Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Bent Rock Layers

One of my favorite things to observe while traveling is rock layers.

They are everywhere when you start to look for them.

Perhaps the best and most frequent place to see rock layers is in the road cuts on highways.

Layer upon layer of rocks can be seen and the amazing thing is that they are usually very flat and straight layers with no evidence of erosion between the layers.

No erosion -- that is very odd -- especially since we are told in school that each layer took thousands or millions of years to be deposited.

Hmmm.  How is it that in my back yard, I see erosion all the time in the rocks and dirt and, even though I am 'old', I am not THAT old, but rock layers said to be millions of years old show almost no erosion?

Also, and even more stunning is the fact that the rock layers in the road cuts and elsewhere, including those in the Grand Canyon (pictured here) are often folded or bent but not broken.

Hmmm.  Odd again since I have observed, and so have you, that when a rock is bent or folded it breaks.

So why is it that the rock layers that are everywhere around the world are usually without any evidence of erosion and are folded without breaking.

Yesterday you met Dr. Andrew Snelling, PhD in Geology, who explained to us about Carbon 14.

Today, let's read a very informative but brief article, written by him, that explains how this folding without breaking and layers without erosion happens.   HERE'S THE LINK