Fossil Ordering Re-Visited

There is another flood model that does not use mobility in its argument. It argues that all land-dwelling animals and fossils were all wiped out and destroyed during the flood leaving little trace. It is quite an interesting read. I will copy the most important and interesting part of it for you to take a look at here, from This site: -
The Bible describes the events of the first day of the Flood like this:"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." (Genesis 7:11)
According to this passage, the Flood began with the fountains of the great deep breaking up, accompanied by torrential rain. An important question confronts us: what were these fountains of the great deep? A study of the Hebrew indicates that these were pre-Flood terrestrial springs, issuing forth subterranean waters to irrigate the ground (Hasel 1974). Genesis 2:6 indicates that this was how the earth was watered before the Flood. In other words, there appear to have been vast underground water sources beneath the pre-Flood continents.The Flood was initiated by the breaking up of these fountains of the great deep, releasing vast quantities of possibly superheated water onto the continents. Such an event would have been accompanied by the most catastrophic earthquake, volcanic and tectonic activity (Figure 6). Genesis 6:13 and 9:11 tell us that the Flood did not passively cover the earth, but destroyed it. As the continental crust broke up, the pre-Flood land surfaces were destroyed, and any pre-Flood hills were levelled. The heat released would have baked the crust, producing metamorphic rocks. Much of the water from the fountains may have been ejected high into the atmosphere, to fall as rain. This was the time at which the Flood was at its most violent. Nothing could have survived on land.This is one of the reasons why it does not make sense to explain the order of the fossil record as a result of the different escape abilities of people and animals as they fled to the hills for refuge, as suggested by Whitcomb and Morris. The continents were being scoured down to their roots - there were no hills to which men and animals could flee! It is difficult to imagine how any terrestrial creatures could have survived the initial fury of the Flood.Figure 6: A reconstruction of the events of the first day of the Flood (from Robinson 1996 p 45). The Flood began with the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, accompanied by torrential rain.The biblical text indicates that all the land-dwelling air-breathing animals were obliterated during this early phase of the Flood. For instance, God said to Noah:"For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth." (Genesis 7:4)
The text goes on to say:"And all flesh died that moved upon the earth....All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth...." (Genesis 7:21-23)
It is interesting that the Hebrew word translated "destroyed" in these verses is "machah", the same word used in Psalm 51 in which David is pleading with God to "blot out" his transgressions. When God blots out our sin he remembers it no more: it is as if our sin had never existed. In the same way, the forceful nature of the text in Genesis indicates that the destruction of the land-dwelling air-breathers was total. We should remember again the violence of the Flood. The original land surface was being stripped away, there was widespread volcanism and metamorphism, physical dismemberment by buffeting waters, abrasion and pulverisation by sediments, and chemical decomposition. Not a trace of the land-dwelling air-breathers was left - not even as fossils.One of the striking features of the geological record is the complete absence of any fossils of air-breathing land animals - or tracks or traces made by them - in the Precambrian or Lower Palaeozoic rocks. Terrestrial air-breathers do not begin to appear in the record until the Upper Palaeozoic. It is suggested, therefore, that the Precambrian and Lower Palaeozoic represent the complete wiping out of the antediluvian world during those first few terrible days of the Flood. As scripture indicates, the land-dwelling air-breathers were completely obliterated without trace.[This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-01-2002]

I only recently found the article, so don't ask me much about it.From this quote from the article,
"Living animals can walk and leave footprints; dead animals cannot. We have already emphasised the suddenness and violence of the Flood. The Bible describes the total annihilation of all the pre-Flood air-breathers in the first 40 days of the Flood. We should expect, therefore, to find no evidence of living land animals (e.g. their footprints) in Flood layers, but plenty of evidence of living land animals in post-Flood layers, after the animals had stepped off the Ark and begun to repopulate the earth. We can therefore look at the distribution of footprints in the geological record to help us identify Flood rocks.
Figure 10 shows the distribution of tracks (Garton 1996). The Lower Palaeozoic layers are devoid of tracks. Amphibians and reptiles characterise the Upper Palaeozoic, reptiles the Triassic, and dinosaurs (with some birds) the later Mesozoic. In other words, the tracks of air-breathing land animals lie on top of thousands of metres of sediments that contain no tracks. This distribution can be understood if the Flood ends in the Upper Palaeozoic. This would explain why tracks are absent from the Lower Palaeozoic - these are Flood rocks laid down at a time when all the land creatures had perished. It would also explain why the tracks of terrestrial creatures characterise the Mesozoic - these are post-Flood animals descended from those on board the Ark. The amphibian and reptile tracks in the Upper Palaeozoic appear to be those of semi-aquatic creatures that were able to survive outside the Ark (Robinson 1996, pp 52-53). "
it would seem that it postulates that the mesozoic is post flood.The article has interesting ideas, such as this one for explaining why dinosaurs seem to be oldest-because they are the fastest moving land animals after the flood, allowing them to colonize the rest of the world quickest.
"In these turbulent post-Flood times major tectonic activity continued. Convincing geological evidence indicates that towards the end of the Flood, the continental plates had collided to form a Cambrian supercontinent, which geologists call Pangaea. This was providential in that it allowed the rapid recolonisation of the Earth by the animals preserved on the Ark. It appears that in early post-Flood times, this supercontinent began to break up. Hot magma rising at the mid-ocean ridges buoyed up the oceanic crust, displacing ocean water onto the continents. This led to the re-inundation of some continental areas after the Flood."
This could possibly provide a source of the dinosaur tracks-the dinosaurs recolonizing the world after the flood.Somewhere else it gives a reason why mammals seem to come after; because Recent studies have indicated that dinosaur reproduction rates were extremely high (Paul 1994). For instance, it is estimated that in about 40 years a sauropod dinosaur could have produced up to 4,000 eggs. In addition, it is thought that the juveniles grew very rapidly. The reproductive output of dinosaurs is thought to have equalled or exceeded that of rodents, and was much higher than large mammals like elephants. This would explain why dinosaurs appear in the fossil record before the mammals, which do not appear in significant numbers until the Cenozoic. Calculations show that elephant reproduction rates, for example, are such that we should not expect to find these creatures fossilised in the first 200 years after the Flood because the population numbers would have been too small (Robinson 1996 pp 63-4). The first indisputable elephant fossils are found in the Eocene, which accords very well with this model, in which the Mesozoic and Cenozoic represent the first two or three centuries after the Flood.

​

Furthermore, unlike the dinosaurs, which lived on extensive mudflats, mammals prefer habitats away from water, which are less likely to be inundated to result in the fossilisation of their tracks or remains. Mammalian fossils are associated with the catastrophic land-based mountain building events of the Tertiary (Scheven, 1988).[This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-01-2002]

Well, from taking a look at the intro to the article, I think its safe to assume they're YECs. They just say that the dinosaur species, reptiles, birds, and mammals occur in the fossil record in that order because of the time required to move and recolonize the earth, the reproductive rate of the organisms, etc.The pattern of reinundations you talk about according to the article are due to the post-flood effects. A group of European creationists has argued that the geological record from the Late Carboniferous to the Pleistocene was not laid down during the Flood, but during the turbulent centuries after the Flood. They suggest that the Flood/post-Flood boundary may be within the lower Carboniferous layers. A more detailed treatment of this model may be found in Robinson (1996), Scheven (1996), Garton (1996), Garner (1996a, 1996b), and Tyler (1996), which were published together in the Australian Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal.
[This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-01-2002]

quote:

---

Okay, then, do they have any data?

---

quote:

---

Figure 4: Reconstruction of a Middle Ordovician hardground community with boring and encrusting organisms. Adapted from Brett and Liddell (1978).

​

In fact, the time represented by these hardgrounds is relatively short - only months, years, or decades - not thousands or millions of years! So the time required for the formation of hardground surfaces is certainly compatible with the idea of a young earth. Secondly, it is significant that hardgrounds are much less common in the older Palaeozoic rocks - and even then they occur only on continental platforms where these sediments are thin - than in the younger Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks. Palaeozoic hardgrounds also tend to be less well- developed and less mature than younger hardgrounds. These trends are best explained by the idea that the Palaeozoic rocks were laid down more rapidly than the Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks. Scheven (1990) has suggested that Palaeozoic hardgrounds were surfaces temporarily colonised during the Flood in areas where sedimentation was light. Mesozoic and Cenozoic hardgrounds are more common and more mature because these rocks, he suggests, were laid down in the centuries after the Flood when there was more time available for the formation of hardgrounds. Understanding of the full significance of the Palaeozoic hardgrounds would, however, benefit from further investigation.

​

Figure 5: The north face of Pen y Fan, Brecon Beacons, South Wales. Conventional geologists postulate a time gap of 10 million years at the interval marked X-Y.

​

b) From Dead Horse Point in Utah it is possible to observe dramatic canyon erosion by the Colorado River. Exposed there are two major gaps in the geological sequence - one thought to represent 10 million years, and the other 20 million years (Roth 1988). The 10 million year gap has been traced over 100,000 square miles (250,000 sq. km). Sandwiched between these two gaps are deposits of the Moenkopi Formation, a sequence of continental deposits (important, because on land a layer is more vulnerable to gully and channel erosion). Yet again, there is no evidence of a prolonged period of erosion along the tops of these layers. They are quite flat and featureless.
c) In Grand Canyon, just below a prominent cliff formed by the Redwall Limestone, there is a claimed gap of 100 million years of missing Ordovician and Silurian deposits (Roth 1988). The layers above this gap sit conformably on the layers beneath as though no long time gap had elapsed between them.
d) The Deccan Plateau, in India, is made up of a thick pile of basalt lava flows. These basalts are thought to have been erupted throughout a period of several million years. But we know that each lava flow must have formed very quickly because they spread out over very large distances (some can be traced over 100 miles) before they had time to cool. Each flow probably formed in just a few days, so the bulk of the geological time is thought to have passed between each eruption. However, evidence for long time gaps between the flows is lacking (Garner 1996b). The tops of the flows are strikingly flat, implying that there was no time for erosion to take place between eruptions. For instance, the village of Shyampura is built on top of one of the lava flows which forms a flat plateau nearly three miles long and more than a mile wide. The level does not vary more than 50 feet over the whole area (West 1981). If thousands of years passed between each eruption, then why had the lavas not been eroded into the conical hills that modern day erosion is producing in that region?

​

Figure 6: A reconstruction of the events of the first day of the Flood (from Robinson 1996 p 45). The Flood began with the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, accompanied by torrential rain.

​

Figure 7: Distribution of Upper Cambrian deposits across the United States and southern Canada (from Robinson 1996 p 40). Only strata that are still preserved are shown, and thicknesses therefore represent minimum values.

​

This global inundation is described by Dr T H van Andel (1994), a Cambridge University geologist, in his book New Views on an Old Planet:

​

"Regarding the early Palaeozoic in this bright light, we find a wet world, its continents inundated far more than they have ever been since then, and the rise of the sea continuing. Before this rise ended, very little land remained above water." (p 179)

​

Figure 8: Eustatic sea level curve derived by estimating the area of continental flooding. There are two major peaks of flooding - one in the Lower Palaeozoic and a lesser one in the Upper Cretaceous. Adapted from Hallam (1984).

​

Figure 9: Map showing the distribution of the major continental flood basalt provinces (from Garner 1996b p 118): (1) Keweenawan Province, (2) North Australian Province, (3) Siberian Province, (4) Karoo-Antarctic Province, (5) Parana-Etendeka Province, (6) Deccan Province, (7) North Atlantic Tertiary Province, (8) Ethiopian Province, (9) Eastern China Province, (10) Columbia River Province.

​

Figure 10: Stratigraphic distribution of vertebrate fossil tracks (from Garton 1996, pp84-5). Note the lack of tracks in the Lower Palaeozoic

​

Figure 11:

​

(a) Map and vertical section of Willow Creek Anticline locality, Egg Mountain, Montana, showing a number of egg clutches attributed to a hypsilophodont-like ornithopod dinosaur. The clutches occur on at least three different horizons in a three-metre (10-feet) section. Values represent the number of eggs per nest, broken lines enclose clutches found on single horizons.
(b) Typical clutch arrangement viewed from above.
(c) Egg clutch viewed from the side showing the partial burial of the eggs in siliceous carbonate sediment.
From Garner (1996a p 103).

---

And of course, their references: -

quote:

---

REFERENCES
Ager, D V (1981), The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, Second Edition, Macmillan

​

Ager, D (1986), A reinterpretation of the basal 'Littoral Lias' of the Vale of Glamorgan, Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 97, 29-35

​

Austin, S A (ed) (1994), Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, Institute for Creation Research, Santee, California USA

​

Brand, L R (1979), Field and laboratory studies on the Coconino Sandstone (Permian) vertebrate footprints and their paleoecological implications, Paleogeography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology 28, 25-38

​

Brand, L R and Tang T (1991), Fossil vertebrate footprints in the Coconino Sandstone (Permian) of northern Arizona: evidence for underwater origin, Geology 19, 1201-4

​

Brett, C E and Liddell, W D (1978), Preservation and paleoecology of a Middle Ordovician hardground community, Paleobiology 4, 329-48

​

Calais R (1989), Duelling dinosaurs die in diluvial disaster, Creation Ex Nihilo 11(3), 44-5

​

Carroll, R L (1988), Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, W H Freeman, New York

​

Chadwick, A V (1978), Megabreccias: evidence for catastrophism, Origins [Geoscience Research Institute] 5, 39-46.

​

Cocks, L R M (1993), Triassic pebbles, derived fossils and the Ordovician to Devonian palaeogeography of Europe, Journal of the Geological Society 150, 219-26

​

Dineley, D L (1992), Devonian, in Duff, P M D and Smith A J (eds), Geology of England and Wales, Geological Society, London

​

Garner P (1996a), Where is the Flood/post-Flood boundary? Implications of dinosaur nests in the Mesozoic, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 10, 101- 106

​

Garner, P. A. (1996b), Continental flood basalts indicate a pre-Mesozoic Flood/post-Flood boundary, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal (Creation Science Foundation, Australia) 10, 114-127

​

Garton, M (1993), Rocks and Scripture: the millions of years time-scale and some geological common sense, Origins [Biblical Creation Society] 6(15), 17-23

​

Garton, M (1996), The pattern of fossil tracks in the geological record, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 10, 82-100

​

Hallam, A (1984), Pre-Quaternary sea-level changes, Annual Reviews of Earth and Planetary Science Letters 12, 205-43

​

Halstead, L B (1975), The Evolution and Ecology of the Dinosaurs, Peter Lowe

​

Hasel, G F (1974), The fountains of the great deep, Origins [Geoscience Research Institute] 1, 67-72

​

Liddell, W D (1975), Recent crinoid biostratinomy, Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 7, 1169

​

Martill, D M (1989), The Medusa effect: instantaneous fossilisation, Geology Today 5, 201-205

​

Meyer, D L (1971), Post mortem disarticulation of recent crinoids and ophiuroids under natural conditions, Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 3, 645-646.

​

Morris, J D (1994), The Young Earth, Master Books, Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

​

Nevins, S E (1971), Stratigraphic evidence of the Flood, in Patten, D W (ed), A Symposium on Creation III, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA p33-65

​

Newell, N D (1967), Paraconformities, in Teichert, C and Yochelson E L (eds), Essays in Paleontology and Stratigraphy, Department of Geology, University of Kansas Special Publication 2, The University of Kansas Press, p349-367

​

Nield, E W and Tucker, V C T (1985), Palaeontology: An Introduction, Pergamon Press, Oxford

​

Olson, W S (1966), Origin of the Cambrian-Precambrian unconformity, American Scientist 54, 458-64

​

Paul, G S (1994), Dinosaur reproduction in the fast lane: implications for size, success and extinction, in Carpenter, K, Hirsch, K F, and Homer, J R (eds), Dinosaur Eggs and Babies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 244-55

​

Robinson, S J (1996), Can Flood geology explain the fossil record?, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 10, 32-69 [Robinson, swayed mainly by his reconsideration of the Palaeozoic hardgrounds, subsequently revised his opinion about the timing of the end of the Flood, first suggesting that the boundary might be as low in the geological column as the Silurian, but he now places it still lower, towards the close of the Precambrian. However, his revised timetable creates at least as many difficulties as it purports to solve. Editor]

​

Robinson, S J (1997), The geological column: a concept fundamental to Flood geology, Origins [Biblical Creation Society], No 23, p14-30.

​

Robinson, S.J. (1997b) Unpublished manuscript submitted to the Fourth International Conference on Creationism.

​

Roth, A A (1975), Turbidites, Origins [Geoscience Research Institute] 2,106- 107

​

Roth, A A (1988), Those gaps in the sedimentary layers Origins [Geoscience Research Institute] 15, 75-92

​

Scheven, J. (1988), Mega-Sukzessionen und Klimax in Tertiaer - Katastrophen zwischen Sintflut und Eiszeit Haenssler, Neuhausen-Stuttgart. Translated by R H Johnston as "Megasuccessions and Climax in the Tertiary - Catastrophes between the Flood and the Ice Age" 1997 - [The German and English versions with the illustrations are available on the internet].

​

Scheven, J. (1990), The Flood/ post-Flood boundary in the fossil record, pp. 247-266 in: Walsh, R.E. and C.L. Brooks (editors). Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism. vol. II. Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

​

Scheven J. (1996), The Carboniferous Floating Forest - An Extinct pre-Flood Ecosystem Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 10, 70-81

​

Snelling, A.A. and S.A. Austin. (1992). Startling evidence for Noah's Flood. Creation Ex Nihilo 15(1):46-50.

​

Trewin, N H (1985), Mass mortalities of Devonian fish - the Achanarras Fish Bed, Caithness, Geology Today March-April, 45-49.

​

Tyler, D (1996). A post-Flood Solution to the Chalk Problem Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 10, 107-113

​

Van Andel, T H (1994), New Views on an Old Planet, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

​

Vetter, J (1990), Double tragedies frozen in lime, Creation Ex Nihilo 12(4), 10-14.

​

Visher, G S (1990), Exploration Stratigraphy, Second Edition, Penn Well Publishing Company, Oklahoma, 211-3

​

West, W.D. 1981. The duration of Deccan trap vulcanicity, pp.277-278 in: Subbaran, K.V. and R.N. Sukheswala (editors), Deccan volcanism and related basalt provinces in other parts of the world. Geological Society of India Memoir 3. Bangalore.

​

Wilson, M A and Palmer T J (1992), Hardgrounds and Hardground Faunas, Institute of Earth Studies Publications 9, University of Wales, Aberystwyth

​

Whitcomb, J C and Morris, H M (1961), The Genesis Flood, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Phillipsburg

---

[This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-02-2002]

Well, I'm not a geologist so I don't know too much about it. Instead of asking me about it, why don't you ask the authors of the article? Well, anyway, those references were for your benefit because you wanted to see the evidence they used in the article

quote:

---

(2) If the Redwall Limestone "looks like" it was never an erosion surface, then why does this figure portray it as being cut by channels? Why did your lengthy quote fail to cite the claim that it "looks like" it wasn't eroded? Come to think of it, if the GC formed catastrophically why do any of its members show channel deposits at all?

---

I got some information from this site

quote:

---

But when the juncture between the Redwall Limestone and Muav Limestone is reached, a 200million-year gap appears. The sign posted here by the National Park Service reads:
AN UNCONFORMITY
"Rocks of the Ordovician and Silurian Periods are missing in Grand Canyon. Temple Butte Limestone of Devonian age occurs in scattered pockets. Redwall Limestone rests on these Devonian rocks or on Muav Limestone of much earlier Cambrian Age."

​

This supposed unconformity is puzling for several reasons:

​

The two limestone strata "seem" conformable in most places. Both are nicely horizontal, and there is basically no evidence that 200 million years of erosion and tectonic disturbances separate them.

​

In some places, the two limestone strata intertongue or interfinger, such that by moving vertically one flashed back and forth in 200-million-year jumps.

​

In both limestone strata, one finds layers of the same micaceous shale containing the same fossil tubeworms, suggesting near-simultaneous deposition.

​

In one place, the two limestones clearly grade into one another, with no separation at all.

---

[This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-03-2002]

Yes, I saw the rest of that. However, it does not say what the interpretive error is. Since they put that example there, it is weird they didn't give the solution or their interpretation of it.

quote:

---

Comment. Aha, this paper was written by scientific creationists, who have an obvious ax to grind. There's surely nothing to it. However, the senior author is a consulting geologist, and the paper is replete with photographs and diagrams. And you can always go see for yourself! It is the interpretation of the data that is in question. Where is the error?

---

I'm not sure wether the commenter is trying to challenge the creationist interpretation or the conventional interpretation - or make a totally different interpretation.[This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-03-2002]

quote:

---

I'll have to do a seach of what's available in the local library system. Maybe the book is there.

---

And I'll look in mine

News article talking about new evidence of lava dam failure and fault activity supports the theory that the Grand Canyon is a geologic infant.

No-it just shows that interpretations can be wrong. How do we know this one is right as well?

quote:

---

scientific evidence is verifiable and testable

---

But it has to be interpreted. Different interpretations lead to different conclusions.

quote:

---

So because one interpretation is wrong, all that follow are wrong too?

​

I've seen this logic before. It is typical anti-science christian. "Because science has been wrong before, it can't be trusted." Well, science is supposed to be wrong once in awhile, as new evidence pours in.

---

I didn't say that. I just said that evolution can be wrong. Like how Aristotle believed in spontaneous generation for many animals-because he couldn't see where they came from.
"From this fact it is clear that certain fishes come spontaneously into existence, not being derived from eggs or from copulation (mating).", overturned by Louis Pasteur.
Like how Brahe's epicenter geocentric model was overturned by Kepler.And me, a typical anti-science Christian? lol. I don't think so. I wouldn't have any other job than one in science. I just think that we shouldn't follow evolution blindly, thinking that it is true and suiting our interpretations of the evidence to it. (Admittedly creationists as well as evolutionists do it).

quote:

---

Sorry if I misunderstood.

---

No problem

quote:

---

JM: In your world, how do you think the interpretations of science work and why are so many deceived by evolution and an old earth?

---

Because "everybody knows that evolution is true" makes many people suit their interpretation of the results into evolution.

quote:

---

Oops, you left out the obvious one: the old, creationist paradigm was supplanted by evolutionary theory. So, do you admit that even creationism "can be wrong?"

---

It could be wrong--but there are two positions left-old earth creationism (progressive creationism) or ID-- intelligent design