Summations Only

Hi mindspawn, a) You mean end Cretaceous.b) If that is the case, you need to explain the lack of geologic layers that contain both dinosaur and human remains.The mammals that we actually find in the Cretaceous are small, vaguely shrew-like creatures. You are trying to place human civilisations into an era when our real ancestors were still living in burrows.Mutate and Survive

Hi mindspawn, Or, to put it another way, you know next to nothing about geology. Strange then, that you should so lightly discard the expertise of those who do know about geology.Geology is a huge and complex subject. It takes a great deal of effort to gain any degree of expertise in it. Yet for many years, highly intelligent men and women have been doing just that and they have learned a great deal in that process. Unfortunately for you and your personal religious convictions, one of the things that they've learned is that the Nohaic Flood is a myth.Let me be frank with you; you are simply not going to overturn the geological status quo by digging out a few papers and making "sounds sensible" conclusions about them. Nor are you going to find evidence for a global flood lurking unnoticed in some online geology paper. I mean, you have admitted that you don't know much about geology, so consider this; if that evidence were there, don't you think that the real experts - professional geologists - would have noticed it by now? And don't you think it rather unlikely that a novice like yourself would suddenly come along and show the experts what's been staring them in the face all these years? To me, that sounds like a fantasy and a somewhat self-indulgent one.Around the world there are thousands of highly educated, highly intelligent professionals, any one of whom knows their field better than you or I ever will. Believe it or not, they know what they're doing. You should be listening to them, not scolding them from a position of relative ignorance.Learning as you go is great, but I think that you ought learn first, opine later. None of us have the right to have an opinion on a subject that we do not understand.And just to illustrate how much you still need to learn... Sure, me too. But the truth is that arid highlands don't produce many fossils. Fossils tend to be produced in aquatic environments because those are the environments that encourage fossilisation.Such layers do exist though. You might try looking for info about the interior of Pangea. That area was highly landlocked during the Carboniferous and would have been extremely arid. I don't mean to be rude, but that is an extraordinarily silly thing to say. I only bring this up, because it should bring home to you just how wrong you are about this topic.The truth is that there are a great many other environments recorded in the Carboniferous, notably a great deal of marine material. Take a look at this discussion of carboniferous index fossils from Berkeley;

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The appearance or disappearance of fauna usually marks the boundaries between time periods. The Carboniferous is separated from the earlier Devonian by the appearance of the conodont Siphonodella sulcata or Siphondella duplicata. Conodonts are a series of fossils that resemble the teeth or jaws of primitive eel- or hagfish-like fish. The Carboniferous-Permian boundary is distinguished by the appearance of the fusulinid foram Sphaeroschwagerina fusiformis in Europe and Pseudoschwagerina beedei in North America. Fusulinids are giants among protists and could reach a centimeter in length. They were abundant enough to form sizable deposits of rock, known as "rice rock" because of the resemblance between fusulinids and rice grains.

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The Mississippian is differentiated from the Pennsylvanian by the appearance of the conodont Declinognathodus noduliferus, the ammonoid genus Homoceras, and the foraminifers Millerella pressa and Millerella marblensis. The markers of these boundaries apply only to marine deposits. The distinction between the Pennsylvanian and Mississippian subsystems may also be illustrated by a break in the flora due to transistional changes from a terrestrial environment to a marine one and as a result of a change in the climate.

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The stratigraphy of the Lower Carboniferous is distinguished by the shallow-water limestones. These limestones are composed of parts of organisms, mostly the remains of crinoids. These thrived in the shallow seas of the Lower Carboniferous. Other limestones include lime mudstones and oolithic limestones. Lime mudstones are composed of the carbonate mud produced by green algae. Oolithic limestones are composed of calcium carbonate in concentric spheres that were produced by high wave energy. Sandstones (sedimentary rock composed of quartz sand and cemented by silica or calcium carbonate) and siltstones (rock composed of hardened silt) are also found in the Lower Carboniferous strata, though not in as great abundance than the limestones.

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Conodonts, crinoids, forams... all marine animals, all carboniferous index fossils. Your statement about carboniferous index fossils being mostly "swamp animals" is false. What's more though, it's obviously false. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of geology would know better than to make such a statement. Carboniferous marine limestone is incredibly common. Hell, I have a big pile of Carboniferous marine fossils right next to me on my desk as I type this. They're pretty common.In short, I think that your eagerness to provide geological backing for the Great flood has led you to create a number of poorly thought out pet theories, none of which hold up to examination. I applaud your decision to engage with the science on this, but I think that you are letting your zeal for the Flood lead you to exceed your expertise. You should be listening to what geology can tell you, not trying to force it to tell you what you want to hear.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

Quite a bit more actually.Look, it's pretty simple. When we look at the Biblical record, we can see that the following organisms are recorded as existing prior to the flood;Cattle
Grass
Fruit-bearing trees
Figs
Snakes
"Fowls of the air"
Ravens
Doves
Sheep
Humans
GiantsOkay, let's just ignore the giants, as well as some vague groupings like "creeping things". The point is that we should see all of these things in the fossil record before any putative Flood layer. But we don't. Not one of them. In fact we don't even see their immediate ancestors in the Permian.There's no getting around this; the Bible gives plenty of examples of pre-Flood life. We should see all - or at least most - of these emerging before your flood layer. We don't. Instead, we see them all emerging much later, one group at a time, in close agreement with an evolutionary model. End of story. Your P-T Flood theory stands refuted.Now if you can show us some Permian grass or a Carboniferous cow, then we will bow down before your amazing new geological paradigm. But you can't.You need to address that.Mutate and Survive

Thanks for the reply mindspawn, Don't worry about time. Better a well thought out reply than a hasty one. You're not just challenging evolutionists, you're challenging geologists, physicists, chemists... pretty much the entire scientific consensus. Well then, that's where you are going wrong.It is not possible for an amateur to self-educate by means of Google, to the point where they are able to seriously challenge the scientific consensus. That is a delusion. It is especially unlikely when you are starting from a belief in falsified biblical dogma like the Flood. Trying to teach yourself leaves you too open to cherry-picking, confirmation bias and a host of other flaws and fallacies.Think about it; can you name one example of a self-taught novice overturning the status quo after a stint at "Google University"? No you can't. And part of the reason you can't is because all of those papers you might read online, the source of the information from which you are working, were written by scientists. You're not going to tell them anything they don't already know. They, on the other hand, can tell you a great many things that you do not know. i don't mean to be condescending, but you should be listening to them rather than trying to prove them wrong. You are misunderstanding the situation. There are lots of swamp and wet woodland fossils in the Carboniferous record because that's what fossilises.For fossils to form you need certain conditions. By far the commonest condition is deposition of sediment. For that, you need water. That's why you see so many wetland fossils in the Carboniferous; not just because they were common (although they were indeed common) but because they were the organisms that lived in conditions that lent themselves to successful fossilisation. Wet swampy lowlands are good at producing fossils. Arid highlands, dominated as they are by erosion rather than deposition, are very poor at producing fossils. And the Devonian is named for the little English county of Devon, but that era is not defined by being in Devon.You're getting too hung up on the name. What exactly are you after? A quick Wiki search is enough to disprove your strange notion that there were no mountains in the Carboniferous. Check out the Appalachians.It makes no difference. The marine record disproves your pet theories just as much as the terrestrial. Disagree? Well then, just show me a Permian whale. Or a Carboniferous turtle. Or an Ordovician sea-snake...Mutate and Survive

For starters, there is the fact that floods leave evidence. Geologists are adept at recognising flood layers, yet no global flood layer has ever been found. That alone rules out a massive global flood.As for your personal theory about a P-T Boundary Flood, it is refuted by the fact that human fossils (which must pre-date the flood) do not emerge for another 250 million years. This is further backed up by the fact that numerous other species, including those specifically mentioned in the Bible as pre-dating the Flood, do not appear before the P-T event, but only emerge millions of years later.this is just the tip of the iceberg. The lack of sufficient water, the genetic evidence, the shear fairy-tale absurdity of the Ark story; all these lines of evidence and more rule out a global flood. This has been known for well over a century.Take a look at this wiki extract;

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In 1823 the Reverend William Buckland, the first professor of geology at Oxford University, interpreted geological phenomena as Reliquiae Diluvianae; relics of the flood Attesting the Action of a Universal Deluge. His views were supported by other English clergymen naturalists at the time...

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{snip}

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The idea that all geological strata were produced by a single flood was rejected in 1837 by theologian Buckland who wrote:

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Some have attempted to ascribe the formation of all the stratified rocks to the effects of the Mosaic Deluge; an opinion which is irreconcilable with the enormous thickness and almost infinite subdivisions of these strata, and with the numerous and regular successions which they contain of the remains of animals and vegetables, differing more and more widely from existing species, as the strata in which we find them are placed at greater depths. The fact that a large proportion of these remains belong to extinct genera, and almost all of them to extinct species, that lived and multiplied and died on or near the spots where they are now found, shows that the strata in which they occur were deposited slowly and gradually, during long periods of time, and at widely distant intervals.

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For a while, Buckland had continued to insist that some geological layers were related to the Great Flood, but grew to accept the idea that they represented multiple inundations which occurred well before humans existed. He was convinced by Swiss geologist Louis Agassiz that much of the evidence on which he relied was in fact the product of ancient ice ages, and became one of the foremost champions of Agassiz's theory of glaciations.[23] Mainstream science abandoned the idea of flood geology that required major deviations from present physical processes.

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SourceNote that Buckland was a Christian theologian. He could not have wanted to dismiss the notion of a literal and real deluge. He must have been horrified at the idea that the Flood was not real. One can get some idea of his reluctance from the quote above. But - here's the point - he was too honest to ignore where the evidence led. The geological record did not show a deluge, only a gradual record of much smaller events and formations.I understand your desire to see one of the foundational myths of your religion vindicated as historical record. Unfortunately for you, this is not the case. It's pretty doubtful that the stories were ever intended to be read that way anyway. So - please correct me if I'm wrong here - your contention is that the reason we do not find familiar species before the P-T boundary is that they might have dwelt in areas that did not lend themselves to fossil preservation. Is this an accurate summation of your position? Specifically which fossils are troubling you? Are you sure they aren't older marine fossils that were uplifted during the Carboniferous? Does this fit the bill for what you're after? It describes a semi-arid climate in the Carboniferous.

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Equatorial aridity and climatic oscillations during the early Carboniferous, southern Britain

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V. P. WRIGHT

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Abstract

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Evidence from palaeosols, palaeokarsts and styles of meteoric diagenesis shows that the early Carboniferous climate of southern Britain was dominantly seasonally semi-arid. This semi-aridity occurred while the region was in an equatorial palaeolatitudinal position. The cause of the seasonal aridity was possibly the deflection of easterly winds into a major low pressure zone set up over Gondwana during the southern hemisphere summer.

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Only the abstract I'm afraid. (Source)Or this paper compares conditions in modern arid Central Australia to those in the Carboniferous Clifton Formation of New Brunswick, Canada. For reference, the Clifton Formation is from the Upper Carboniferous.

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Modern Anastomosing-Fluvial Deposits in Arid Central Australia, and a Carboniferous Analogue in New Brunswick, Canada

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J. D. Collinson,
J. Lewin

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Brian R. Rust,
Andrew S. Legun

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Summary

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Cooper's Creek is an extensive, mud-dominated fluvial system in arid Central Australia, which overlies a relict braided sand sheet. The active channels have a low-density anastomosing pattern, covering up to 3% of the system and accumulating medium sand in alternating side bars. Overbank sedimentation from the anastomosing channels deposits sandy mud, commonly without primary structure due to desiccation cracking and bioturbation. Compared with anastomosing-fluvial deposits of temperate climates, Cooper's Creek sediments have a higher ratio of floodplain mud to channel sand, lower carbonaceous content, and contain deep desiccation cracks, evaporites and duricrusts.

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Member B of the Carboniferous Clifton Formation on the northern New Brunswick coast resembles Cooper's Creek sediments in many respects. The lower part of the succession is predominantly red mudstone, with carbonaceous layers, stratiform calcrete and calcreted vertical sheets interpreted as deep desiccation cracks. Isolated channel sandstones and associated levee, crevasse-splay or mouth-bar deposits are restricted in vertical and lateral extent. This suggests limited lateral and vertical accretion interrupted by avulsion, an interpretation similar to that deduced for the modern anastomosing channels of Cooper's Creek.

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The upper part of the Clifton B succession is an extensive sheet sandstone with stacked channel units, dominated by trough cross-strata. It is attributed to braided-fluvial deposition, and is regarded as analogous to the relict braided sand sheet a few metres beneath the active alluvial plain of Cooper's Creek.

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(Source)The paper talks about river systems running through arid areas. That would actually be a reasonable place to look for fossils of any organisms that dwelt in that area. No Carboniferous dinosaurs, birds or humans though. You're missing the point; when we look at the areas where we do have really good fossil records, we don't see the fauna and flora that ought to be there. You sat that we have plenty of wetland fossils from the Carboniferous; well I agree, we do. But when we look at these areas, certain groups are notable by their absence. There are no birds. That's odd, both because the bible specifically mentions "fowls" as having existed before the Flood and because birds love wetlands. If your P-T idea is correct, we should have lots of Carboniferous bird fossils. Instead we have none. Similarly, snakes are very successful in wetlands. Genesis famously mentions a"serpent", so we should expect to see snakes before the Flood. Yet in the wetland of the Carboniferous, there are no snakes. They don't appear until the Cretaceous. And what about grass? Genesis does mention grass as being amongst the first plants created. Yet in the wetlands of the Carboniferous... What kind of wetlands are these with no grasses?Wetlands are incredibly rich habitats. They positively teem with life of every sort. If organisms like birds and snakes existed before the Flood, and if the Flood is located at the P-T Boundary, then we should be able to find their fossils in the wetlands of the Carboniferous. But we don't. Instead we find mostly extinct organisms that bear little resemblance to the bible's rather naive descriptions. That leaves your P-T Flood idea dead in the water. There's no point in your obsessing over the areas of poor fossilisation when what we know from the good fossil areas completely refutes your claims.Mutate and Survive

Hi minspawn. You seem to be clutching at straws. As has already been noted, it's not my job to show that the Flood layer isn't there, it's your job to show that it is. You have not done this. Further, the P-T boundary has been studied in extreme detail. No worldwide flood has been found.Please bear in mind what we're talking about here; a protracted flood of the entire planet. That would be just about the biggest geological event in history. It ought to be huge. It ought to be obvious. It isn't obvious though. It just isn't there. So you're saying that what we see at the P-T is consistent with what that paper describes in Mozambique? A specific river system overflowing into a floodplain? Are you sure? Because if they are comparable, you've just proved that the P-T was not a global flood. Either "PT boundary layering" looks like a worldwide flood or it looks like a seasonally flooding river system. Which is it?JonF has already done a very good job of responding to this, but I will note one thing; the paper you cite shows that floods in Mozambique left sedimentary deposits full of reeds. Reeds, let us remind ourselves, are grasses. The bible quite clearly describes grasses as being amongst the oldest living things. If your pet theory is true, we should see grasses before the Flood. The wetlands of the Carboniferous would have provided them with ample habitat, but when we look, they're not there. Your theory is wrong. You've got to admit, that was a pretty bad citation.All this stuff about water vapour in the atmosphere is pretty silly as well. Take a good look at the image the JonF provided. Have a think about just how bad an argument this is. No, I've been content to let others school you on that subject. They know more about it than I do, so I'm content to defer to their expertise (see how that works?). How did you determine that exactly? In the Permain, there were plenty of reptiles, so why no snakes?Also, if you are arguing that, for instance, birds, could not have survived in Carboniferous or Permian wetlands, where exactly did they live? They must have lived somewhere, the bible tells us so. So where are they? In the arid areas? That can't be right; living things need water, so any living birds must have lived near water. But when we look at river systems in arid areas during the Carboniferous, the birds aren't there either. So where are they? What kind of birds are these that hate wetlands and only dwell in areas that refuse to leave fossils?Can you show me one of these pockets? Nope. You can't show me them because you only just made them up. Except that they didn't. The species we're talking about didn't simply proliferate after the beginning of the Triassic. The serpents waited until the middle Cretaceous about 140 million years later. the birds pop up in the late Jurassic. The cattle don't appear until the Paleogene and neither do the grasses. Humans don't appear until a meagre 200 thousand years ago. The giants are... rare nowadays. The fossil record doesn't reflect the naive fantasy you are peddling.Mutate and Survive

The evidence has already been presented. When we look at the P-T Boundary, there is no flood layer! What more is there to say?! No flood layer, no flood. It really is that simple. A global flood would create a global flood layer, a great seam of sediment that extends across the entire world. It does not exist. End of story.It is your job to show a flood layer. It is not anyone else's duty to show you what is not there. You're supposed to show us what is there. Now if you can detect a huge layer of flood sediment at the P-T, then go ahead and show it to us. If not, admit that your hypothesis is busted. The ones that you only imagined you mean.There were no global movements of sediment back then. They only exist in your mind because you misunderstood a few technical papers that were above your pay grade. The reality is that the P-T Boundary tends to reflect a drier period, not a flood. Yes. More water than actually exists on the planet. That's already been addressed. So in essence, you think that they were hiding.That is... I'm trying to find a way of putting this without coming across as insulting,, but..That is nothing more than a fantasy. Sorry, but it just is.1) Humans need water to survive. Human populations can't survive in deserts and on top of mountains, not for long, not without support. That's why, throughout history, human settlements have been next to water. Your little fantasy depends on humans (and birds, and fruit-bearing trees and all the rest) living in places where they could not possibly survive. That's laughable.2) Your fantasy is based on inconvenient creatures dwelling in regions of poor fossilisation for one reason only; it means you can wish away the evidence. It reeks of ad hoc reasoning. You are only forced to believe this as a rationalisation to explain away the fact that the Pre-Triassic world contains none of the species that the Bible mentions.3) Your fantasy about dating mistakes depends is simply naive. Let me remind you; the oldest human fossils are only tens of thousands of years old. The P-T event was 252 million years ago! Geologists do not make that kind of mistake. It is simply absurd. Your fantasy depends on an entire profession being composed of incompetent imbeciles. Geologists are not imbeciles. You are not smarter than them. Don't be so arrogant.4) Carboniferous layers? What are you talking about? Why are you so obsessed with the Carbonifierous? There's 4350 million years worth of geology before the P-T Boundary! These species - humans, cattle, birds, - should show up in all of them! They were amongst the first living things according to the Bible. Yet they show up nowhere. Your problem goes a hell of a lot deeper than the Carboniferous my friend. Bwa-ha-ha-hah! I'm sorry, but that really is a good one.Reeds, remember? See those plants? They're reeds. In a swamp. With a bird sitting amongst them. Grasses love swamps. So do birds.Your hypothesis requires not only that grasses should only grow in places where they would leave no trace, but that they should not grow in places that are absolutely ideal for grasses. Can you not see how ridiculous that is? Well done, since this is not what did in fact happen, you've just disproved your own argument.Grasses do not appear until the late Cretaceous at the oldest. They did not proliferate after the Triassic. You have disproved your own theory. So you are deliberately asking for fossils from regions that do not produce fossils.From me, you demand evidence that you have specifically agreed does not exist. For your argument, you accept any paper you can drag off the net and misinterpret. Do you not detect a slight imbalance there? That's not true. That's not true either. Nope. That's not true either.This would go a lot easier if you stopped making stuff up. Yeah... How exactly did the marsupials get to Australasia from the ark?None of this matters anyway. Yes, a given species or genus might be restricted to a particular area, but birds as a whole are global. Fruit-bearing trees are global. Grasses are global. Take a look at this distribution map; That is the range of just one species of bird, the Barn Owl. It is not migratory and it does not live in deserts. Any single bird fossil from any point in the 4350 million years before the P-T would make your case, but there isn't one. Your fantasy about them being restricted to a tiny hidden patch of desert or mountain is completely contrary to reality. The only reason you are forced to resort to this sort of after-the-fact story-telling is because the evidence you need isn't there. A reasonable, rational, honest person would respond to this by conceding that his argument was flawed. You have responded by making hand-waving excuses. Snap out of it.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

Hi RAZD, Including the whales. I'm pretty sure that whales are quite widepread. Let's take a look; That's... pretty widespread. But I guess they were hiding up a mountain for four and a half billion years. Mutate and Survive

You have not provided evidence of such. Instead you cited various papers, misinterpreted them and got repeatedly smacked down.Remember that? How you cited a paper in Message 172 and got it wrong? How it wasn't even about flooding?Or do you remember how your link from Message 195 only mentioned marine transgressions "in one section in the Canadian Arctic"?Do you remember how you cited another paper in that message only talked about climate change, rather than flooding?Remember how in Message 209 you cited evidence of " change across the Permian-Triassic (P/T) boundary in CTM from sparse channels contained within thick floodplain deposits in the Permian Buckley Formation to stacked channels with sparse floodplain deposits in the Lower Triassic Fremouw Formation." as if it were evidence of a marine flood?That was all wrong. that was just you Googling a few key words, finding a few papers and getting them really badly, embarrassingly wrong. Sorry, but that's not evidence of anything except your own poor grasp of the topic. You do realise that the word "fluvial" means "pertaining to rivers", right? Because changes in river systems do not a global flood make. In fact, when you cite a paper that looks at the P-T and sees only changes to fluvial flood systems, that only serves to disprove your argument. If you were right, the authors should be saying "Holy crap! Check out this massive marine transgression!And it's a huge sonofabitch!" Instead, they only see minor localised changes. That leaves your argument dead in the water. Again. Exactly. You showed us local events. You failed to show us a global event. Poor attempt at deflection.There is no comparison here. You are suggesting that the entire groupings of mammals, birds, and angiosperms hid on a mountaintop (where they could not possibly survive) for billions of years without leaving a single trace. That is just nonsense. It's your argument mate. But yes, it is a cop-out. And dry environments do not support human populations. The populations you are dreaming about could not possibly have lived.The real reason that these fossils have not been found is that they do not exist. There are no pre-Triassic mammals, or angiosperms. There never were. All the rest is just you, rationalising in desperate fashion.Humans live near water. Birds live near water. Flowering plants live near water.Water means fossils. No fossils means no humans, no birds, no flowering plants and thus no P-T Flood, no matter what flimsy and preposterous excuses you conjure up. You are asking me to show you fossils from environments that do not produce fossils.I am asking you to show me fossils from environments that do produce fossils.Specifically, I am asking you to show me fossils of creatures that we know are superbly adapted wetlands, that thrive by the millions in wetlands the world over. And I am asking you to show me fossils from those very wetlands, environments that typically produce tons of superb fossils.I am only asking you to show me the life forms that the Bible says should be there (if the Flood were at the P-T layer). You can't though. You can't because the evidence just isn't there and because the evidence that does exist contradicts your fairy tale scenario. No, you are missing the point. Species X or species Y might be localised, but larger groupings, like the ones we're dealing with here, are not localised. They are ubiquitous. Flowering plants are not localised. They are ubiquitous. Mammals are ubiquitous. Humans are ubiquitous. Birds live on all continents. The Bible demands that flowering plants precede the Flood. But they don't. None of these huge groups do. Your fantasy depends on some of the most successful groups of living things on Earth being highly localised to areas that could not possibly support them. It's pathetic ad hoc excuse making.I mean, seriously, I'd love to know; where did the whales hide all those billions of years? On a mountain? Or in a desert? Really, it's no sillier than your idea about all the inconvenient absentee creatures living in mountain hideaways. I'm perplexed by the way you keep referring to the Triassic as "dry". That's not quite right. The period was dry overall, sure, but there were still plenty of wetlands around. The era had its swamps and forests as well, but still it had no grasses. Grasses would have been ideally placed to fill the environmental niches freed up by the P-T extinction event, but they're not there. If your theory were correct, we should see grasses in the Triassic, but we don't. The dating doesn't even matter; you are still screwed even if we ignore the dates and use only relative dating. Your P-T Flood theory must accept at least relative dating of the various geological eras. If you don't accept this, you have no basis to place anything at the P-T Boundary or anywhere else.Using only relative dating we can say that the Permian is before the Flood, as is the Carboniferous. But we can also see that these eras occurred well after the first life. The organisms that the Bible lists as being amongst the first created living things should be visible in those layers. They're not. Childish pipe dreams aside, that leaves your Flood theory dead. It has ceased to be. It has expired and gone to meet its maker. It's a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace, or at least it would if you'd show some intellectual honesty and face facts; there is no global flood layer t the P-T boundary. There's no global flood layer anywhere. There never was a global flood.Mutate and Survive

Hi mindspawn, How about you quit making stuff up as you go along?Think about what you're proposing. You are suggesting that whales "hid" in a landlocked sea. Then the Flood came and flooded the entire world. The whales would have been free to spread across an entire planet of water, but instead they stayed where they where... for no discernible reason. Then the waters went down, with all of the whales still in their sea and none of them in the wider oceans or marooned on the land. Then, they waited about two-hundred million years. Then, without the benefit of any flood, they suddenly proliferated throughout the world.That's just silly.On the other hand, I am proposing that there are no whale fossils beyond about fifty million years ago because there were no whales. Have you heard of the concept of parsimony? I'm going to ask you to consider; which of our two explanations do you think is the most parsimonious?Mutate and Survive

You like the concept. You don't seem to like it in practise. Except that during the Triassic, the poles were quite temperate. The "anoxic" conditions you keep talking about are entirely your own invention. The average temperature during that period was only three degrees Celcius higher than today; nowhere near hot enough to make the oceans anoxic, nor to preclude whales. Back in the real world, whales emerged in the Eocene and that epoch was, at times, even warmer than the Triassic. Whales survive just fine in tropical conditions.You keep making excuses for this P-T Flood idea, but at every turn your excuses fall apart. This presents you with a choice; either try again and make more flimsy excuses for your excuses... or grow up and admit that your theory is wrong.Mutate and survive

Your source only refers to the Early Triassic, not the whole period. Also, I notice that you omitted this bit, the bit that comes right after your quote ends;

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There is debate as to whether the black shales indicate anoxic conditions in the deep ocean waters or whether these conditions existed only in the sediments themselves.

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Uh-huh. Can't imagine why you missed that out...Meanwhile, back in reality, the Triassic played host to plenty of fish. After all, if there were no fish in the Triassic, there would be no fish today. Utter crap. You need to stop making shit up.Here is a Triassic fish; There are plenty of Triassic fish fossils, they're not rare. What's more, the Triassic was a veritable heaven for giant marine reptiles, creatures that share much the same requirements as whales - air-breathing, fish eating apex predators - so your claims are in direct contradiction of the evidence. And none of this even begins to explain why we see no whale fossils in, say, the Jurassic. But they're not confined to Arctic conditions! There are cetaceans in the Amazon for Chrissakes! They do a damn sight more than "survive", they positively thrive! The limitations that you seek to place upon these creatures exist only in your imagination.I also note that you make no attempt to answer my actual point; If the Triassic was too hot for whales, why do we see whale fossils from the Eocene, which was even hotter? Is it because you just made all this rubbish up as you went along? I think we both know the answer.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

If your only point is that whales (and their food species) can only live in (at least partly) oxygenated water, then this is true, but it's also a non-point. This is obvious; it's true today, true of the Triassic and true of any era.If however, you wish to claim that, during the Triassic, oxygenated water was only found in "arctic regions", then you are wrong.Here's another Triassic fish; That's a fossil flying fish, from the Middle Triassic of Southern China. During the Middle Triassic, that region was near the equator. This is clear evidence that well oxygenated waters were not limited to polar regions during the Triassic. Perfectly viable waters spanned the globe. Low-oxygen conditions were common, just as your source notes, but you seem to think that means that they were almost universal; they were not. Well oxygenated waters were common. Plenty of room for fish and other food sources, plenty of room for whales. But fish are found in the Triassic. And if the whales' food source is found, then we should find whales. We don't, not until the Eocene, where we find whales thriving in conditions that you claim would prove impossible for them.Stop making excuses. You know perfectly well why we don't find these mythical Triassic whales. It's the same reason we don't find any Permian whales or Jurassic whales; there were no whales! They did not evolve until about two-hundred million years after your P-T Flood. All you are doing by offering up this sorry string of excuses is uncovering more mistakes and more holes in your absurd Flood theory.Mutate and Survive

Hi mindspawn,I have little to add to Dr Adequate's answers, but there are a couple of things that I'd like to point out. That's not an example of Occam's Razor. You have no way of knowing that marine reptiles would out-compete cetaceans. Perhaps the mammals would out-compete the reptiles, you can only guess. And your guesses on this topic do not have the greatest track record so far.Occam's Razor favours the explanation with the fewest assumptions. Your series of tortured excuses and guess is far from that. a) The waters at the poles were not particularly cold during the Early Triassic. They were more of a warm temperate level.b) Would it surprise you to learn that many ancient marine reptiles were warm-blooded?Mutate and Survive

This thread was an opportunity for Fludists to present the evidence for the Flood, Flood Geology or anything of that nature. Sadly, Portillo declined to join us.Mindspawn's made an effort, but his problem is threefold;1) He can't present any evidence for the flood because there isn't any.2) Even if there were evidence for the flood, mindspawn hasn't got the tiniest smidgen of an iota of a fraction of a clue what he's talking about. Even the most elementary facts of geology and biology seem beyond him. This is not intended as an insult - I certainly don't claim to be an expert in any of these topics - but the truth remains that even if mindspawn were to happen across evidence for the Flood he would be woefully unqualified to recognise it as such. Almost every single argument he has made has been based in misunderstood internet articles, factual errors and creationist propaganda.If you're going to challenge the status quo in science, it behoves you to have some understanding of the subject you're challenging. Mindspawn hasn't got that. I respect his efforts to back up his arguments, but the truth is that he's wasting his time tilting against windmills.3) Finding himself adrift without any kind of normal scientific argument mindspawn has hit upon a new method of debate; making shit up.Got a half-assed theory to promote? Are people spoiling it by pointing out how far removed from reality it is? Then just make something up! Need to explain a lack of whales? Just make something up! An inland sea should do nicely. Need to explain why there are fish where you had claimed there would be no fish? Simple, just make up an excuse based how you imagine fish might behave. Don't let the fact that you know nothing about fish stand in your way! And when people point out that this too is wrong, just make up some more guff to explain why the last lot didn't work out. Then, throw in some more made-up-stuff, to get yourself out of the screw-ups with that excuse... With a bit of luck, by the time you've worked your way through a string of a dozen or so excuses and dodges, everyone will have forgotten what you were supposed to be talking about in the first place.Creating fanciful imaginary scenarios to explain away one's uncomfortable lack of evidence is not science. It's not even debate. It's just making shit up. Only evidence counts. Ill-informed speculation and wishful thinking don't count.This thread, supposedly about the Flood has meandered down a series of rabbit-holes to little avail. Certainly it's been a long time since anyone tried to provide some evidence for the Flood. Specifically, mindspawn has not presented any evidence for a global flood at the P-T boundary (or at least, he has presented any evidence that was correct). As of his latest reply to me he has abandoned any attempt to make an argument for the Flood and simply resorted to a standard creationist whine about evolution.If this thread has proved anything it is that geology is a big subject and not an easy one. It's not a topic where the average joe is going to be able to overturn the status quo by googling a few key terms. Despite mindspawn's laudable efforts, he still has no clear model for his flood. Perhaps it would be better if we all learned as much as possible about a scientific subject before presuming to challenge it.Mutate and Survive