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Author Topic:   Mummified hadrosaur evidence of recent global flood
JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 6 of 43 (440011)
12-11-2007 8:54 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Kitsune
12-11-2007 6:31 AM


Hovind claims that due to the rare preservation of skin and mummification, the creature had to be buried "very rapidly, in flash flood conditions."
Sort of true. The carcass had to be buried quickly, geologically speaking, but it absolutely did not have to be buried in flash flood conditions. Hovind is ignorant of how meandering rivers work. High flow conditions could have interred the carcass on a point bar within the river channel as well...that isn't flash flooding. Besides, this specimen comes from the Hell Creek Formation. The paleoenvironmental interpretations for the Hell Creek in the uppermost Maastrichtian (~67Ma) are more like northern Mississippi than an arid area which is likely to experience flash flooding. Was the carcass buried during a period of high flow? Almost certainly. Is this splitting hairs with "flash flooding?" Maybe, but science is about detail.
The fossil was encased in siderite, which bears out the idea that the fossilisation occurred quickly.
The skeleton is encased in sandstone which is cemented with siderite. The nature of the cementation of the sand grains is a different matter than the process of burial.
I also cannot find any information about possible radioisotope dating of rock surrounding the fossil.
We've got good paleomag data from the uppermost Hell Creek Formation. I'm not sure if there are ash beds in this particular part of the unit. The best estimates right now on the ages of the rocks are ~67 million.

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 Message 1 by Kitsune, posted 12-11-2007 6:31 AM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by Kitsune, posted 12-11-2007 9:36 AM JB1740 has replied

  
JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 11 of 43 (440035)
12-11-2007 9:59 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by Kitsune
12-11-2007 9:36 AM


You are giving possibilities but it's clear you aren't certain of anything. You still haven't proved that this fossil WASN'T deposited in the global flood 4,400 years ago. The flash flooding was the Noachian flood, as the Bible says.
A. Science doesn't prove things. We disprove things. Learn some science before you try to throw out barbs.
B. Please cite the chapter and verse in the Bible where it says that all flood deposits are the result of the Noachian Flood. Flash flooding happens today. I personally watched one happen two summers ago and studied the deposits which resulted from it. If the Bible says that this deposit is the result of The Flood, then the Bible is in error.
C. Please cite your evidence where the deposits in which this carcass were buried are flood deposits. If you read what I wrote, I never asserted that they needed to be.
D. Please explain the geology of the Hell Creek Formation within the context of a single flood event.
Whatever. The point is that this process can occur rapidly and doesn't have to take your hypothetical millions of years.
I never asserted that cementation of sand grains take millions of years as a rule.
What do the uppermost parts of the formation have to do with fossils being deposited on the riverbed?
Can you point to the river in which the carcass was interred? No, unless you're looking at the rocks in the uppermost part of the formation. The uppermost part of the formation has everything to do with it, since it is in the uppermost part of the formation that the skeleton is preserved.
And why do you seem to be assuming that Hell Creek had to have been formed at the same time that the hadrosaur died?
Are you asserting that the Hell Creek came before the hadrosaur died? Then how did it get buried within the Hell Creek? Perhaps I'm not understanding your question.

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 Message 10 by Kitsune, posted 12-11-2007 9:36 AM Kitsune has replied

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 Message 13 by Kitsune, posted 12-11-2007 4:07 PM JB1740 has replied

  
JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 15 of 43 (440129)
12-11-2007 4:20 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Kitsune
12-11-2007 4:07 PM


Do you know if there are any volcanic strata near where the fossil was found that could help to give an absolute date? Creationists are fond of saying that fossils date rocks and rocks date fossils.
I don't believe there are any ash beds in the upper part of the Hell Creek. But even so, because the Hell Creek/Lance sequence is so well studied, we've got pretty good age control. The 67Ma date isn't bad.
For that matter, the sedimentary layer in which the fossil was found could be good evidence against the flood. For a global flood you'd expect a thick layer of sediment with a lot of "stuff" in it, rather than delicate deposition. The frustrating thing is there just doesn't seem to be much specific info about these things on the web.
Hah...good eye. You should come over to the Lance/Hell Creek as a flood deposit thread we've got going where we're dissecting this very issue.
By the way, don't get hot under the collar. I am NOT a creationist. But I figured if I didn't take up their cause in this thread, it would die pretty quickly.
Hah...I know. I did catch the Devil's Advocate comment. I just figured I would give you an argument worthy of your effort.

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JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 16 of 43 (440131)
12-11-2007 4:23 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by Kitsune
12-11-2007 4:13 PM


But the people I'm arguing with aren't exactly the most rational, logical people you could find.
Say it isn't so!!!!!!
They would say that this fossil is potential evidence of a global flood unless proved otherwise, and also that it is potentially only a few thousand years old.
That is part of the reason we're mucking about with the question of interpreting the Hell Creek as a flood deposit (which is ridiculous, btw).

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JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 18 of 43 (440255)
12-12-2007 11:09 AM
Reply to: Message 17 by arachnophilia
12-11-2007 9:25 PM


just an important clarification. they're calling it a "mummy" but the term has the wrong connotation. as you write, it is a fossil, and no soft tissue has been found -- just fossils: rocks and minerals in the shape of the hadrosaur.
This is partially correct. Calling it a 'mummy' is foolish, but enough of my colleagues have jumped on that bandwagon that it's a fight I no longer care to wage. Although to be fair, I don't have a better term for a dessicated carcass that preserves evidence of soft tissues. And incidentally, that is the mummy thing...dessication. There are other dinosaur specimens out there that preserve significant evidence of soft tissues and/or integument (the feathered dinosaurs, anyone?). What the 'mummies' all have in common (excepting "Dakota" since so little work has been done on this one that the jury is still out) is significant pre-burial dessication (as far as we can tell from the small amount of taphonomic work that has been done on the specimens).
In terms of actual soft tissue, we really no very little about how much original material remains in this specimen. Most of the skeleton hasn't been prepared or directly studied yet. Claims as to what percentage of original material remains are seriously premature. To assert that because the specimen comes from the Late Cretaceous there is only going to be mineral material left is not really correct. Remember, "fossilization" (and here we're really talking about mineral replacement of original organic matter) is a continuum. It isn't an on/off switch that took millions of years to flip. I know that is how it is generally presented, but it really isn't accurate. How much original material remains in a "fossil" is not a constant and is related to various factors of the environment of deposition and post-deposition. Not only that, but the rates of this process taking place are also variable and poorly understood. For "Dakota" we simply don't know this answer yet.
Hovind is actually right in this part of the claim. it WAS buried very rapidly in flash flood conditions.
We don't know this either. The geology of the locality hasn't been published in a reviewed paper. And regardless, a flash flood is NOT the necessary burial mechanism. High flow rates, yes...but it did not have to be a crazy flood event to inter the carcass quickly enough on a point bar or something to result in soft-tissue getting buried before it rotted away or was scavenged away. I have seen pictures of the locality and the rocks to me do not suggest a flood event...so I'm skeptical that a flood interpretation is the correct one anyway. This is speculative without having been ON the quarry (and I have not been), but the rocks sure don't look like flood deposits to me.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 17 by arachnophilia, posted 12-11-2007 9:25 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 19 by arachnophilia, posted 12-12-2007 11:26 AM JB1740 has replied
 Message 20 by jar, posted 12-12-2007 11:34 AM JB1740 has replied

  
JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 21 of 43 (440261)
12-12-2007 11:37 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by arachnophilia
12-12-2007 11:26 AM


there is always the chance, since fossilization is a somewhat slow process and doesn't happen all once. i think, however, the best we can hope for would be something like the t-rex DNA extracted from a fossil (femur?).
I agree.
this is roughly the same time period, and there was a lot more to fossilize, so you never know.
It's actually exactly the same time period and the same suite of rocks. T. rex and this hadrosaur were contemporaries.
i think it would be the coolest thing ever to extract some hadrosaur DNA, even if it'll cause many more arguments with creationists about how old the earth is. actual tissue would be amazing, but let's not count our chickens. or distant chicken relatives.
There is a paper coming...I think soon. Stay tuned.
oh, well, i could be mistaken. i caught a program on the national geographic channel about it, and they suggested that the mineral the "mummy" is composed was likely produced by bacteria that live in oxygen-starved environments, ie: underwater. but they could be wrong, of course. on their night of dinosaurs programming, i spent the two hours prior to it screaming at the television regarding how idiotic they were.
Geographic got this one wrong. The program totally missed how meandering rivers work and the entire premise they gave of the burial of the animal is not only not congruent with the Hell Creek in general, but isn't congruent with how meandering rivers tend to bury dead animals. The CG of the carcass being buried was simply funny.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 19 by arachnophilia, posted 12-12-2007 11:26 AM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by arachnophilia, posted 12-12-2007 12:58 PM JB1740 has replied

  
JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 22 of 43 (440262)
12-12-2007 11:40 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by jar
12-12-2007 11:34 AM


Re: Soft Tissue?
But is that what is seen in these cases? Are the folk examining something like leather or does it mean "what was once skin or internal organs but now preserved so that they are more like rock that shows details of the original?"
In this case it is closer to the latter situation. What we're talking about is river sand that modeled around the skin envelope and recorded it's shape. This sand was then concreted by a mineral called siderite. The real question is how much of the original organic material remains mixed in with the sand or if there are actual soft tissues encased by the sandstone that retain original materials.

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JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 24 of 43 (440288)
12-12-2007 1:17 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by arachnophilia
12-12-2007 12:58 PM


i wasn't sure, so i tried not to make a bold statement. i'm aware they're both late cretaceous dinosaurs, and both lived in the hell creek area, but i forgot offhand which particular specimen the DNA came from. and so i didn't want to make a claim that regarding the specifics. but hey, if they came from exactly the same exact time and place, that's great.
Well, exact time and place meaning both from the Hell Creek/Lance sequences. So yeah, both "in the Hell Creek area" as you stated. I didn't mean to imply that the T. rex DNA specimen and "Dakota" both came from the same quarry. Sorry if it came across that way.
it looked like poop. literally. i'm always sort of amused by how the scientists know what they're talking about in the interviews, but the narrators always always always screw stuff up. it's like the couldn't have run the final cut by one of those scientists whos work they're presenting.
I have some experience with this stuff...it doesn't seem to matter if you get the final cut run by you or not...stuff still ends up getting messed by the time it airs. It's crazy.
i was sort of puzzled about how someone said that the hadrosaur's tail was far fatter than people had ever thought (yet i'm positive i've seen many depictions that weren't nearly as gaunt as their skinny version),
The skinny version was more gaunt than it was originally supposed to be...but still much skinnier than the fat one, although I'm still skeptical of the data used to support the fat assertion...
and how they were surprised at the spacing of the vertebrae, as if dinosaurs didn't have cartilage.
Indeed, although I did think that was one of the cooler things they found in the entire project. It's one thing to infer that dinosaurs had cartilage between adjacent centra, it's another thing entirely to SEE the damn stuff in a CT image.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by arachnophilia, posted 12-12-2007 12:58 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by arachnophilia, posted 12-12-2007 1:25 PM JB1740 has replied

  
JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 26 of 43 (440311)
12-12-2007 2:28 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by arachnophilia
12-12-2007 1:25 PM


well, there's been a bit of a fad recently of depicting dinosaurs as pretty skinny animals. but if you think about, they all more or less have to balance over their hips. at least the bipedal ones. so the mass of the tail has to be roughly equal to the mass of the torso, head, and forearms. right? excessively skinny tails wouldn't work as a counter-balance.
Ahh...you've noticed the anorexia trend, eh?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by arachnophilia, posted 12-12-2007 1:25 PM arachnophilia has replied

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 Message 28 by arachnophilia, posted 12-12-2007 4:31 PM JB1740 has replied

  
JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 29 of 43 (440328)
12-12-2007 4:35 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by arachnophilia
12-12-2007 4:31 PM


That's interesting. I've long speculated that the anorexia trend came from those paleoartists that cared more about being correct in the anatomy...that they started making the animals more gaunt so that anatomical features (the antorbital fenestra, the large suken cavity in front of the eyes is a good example) would stand out more...sort of them saying to us (the scientists)...see? we're paying attention to the anatomy and getting it correct. I have no real evidence for this idea...but it's what I've speculated.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by arachnophilia, posted 12-12-2007 4:31 PM arachnophilia has replied

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 Message 30 by arachnophilia, posted 12-12-2007 4:44 PM JB1740 has not replied

  
JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 33 of 43 (440465)
12-13-2007 10:22 AM
Reply to: Message 32 by NosyNed
12-13-2007 10:04 AM


Re: Why a mummy?
Ned, I guess my question for you is what is the process of mummification? You said "dessicated and mummified." I'm familiar with desiccation of vertebrate carcasses, but as far as I always knew, mummification was an anthropogenic process. We do tend to refer to these specimens as dino mummies, but honestly, I don't know why. I guess because dessicated carcass isn't user-friendly enough. I don't know other process happens to a carcass besides dessication that leads to dried skin envelops prior to burial.
But absolutely, the long and the short of it is that the "it had to happen fast" claim is utter BS. Not just, as I've stated, because of the dessication, because honestly that wouldn't alone preclude THE FLOOD (i.e., said animal could have died and dessicated prior to THE GREAT RAINS and just have been buried in the flood). The thing that totally destroys the argument is that these deposits really do NOT appear to be flood deposits and that floods are NOT the only mechanism by which a dessicated carcass can be quickly buried.

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 Message 32 by NosyNed, posted 12-13-2007 10:04 AM NosyNed has replied

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 Message 34 by NosyNed, posted 12-13-2007 10:26 AM JB1740 has replied

  
JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 35 of 43 (440467)
12-13-2007 10:32 AM
Reply to: Message 34 by NosyNed
12-13-2007 10:26 AM


Re: Mummies not just anthropogenic
Oh, so any time original integument is preserved it's a mummy? Huh...we don't really look at it that way in the field, but okay...I can work with that definition.
That's particularly interesting then, because by this definition, "Dakota," which has yet to give up her secrets, cannot be classed as a mummy. The whole idea of dinosaur mummy then becomes fantastic because I cannot think of a single occurrence of soft-tissue preservation, where the original material hasn't degraded to some degree. We'd have to come up with an index of original material lost. That might have been done and I just haven't read the paper, but I doubt it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by NosyNed, posted 12-13-2007 10:26 AM NosyNed has replied

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 Message 36 by NosyNed, posted 12-13-2007 10:42 AM JB1740 has replied

  
JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 37 of 43 (440472)
12-13-2007 10:50 AM
Reply to: Message 36 by NosyNed
12-13-2007 10:42 AM


Re: 'Tis Too!
Tis too a mummy! Well, it was a mummy but it has now been replaced with rock that preserves many details of the mummy.
(*being a pain-in-the-ass hat on*) Ahhh...but the wiki definition you pointed to indicates that mummies retain dried flesh. There is no indication that "Dakota" does this and indeed the other Lance/Hell Creek hadrosaur "mummies" preserve impressions of skin (in sandstone), but not skin itself. So yes, you're second sentence. Maybe we need a new word (ex-mummy?).
If it isn't a fossilzed mummy now then regular dinosaur bones (that have been completely mineralized) aren't a fossilzed dinosaur either.
Normal dinosaur bones aren't always "completely" mineralized.
This is really nit picking and doesn't matter much.
(*being a pain-in-the-ass hat on*) Ahhh...but science is about being nit-picky.
Mummy conveys lots of useful and not untrue information in a short package. It isn't intended to be a careful definition of anything.
However, one might now ask: to get skin and such preservation over these time periods do we almost have to have mummification first?
Probably not, considering the vast amount of soft-tissue remains we find preserved on fossils that come from lake sediments. It is probably the only way we're going to get it in an animal that died in a river valley environment, though.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by NosyNed, posted 12-13-2007 10:42 AM NosyNed has not replied

  
JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 38 of 43 (440473)
12-13-2007 10:50 AM
Reply to: Message 36 by NosyNed
12-13-2007 10:42 AM


Re: 'Tis Too!
Tis too a mummy! Well, it was a mummy but it has now been replaced with rock that preserves many details of the mummy.
(*being a pain-in-the-ass hat on*) Ahhh...but the wiki definition you pointed to indicates that mummies retain dried flesh. There is no indication that "Dakota" does this and indeed the other Lance/Hell Creek hadrosaur "mummies" preserve impressions of skin (in sandstone), but not skin itself. So yes, you're second sentence. Maybe we need a new word (ex-mummy?).
If it isn't a fossilzed mummy now then regular dinosaur bones (that have been completely mineralized) aren't a fossilzed dinosaur either.
Normal dinosaur bones aren't always "completely" mineralized.
This is really nit picking and doesn't matter much.
(*being a pain-in-the-ass hat on*) Ahhh...but science is about being nit-picky.
Mummy conveys lots of useful and not untrue information in a short package. It isn't intended to be a careful definition of anything.
hmmm...pondering.
However, one might now ask: to get skin and such preservation over these time periods do we almost have to have mummification first?
Probably not, considering the vast amount of soft-tissue remains we find preserved on fossils that come from lake sediments. It is probably the only way we're going to get it in an animal that died in a river valley environment, though.

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 Message 36 by NosyNed, posted 12-13-2007 10:42 AM NosyNed has not replied

  
JB1740
Member (Idle past 5944 days)
Posts: 132
From: Washington, DC, US
Joined: 11-20-2007


Message 41 of 43 (440509)
12-13-2007 1:50 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by arachnophilia
12-13-2007 1:06 PM


Re: Why a mummy?
the problem i see is that the flesh and everything seems to occupy the same volume it would have in life, unlike the earlier hadrosaur mummy. which probably means that the flesh was NOT dried out before fossilization began. at least in the section they've analyzed.
They have made this assertion. They have yet to demonstrate how they are accounting for the compaction that we know had to have happened.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 39 by arachnophilia, posted 12-13-2007 1:06 PM arachnophilia has not replied

  
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