suigetsu, with the exception of the turbidite and tephra layers the variability is of a fairly small scale comparable with the baldeggersee cores. Third Sister however shows layer thickness variations from 0.2 cm right up to 5cm, with no obvious trend patterns. Variability on the scale of the suigetsu chances is expected, because environmental conditions do change from year to year and are evidently going to affect the numbers of diatoms that grow, or the amounts of clastic sediments deposited. Again this is obvious from the baldeggersee and swedish cores. Over long periods however as has been seen in the Tanimura paper, where the 1cm section subjected to close analysis was part of a very long section which looked basically the same all the way along in terms of layer properties/thicknesses and so on.

(2) the diagnostic diatom patterns are very different. The Third Sister diatom assemblage varies wildly over the studied short period. As can be seen from the third sister paper 4,5 and 6 covering 12 species of diatom there is only one case in which there is a diatom whose presence oscillates with layer type. All the rest show no correlation with layer type in terms of relative abundance. The total abundance varies, but this is not at all suprising. As the authors mention in the paper, the diatoms are diluted by the large amount of clay deposited which forms the light layers so low abundance in light layers is expected. For the particular case where oscillation is observed; Hantzschia amphioxys, the paper makes it very clear that this is a ubiquitous soil diatom, not a lacustrine or marine diatom, and so its presence in the light layers is unsuprising, because the light layers have formed precisely because large amounts of soil containing the diatom were washed into the lake. Even then, the relative abundane remains low, exceeding 20% in only one layer, and mostly remaining at or below 10%.

This is totally different to the suigetsu patterns, where the diatom assemblage remains largely constant, with the exception of when the lake became brackish, and many of the diatoms stopped growing there and some additional brackish diatoms were introduced. As is clear in the tanimura paper, there is an obvious oscillation in relative abundances between different diatom species which is repeated over the sample. All species in this case are lacustrine diatoms. The particular abundances in this case line up with the light and dark layers formed through the year, and again correlate with the pyrites and siderites reported elsewhere. Additionally a species of diatom observed only on the boundary between layers is observed. Dave's original claim was size sorting, however he appears to have abandoned this approach now, which is wise, especially given column d in the tanimura figure shown in previous posts, which shows the preservation of granules, which are the remains of the discoid frustrules observed in resting phase diatoms, which again shows the seasonal nature of the diatom deposition.

(3) The layers in suigetsu, unlike the layers in third sister formation agree with the diagnostic criteria for varves. As Quigley says:

Consistent clay layer thickness and sharp textual division between silt and clay components are the principal diagnostic criteria for varve recognition

(4) While there is some variation in varve thicknesses over the space of the lake and over time in the suigetsu cores varve count, that is the numbers of varves between various event layers, shows that the same numbers of varves settled between the event layers. That the varve thickness varies over the lake is unsuprising and is seen in currently forming varve sequences such as baldeggersee, which show variation in the annual deposition rates over the lake. Third Sister shows no such count between events, indeed the thick clay layers appear to be events, such as storms and runoff and alteration to the environment through urbanization.

(5) an additional problem for dave is that the light layers in third sister are event based layers - storms or somesuch washing large amounts of clay into the lake. This goes strongly against his earlier model in which he claimed that storms, floods and so on caused the formation of multiple layers (40 or more annually). Third sister shows that in a lake fed by a stream as suigetsu is, his model does not apply. As a result he would now require 40 or more such events per year, which would have to be highly regular in magnitude and separetion over time. He would still however face the problems highlighted above, namely that the storm layers would be diluted in terms of diatom species and there would be no obvious justification for the species separation or presence of frustrules. In short, Third Sister as a model goes against what dave has previously claimed happened, so not only are the differences between Third Sister and Suigetsu highly relevant and significant, but the Third Sister case also shows that many of the claimed mechanisms for layer formation that dave has claimed happened in suigetsu to date do not apply in such lake systems.

[Dave Hawkins]

Thanks for the responses. More Monday.

[VoxRat]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawkins

Thanks for the responses.

Hey! That's what we're here for. But thanks for the thanks.
Oh... wait. Maybe Dave was just thanking the "nice" posters?

More Monday.

Is there more to say on this???

I do hope that whatever "more" is, it acknowledges and takes into account what we've just gone over, and isn't just "more of the same" - starting all over again at square one.

[deadman_932]

I do hope that whatever "more" is, it acknowledges and takes into account what we've just gone over, and isn't just "more of the same" - starting all over again at square one.

The latter will happen. Hell, I'm surprised he's not bringing up Portuguese.

[Notta_skeptic]

Originally Posted by deadman_932

The latter will happen. Hell, I'm surprised he's not bringing up Portuguese.

Shh! Don't tempt him!

[VoxRat]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawkins

Thanks for the responses. More Monday.

It's Monday!

[Jet Black]

Originally Posted by VoxRat

It's Monday!

ssh, he's too busy demonstrating that scientists are fraundsters.

[BWE]

Originally Posted by Jet Black

ssh, he's too busy demonstrating that scientists are fraundsters.

Fraudsters who made up this stupid word 'varve' which is obvioulsy a lie to try to make simple hydrological sorting look like a big ol' flood. Or something like that.

[Jet Black]

no post yesterday even though dave said he would. apparently he's too busy looking for fraudulent scientists.

[Febble]

I'm dying to know what he makes of Lake Angulinuo.

[BWE]

Originally Posted by Febble

I'm dying to know what he makes of Lake Angulinuo.

mud?

[VoxRat]

Originally Posted by VoxRat

It's Monday!

It's Tuesday!

[Coleslaw]

Originally Posted by VoxRat

It's Tuesday!

He didn't say which Monday.

[Dave Hawkins]

Originally Posted by Jet Black

no post yesterday even though dave said he would. apparently he's too busy looking for fraudulent scientists.

Sorry. The other threads were just too interesting. What I need is about 3 of me. Then the 3 of us could all work on separate threads. How about you, JB? I think you'd make a good creationist! And maybe Febble also.

[deadman_932]

They'd have to abandon their ethics and morals like other YECS. That won't happen.

[Constant Mews]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawkins

Sorry. The other threads were just too interesting. What I need is about 3 of me. Then the 3 of us could all work on separate threads. How about you, JB? I think you'd make a good creationist! And maybe Febble also.

JB and Febble are honest and know something about science. They could not, by definition, be creationists.

[deadman_932]

There's a post here about your honesty that I'd like you to address, Dave. It goes to what I just said above: http://www.talkrational.org/showpost...&postcount=137

[Occam's Aftershave]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawkins

Sorry. The other threads were just too interesting. What I need is about 3 of me. Then the 3 of us could all work on separate threads. How about you, JB? I think you'd make a good creationist! And maybe Febble also.

One of you would do, if he were honest.

[Fathermithras]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawkins

Sorry. The other threads were just too interesting. What I need is about 3 of me. Then the 3 of us could all work on separate threads. How about you, JB? I think you'd make a good creationist! And maybe Febble also.

Dave, you do realize that your online antics have deconverted people right? You've failed to convince anyone you're right and to take up creationism. Or is this lost on you? I mean, you honestly aren't even a bit embarrassed that you're doing the opposite of what Jesus said to do?

[Constant Mews]

Originally Posted by Fathermithras

Dave, you do realize that your online antics have deconverted people right? You've failed to convince anyone you're right and to take up creationism. Or is this lost on you? I mean, you honestly aren't even a bit embarrassed that you're doing the opposite of what Jesus said to do?

I have asked Dave this question before. He never bothers to answer.

Dave spends his entire online time working against the goals he continually states are important to him. The level of cognitive dissonance required to do this is stunning.