Hi Rich,
Nice to hear from you:
I understand where the first date comes from, but not the second. Why would the fossil record potential be a million years old?
The considerations I laid out above. However, more specific values were given in the Pitman link:
I like this diagram too in that link:
Now, one might think that after a few million years that all the layers would be turned into solid rock. How then could solid rock “squirt” up into overlying layers of rock? The popular explanation seems to be that many types of sediment, such as the sand which forms sandstone, does not necessarily have to solidify just because it has been buried under high pressure for long periods of time. 69 For example, in the drilling of oil wells, unconsolidated sandy layers have been found at depths greater than 1,000 to 2,000 meters. Of course, some of these sandy beds were filled with oil – which one might expect to contribute to the lack of consolidation of the sand in this layer. But, the general argument is that overlying shale layers consolidate before much water can escape from the underlying sandy layers. Thus, the consolidated shale acts as a seal to prevent water from leaving the sandy layers. So, the overlying pressure does not compact the sand in order to aid in cementation. The overlying layers simply “float” on a layer of water. When some sort of disturbance happens to crack the overlying layer or layers, the liquefied sand squirts up with great force through this crack and forms a clastic dike or pipe.69The problem with this argument is that liquefied layers are simply not that common. In this light, it seems rather strange, when looking at the pipes and dikes found in the Kodachrome Basin and elsewhere, that these formations are quite common in certain regions. They are found at multiple levels supposedly separated by millions of years of time. And, some of them even have central cores of clay arising from a layer of shale. How can a layer be preventing liquid water from getting through from underlying layers if it is itself still unconsolidated? What is so special about these areas that layer after layer of sediment retains the ability to squirt up into overlying layers? – to include those layers made out of silt as well as sand?Really now, it seems that a much easier explanation would be that the layers were in fact formed rapidly, one on top of the other, while they were all still soft. The pressure of the overlying wet sediments caused many of the underlying soft layers to squirt up all over the place through various weak points in the overlying soft sediments.