Evidence for and against Flood theories

Tell that to nearly 200,000 people in the South Pacific.Why do we not find human (or other such creatures) mixed in with the shells?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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When oysters die, what usually happens to the shells? Don't they usually open and separate and get broken to bits? So a better question, is how, according to conventional geological concepts, did these numberous closed, articulated fossilized oysters form?

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For the oysters' shells to have remained shut, it seems obvious that they must have been buried alive; so some mechanism for rapid burial is required. Of course, we YECers point to the Flood, what do conventional geologists point to?

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Coventional geolgists have no trouble with rapid burial - it happens all the time - storms, floods (small f) and landslides are present day processes which can, *locally*, cause very high sedimentation rates. In fact such deposits are a valuable source of information for palaeontologists, because rapid burial can lead to the preservation of soft tissues, which are usually consumed by bacterial action.But such situations are the exception rather than the rule, so we can just turn the question around. Surely if all sedimentary rocks on the planet are the result of a single burial event (The Flood), most things we see in the fossil record would have been catastrophically buried. Why is most of the stuff in the fossil record disarticulated? Why don't we get extensive preservation of soft tissue?

Well, we think that creationists must propose how corals survived a flood. Almost all corals die if covered by more than a few meters of water, and all corals die if covered in sediment.

Possibly. You would need to ask a biologist about this. However, it is immaterial to the point. I have no idea. But once again that is not my point. I have no problem with sudden events in the earth's history. The question is: how do you manage to grow multiple fossil communities on top of one another while meters of sedimentation occur each day? How do they populate the area (especially sessile organisms), reproduce and grow? Your argument makes no sense when all the facts are considered. There are many mass kill and mass burial events in the geological record. A few years ago a hundred elk were killed in Rocky Mountain NP in on evening. Are you saying that a flood caused the kill (actually, it was lightning)? Can you not imagine some other event that might have caused a mass kill and/or burial?

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. The tsunami mechanism of the great flood has been completely discredited. By the way, more violent tsunamis are documented as having killed many terrestrial creatures. You are reaching here. Why would a tsunami deposit carbonate muds? Why would the muds survive numerous tsunami events? Why would 100% of terrestrial animals survive the first xteen kilometers of sedimentation? Why would flowering plants survive longer than dinosaurs? There is an explanation for all this: there is no evidence whatsoever of a biblical scale flood. So the first dinosaur nests were not covered until the Mesozoic? Even though we have dinosaur habitat, footprints, etc. in coastal swamps? Some are covered by wind-blown sand, just as many organisms are buried today. Considering that any creature might try to select a protected place for a nest, I don't see this as terribly inconsistent with natural processes. Well, it is a logical conclusion from the YEC premise. Where do the coral reefs come from? How did they survive the flood? How did they grow such immense colonies in just a couple of thousand years? These are questions you need to ask. And how did those rocks manage to lithify in less than a year at the surface of the earth? Never mind the fact that we do not see any tsunami-type sedimentation. You should be getting the idea that tsunamis have been evoked before by YECs and been thoroughly shot down. I recommend avoiding the YEC literature on this. You will only get part of the picture.

Furthermore, all living things in the fossil record must have lived at the same time, also. Where does Literalist see all of these organisms living. I have heard calculations that the biomass must have been kilometers(?) thick.

Hi Gengar,Well, before I answer your questions, may I ask how you are proposing, generally, that most organisms have managed to become fossils?For instance, some people think that the fossil record is recording animals as they died in their natural environments. So, an animal dies, it's flesh rots...maybe it's bones get scattered about a bit, but slowly, over time the remains get covered with the sands of time and eventually fossilize. Is that kind of along the lines of what you're thinking?Maybe you've got some other model, which I've not been exposed to. I'd love to hear it.Thanks,
--TheLit

I would be interested about your views on coral.

Hi Charles,Well, it's nice color under most circumstances...it doesn't go with everything, though. I think mint green is nice, too.{just kidding}Well, I don't know much about Coral. Do you have a particular thought about it that you'd like to see my take on? No guarantees that I COULD give a sufficient answer, but I might be able to give a good try.--TheLit

Sure - as previously put to you - how does Coral suffer being underwater during the flood.because

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This is because Coral grows at the water's surface. If you Flood the earth at a rate faster than the coral is able to grow, you would kill it. Coral growth is similar to tree growth, in that their growth varies over the year. This means that coral have "growth rings" similar to tree rings. Furthermore, the yearly coral rings have a line structure due to both daylight and tidal variations.

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Any drastic change in the growth rate of corals would be obvious in the ring pattern. Ancient fossil coral display growth rings very similar to those of modern corals. Conclusion: their rate of growth was not notably different from that observed today.

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http://tinyurl.com/5uth4This message has been edited by Charles Knight, 06 February 2005 14:52 AM

Careful amigo. If TheLit is a sharp as usual, he's going to counter with examples of deep sea/abyssal corals like Paragorgia arborea and Lophelia pertusa. The truth is there are about 10 species (or was that genera, I can't remember) of deep sea corals currently recognized.Of course, that doesn't do a thing for the Flud in reality. After all, even if these abyssal organisms survived, there's no way any of the surface corals would have - these guys really DO need shallow, usually warmish, clear water otherwise their photosynthetic symbionts die off - ultimately killing the coral polyp itself. Here's a nice readable article on deep sea corals by NOAA.edited to add link.This message has been edited by Quetzal, 02-06-2005 15:10 AM

All very correct - TheLit mentioned that he didn't know much about coral so I was trying to keep it simple.Thanks for the clarification.

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Of course, that doesn't do a thing for the Flud in reality. After all, even if these abyssal organisms survived, there's no way any of the surface corals would have - these guys really DO need shallow, usually warmish, clear water otherwise their photosynthetic symbionts die off - ultimately killing the coral polyp itself. Here's a nice readable article on deep sea corals by NOAA.

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But then, it's not just depth either. Turbidity is a very effective killer of corals, and temperature is a major factor. Then there would be the problem of forming the huge reefs that we see today having hyper-evolved from deep water corals in a few thousand years. And THEN there is the problem of fossil coral reefs and how they managed to form during the flood. Ah, I wish it were just as simple as YECs seem to think the world to be...

Turbidity, temperature, depth, water chemistry, etc. Corals are actually pretty sensitive critters. IIRC, some tropical coral reefs start to die if there's even a small fluctuation in temperature, for instance. Even minor contaminants (say, from ag runoff) can bleach coral reefs (killing the symbionts).

Hi Guys (Charles, Edge, & Quetzal),Okay...I see now.(Quetzal, I AM pretty ignorant in these areas, I'm afraid.)Fossil Corals: why couldn't they have formed in the Flood?How did Corals survive the Flood? My first thought would be as coral larvae, which would then mean that no reef on earth could be older than the Flood event, though.Not very much to go on, I'm afraid.--TheLit