The Flood, fossils, & the geologic evidence

The National Parks Service provides the answer to your question at this webpage: Mammal Fossils - Agate Fossil Beds National Monument (U.S. National Park Service): In other words, the fossil beds represent an ancient watering hole where great death events occurred during droughts.This webpage contains more information along the same lines, Geologic Formations - Agate Fossil Beds National Monument (U.S. National Park Service): You next say: The previous webpage I cited provides an answer to this, too: So the area was a savanna at the time, and the fossil beds are found at low points of the ancient savanna.Here's a scientific paper published in 1997 in journal of the Society for Sedimentary Geology: Analysis of the Geology, Fauna, and Taphonomy of Morava Ranch Quarry, Early Miocene of Northwest Nebraska. The Morava Ranch Quarry it describes is only about 20 miles away from Agate Fossil Beds National Monument and contains very similar deposits, indicating that likely the entire Great Plains experienced significant death events during drought periods. The abstract sums it up nicely and in detail: Thus we have a fairly detailed picture of what the environment and fauna were like some 20 million years, and how the fossil beds came to be.--Percy

Hi Calypsis4,The geologic layers in the Alps are complex. As has already been mentioned, there are areas of folding where the layers are actually inverted, i.e., upside down. There is no doubt of this because of the numerous places where erosion has revealed the entire fold in stark relief, including the fold itself.But I think what you show in your diagram is the result of a different process, one of faults followed by uplift and then horizontal slippage. This means that while the layers are all right-side up, ordered old layers lie atop ordered younger layers. Here's your diagram again: This happened when the African continent pushed up against the European continent. The pressure caused the layers to fault vertically. The layers on the African side of the fault slipped upward along the fault line, and once high enough were pushed horizontally along top of the layers on the other side of the fault.But I'm not sure that there's anything as dramatic as what is shown in your diagram. Where in the Alps is this geological sequence of layers supposed to have occurred?--Percy

Hi Calypsis4,This is from the Forum Guidelines:

6. Avoid lengthy cut-n-pastes. Introduce the point in your own words and provide a link to your source as a reference. If your source is not on-line you may contact the Site Administrator to have it made available on-line.

Next time just do this: Thanks!--PercyEdited by Percy, : Link rendering is improved over a couple years ago, so rerender this post.

Sure am, but I'm not moderating this thread, which is why I'm only giving presentational feedback! I should also have included the suggestion to make your references into real links instead of just things like "Creation/Wiki".In another thread you might have noticed where I told you how to keep track of your responses across all the threads you're participating in, see Message 377.--Percy

It isn't really relevant to moderation because we're all equals, but I do also write the code, maintain the server, and pay the bills.--Percy

It's not a rule, just unexpected and unlikely after the passage of so much time. This may have already happened, for example, as described in this 2007 National Geographic article: Dinosaur Soft Tissue Sequenced; Similar to Chicken Proteins. It was the topic of a couple threads here, with YEC's arguing that it meant dinosaurs actually died out only a few thousand years ago since biological material couldn't possibly survive buried for millions of years. Whether this finding of ancient dinosaur tissue has been replicated and verified I do not know.--Percy

Sure it's possible all the waters from the flood are in today's oceans, but let me ask you the same type of question. Is it possible you went to Dunkin' Donuts this morning? Sure it's possible. But did you? Is there any evidence that you went to Dunkin' Donuts this morning?It's evidence that's important, not the possibility. Everything's that physically possible is under consideration, and it's the evidence that tells us which of the enormous number of possibilities actually happened.So the question you want to ask about the waters of the flood isn't whether it's possible they're in today's oceans. A much better question to ask is whether there's any evidence of what happened to the waters. Another question you should ask first is whether there's any evidence water even covered the entire Earth at one time.As I'm fond of saying, things that actually happen leave evidence behind. If around 4500 years ago water covered the Earth, and if the mountains rose and the valleys deepened, then there must be evidence of these events. Every geological event of Earth's history is accepted by geologists because of evidence, and they'll include the flood as one of those events as soon as evidence of the flood is discovered.--Percy

Hi Chuck,I gave a cursory look at your first link (it's kind of long, I don't have that kind of time right now), and it seems to me like a thread discussing it could be pretty interesting. The premise is that there are large Rocky Mountain quartzite rocks that have been violently transported up to a thousand miles by the flood. Why don't you create a thread proposal by writing a paragraph or two around the link over at Proposed New Topics. But haven't you already formed a hypothesis ("the flood happened") without evidence? Don't you, in effect, have a hypothesis in search of evidence?A side comment: I wish Anglagard would adopt a more dispassionate tone, and I hope this doesn't escalate.--Percy

A new thread is probably no longer necessary. In Message 280 Dr Adequate examines some of the claims in that link and raises some serious issues that seem worth discussing.--Percy

If your desire to become a geologist stems from a burning desire to know how the Earth came to be the way it is today, then go for it. But if it stems from a burning desire to prove the literal truth of the Genesis account of creation in the Bible then don't waste your life. Evidence that the Earth is only 6000 years old would be copious and obvious and everywhere, not tiny and subtle and impossibly hidden yet so immensely powerful that it overcomes all other evidence to the contrary.You remind me a little of TrueCreation, now inactive. He designed our logo. I think he was 14 when he joined in 2002. Here's his farewell thread: I bid farewell (CPT is Catastrophic Plate Tectonics, a creationist idea that appealed to him).TrueCreation didn't wait to learn geology, he dove into the technical literature in his mid-teens. There's no need to wait.--Percy

Instructions for how to quote text from messages can be found here: --Percy

Everyone's probably heard the old saw about taking care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. It's the same with science. Follow the details where they lead and the theories will take care of themselves.--Percy