The Great Creationist Fossil Failure

How do you get sediments to lay themselves out flat with flat top and bottom unless deposited by water?

None of what you said applies to the strata of the geologic column. And as I recall the explanation of how sand dunes get turned into slabs of rock was the usual speculation.

I fail to see how any of the strata, which are so uniform to the naked eye, as to general form, could have had completely different sources of deposition. Yes I know if you peer at the details you can come up with these differences, but deposits in rivers and lakes just can't look the same as the strata all look. Yes but there aren't many of these in the Geo Column. No doubt, but there are no strata such as in the GC that could have been deposited in a delta. True but you'd have to show me a layer of ash that looks like the strata I'm talking about. Same answer as above for ash. If you don't show me where this explanation was given I have no reason to take you seriously when you keep saying stuff like this. No matter how you explain it I remain unconvinced that dunes could ever be compressed into a slab of rock like the Coconino sandstone with its flat top and bottom. Lithified yes, but shaped like a layer of sandstone among other layers of the geo column, no.

You've actually outdone yourself here, actually transcended your usual level of rank misrepresentation. The reference to flat strata of course refers to their condition when deposited, not their condition after being deformed by tectonic forces. This is one of those posts of yours where I really don't know if you are just determined to be as obnoxiously difficult as possible, twisting the obvious meaning of at least my posts and perhaps others, or you really think you are responding honestly. Which strikes me as too absurd to take seriously but anyway...Just to give my explanation of these tectonically deformed strata, most of them are angular unconformities which you know I interpret as occurring after the entire stack of strata was in place, so that where you see only a layer or two across the buckled or tilted lower section that would represent what is left from what originally was a very deep stack of strata above them. In these pictures the upper layers tend to sag, but that would be due to their not having been completely hardened into rock at the time of the tectonic disturbance. I figure the remaining layers got sort of stuck to the buckled section by the friction caused by the movement between the levels, plus the effect of the weight above that had compacted them some as well, and the strata that had been above them were broken up by the tectonic movement and washed away in the receding Flood waters, or whatever standing water might have remained after the Flood.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You know, I think if the order of, say, the amphibians and reptiles were reversed, or the mammals and birds changed places, or ferns and flowering plants, you'd explain that order as proving the same point, because it's all a subjective classification system. The substitutions would still suggest the same evolutionary order. You'd probably explain the order as increasing complexity or whatnot. Because although amphibians would seem to follow fishes and precede reptiles, it's because that IS the order that leads to that conclusion, but there's nothing really obvious about that, you could just say something like, "amphibians are obviously more complex than reptiles."That one might not be as obvious though, but there's nothing obviously more complex about birds over mammals, and you could emphasize the seeming relationship between reptiles and birds if they occurred in the fossil record between reptiles and mammals, the way you do dinosaurs and birds.And it seems to me flowering plants could easily be seen as more primitive than ferns, if that was the actual order instead of the one we have.I can't prove it, but I suspect it. There's simply nothing objectively obvious about the order you all make so much of as proving evolution up the chart. Not just any substitution could be made of course, because there is something plausible about the order after all, but I do think that's really all it is, it's just a plausible mental arrangement that has no real objective reality.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The Flood was not necessarily "raging" though it may have been at times in some places. In any case I have no idea why radiolarians and diatoms are where they are in the fossil record, is there some obvious accepted explanation for it? Or could they possibly be reversed and you'd find the same meaning in THAT order too?

Possibly because diatoms "often live deeper?" Or, though they live "in similar sea environments", possibly at different locations that determined where they got buried in the strata? Or, they may be similarly sized but perhaps their shape has an influence in how they are carried in the water? In other words, how should I know? If the order happened to have been reversed, however, you could still use them to date rocks. The Flood sorted things, it didn't jumble them as "one would expect." No idea what the implications of this is suppposed to be. Not going to take the time to check out the Deccan traps but it seems easy enough to assume that the iridium was transported around the world on the water that laid down the Cretaceous fossils, probably because the meteor hit at that point in the Flood.

Comparative anatomy is also an exercise in subjectivity. I'd say the same thing about that.As for killing the Flood, hardly. Not being able to explain the fossil record is nothing compared to all the positive evidence we can muster to show that only the Flood could account for the facts while the OE stuff is just silly.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

There are more pressing problems with the Old Earth scenario:

What you don't get is that all those scenes you ascribe to various Time Periods are purely imaginary. The actual evidence is the surface of slabs of rock that are all stacked up. They are associated with Time Periods, whose supposed character is constructed out of some characteristics of the rock plus the flotsam within the rock, but the actual evidence is merely the rock and its superficial characteristics.If you like you may draw some dinosaur footprints wherever indicated on the surface of a particular rock, some other fossilized impressions perhaps, or some ripple marks, burrow holes, raindrops etc. But the point is that the surface of these rocks is ALL you have to represent the actual surface of the Earth in the indicated Time Period. You have no mountains, rivers, trees, canyons, etc. except as imaginary constructs you impose on these clues.All you have is the relatively flat surface of sedimentary rocks. I'm going through this book about the Grand Canyon that led off the thread on AIG's view of the canyon, and of course it's full of drawings of the strata, all identified with the Time Period assigned to each. The surfaces of these strata cover enormous swaths of geography; they are the ONLY physical representation of the actual surface of the earth in the assigned time period, obviously a flattish rock surface with some markings on it, and NOTHING ELSE.There is something very very wrong with this picture but you don't see it, do you? What you "see" is what you IMAGINE was there, not the strata themselves which is ALL that was there.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Jurassic Period | Climate, Plants, Animals, & Facts | Britannica: This is just western North America and this is just the Jurassic Period. Remember that you can find lots of statements about the great extent of the strata across continents for every time period. I've many times referred to the illustrations HBD once posted of the great extent of the strata all across North America with few gaps. In this case western North America is said to have been covered by a vast sand sea in the early Jurassic; in the middle to late Jurassic it was covered repeatedly by advancing and retreating shallow seaways; then in the late Jurassic we get strata bearing dinosaur fossils.Where in all that sedimentary coverage was there an actual earth surface for dinosaurs to roam around on? The actual evidence is of sedimentary layers, not landscape that could support the dinosaurs. The Jurassic layers are flat like all the sedimentary layers; they cover a very large area where presumably the flora and fauna found within them lived on the earth. Except there is no room for them on the earth because all there is is the vast sand sea and the advancing and retreating shallow seas and the strata with the fossilized dinosaurs.Some strata do span entire continents. Of course many of them are marine and left behind marine fossils so there is no need for earth surface for them to roam around on . The record of their presence is the flat slabs of rock of the strata in which they are buried. Slabs with flattish surfaces, justifying the cartoon's depiction of a featureless landscape. But exactly the same situation occurs in the time periods where supposedly land creatures thrived: strata and more strata, no landscape.The Jurassic strata cover western North America but they are certainly not lacking in the rest of the world. Do the dinosaurs roam around only wherever the strata weren't forming? But that would be odd since their fossilized remains are IN the strata and the usual idea is that the strata represent the areas they roamed on. Besides which, the strata are continuous, there are few gaps. The core holes mentioned earlier all over the Midwest show continuous strata in a particular order, flat strata covering a very large area in the middle of North America, one on top of another. Covering the surface of the earth for hundreds of millions of years according to the Geo Timetable. Where did the dinosaurs actually roam in those time periods?Again, the actual surface of the earth in each time period, judging by the strata of the geo column, was the strata themselves. The scenarios that are believed to have existed in their place had no room to exist; the actual surface was strata, not those scenarios, which are purely imaginary constructs based on qualities in the strata and their fossil contents. You can find lots of illustrations of what life was supposed to have been like in such and such a period, drawings of the particular life forms contained in the strata that represent the period, conveniently forgetting that the strata is all there is to represent the period.I hope I'll be able to get back to answering some of the posts attempting to deny this reality. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The rivers that flow through the strata did not flow through it during the period attributed to the strata. As I've argued over and over, all the features we see on the surface of the earth only formed after all the strata were in place. After they were all in place then the Grand Canyon was cut, the Grand Staircase was formed, etc etc. Mountains were pushed up, composed in many cases of the strata etc etc.You keep accusing me of trying to derail the topic, but I've said all I have to say on the topic. I guess the topic of the featureless time periods could be moved somewhere else.

Iif the dinosaurs roamed on the top of the sediment, which spanned huge distances and was flat and featureless, they would have had nothing to eat.If there had been features such as exist on the surface of the earth now, they would have had to have been flattened down to the slabs of rocks which we find in the geo column. Is that the idea then? That there were mountains and rivers and vegetation for the fossilized animalia to roam in, but then a shallow sea came and flattened it all into featureless rockness? Which of course would have killed all the roaming animalia.Your last picture particularly shows features that did not exist in any of the former time periods, as evidenced by the flattish surfaces of all the strata, and the cores that demonstrate their extent and order, spanning many thousands of square miles.

In a sense, yes. The bones and footprints certainly evidence dinosaurs, but those dinosaurs could not have been living in the time period called the "Jurassic" because all there was during that time period, in the western US for example, was the vast sand sea and the advancing and retreating shallow seas which left behind their sediments on top of the sand. That's what the available EVIDENCE says. The landscapes so often assumed for the dinosaurs to live in, or the creatures supposed to have existed in any other "time period," are belied by those sedimentary rocks which are the ACTUAL environment of that time period. All that DOES exist today, that's what the first panel of the cartoon says. It didn't exist in any of the former time periods, however, all of which are actually physically represented only by the rock strata, and all of which are described in geological texts in terms of vast sedimentary deposits by advancing and retreating seas and that sort of thing, which hardly constitute an environment hospitable to land creatures such as dinosaurs. The Flood is my interpretation of what is actually there, just as the imaginary landscape is your interpretation of it. But what was actually there during the "time period" called the Jurassic, or any "time period," is a vast flatness of sedimentary deposits.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The time periods are represented by flat rock strata, in which there is no room for the mountains and valleys of your picture. None of that existed in any former time period, it all exists only on the surface of the Earth NOW.