Understanding evidence for craters that shaped Earth's Geology
Sevier and Grand Canyon, Pt 2
There may be no other plot of ground so often used to illustrate many of the geologic processes espoused in textbooks than the Grand Canyon. Geologist talk about it like they have the processes all figured out. Is it just possible that they have gotten it all wrong? This presentation is going to suggest unimaginable cratering was responsible for everything we see there, from the rocks, the sequence, the faults, and the actual canyon. None of it got there by geological processes we can see happening around us today. We will question if some of the processes even work the way everyone has assumed they would. Gentle reader, do not be afraid to questions the rocks, the processes, even my model, but above all, question the assumptions both you and I have made. Our God is a God of mystery, but He is also a God of Knowledge. And in knowing, He is worthy of our praise.
The first part covered how we interpret Earth craters in light of what we know of moon craters, and understanding the evidence of the energy signature left in the gravity patterns. It looked at some of the largest craters found in North America, forming the crystalline basement of the continent.
We have covered the cratering below the Great Unconformity the Crystalline Basement in Part 1. Here we want to continue on an exploration trip. Please leave your geologic preconception at the door, and we can go on a trip to discover some new ones. This session will address evidence of astral-cratering covers the entire globe 40 layers deep, We will relate cratering as the cause of the Vishnu Schist, Zoroaster Granite, Unkar Group, the Chuar Group, the 60 Mile and Tapeats Formations, the Redwall, the Surprise Canyon Valleys, and the Coconino Sandstone as well as others.
Cratering was responsible for all aspects of the Grand Canyon from the strata to excavating the canyon itself.
Figure 32: The Foxe crater, covered in Part 1, in far northern Canada, is the largest crater in North America (that I can find), what is the biggest crater in the continental United States? That distinction goes to the Tatanka crater, whose impactor nearly landed in Canada.
Figure 33: The Tatanka crater has the Williston Basin at its center. Scanning the gravity map, the Tatanka crater is partially responsible for the red ridge near its 4-ring (between white arrows), the western branch of the Mid Continental Rift, and the 8-9-ring near the east coast (between red arrows) formed the curved ridge of the Appalachian Mountains, as a mascon of the Bermuda crater.
Figure 34: One way to identify and confirm craters is to recognize how they interact with other craters. The white arrows are still the ends of the west limb of the Mid Continental Rift, and the red arrows are still the ends of the Appalachian ridge. I will propose the Bermuda crater arrived first because it is further to the east, with the Tatanka crater arriving later that same day as the earth rotated under the asteroid shower. The impacts together put extra energy into the area of the Mid Continental Rift where their rings overlap. This increased energy was raised as a mascon by the MCR crater a few days later. In the Appalachians, the arc of the ridge was pushed up in the heated lithosphere from the Bermuda crater. Since the red arrows both occur just outside the second ring, I will identify that as the Open-ring and make that a mascon of the Bermuda crater. The interactions of the two crater’s rims provides conformation for both of them to me, and provides conformation of the model.
Figure 35: The Tatanka crater also has several linears to recognize it, both high and low gravity. The red-ring with the red arrow was the first I thought I saw. Do you ever feel like there is someone staring at you? Some would say this is an unfounded feeling, but other times, with careful examination we can recognize clues that we may not even have previously been aware of. People turned our way. People staring at us. All of these are clues others are listening. Scanning this image may give you a feeling that there are other circular rings concentric to the white rings.
Figure 36: Many will say, with a crater this large, I could not possible really be seeing rings in the gravity pattern. I will say, they are not continuous rings, but they are significant repeated portions of rings. Enough to say, there is something there, and it needs more investigating.
Figure 37: South of the Tatanka crater, centered in Nebraska is the Maka Luta crater. “Maka Luta” comes from the Lakota words for “red earth.” A Landsat image of the crater provides very little evidence other than its inside ring fits a curve in the Front Range of Colorado (Red oval).
Figure 38: At the center of the Maka Luta crater is the Denver-Julesburg Basin, and at its outer edge is the edge of the continental shelves. Some creation authors have tried to make the Continental Shelves a product of the sediments running off of the continents as the land supposedly rose. This cannot be true if the Continental Shelves are part of the continents, and seismic sections consistently show them to be such, no matter where we look. On the east coast the high gravity ridge of the Continental Shelf is an up thrust of the Maka Luta, and while this map does not show the west coast to be similarly designed, the topographic sections do (see Pacific Northwest slideshow). In the Gulf of Mexico, the ring also limited the continent, but that limit was shortly modified by the Sigsbee Escarpment which pushed-up through the sediments from the MCR (Mid Continental Rift) crater. The Maka Luta crater determined the foundations of the continent.
Figure 39: Looking at the Maka Luta crater’s pattern as it crosses the Rocky Mountains, it also produced a gravity pattern of ripples. When finding the cratering connection to the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, it quickly becomes evident something cut them off on their south end (yellow arrow). Part of that something was the wide dark-blue ring which includes Owens Valley and Death Valley, both very significant to geologist in California. While both had their ultimate shape determined by other, later craters. The first low gravity print was made by the Maka Luta crater, which included them in a release valley. Looking north from that area, a number of dark-blue areas are concentric to the Maka Luta’s expression all across the Basin and Range and Rocky Mountains.
Figure 40: In Part 1 we discussed the Alvord crater that anchored the southern end of the Sevier Orogeny, and here we have identified the Tatanka and Maka Luta. In the southwest. Around the Grand Canyon, all three of these three craters overlap and produce some distinctive layers and interactions. In his Master thesis, Lathrop (2018) found the Bass Limestone’s Hotauta Conglomerate to correlate from Death Valley, California to the Franklin Mountains of West Texas, and the mud cracks correlated to the “molar-toothed” structures in the Belt-Purcell Supergroup of British Columbia and Alberta, Canada and Eastern Washington, Idaho, and Montana, U.S.A. except for the missing microsparry calcite infill or replacement. I propose that difference could be a result of higher temperature in the cratering process reflecting its shorter distance from the impact event. For these six distant disconnected deposits of Bass Limestone, Lathrop found a similar set of reverse faults hosted by each of the deposits that was concentric to the Alvord crater.
By contrast to the diverse locations of the Bass/Unkar Group, the Chuar Group on top of it is only found in the Grand Canyon, to the north in the Chuar Field (6) where it is explored for petroleum, and the Uinta Mountains (7) of Utah. I propose the Bass Limestone was laid down by the Tatanka crater and then broken up over its range by the Alvord crater that followed.
See Chapter 14 of my book for more thorough coverage of the Tatanka and Alvord cratering correlations.
Figure 41: Molar-toothed structures on the left from the Belt-Purcell Supergroup and evaporation cracks from the Bass Limestone’s Hotauta Conglomerate on the right. (D) is topside and (C) is underside. The irregular division and even fine lines are the same except for the microsparry infilling of the cracks. As microsparry calcite would have been produced at a specific temperature from the solution that the quartz sand grains were depositing in. This looks like a chemical difference governed by the temperature. This also suggest, both were deposited at an extremely elevated temperature, but in the Belt-Purcell it was somewhat higher temperature or prolonged elevated temperature than in the Hotauta Conglomerate.
Figure 42: A cratering model for the Grand Canyon’s Pre Cambrian runs right up against Stromatolites, in the Hotauta Member of the Bass Formation, and in the Kwagunt formation of the Chuar Group. Are they fossils or are they chemistry? Partly because a cratering model would require them to be chemical, I will declare them to be. Also, I think that must be the default position, until identified fossil evidence is found to confirm a biogenic source. But, as same Creationist authors have publish their belief in a biogenic origin, I will say, I am not convinced. The lower right image does not look biogenic in origin to me.
When I realize the containing strata was laid down very hot and a lot of chemical reactions were taking place as the very hot sediments were being put into place. These are conditions that have not been previously considered. I would propose to interpret them as the result of a chemical reaction that produced gases that lifted layers as it moved upwards in various forms including the inverted cone formation.
Figure 43: Other mound and cone shaped “stromatolites” have been located by Lathrop in Vishnu Canyon and Bright Angel Creek West. Although these forms are less spectacular, I believe they confirm a non-biogenic origin for the structures. No one has previously considered the chemistry that is going on between rapid high temperature depositions of these strata atop each other within mere hours.
Figure 44: Atop the Unkar and Chuar Formations is the 60 Mile Formation. I think there is a lot of merit to Wise and Snelling (2005) suggestion that the 60 Mile formation is the start of the Tapeats. At this distance from the cratering center, the first result would be a thrust of the geography, with the resultant deposits of LARGE breccia. The sand that will eventually form the Tapeats would start early as a quartz and feldspar condensate from the vapor cloud. These lulls would be brief between episodes of thrusting, and the first sand lenses are small insertions. By the time that the Tapeats Sandstone proper is depositing, returning tsunamis from the thrusting have washed life forms back over the OCR and the platform has become stable. The thrust that the 60 Mile formation represents was not a start of the Flood, but the start of a single cratering event, not first but at least 5th in this region.
In my two paper on the Tapeats, I was amazed that the strata was laid like in a river, and I compared that river for just the immediate area of the Grand Canyon would be a river 300 km (186 miles wide), Such rivers do not exist, and the Tapeats is not laid as on a beach. Hyperconcentrated flow was constantly depositing sand from a never ending source. To get that kind of deposition in a flume, you must keep adding sand to the recirculating water. Cratering supplies a continually renewing source of sediment, not from continuing erosion, but from continually condensing quartz from a very hot vapor cloud of vaporized rock that is slowly cooling. Cratering would produce the original thrust outwards carrying with it anything that can move. Water will rush back in to fill the void, filling it with hot condensing sediments and as they continues to fall, rush back outwards. Never getting very deep, 0.5 – 2 m (1.5-6 feet) in depth. This is the story of laying the thin layers of the Tapeats.
Figure 45: If the Tatanka crater formed the Unkar Group, and the Alvord crater formed the Chuar Group, the next sedimentary layer is the Tapeats Sandstone. Clarey (2017) compiled the Sauk Group, and his map is redrawn in B. It maps the Tapeats Sandstone and equivalent sandstone all over the continent that fits the Maka Luta and Foxe craters. Additionally, it has an arch across the central states that Clarey identifies as “dinosaur peninsula.” I propose that arch was an up-thrust of the earlier Keys crater. In the far north the pattern of sandstone was altered by the Greater Beaufort crater that also produced the Franklin Large Igneous Province just south of the depositing sandstone.
Figure 46: That these tsunamis might contain live vertebrates seems unlikely, but at Plateau Point just out from Indian Gardens just off the Bright Angel Trail we have evidence of exactly this. In my article from the Summer 2014 CRSQ, Anomalous Impressions in Tapeats Sandstone (Cambrian), Grand Canyon, the editors would not let me refer to them as footprints, but I showed that they had all of the characteristics of footprints and occurred in trackways, so I think I can defend them as footprints.
Figure 47: See the article for much better images. At the top is a documentary set of photos of most of the site. The entire ledge is shown with a total of 32 whole or partial impressions, produced in 6 trackways of similar prints. A horse, 2 large cats, a 3-toed theropod, a web footed bird, and one small mammal. At least the Theropod, horse and large cats were running on a water saturated, thixotropic surface. If water was moving over the surface when the prints were made, it would have to be less than 12-14 cm deep. The left image shows trackway A and the right image is one of the individual prints, possibly a large cat (#2).
Figure 48: There are no dinosaur eggs found in the Grand Canyon, but this is as good a time to talk about the conditions where dinosaur eggs are found in the Dinosaur Peninsula. In my September 2004 article in CRSQ on dinosaur eggs and nest, I emphasized how dinosaur eggs are often found in thinly layered sediments which give the impression that the sediments were depositing while the eggs were being laid. Some clutches of eggs were even laid into sand partially suspended in the saturating water. If dinosaurs were laying their eggs into water they were highly stress, desperate to survive. It is a reasonable assumption that dinosaur eggs, like bird or reptile eggs, must be incubated on dry land or embryo will drown. Both chicken and marine turtle’s eggs will drown in a few minutes of being submerged, about the same amount of time that you will last submerged. No reptiles lay their eggs in the water. So why would dinosaur do so? Obviously, they needed to get rid of the eggs for their own attempted survival. Eggs and foot prints are evidence of aerial exposure of shallow actively depositing sediments.
Model shown at right is typical of those produced in museums. Baby dinosaurs are made the size of embryos found in the egg, and are only half as large as hatchling for the egg size. Many Dinosaurs were probably ovoviviparous, bearing live young, and eggs represent aborted gestation due to stress and survival instinct (Psalms 29: 9).
Figure 49: The Grand crater centers in Eastern Utah, just happens to exactly match the depositional area of the Coconino Sandstone and related Schnebly Hills Sandstone just under it, and equivalent sandstones from Texas to Montana. The yellow oval is the location of the Fort Apache Limestone. We will come back to the limestone.
Figure 50: First, we want to see the depositional pattern of the Coconino and Schnebly Hills sandstones. Dr. John Whitmore is the expert, not I. His map, above, traces the depositional flow patterns found in these formations. This flow pattern would support movement primarily in the Coriolis direction or possibly another large crater in the Great Lakes region. This suggest continuing deposition significant hours after the cratering event. Geologist generally recognize the Uncompahgre and the Ancestral Rocky Mountains as the source for the sand grains, but I would propose an alternative. They originated as condensates under a vapor cloud from the Grand crater.
Figure 51: Fort Apache Limestone occurs between two layers of the Schnebly Formation in the area of Sedona, and makes only a spotty appearance at the Mogollon rim, but grows thicker as it approaches the New Mexico border.
The far right image raises another question as it shows the sedimentary strata in the Sedona area. Devils Kitchen is a sinkhole that Lindberg connects to the Redwall strata below. Sources from the Hualapai Indian Reservation area cite sinkholes that originate in the Tapeats sandstone or below. I propose the sediments were laid down at high temperature and the flowing water that deposited them was not adequate to cool them. The life forms that interacted with the strata have to be consider as reacting to significantly hot strata. The breccia pipes that underlay the sinkholes are gas escape columns formed by escaping gasses from the mantle or lowest crystalline layers.
Figure 52: The Fort Apache Limestone is a relatively thin strata arriving in the middle of the Schnebly Hills sandstone. It was blown to the south by the same wind that carried the Coconino and Schnebly sandstones in that direction.
Figure 53: The Fort Apache Limestone commonly has Bryozoan fossils and occurs in extreme eastern Arizona, overlapping New Mexico, I associate it with the Petrified Forest crater, To see the crater, we need a larger area view, but I brought the view closer to see the county lines to show the association between the area of the limestone and the area of the crater.
Figure 54: There are some other possibilities for the Redwall Limestone and the Supai formation. Both the Winnemucca and Nye crater centers are in Nevada, and not all that far from the Gandy crater that may have formed the Surprise Canyon valleys. The only real evidence of direction for a crater center comes from Beus and Morales (2003). They give the direction of deposition as the arrow in the right image indicates, which could apply to any of the three centers.
A cratering source for the Toroweep and Kaibab Limestone, and the Moenkopi Formation could also be any of these three craters. More research is needed.
Figure 55: Breccia Pipes are located all over the greater Grand Canyon area from Sedona on the south to Holbrook on the east and to the Paradox Basin on the north. Although popular models have them starting in the middle of the Redwall in karst structures and climbing upwards by hydraulic penetration. But, in the area of the Hualapai Reservation some sinkholes extend down into the Tapeats Sandstone. The connection of Tapeats Cave along Tapeats Fault suggest the source of displacement is below the Tapeats Sandstone in the basement rock.
Some breccia pipes extend upwards as far as the Chinle Formation, and many in the immediate area of the Grand Canyon cap-out above the Tapeats with small inclusions of red Moenkopi Formation.
Figure 56: Top of the Orphan Lode Copper and Uranium Mine on Maricopa Point, South Rim of the canyon shows the typical profile of pipe-in-pipe structure seen in all breccia pipes. Redder area may be spots of overlying Moenkopi above the Kaibab Limestone. Pipe-in-pipe structure can only form in gas escape structures. Well lithified pieces of skarn from the mines show that the strata was lithified but it broke loose in chunks that are often colored with hematite. In the Mitten Ridge breccia pipe/sink hole that terminates about 2-300 feet (60-100 m) into the Schnebly Hill Formation the last layer of sandstone is only partly melted in a concentric ring pattern like an onion skin, and small garnets are formed on the ceiling, Garnets melts just under 2,000 degrees C (3,600 degree F) suggesting the gas was at least that temperature when it arrived. For such gas to work its way up through almost a mile of sediment and still maintain that temperature requires that the sediment had to have a significantly elevated temperature already.
Figure 57: The karst structures, caves, ascribed to down percolating water through the limestone should also be ascribed to the rise of hot gases. I will suggest the breccia pipes happened first when the mantel gases were at their hottest they moved rapidly melting their way through much of the strata. A second event later released more mantle gases which only got as far as the Redwall Limestone and stopped due to cooler conditions of the strata. Instead of moving higher they spread laterally making cave systems. From the labyrinth of remaining rock between bubbles of gas to the tubular channels in Groaning Cave, to the identical spiral chimneys seen in Cave of the Domes (Grand Canyon), Groaning Cave (Colorado), and Grand Canyon Cavern (Peach Springs, AZ), and the shrinkage cracks visible in Groaning Cave, they all were formed by hot gas. Since the caves growth seem to be restricted to the limestone, it may show that it retained its heat longer than sandstone or shale allowing the lateral movement of the gas. This would also explain lateral uranium deposits in Colorado.
Figure 58: The Surprise Canyon valleys in the top of the Redwall are commonly explained as the Redwall was aerially exposed for some time while valleys were slowly eroded into its surface. I am suggesting the valleys are release valleys, like the Unaweep Valley in my first cratering paper, and formed in the adiabatic process in mere seconds to minutes. This means that the Redwall limestone was produced by one crate. Surprise Canyon valleys were release valleys from another crater, which after forming the valleys then started depositing the Supai Sandstone that fills and lays atop it.
Figure 59: Did the Unkar and Chuar groups represent the first craters? I believe the Vishnu Schist represents a thrust then deposits from the Gorda Crater, and the Zoroaster Granite may originate with Pedregosa Crater. The faults or fissures that the Zoroaster Granite intrudes seem to belong to the Gorda center, so the Vishnu Schist may have originated with an even earlier crater. Or, maybe the Pedregosa crater made the faults containing the Zoroaster Granite. Generally, an adiabatic liquid is injected into faults and fissures that open up during the adiabatic conversion. The fissures were produced by a previous generation of craters.