Seashells on tops of mountains.

Seashell on mountain tops - How do Young Earth Creationist explain them?From what I have seen they often make the claim that the Sea Shell fossils found on mountaintops are *obvious* support for a flood but never offer to explain why. I suppose it is the thought the seashells live in aquatic environments and a global flood that covered the mountains somehow explains their existence.But just how does a single deluge transport immobile animals and marine plants up the higher elevations and even sometimes deposited marine fossils in several different horizons in a single column? Keeping in mind that that some form of violent hydrological transport would contradict other creationists claim that animals are sorted by their ability to escape.Also most of the strata with seashell fossils are found typically embedded in limestone together with fossilized marine plants, fish teeth, animal burrows which provide strong irrefutable evidence that the strata was at one time a marine environment and not just some debris that was somehow washed in by a catastrophic event.Leonardo da Vinci during the 15th century and Saint Sterno of the 17th Century had and the foresight and wisdom to recognize that the biblical flood cannot account for existence of the fossil remains of slow-moving mollusks and marine plants embedded in the rocks of mountains. But yet modern day Young Earth Creationist still believe that a flood explains this common phenomena so just what is the YEC detailed explanation.

Any particular reason you went translation shopping?In the good ole KJV (the mainstay of most bible believing fundamentalist) it reads: Which doesn't quite get the meaning you are try to twist from the text. So you pick the ASV translation.Your motivation is clear.Further the surround text does not support your conjecture that this is referring the flood. The next few passages.... This is not referring to a flood....In this reference...http://www.asa3.org/aSA/PSCF/1999/PSCF9-99Seely.htmlThe author says

I am glad you are aware of it as you used it on me tonight.
Message 201Now you are creating a straw man about others creating a straw man.Nice touch.So just how far are you proposing the continental plates moved during the flood year?Are you proposing that the present day mountains were lifted to their lofty heights during the flood year?Warning some questions concerning energy requirements and dissipation may follow depending on how you answer these questions. Please point out where these distortions and requirements were presented. Edited by iceage, : No reason given.Edited by iceage, : No reason given.

That was the original question in the topic post. Why is that evidence of a Great Flood. How are layers at great heights and far distances from marine environments evidence of a flood? You demonstrated the issue pointed out in the topic - it is always taken at "face value" without explanation or rational.Seashells exist at, well below sea level. In order for seashells to be washed into other areas they would typically and have a tendency to be transported to even *lower* elevations.So if one is going to make the absurd claim these lower layers were elevated via some magical uplift week they would still be at the lower layers of the geo column! *Not* on the crests and ridges of the Rocky Mountains or the rim of the Grand Canyon.Moreover many of these fossiliferous strata at high elevations have evidences, such as bioturbation, that they were living functioning sea floor bottoms. Careful examination will reveal such clues as burrowing, nesting construction, defecation, seasonal layers, mixed and displaced sediment layers from animal activity, etc.Further these fossiliferous layers often consist of thick layers of limestone which is usually for the most part cemented lithified lime mud comprised of marine organisms secreting their shell that settle out of the column. In modern shallow sea beds lime mud is deposited at a rate of something like a few inches or fractional feet per century. These fossiliferous formations represents many years of accumulation.In summary these fossiliferous marine layers bearing testimony to existing for a long periods of time - not being washed in by catastrophe.So question is are these layers before or after the flood? The evidence is against catastrophic short term placement. Edited by iceage, : No reason given.Edited by iceage, : No reason given.

Uplift. Prior strata are uplifted. It is process that can be observed today. Former clam shell beds have been raised feet above sea level in a single event.I see you ignored my prior post asking specific questions. Logical persons must conclude that your avoidance are the result of your inability to refute.

I sorta wished this thread would remained more technical but statements like the above need to addressed.Psalms 108 doesn't say the mountain rose... It would take an overactive imagination to twist that from the below Edited by iceage, : No reason given.

The common theme I see from this discussion here is that the YECers are forced into the improbable and unsupported just-so-story explanation that the mountains were formed *during* the flood in order to explain seashells on the top of Everest, Kaibab Plateau and Rocky mountains.The obvious and first difficulty with this dizzy tale is that these lofty formations are lithified rock ! In addition the foundations of these mountains would have to lithified rock in order to support the immense weight of the mountains above.Lithification is the the process of converting soft unconsolidated sediments into hard rock which involves dewatering, void reduction (via pressure from overburden burial), chemical cementation, etc.So the question is...Just when during the flood year did these processes occur and these supposed flood sediments become lithified?How do these sediments become dewatered during a flood?How deeply was the top of Everest buried prior to uplift in order to experience the pressure required for quick lithification?

Careful Obvious Child that sounds just a bit like Ray Martinez (aka Cold Fusion Object).Most of the YECers i know are honest enough it is just that they have too much investment in their theology and personal lives to really consider different and better explanations that would instigate a revolution in their heads. I believe it is more of being blind (willfully perhaps) then being dishonest.

That is a problem.Qualified flood geologist are rare for the very good reason that the flood is not supported by the evidence.I have not heard of too many agnostic (or non-yec Christian) geologist who after having working with the data for a number of years finally conclude that "hey you know a single world wide flood really explains all this complexity so much better"When considering alternate possible explanations for some set of data one would assess a theory or explanation based on its explanatory power, explanatory scope, predictive power, plausibility, existence of data that would falsify, etc. The flood does not fair well in any of these categories compared to modern geology. But that is a topic of its own. Sure that is true for all of us. But we are not talking about Genesis 1 here. We are talking about the flood and how floodist might explain seashell's within the upper strata of mountain.As a side note if you have already moved from the literal reading of Genesis 1 why not move from literal reading of the flood since the data is in opposition to it? We are talking about seashells/marine fossils within lithified rock! The YEC explanation is that these seashell formations are flood deposits and were uplifted during or soon after the flood.I am just pointing out that to uplift these deposits, which form the peaks of some mountains, they would have to lithified first. Lithification takes time and pressure so this add yet another step to the formations we see today.Consider Mount Everest. The very top is lithified marine sediments. So for these to be flood deposits you would had to have at least these steps:1. Deposition of marine deposits. Many of these deposits include bioturbation or signs of living marine animals stirring things up and burrowing. This voids a violent deposition. Not to mention most are classified as "low energy" depositions meaning there are not signs of stream flow like you see in floods.2. Burial of marine deposits miles deep.3. Dewatering of sediments.4. Void reduction, cementation, recystalization.5. Uplift at a dizzying rate - miles in fact. Consider the magnitude and frequency of earthquakes required for this to occur even over a few thousand years. Consider the tsunami's that would have been recorded from this event. Consider the heat generated at faults from the frictional forces. Consider the fact that the Himalayas foothills consist of the gravels, conglomerates and eroded parts of the lithified mountains and even containing fossils all of which attest to long periods of existence. And you can't use the flood to explain those secondary deposits as the flood excuse was already used up to explain the formations of the original sediments.6. Erosion of the upper layers that were required to lithify the peaks we see today.If you are considering the Canadian Rocky Mountains you have to tack on the occurance of an iceage to account what we see:7. Ice build up from year to year to thousands of feet high.8. Scouring and geomorphing actions of these glaciers9. Melting of these Glaciers.Now package all that up into a few thousand years and ask yourself - is it credible?Edited by iceage, : No reason given.Edited by iceage, : No reason given.

Hello TheWay Forget rapid uplift for a second.In short:bioturbation rules out rapid burialYou cannot have organism burrowing, nesting, disturbing layers when rapidly being covered by tens, hundreds or thousands of feet of overburden. This is simple impossible and falsifies the rapid burial theories of YEC. There are many many examples of bioturbation within marine deposits world wide.A few images are worth a thousands posts... The above photo is from the Bright Angel Shale formation. This credit for this image is from the Affiliation of Christian Geologists http://www.wheaton.edu/ACG/trip/stop2b.htmlA quote from the reference

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Some lime mud may have precipitated directly from the seawater. Imagine how many shelly critters had to live and die to create a layer of limestone over 250 feet thick! The mottled texture is the result of marine animal burrowing in the sediment (bioturbation).

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And here are some really nice images of worm burrows from the same Bright Angel formation. Credit Earth Science World Image BankAnd from the same reference there is this image from the Tapeat Sandstone formation in the sequence below the Bright Angel ... Credit Earth Science World Image BankJust below the very peak of the Everest there is a yellow band of metamorphosed limestone. To create metamorphic rock you need pressure and heat. The implies that the peak of Everest was at one time buried by sediments of the order of thousands of feet. Lower layers of Everest are sedimentary in origin.So the question is how does a short duration flood bury miles of sediments, lithify those sediments, metamorphize those sediments and then uplift these sediments miles upon miles - Within a time frame of a year or so!And remember these sediments have to be lithified/metamorphosed prior to uplift so there is an order sequence of events that are required each involving durations of time. Estimate the wave heights resulting from huge land mass moving miles vertically and horizontally world wide and entire continents motoring around planet. Then try to assume a mythic boat was riding those waves. The heat from good ole fashion work. Work = Force x Distance. Here the force is the frictional resistance along fault lines under massive pressure. The distance is the miles and miles of fault displacement. The Mt Everest faults are shallow angle faults so that to achieve several miles in the vertical would have required several 10's of miles along a low angle. Edited by iceage, : No reason given.Edited by iceage, : No reason given.Edited by iceage, : No reason given.

Active animal burrows only extend a few inches to maybe a foot from the bottom of a seabed. This can be observed in modern environments. These animals could not burrow under 10's, 100's or 1000's of feet of sediment due to the pressure , the subsequent resistance to burrowing and the lack of oxygen. If there is any evidence to the contrary let's hear it.The two excellent images of worm casts in the prior post are from two different formations in a sequence separated by several hundred feet. Not only that, there are signs of biotrubation several thousand above those!It is difficult to support a claim that these animals were extremely rapidly deposited in this deposition column all the while be rained down my massive sediments and with supposed high energy current flows.Just what do you propose in feet/day would be required to deposit the massive sedimentary deposits of the Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountains, or Himalayas in a flood of a few months or weeks? Depending on the grade you also need time - but I will leave that for another day.Think about this for a while. What is being proposed is this sequence of events.Deposition, (sometimes bioturbation), lithification, (sometimes metamorphic conversion) and massive uplift of the order of miles - in just how many months or years?I say just invoke the supernatural and done with it! I say this simply because a rigid structure is necessary to form vertical peaks and ridges like Everest or the Canadian Rockies. Also a formation cannot become metamorphic once uncovered or near the surface.Forget the heat generated by fault slip it was a diversion I should not have brought up. And we or I will get rightfully whacked by the mods.