Potential Evidence for a Global Flood

I couldn't find anything other than this site.

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- page 14 -

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Question: Creationists like Dr. N. A. Rupke, a geologist of the State University of Groningen in the Netherlands, claim that certain fossil trees (which they call "polystrate fossils") extend vertically through many meters of strata. Rupke says they are found in such coal-producing areas as the Ruhr region of Germany, Lancashire in England, and Joggins in Nova Scotia. How do you reply?

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Answer: The creationists again mishandle their sources. The evidence shows that the vertical trees were really buried by flooding rivers.

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For instance, Scientific Creationism (p. 108) quotes F. M. Broadhurst (1964, p. 866) as saying:

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It is clear that trees in position of growth are far from being rare in Lancashire (Teichmuller, 1956 reaches the same conclusion for similar trees in the Rhein-Westfalen Coal Measures), and presumably in all such cases there must have been a rapid rate of sedimentation.

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However, Broadhurst has some evidence that river floods buried these trees, evidence that the creationists do not mention. He continues:

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... there must have been a rapid rate of sedimentation. This sedimentation occurred, without doubt, in water that could not have been fast-flowing, since the trees were left in a standing position. It is possible that the land surface with its trees was inundated by flood water (possibly on numerous occasions) from adjacent waterways, the flood water bringing with it large amounts of sediment.

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He goes on to say that fossil polystrate trees are found only in the coarse-grained rocks, but not in the fine-grained ones. The reason is that the sediments of the latter probably did not settle fast enough to bury the trees before they rotted away:

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The most likely explanation of the apparent absence of such trees from these sediments is that the latter accumulated too slowly; any trees decayed and collapsed before they could be enclosed by sediments.

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Hence the river flood theory can explain why the trees are found upright and why trees were preserved in some rocks but not others; the creationist catastrophe theory cannot.

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Also Stearn, Carroll, and Clark mention the polystrate lycopsid trees in the Pennsylvanian coal deposits of Joggins, Nova Scotia. Their point is simply this: Every so often one or more river floods would bury a forest of lycopsid plants up to ten meters deep in sediment. After each flood, a new lycopsid forest would grow out of the newly deposited sediments. Eventually, as the tops of the trees rotted away, the pulpy interior of the trees would also rot away, leaving the more resistant outer wood surrounding a pit as deep as ten meters.

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Primitive reptiles fell into these pits, died of starvation there, and were buried when fresh flood sediments and plant matter filled the pits. Superficially, these trees look as though they support the Noachian flood theory, but ordinary geology explains the evidence much more easily.

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This seems like a reasonable explanation, Coyote would be better able to critique it. Makes more sense than a global flood.The above link is from the National Center for Science Education. Seems like a pretty informative site.Edited by fearandloathing, : Added link to NCSE home page.