Beware of paleoenvironmental deductions Map of the United States
showing the Permian red beds and evaporites, which were
interpreted as an ancient lake of strong and concentrated acid!
(after Benison et al.1) As a reader of the geological
literature, I am amazed by the paleoenvironmental
interpretations that are often made. Rarely do the researchers
qualify their interpretations with “possibly”, “maybe”, or other
such words to indicate uncertainty. We read, for example, that a
particular conglomerate was laid down by a stream, or a such-
and-such siltstone was deposited by oscillating tides. Sometimes
they will even tell you what the climate was like millions of
years ago when formation X was laid down. These
paleoenvironmental deductions use the uniformitarian assumption
and are usually based on the type and character of the formation
and the particular fossils contained in the rock. Here is one
such statement about a Permian evaporite formation in the North
American mid-continent deposited over an estimate a