Fossil sorting for simple

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Could it be your idea of a flood, is more like a river overflowing, than a world ending group of fantastic events that we, of course, could hardly imagine?

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You mean something so huge, fantastic, unimaginable and destructive that it leaves no trace of its passing? Suuuuuuuuure.

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I took Walt's solution, of which a small part was brought up, (one experiment) as a further indication that there are other explanations. Now if we wanted to make fun, why, sure, if you take only that factor, and try to use it to answer all problems, you get ridiculous! I mentioned several other possibilities.

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You have been shown clearly that one of them, liquifaction, is not even possible. If more than one agent is responsible for fossil sorting in the geological record, please indicate how each functioned with respect to the other.

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By and large waht you see is what we got!

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Oh, good. THat explains everything. Can you perhaps tell us what we have?

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You figure out if you can how.

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Why would we do your work for you? You have been asked questions and do little but dodge them.

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Creation folks don't seem too worried.

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They should be. Not one of them has ever proposed an argument that doesn't have gaping holes in it.

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If we harp on some pecular formation, we could easily get hung up, bacuse the whole scenario you try to spike with old age stuff. Drop that, and where's the problem?

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Oh, sure. Let's just ignore inconvenient data.

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You expect some particuar worldwide layer of some kind you can get your teeth into? Seems to me the violence was so great, not too much that way will satify your desire. Dead fish and animals fossilized all over the world? We got it!

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Right. In case you didn't notice it, there are fish and animals dying and being fossilized today. So, where is the flood?

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In a way you want the old age stuff to fit in with? Sorry, seldom the 2 will meet. What general thing is wrong with a flood in your veiw?

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THere is a complete lack of evidence.

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What would you like to see that keeps you from believing it?
Some of it has already been presented. Someone mentioned shark's teeth, describing how the teeth shed by ancient sharks while still alive sink to the bottom (shark's teeth grow throughout their lifetimes - new teeth push out the old ones), but that shed teeth are found in the same geologic layers as shark jaws with the teeth still present, something that couldn't happen if the shark died in Noah's flood.

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You make no sense at all. Please clarify this statement.

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Had the layers been deposited by a flood then the layers would have contained large grained material, because only heavy sand and pebbles and boulders can fall out of energetic water.

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Can they get there some way other than falling?

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None known. If you are holding out on us this would be a good time to give us an alternative.

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Could there be in places & times when some areas had quiet water?

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If so, well, so much for hydrologic sorting, eh?

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Has no creation scientist thought of this? Have you checked? Do you care?

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Not sure why we should. It would seem that you would let us know, however. THis would be a good time to tell us. So, what have you got?

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You mean something so huge, fantastic, unimaginable and destructive that it leaves no trace of its passing? Suuuuuuuuure

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No trace? Theres a world full of fossils.

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And there is a world full of fossil forming today. So, where's the flood?

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Oh, sure. Let's just ignore inconvenient data

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No. we don't have to. I was asking that aside from some local things, what worldwide big thing did the poster want.

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I think that question is for you. What is the evidence of a worldwide flood? What can you point to in the geological record that says 'this is the flood?'

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In case you didn't notice it, there are fish and animals dying and being fossilized today. So, where is the flood

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Where are your fossilized buffalo? Where's your mountain ranges full of fish jumping up and fossilizing? Mud is one of the best things for that. You can't produce it! All you could do is throw out millions of years to try to account for it.

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Then all that mud full of shells that I dug into in the Chesapeake Bay a couple of years ago was left over from the flood, eh?

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THere is a complete lack of evidence

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lack of evidence for flood? I don't agree.

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No! Really? But do you have anything to support your statements?

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Well I said what I thought about sorting. Basically that it was more an order in which things were buried rather than long time periods. You could pick any of the violent sorting factors and mock it if you want, but together they acted to form what we now see.

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Then why not a single rhino mixed in with the dinosaurs of similar size and shape? In fact, why not a single large mammal in the Jurassic?

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Formations thousands of miles in some cases full of fossils destructed like crazy.

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What do you mean 'destructed?' Please give an example.

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Dinosaurs looking like they are scrambling for higher ground, even deserting their young apparently!

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Tell me you're not making a presupposition here. And then tell us why flowering plants were so effective escaping the flood that they scurried to high ground faster than early dinosaurs. Or are you going to say that they were just smarter than dinosaurs?

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(No you'll have to look it up I'm through spending too much time ) I've brought out that there are endless possibilities for how it could have happened

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What are they? Making an assertion and then validating it with evidence are separate things.

My point is that I have seen evidence that animals are dying today and their shells are being deposited in sediments. Simple seems to say that such deposits are evidence of a flood, but as far as I can see, there is no global flood at this time. Perhaps I misunderstood.

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What's wrong with plants found a little higher or lower than a dino?

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First of all we are not talking about 'plants'. We are talking about 'flowering plants'. Second, it's not just a 'little higher', but, in some cases, a huge stratigraphic distance between Permian and late Cretaceous strata.

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Maybe the 'flightless bird' had found a hiding place nearby, and the ostrich, or whatever didn't get eaten.

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Might'a, could'a, should'a... How many just so strories are you willing to come up with? Remember, during your flood, there is less and less land for these animals to hide in, and eventually, there would be none.

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I have heard (going by memory here) that in a forest fire, animals like even deer, and cougars will have a kind of temporary truce. After the fire, they quickly go back to normal. Apparently God built creatures with an emergency mecanism for disasters. Glad you brought it up. Wonderful isn't it?

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If God needed to tell the animals they need to run before stopping to eat dinner, they deserved to become extinct. Actually, it is a wonderful evolutionary adaptation and your description is wonderfully entertaining.

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Yes on the one hand it was one way, other cases it was others, not all were carried thousands of miles I would think? So it was a lot of things and a lot of ways!

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Okay, give us a documented example...

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First of all we are not talking about 'plants'. We are talking about 'flowering plants'. Second, it's not just a 'little higher', but, in some cases, a huge stratigraphic distance between Permian and late Cretaceous strata.

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'huge statigraphic' distane to you is just a few waves to me, but I can see how your mind struggles with these things, as well it should, thinking the flood wasn't real!

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Can't address the first part of my statement, eh? Why are some plants fount with dinosaurs and not others?As to a 'few waves' for the thickness of the Mesozoic section, let's see:Permian (West Texas Basin):
Hueco ls: 500'
Bone Springs ls 2000'
Brushy Cyn Fm. 1000'
Cherry Cyn Fm. 1000'
Bell Cyn Fm. 700'
Ochoa Series 3900'Now, that's just the Permian in one place. Care for some more examples? Would you like to know more?

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If God needed to tell the animals they need to run before stopping to eat dinner, they deserved to become extinct. Actually, it is a wonderful evolutionary adaptation and your description is wonderfully entertaining.

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Entertaining? Thanks! That's an important part of life. Old bones can only get us so far. As far as giving credit for animal's amazing abilities to 'evolution' I'm not with you there.

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Good, then you can be known as an entertainer around here. Low on facts, but good stories.

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A Closer Look at Liquefaction
Center for Scientific Creation – In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood

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An important phenomenon, which will be called lensing, was anticipated and observed in the sediment tank. Some layers were more porous and permeable than others. If water could flow more easily up through one layer than the layer immediately above, a lens of water accumulated between them. Water lenses were usually at small angles to the horizontal. Water in these lenses always flowed uphill.

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Okay let's see what Walt says:

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Testing the Theories
How can we compare and test the two conflicting explanations: liquefaction versus uniformitarianism and the principle of superposition over billions of years?

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1. Many sedimentary layers can be traced over hundreds of thousands of square miles. (River deltas, the largest examples of sedimentation today, are only a tiny fraction of that area.) Liquefaction during a global flood accounts for these vast layers. Current processes and eons of time do not.

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Right, so Walt prefers to ignore the entire set of continental shelf sedimentation going on right before our eyes. And what about pelagic sedimentation? Why does he ignore that vast environment completely?Walt's credibility is shrinking (as if that were possible!)Let's go on:

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2. One thick, extensive sedimentary layer has remarkable purity. The St. Peter sandstone, spanning about 500,000 square miles in the central United States, is composed of almost pure quartz, similar to sand on a white beach. It is hard to imagine how any geologic process, other than global liquefaction, could achieve this degree of purity over such a wide area.17 Almost all other processes involve mixing, which destroys purity.

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Walt should say that it is hard for HIM to imagine. What about beach sands? HIgh purity? Yes. Broad extent? Surely.Hmm, Walt loses another one.And:

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3. Streams and rivers deposit sediments along a narrow line, but strata are spread over large geographical areas, not along streamlike paths. Liquefaction during the flood acted on all sediments and sorted them over wide areas in weeks or months.

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I guess Walt never heard of marine sedimentary facies.

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4. Sedimentary layers are usually sharply defined, parallel, and horizontal. They are often stacked vertically for thousands of feet. If layers had been laid down thousands of years apart, surface erosion would have destroyed this parallelism. Liquefaction, especially liquefaction lenses, explain this common observation.

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Do you think Walt ever looked at a liquified bed? Do you think the strata underneath the building and the cement tank in his pictures have well stratified material underneath them? Sorry, but the pressence of bedding argues AGAINST liquifaction, not for it.Fourth round goes against Walt, too! And I haven't even had to skip number in his list yet!Do you want to continue?

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5. Sometimes adjacent, parallel layers contain such different fossils that evolutionists conclude those layers were deposited millions of years apart, but the lack of erosion shows the layers were deposited rapidly. Liquefaction resolves this paradox.

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You note that Walt will not give an example here, so it's kind of hard to answer, but basically: Nope. Liquifaction should mix the up the fossils rather than sorting them.Well, it doesn't look good for Walt here.

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6. Many communities around the world get their water from deep, permeable, water-filled, sedimentary layers called aquifers. When water drains from an aquifer, the layer collapses, unable to support the overlying rock layers. A collapsed aquifer can never be replenished, so how were aquifers filled with water in the first place?

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Obviously, sorted sediments all over the world must have been deposited within water.

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Dead wrong, Walt.

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In other words, aquifers contained water when they first formed. Today, with aquifers steadily collapsing globally, one must question claims that they formed millions of year ago. As described in this chapter, sediments were sorted in waterrelatively recently.

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You will note that, once again, Walt fails to give examples other than 'all over the world' so it's hard to refute. But let's see, we know that some aquifers are pressurized and and if the water is not replaced, some stress is tranferred to the constituent grains. If that stress is high enough they will strain to cause a volume reduction. THis happens in rocks of all ages and is going on today in most actively depositing basins. It is just a type of dewatering.

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7. Varves are extremely thin layers (typically 0.004 inch or 0.1 mm) which evolutionists claim are laid down annually in lakes. By counting varves, evolutionists believe time can be measured. However, varves contain fossils, such as fish. Fish, laying on the bottom of a lake, would decay long before enough varves could accumulate to bury them. (Besides, dead fish typically float, then decay.) Most fish fossilized in varves have been pressed to the thinness of a piece of paper, exactly what would happen to a fish compressed in a collapsing liquefaction lens.

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Nope. Once again, Walt fails to understand fossilization and sedimentation. There is a difference between a fossil and a fish. Indeed the fish may be gone, but that does not mean that it fails to leave behind an organic residue or impression. Plus, I am not convinced that varves and fish fossils are found in the same place of the GRF.

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Also, varves are too uniform, show no evidence of the slightest erosion, and are deposited over wider areas than where streams enter lakeswhere most deposits occur in lakes. Lakes would not produce varves. Varves are better explained by liquefaction.

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Complete BS. Varves do not form at all where rivers enter lakes. And speaking of erosion, you don't think that liquifaction produces erosion, especially when fragements are transported even small distances?

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PREDICTION 11: Corings taken anywhere in the bottom of any large lake will not show laminations as thin, parallel, and extensive as the varves of the Green River formation, perhaps the best known of all varve deposits.

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Again nonsense. First, where is it said that varves form in all lakes? And second, Walt is already proven wrong by the identification of varves in lakes such as Suigetsu, and Baikal.I know you would like to have Walt take more abuse, but I really consider this to be a waste of my time, and yours and everyon else here. If you really want, I'll come back later, but I'd think twice about it if I were you.

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piece of cake! Anyhow what you call an age layer, ...

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I don't call anything an 'age layer.'

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I don't think of in those terms, just different deposits, and effects, etc. of a big event.

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And there lies a basic problem. You have simplified the the whole science of geology to cartoonish features. You ignore the work of thousands of geologists, many of them creationists.(added by edit): Your equating thousand of feet of sedimentary rocks to 'a few waves' is a good example. It is very easy for you to ignore data. I'm beginning to think you are talking about hand waves here.[This message has been edited by edge, 02-08-2004]

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Walts looking at the big picture, ...

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Sure, that way the details don't make any difference. It's his way of filtering the data of anything meaningful.

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...accepts how fossils are settling today, he just doesn't agree that this is how fossils settled during the biblical flood, etc...

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This says it all. He first assumes the flood and then selects the information that supports his viewpoint.

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P.S. I liked how he explained how, as lens waters is pressed out, sediments compress, causing fish fossils to become paper thin, etc...

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So he doesn't think that burial will compress fossils? What utter nonsense! Have you ever looked at mainstream publications? Why not?

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What it all comes down for me is this:

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Is there any strata location where there is direct evidence of evolution in the geologic column, or is it only inferred by the presumed or radiometrically dated age of corresponding strata around the world?

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What it comes down to for me is that you have formulated a question directly from creationist websites that have fed you a line of garbage. First, what is the problem with inference? Do you think you could live your life without inferring anything? Second, what is wrong with presuming something that has been supported by a century of research? Do you go out an prove that your watch (for instance) will work every day before trusting it? Basically, the professional creationists have poisoned the well for you and it becomes difficult for me or anyone else to really take the time to explain things anymore because it is so fruitless to do so. You beliefs will trump evidence every time.Okay, so is direct evidence absolutely necessary? Do you need direct evidence to accept an explanation that is based on large amounts of indirect evidence? If that is all that will satisfy you, then, no, there is no evidence that will convince you and we can all go home and do something useful. If you can accept that for historical sciences it is necessary to connect the dots, then we may have a basis for conversation.However, if only direct, empirical evidence is all that you will accept, will you also agree that there is absolutely no need to do historical geology, archeology, cosmology and even history itself? Shall we leave the fossil record unexplained because we cannot know everything about it? Do you see where your preconceived notions must logically lead us?

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Is it possible that different species are not found vertically evolved in the strata, but rather their habitats are merely regional, and do not correspond to any particular strata?
Example: Why is it that Protoceratops is found on the surface, while "earlier" dinosaurs are found deep in sediment layers? Are they really separated by geologic time, or just by region?

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We know of no other reasonable explanation given the true facts of the case. You need to ask yourself, why would two creatures clearly adapted to a certain habitat and entombed in the same rock type, be separated by kilometers of sediment dated to millions of years apart. What mechanism could so efficiently sort out organisms of the same ecological zone at different times, at virtually 100% efficency? If you have one, let's discuss it. If not, you need one.

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Make sense?
Lunkhead

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No, but we are accustomed to being astonished at what YECs can dream without the benefit of evidence.