Hi Ned,
I can see how the fossil record could reflect a long geological evolutionary process when it might have been actually created in a very short period of time, geologically speaking. If there was an initial sorting of the drowned animals in the setiments that was prodominated by observable settling techniques, then the larger animals would appear as they do and the smaller ones etc. If after the settling occured and then this settled strata was subjected to massive up-heavals of earth as mountains were created according to the Genesis account, then the neatly settled strata would be subjected to an imense volume of enviormental factors and myriads of other dynamics as these factors interacted with each other in ways not recreatable now in a lab enviorment.
For me, the fossil sorting anomilies aren't as big a concern if I consider the unprecedented forces at work according to Genesis. What I believe to be true is that there should be some type of aftermath "ringing" or "snow footprints" in the enviorment that were left as a result of a perfect world being so disrupted. If you take a baseball pitcher's throwing arm and break it in 8 spots and then it heals to the point where he can pitch again, there will be some type of noticable evidence that something is different in either the delivery of the pitch or the appearance of the throwing arm.
As an experiment, I gathered 4 decks of UNO cards together and layed them out flat on the floor in a pile but sorted orderly with the 10's on the bottom of the pile and then the smaller numbers placed next sequentially. Then I pushed up in the center of the rug lifting the pile upwards quickly. When I pulled the rug flat the order of the cards was all screwed up and the amount of screwiness was a dirrect function of the velocity of the rug upheaval. This experiment is probably more relevent to Alice in Wonderland than to Geology and Fossils, but I think it conveys why I'd like to see the "Ringing" from the flood as proof rather than an interpretation of the fossil order.
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