Introduction:
Rock layers are levels of sediment that build up over time. They look like bands and they usually run horizontally, but can sometimes be slanted or vertical due to its compaction and formation being on an angle like sand dunes or due to seismic activity. In rock layers, fossils can be found giving evidence of the past. How did the rock layers really form? How fast did they form? How many rock layers are there? How do the rock layers compare all over the world? What causes their deformation?
Naturalistic/Evolutionary Answer:
Rock layers are formed by many seasonal flood deposits, by volcanic deposition, and by sediment deposition, especially at the bottom of lakes or large ancient seas. Volcanic material and/or sediments build up and cover the earth and rock layers are created by wind or by water when enough sediments are built up creating pressure on lower layers.[i] A rock layer will cover dead and living animals and plants.
The amount of lime or cementing agent is used in the sediment mixture will determine how long it will take to turn into rock. If there is a lot of lime it may take only a few years, if there is little to none, then pressure and hot water have to pack the sediment into rock and that might take “many thousands of years.” This is part of why different rocks have a higher or lower hardness.[ii] Volcanic rocks could form within minutes.
The age of the fossil can be determined by its depth below the surface, the deeper the fossil, the older the age. Older rock layers have simpler, less evolved organisms than higher, younger rock layers.[iii] This is not “an abstract diagram: this is the actual record of the earth’s crust, recorded in rocks around the world…Since fossils progress from fish at the bottom to humans at the top, we have clear evidence that life evolved through time.”[iv]
Occasionally in the fossil layers, there are unconformities where there are missing layers in one region. Those missing layers may not have formed in that area at that time or they did form, but were consequently eroded away.[v]
Check back tomorrow for the Creation Answer. Thanks again for your constructive help.
by Brian Mariani and others
Is the above correct? Do you evolutionists agree with this position? I have tried to write it as you believe it. Do you have any disagreements or concerns or additions?
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[i] Shlomiya Bar-Yam, Fossil Layers, New England Complex Systems Institute, http://www.necsi.edu/projects/evolution/evidence/layers/evidence_layers.html, accessed October 10, 2013.
[ii] Bob Avakian, Time to Form Sedimentary Rocks, February 2009, Newton: Ask a Scientist, U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/env99/env99396.htm, accessed October 10, 2013.
[iii] Rock Layers: Timeline of Life on Earth, Prehistoric Planet, PaleoClones, LLC, http://www.prehistoricplanet.com/news/index.php?id=48, accessed October 10, 2013.
[iv] Rock Layers: Timeline of Life on Earth, Prehistoric Planet, PaleoClones, LLC, http://www.prehistoricplanet.com/news/index.php?id=48, accessed October 10, 2013.
[v] David J. Leveson, Relative Age: Determining Relative Age From The Rock Record, 2006, http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/geology/leveson/core/topics/time/froshlec8.html, accessed October 10, 2013.
