The Roraima Pollen Paradox

We are 4 rounds in, and now you're demanding I show credentials? I'd have been content with a source that had credentials. We are, as you say, four rounds in and you haven't provided a single source for your hypothesis. The microfossils retained their morphology and no graphitization was detectable without the aid of spectroscopy analysis, and even then, this spectroscopy analysis (called Raman analysis) was inconclusive.[8] Depending on which of my opponent's sources you read this experiment was either inconclusive [Pro's 4] or suggests graphitization [Pro's 6]. That's a long way from becoming reduced to graphite. And 250 days at 1 atmosphere [Pro's 4] is a long way from the thousands of years that pollen would be heated for in natural circumstances. Hence the difference. Moreover, natural case studies [Cons's R2S7 and Pro's 4] show complete conversion to graphite. Two good natural analogs beat one short-term experiment that may or may not have agreed with them anyway. There is no reason to assume pollen is unable to remain "well-preserved" in metamorphosed rock. All of the technique of palynofacies estimation of paleotemperature says otherwise [Con's R2S5 and R4S1 and R4S2]. By 200 C these pollen grains should have been blackened. By 400C they should be graphite. You appear to have neglected that point. They are not limonite bands though. Your entire argument on this point was based on the idea that limonite indicates contamination via water, but there is no limonite in this quartz bedding, so your argument is moot. If you enjoy denying the antecedent. Limonite demonstrates water. Lack of limonite does not demonstrate lack of water. Bedding, observed in the photomicrograph, demonstrates a path that water could follow into the rock which is adjacent to paths that water did follow into the rock. Fig. 2 from Stainforth (1966). Paruima hornfels (crossed nicols); large crystals are all cordierite (not pollen!) in micaceous ground, with original fine quartz banding still preserved; biotite may be seen to right of centre of field. (x 150) (Bold is Con's, not Stainforth's) If you want to argue the pollen is contamination, you're going to have to explain why only a small range of pollen types is in this rock, when many types of pollen are living in the area. Stainforth's paper never mentions the number of pollen types identified. The terms "suite" and "assemblage" are used indicating more than one type but how many more is never stated. The objection that "a mixed suite of spores and pollen should be expected" is peculiar given that the pollen was never identified and thus may well have been a mixed suite. "Ultrasonic cleaning removed the pollen, thus it is either a surface contaminant or the rock is more porous than suggested" Misleading. The paper doesn't say all the pollen could be removed with ultrasonic cleaning, suggesting that the ultrasonic cleaning only removed some of the pollen that happened to be sticking out of the rock. Not at all. The exact words used were "practically barren". No cleaning technique will be 100% effective but "practically barren" indicates that more than just the pollen grains on the surface were removed. A large majority of pollen grains were removed, demonstrating that they were contamination. If the large majority of grains are contamination then, in the absence of any further evidence, the small minority that remain cannot be declared with any certainty to be original. Besides, how in the world can one claim to have removed all the pollen from a peice of hornfel rock, since hornfel rock is not transparent? You can only say the rock is "practically barren" of pollen if you crumble it to little peices, in which case, you're exposing the pollen fossils deep within the solid rock to the ultrasonic cleaning process which can then dislodge it with it's high pressure. Ultrasonic first, crush second. As you say, crushing it first would allow the ultrasonic to remove all pollen regardless of origin but is the type of amateur mistake that I'm fairly certain Dr. T van der Hammen didn't make. Unless you're calling his competence into question. The text is clearly insinuating that a mixed suite of pollen was not found, indicating the pollen was fossilized when the rock was created. The text is more clearly stating that none of the pollen was ever identified so it's peculiar that one of the two camps thought that it couldn't be a mixed suite. Sadly, we're dealing with just a preliminary report. It's implausible that pollen survived a treck through hundreds of feet of rock to be found by scientists and declared "well-preserved." Hardly. These are microfossils we're dealing with, not bowling balls. Joints and fractures can be several inches across and could provide a pathway for water to transport the pollen without even scuffing it. "[P]ollen are normally retrieved from their host sediments as disjunct entities, separate from the original parent plant mean[ing] that their natural affinities are often obscure."[10] And all that says is that we typically find pollen separate from the plants. It does not suggest that we should not expect to find any plants at all. Since half a plant grows underground, they fossilize very well. Yet there's an entire mountain of Roraima Formation sediments and not a single leaf of root cast. We are left wondering what produced the pollen. That's because, as he admitted, he was unable to resolve the paradox. Science thrives on paradox. Questions are what drives it. The LHC. The Hubble. The Human Genome project. All undertaken to explain the paradoxical and answer questions. Had Stainforth and his colleagues actually discovered a paradox of this magnitude we would expect paper after paper saying at least, "We still have no answer." Scientists should have quarried Roraima for its paradoxical pollen. Yet neither Stainforth nor his colleagues nor any other scientist has ever deemed the matter worth enough attention to even publish a single follow-up. No description of the pollen, not even an indication of how many types. This is not the thunder of a paradigm-shifting discovery, it is the quiet sigh of the mundane. Summary - Stainforth's paper describes "well-preserved pollen and spores". The rock that these pollen and spores came from was heated to between 400 C and 600 C. Two papers and the entire technique of palynofacies shows that at these temperatures the pollen should have been converted to graphitic discs unrecognized as pollen in 1966. My opponent seeks to refute this with a single experimental study lasting a mere 250 days which described its results as "inconclusive" at best. Clearly this "well-preserved" pollen entered the rock after it formed. - The absence of fossils of the smallest fragment of the plants that produced the pollen mitigates against it being an original component of the rock. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence but it does point and wiggle its eyebrows suggestively. - Limonite-coated bedding planes adjacent to the rock samples indicate water flow within the rock near the samples. The photomicrograph of the rock shows that these bedding planes are present on a sub-millimeter scale. This is a plausible mechanism for pollen to have entered the rock. - The absence of any further work on this topic since 1966 demonstrates that Stainforth, his colleagues and the scientific community as a whole found it to be unworthy of further mention. Contrary to what my opponent has suggested, this is not the hallmark of a paradigm-shifting discovery. - Ultrasonic cleaning of fragments of the samples rendered them "practically barren" of pollen. The fact that the pollen was removed demonstrates that it is not trapped within or between mineral grains of the rock. It was removed by a surface-cleaning technique so it is a surface contaminant, likely adhering to bedding planes. Conclusion Pollen grains reported in samples of the Roraima Formation hornfels (Stainforth, 1966) cannot be shown to be an original part of the rock and cannot be given the same age as the rock. They are of indeterminate age and thus useless for falsifying the theory of evolution.