Summations Only

Right, I've seen the map and I think that you are obviously misreading something. The western coast seems to be under water but that does not stretch far enough east to cover the Colorado Plateau. While the Chinle formation covers part of Nevada, it would be in the Eastern part of the state (probably only the Southeast) and I can't see the sea reaching much past the western border of that state from the superimposed map of modern North America.

The same maps and moe information can be found
hereWhile the Sundance Sea does cover the area in the Jurassic, the Sundance formation is well above the Chinle. Not surprisingly marine fossils are found in the Sundance formation.I still see no sign of a genuine contradiction here. If anyone else wishes to look at the maps they can find them in the pdf linked above.

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I certainly hope others may come along who can interpret the maps better than you do.

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An unwillingness to admit an obvious error does not make you right.

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You don't seem to grasp that the states in which the Chinle Formation is found are all mostly west of the Rockies, and the Rockies are that band of volcanoes in the maps in the book.

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Unfortunately for you, the volcanoes are not the Rocky Mountains as the map makes quite clear. The superimposed outline of the modern continent shows that they run along the California coast. They are also to the West of the Sundance sea which certainly did cover at least part of the area of the Chinle formation as I said.

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What YOU don't get is that that is NOT the California coast as we know it today.

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Then you are misunderstanding. The outline of the modern continent shows the California coastline as it exists today. So the locatiion of the volcanoes corresponds to the modern California coastline and not the location of the Rocky Mountains. The whole point is to relate the Triassic geography to the modern.It would be more fair to accuse you of missing differences between Triassic and modern geography because the Rocky Mountains did not exist in the Triassic.

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All the states today to which the Chinle Formation belongs were UNDER WATER.

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If they were where you thought they were, they'd be underwater NOW.

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However, as I see on the next page the volcanoes appear to be more to the west of the Rockies than in the Rockies.

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I guess that mistaking the Sierra Nevada for the Rockies is a slight improvement. But it is still a mistake.Faith, the outline of the modern continent is there to help you with precisely this sort of question. Why are you refusing to use it ?

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Which doesn't help matters anyway: there is still no place for the dinosaurs, whether because of deep water or volcanoes. All this is going on during the shifting of the continents after the break-up of Pangaea.

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And that is also ridiculous. There are people living close to volcanoes today and the "deep water" is just your geographical blunder as anyone who actually looks at the maps can see.

As I said earlier: And the situation is really simple.1) the maps have two elements, a physical map representing the area as it was at some point during the geological period and an outline of the modern continent2) the outline of the modern continent is there so we can relate modern geography to past geography.3) if we do this for the Triassic map, we see that the area currently occupied by the Chinle formation was on land, and the volcanoes are in the wrong place to be the Rockies. The ocean to the west of the volcanoes is still ocean today.It's really that simple.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

Faith, thank you for having the honesty to admit that you were wrong.

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HOWEVER, on the Jurassic and Cretaceous maps the epeiric sea completely covers the land east of those mountains of the Sierra Nevada area all the way to the Great Lakes, so in these time periods it does appear that the dinosaurs have been deprived of livable land unless they lived in the mountain area of the Sierras which is the only area in the west that is above water. I've never heard of dinosaurs being described as living in mountains, but if you want to claim it there it is, only you have to move them off the Great Plains which are inundated by first the Sundance Sea and then the Cretaceous Inland Seaway, and you'll have to explain how we have so many nonaquatic dinosaur fossils buried in that part of the country that was under water for a great deal of the time.

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Dinosaurs were a very successful and varied group living all over the world. It would be surprising if dinosaurs did not live in the mountains.I'll also point out that the map also has a large land mass to the East which seems a more likely destination for retreating dinosaurs.Nevertheless, it seems that the problem as stated is no problem at all. Dinosaur fossils would typically be found in the formations being deposited at the time of their death. These formations are terrestrial, so the dinosaurs lived in the area when it was land, and not when it was sea.

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Yes you can claim the east as their retreat zone if you like but you still have the problem of explaining all the fossil beds in the area inundated by water for so much of the time period during which those fossil beds formed

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As I've already pointed out, the area wasn't inundated by water during the period when the the fossil beds were formed. How often do I have to point this out ?

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And of course they would have had to have lived in those areas when it was land and not sea, but judging from the chart on p. 202 of the textbook being referenced, a chart of the "Cratonic Sequences of North America," it would have been sea most of the time in the Triassic and just about the entire period of the Jurassic. But I could be wrong about this since I find it hard to interpret the chart.

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As I hope you will understand, the local geology is a better indicator of local conditions at the time than a chart which will almost certainly have far lower resolution in terms of both the geography and the timescale. Now if you can show a lot of terrestrial dinosaurs distributed through marine geology you might have something, but if the dinosaur fossils are in terrestrial rocks then it's pretty clear that the area was land when they lived.

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How could you know this from the information being discussed?

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I know that it is true of the Chinle, Morrison and Kaiparowits formations, the fossils I've seen described for the Sundance formation are marine. Perhaps I am jumping the gun, but it seems a pretty safe assumption.

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And besides wouldn't we want to know when the dinosaurs had dry land to live on rather than when the fossil beds were formed?

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What's the difference ? As I pointed out the dinosaurs that became fossils would typically be buried in the sediment being deposited around the time that they died. Thus that sediment is the best guide to conditions at that time.

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Seems to me "a lot of terrestrial dinosaurs distributed through marine geology" has been shown.

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Which marine formations have many dinosaur fossils in ? The Chinle formation is not marine. The Morrison formation is not marine. The Kaiparowits formation is not marine.

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However, isn't this an odd thing to say, that "the area wasn't inundated by water during the period when the fossil beds were formed," because these shallow seas are usually invoked to explain the deposition of a particular layer or formation, meaning the fossil beds

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More likely to explain limestone deposits. Maybe marine fossil beds.But anyway if it has been established that many dinosaur fossils are found in marine deposits you must have a few examples, or at least know which formation they come from. Surely the odd thing is that you are relying on a speculative inference without producing anything concrete.

Not a very good attempt. Did you read the article ?For instance: That hardly seems promising.While I haven't fully grasped the description on Wikipedia it seems at least possible that a portion of the Dakota Formation is marine, although the Mancos Shake seems to be the main rock of the seaway. But whether there are any dinosaur fossils in the marine portion remains to be seen. The references might help.

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Here's a map showing the Dakota formation within the area of the seaway:
http://www.kgs.ku.edu/Current/2010/Ludvigson/gifs/fig1.gif

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Looks like the Dakota formation shown is along the edge of the seaway. Very likely this is the coastal deposits mentioned by Wikipedia.

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If there are links to your maps I'm unable to use them. Maybe after I post this I can.

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Edge quoted jar's post and the links are there.

The seaway wasn't a constant size throughout its existence. If you want to use a map you really need to use the map that corresponds to the time that the rocks in question were being deposited. And of course the maps will be based on the geology, so if you think that the nap disagrees with the geology you are very likely wrong - and even if you are right, the geology overrules the map not vice-versa.The information we have is that the Dakota formation includes terrestrial deposits and gas few dinosaur fossils. Now maybe you can show that some of those occurred in marine sediments but until you do you don't have the evidence you need. It's unpromising enough that I'd suggest looking at other formations - this list on Wikipedia ought to be useful.

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I don't know exactly when Dinosaur Ridge at Golden, Colorado was deposited so that's a problem, but it appears to have been within the seaway for the whole 34 million years of the seaway's existence so it's a candidate for possibly having occurred in marine sediments. It has both Jurassic and Cretaceous dinosaur fossils.

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Golden is a few miles west of Denver and appears to be within the seaway through all its shoreline changes on this map

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The Jurassic fossils obviously won't have anything to do with a Cretaceous feature (and they are from the Morrison formation, a terrestrial deposit)
The seaway doesn't exist throughout the Cretaceous period either.Looking at the description of the area I think that the Cretaceous deposits were on the coast of the seaway, possibly from a time before the start of the animation. Again, the geology must be primary and the formation is described as coastal.And , given that terrestrial dinosaurs in marine beds would be an oddity it really ought to be fairly easy to find if it were true (small numbers relatively near the coast are certainly possible without imagining that the dinosaurs lived in the sea - bodies washed out to sea one way or another). If it isn't mentioned, it almost certainly is not the case.

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The idea is that at some point a clear contradiction should be found between the depositional environment determined by the clues found in the rock strata, and the actual environment that is determined from shorelines and other clues to the six sequences of epeiric seas.

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That may be the idea, but so far you have not delivered. Nor do I see how you can hope to deliver without a detailed look at the geology. And I should note that the shorelines themselves are depositional environments.

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The idea that any dinosaurs "lived in the sea" is a misreading of what I'm saying

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I think it is simply a somewhat loose phrasing but basically accurate. What you mean is that mainstream geology would say both that dinosaurs were living in an area at a particular time and that the area was covered by the sea at that time. But again, you've not come up with even one clear example.

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The impossibility is resolved by recognizing that the dinosaurs died in the Flood.

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Of course, there are two problems with this. First the "impossibility" has not been shown to exist. Second, showing a serious problem with mainstream geology would do very little to save the idea of the Flood which still faces far more serious problems.

I put trust in a massive and honest search for the truth that has uncovered a huge amount of solid evidence over - literally - hundreds of years. You put your trust in assumptions based on sectarian dogma which runs heavily against the known evidence.Trying to present the two positions as equivalent overlooks these facts.