Why is it ALL MOSTLY mammals above the dinosaurs?

AbE: By the way, it's the video AZ posted in Message 3 that discusses only mammals, though there is a crocodile here and there in the collection. But I didn't read the abstract of the article in the OP.======================= Message 1 on the Mammals Rebound thread is a discussion of new mammal fossil finds in Colorado. Message 3 has a video about it, showing how it was discovered that these fossils were encased in concretions of the mineral apatite, explaining why it took them so long to find them.Since that's a Links and Information thread there isn't supposed to be any debate there, so I'm bringing it over here.I really have only one point to make: Why are there ONLY mammals in that find? It's very clear it's all in a certain layer of dirt, composition not specified as far as I recall, above layers of dinosaur finds, so of course it's all explained as the "recovery" of life after the meteor strike that supposedly killed all the dinosaurs.Of course I attribute it all to the worldwide Flood of Noah, and I get asked how the Flood could have sorted the different creatures as we see everywhere. Why is this particular layer yielding pretty much nothing but mammal fossils?So what I'm asking is why nothing but mammals? Why not just as many fossils of all the creatures found beneath the dinosaurs? Did they all die in the supposed KT extinction? And if they did why did mammals recover and none of the rest of them?See, it's hard to explain how the Flood would have sorted the animals as we find them, but it's just as hard to explain why each "time period" should be characterized by one particular kind of fossil. If new creatures evolved from the kind in the layer below it, those same creatures wouldn't just disappear, they should appear in roughlyh the same numbers they are found in their own time period, shouldn't they? There shouldn't really be any sorting at all as we find it, on the ToE/OE models, all those from lower/earlier layers should appear in those above in no less numbers, or at least in abundance: there's no reason for them not to be in the layers above just because other creatures evolved from them. In fact all of those "before" the dinosaurs should appear in the layers with the dinosaur fossils, all of them. Why aren't they there? If the KT event killed the dinosaurs surely it would have killed all the other creatures that preceded them and their fossils should be found in great numbers WITH the dinosaur fossils.And this mammal find is very striking: looks like ALL mammals. I can't explain how the Flood did that, but neither is it explainable how the ToE/OE theory accounts for it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Thread copied here from the Why is it ALL mammals above the dinosaurs? thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

This has occurred to me many times before but I never brought it up because I know SOME "earlier" creatures do show up in "later" time periods and I wasn't up to arguing the specifics. But really, very very few show up in later time periods compared to how many there should be, right? And even with the KT "extinction" which of course on the Flood model is a fantasy, even with that there should be plenty of fossils of many other creatures along with the mammals. They should also show up in great numbers WiTH the dinosaur fossils, shouldn't they? If not, why not? If they died in the "extinction" their bodies should have been buried anyway. Along with the bodies of mkillions of other creatures that supposedly lived "before" the dinosaurs, and some of which should have "recovered" from the KT event to be found among the mammal fossils in some large numbers.I have to assume this has been thought about, but it seems to me there really isn't a reasonable answer to it that preserves the ToE/OE paradigm.I mean, just about every fossil found in the whole Fossil Record has versions of it living today. There are a few exceptions of course, such as the trilobites, but they are rare exceptions. So just about everything we see in the fossil record is living today. Therefore they should have been living in many of the earlier time periods where for some reason they don't seem to be represented.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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I really have only one point to make: Why are there ONLY mammals in that find? It's very clear it's all in a certain layer of dirt, composition not specified as far as I recall, above layers of dinosaur finds, so of course it's all explained as the "recovery" of life after the meteor strike that supposedly killed all the dinosaurs.

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Let’s be clear. The dating of the rocks puts them after the extinction, so the absence of dinosaurs is hardly surprising.And if you bothered to read the article you’d know that there were plant fossils there, too. Indeed, the article doesn’t even say that mammals were the only animals found.

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See, it's hard to explain how the Flood would have sorted the animals as we find them, but it's just as hard to explain why each "time period" should be characterized by one particular kind of fossil. If new creatures evolved from the kind in the layer below it, those same creatures wouldn't just disappear, they should appear in roughlyh the same numbers they are found in their own time period, shouldn't they?

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It is certainly not true that other types of animal are absent. I grant that there was a time when amphibians were the only land vertebrates, but that is it. Even from that time we find plant and insect fossils from the land, and other fossils from the seas.So, the labels generally refer not to the only type of animals, but the dominant group of land vertebrates. Obviously numbers can change - and a change in dominance means a change in numbers. The dominant group will be the most common at the time, and that may only be determined through fossil evidence.So, your point is incorrect. It is quite possible to explain the actual data through changes in population sizes. Which includes extinctions reducing some populations to zero, and new groups evolving. And if you think either of those are the least problematic for the mainstream scientific view you’re nuts.Of course, the sorting is more impressive at lower taxonomic levels, but that is even less helpful - and more problematic - for you.

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In fact all of those "before" the dinosaurs should appear in the layers with the dinosaur fossils, all of them. Why aren't they there? If the KT event killed the dinosaurs surely it would have killed all the other creatures that preceded them and their fossils should be found in great numbers WITH the dinosaur fossils.

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Obviously creatures that died millions of years earlier than the K-T extinction will be found in the strata from millions of earlier than the K-T extinction. Only those that died in the K-T extinction will be found there. So your question doesn’t make a lot of sense as it is written.Now it is certainly true that amphibians survived into the age of the dinosaurs - and are found as fossils from that period National Geographic so even if we take sensible ideas about what we should find there is no problem - except for those who try to explain the entire fossil record by a single Flood.

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But really, very very few show up in later time periods compared to how many there should be, right?

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I don’t see any reason to believe that at all.

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And even with the KT "extinction" which of course on the Flood model is a fantasy, even with that there should be plenty of fossils of many other creatures along with the mammals.

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In fact quite a lot of creationists say that the K-T extinction IS the Flood. And since the article explicitly mentions plants and seems to imply that other animal fossils were found I’m. It sure where the only mammals comes from.

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They should also show up in great numbers WiTH the dinosaur fossils, shouldn't they?

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I don’t know about great numbers but they certainly do show up. For instance, we have a fossil of a snake caught raiding a dinosaur nest

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Along with the bodies of mkillions of other creatures that supposedly lived "before" the dinosaurs, and some of which should have "recovered" from the KT event to be found among the mammal fossils in some large numbers.

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Anything that only lived before the dinosaurs won’t be found anywhere near the K-T extinction. For animal species that were around in the period represented in the rocks that were investigated, I don’t see any reason to expect large numbers of non-mammalian animals at the Colorado site or any reason to think they were absent.

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I mean, just about every fossil found in the whole Fossil Record has versions of it living today. There are a few exceptions of course, such as the trilobites, but they are rare exceptions. So just about everything we see in the fossil record is living today. Therefore they should have been living in many of the earlier time periods where for some reason they don't seem to be represented

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Just because you don’t know about fossils of - for example - frogs or snakes from the time of the dinosaurs doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. Indeed they do and have been widely reported.

And the short answer is 'there aren't' The first sentence of the abstract:

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We report a time-calibrated stratigraphic section in Colorado that contains unusually complete fossils of mammals, reptiles, and plants

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There are turtles and crocodiles there too. Presumably other types of animal, but the paper only specifically mentions the biggest and best preserved animal fossils.

I guess I'm going to have to try to research it all because it seems to me there should be a lot more of the "earlier" forms in each time period than are found.

I thought you had trouble reading? Only when the evidence contradicts your fantasy arguments?

I do have a lot of trouble reading. I will only put in a lot of effort on something that matters a lot and in many cases I usually have to copy the material into a Word document with a black background, and then I can usually read only part of it.

Your original claim was disproven immediately.I really have only one point to make: Why are there ONLY mammals in that find?So now you're moving the goal posts. But how on earth are you going to show that there should be more? How many would be enough? Why should they all be found there?

Yes it was, I didn't read the abstract. But still I suspect there are far fewer than ought to be the case.

I think this thread is done. The question asked is answered in the very article cited, Remarkable fossils capture mammals’ recovery after the dino-killing asteroid (this was also quoted earlier):

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Now, though, a fossil-rich deposit in Colorado’s Denver Basin is offering paleontologists a window into how mammals, plants and reptiles recovered and flourished following the impact.

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Though the primary focus of this particular article is mammals, it obviously isn't "ALL mammals above the dinosaurs."--Percy

True, but there are plenty below the reptiles that don't seem to be represented. But the main question is probably whether there are reptiles and the same mammals above this mammal layer.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

No it's not done, I just have to do some reading and I've been distracted. It may take a while.

Actually what is interesting for me is how all the plant life is sorted into specific layers as if they have evolved over time.Plants don't run around or swim to higher ground.The trees and grasses we see since the K-T layer are not the plant life that coal is made from, and don't appear in lower layers.

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Timeline of plant evolution

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Plant evolution is an aspect of the study of biological evolution, predominantly involving evolution of plants suited to live on land, greening of various land masses by the filling of their niches with land plants, and diversification of groups of land plants.

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Fossil evidence of plants begins around 3000 Ma with indirect evidence of oxygen-producing photosynthesis in the geological record, in the form of chemical and isotopic signatures in rocks and fossil evidence of colonies of cyanobacteria, photosynthesizing prokaryotic organisms. Cyanobacteria use water as a reducing agent, producing atmospheric oxygen as a byproduct, and they thereby profoundly changed the early reducing atmosphere of the earth to one in which modern aerobic organisms eventually evolved. This oxygen liberated by cyanobacteria then oxidized dissolved iron in the oceans, the iron precipitated out of the sea water, and fell to the ocean floor to form sedimentary layers of oxidized iron called Banded Iron Formations (BIFs). These BIFs are part of the geological record of evidence for the evolutionary history of plants by identifying when photosynthesis originated. This also provides deep time constraints upon when enough oxygen could have been available in the atmosphere to produce the ultraviolet blocking stratospheric ozone layer. The oxygen concentration in the ancient atmosphere subsequently rose, acting as a poison for anaerobic organisms, and resulting in a highly oxidizing atmosphere, and opening up niches on land for occupation by aerobic organisms.

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Cambrian flora

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Early plants were small, unicellular or filamentous, with simple branching. .... Other major groups of green algae had been established by this time, but there were no land plants with vascular tissues until the mid-Silurian.

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Ordovician flora

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The evidence of plant evolution changes dramatically in the Ordovician with the first extensive appearance of spores in the fossil record (Cambrian spores have been found, also). The first terrestrial plants were probably in the form of tiny plants resembling liverworts when, around the Middle Ordovician, evidence for the beginning of the terrestrialization of the land is found in the form of tetrads of spores with resistant polymers in their outer walls. These early plants did not have conducting tissues, severely limiting their size. ... With spores, plants on land could have sent out large numbers of spores that could grow into an adult plant when sufficient environmental moisture was present.

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Silurian flora

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The first fossil records of vascular plants, that is, land plants with vascular tissues, appeared in the Silurian period. The earliest known representatives of this group (mostly from the northern hemisphere) are placed in the genus Cooksonia. They had very simple branching patterns, with the branches terminated by flattened sporangia. By the end of the Silurian much more complex vascular plants, the zosterophylls, had diversified[3] and primitive lycopods, such as Baragwanathia (originally discovered in Silurian deposits in Victoria, Australia),[4] had become widespread.

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Devonian flora

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By the Devonian Period, the colonization of the land by plants was well underway. The bacterial and algal mats were joined early in the period by primitive plants that created the first recognizable soils and harbored some arthropods like mites, scorpions and myriapods. Early Devonian plants did not have roots or leaves like the plants most common today, and many had no vascular tissue at all.... They probably spread by a combination of vegetative reproduction forming clonal colonies, and sexual reproduction via spores and did not grow much more than a few centimeters tall.

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By the Late Devonian, forests of large, primitive plants existed: lycophytes, sphenophytes, ferns, and progymnosperms had evolved. Most of these plants have true roots and leaves, and many were quite tall.... By the end of the Devonian, the first seed-forming plants had appeared. This rapid appearance of so many plant groups and growth forms has been called the "Devonian Explosion". The primitive arthropods co-evolved with this diversified terrestrial vegetation structure. The evolving co-dependence of insects and seed-plants that characterizes a recognizably modern world had its genesis in the late Devonian. The development of soils and plant root systems probably led to changes in the speed and pattern of erosion and sediment deposition.

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The 'greening' of the continents acted as a carbon dioxide sink, and atmospheric concentrations of this greenhouse gas may have dropped.[6] This may have cooled the climate and led to a massive extinction event. see Late Devonian extinction.

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Also in the Devonian, both vertebrates and arthropods were solidly established on the land.

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Carboniferous flora

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Early Carboniferous land plants were very similar to those of the preceding Latest Devonian, but new groups also appeared at this time.

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The main Early Carboniferous plants were the Equisetales (Horse-tails), Sphenophyllales (scrambling plants), Lycopodiales (Club mosses), Lepidodendrales (arborescent clubmosses or scale trees), Filicales (Ferns), Medullosales (previously included in the "seed ferns", an artificial assemblage of a number of early gymnosperm groups) and the Cordaitales. These continued to dominate throughout the period, but during late Carboniferous, several other groups, Cycadophyta (cycads), the Callistophytales (another group of "seed ferns"), and the Voltziales (related to and sometimes included under the conifers), appeared.

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The Carboniferous lycophytes of the order Lepidodendrales, which were cousins (but not ancestors) of the tiny club-mosses of today, were huge trees with trunks 30 meters high and up to 1.5 meters in diameter. These included Lepidodendron (with its fruit cone called Lepidostrobus), Halonia, Lepidophloios and Sigillaria. The roots of several of these forms are known as Stigmaria.

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The fronds of some Carboniferous ferns are almost identical with those of living species. Probably many species were epiphytic. Fossil ferns include Pecopteris and the tree ferns Megaphyton and Caulopteris. Seed ferns or Pteridospermatophyta include Cyclopteris, Neuropteris, Alethopteris, and Sphenopteris.

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Cordaites, a tall plant (6 to over 30 meters) with strap-like leaves, was related to the cycads and conifers; the catkin-like inflorescence, which bore yew-like berries, is called Cardiocarpus. These plants were thought to live in swamps and mangroves. True coniferous trees (Walchia, of the order Voltziales) appear later in the Carboniferous, and preferred higher drier ground.

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Permian flora

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The Permian began with the Carboniferous flora still flourishing. About the middle of the Permian there was a major transition in vegetation. The swamp-loving lycopod trees of the Carboniferous, such as Lepidodendron and Sigillaria, were replaced by the more advanced conifers, which were better adapted to the changing climatic conditions. Lycopods and swamp forests still dominated the South China continent because it was an isolated continent and it sat near or at the equator.

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Triassic flora

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On land, the holdover plants included the lycophytes, the dominant cycads, Ginkgophyta (represented in modern times by Ginkgo biloba) and glossopterids. The spermatophytes, or seed plants came to dominate the terrestrial flora: in the northern hemisphere, conifers flourished. Dicroidium (a seed fern) was the dominant southern hemisphere tree during the Early Triassic period.

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Jurassic flora

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The arid, continental conditions characteristic of the Triassic steadily eased during the Jurassic period, especially at higher latitudes; the warm, humid climate allowed lush jungles to cover much of the landscape.[7] Conifers dominated the flora, as during the Triassic; they were the most diverse group and constituted the majority of large trees. Extant conifer families that flourished during the Jurassic included the Araucariaceae, Cephalotaxaceae, Pinaceae, Podocarpaceae, Taxaceae and Taxodiaceae.[8] The extinct Mesozoic conifer family Cheirolepidiaceae dominated low latitude vegetation, as did the shrubby Bennettitales.[9] Cycads were also common, as were ginkgos and tree ferns in the forest. Smaller ferns were probably the dominant undergrowth. Caytoniaceous seed ferns were another group of important plants during this time and are thought to have been shrub to small-tree sized.[10] Ginkgo-like plants were particularly common in the mid- to high northern latitudes. In the Southern Hemisphere, podocarps were especially successful, while Ginkgos and Czekanowskiales were rare.[9][11]

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Cretaceous flora

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Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms, spread during this period[12], although they did not become predominant until near the end of the period (Campanian age). Their evolution was aided by the appearance of bees; in fact angiosperms and insects are a good example of coevolution. The first representatives of many modern trees, including figs, planes and magnolias, appeared in the Cretaceous. At the same time, some earlier Mesozoic gymnosperms, like Conifers continued to thrive, although other taxa like Bennettitales died out before the end of the period.

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Cenozoic flora

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The Cenozoic began at the Cretaceous—Paleogene_extinction_event with a massive disruption of plant communities. It then became just as much the age of savannas, or the age of co-dependent flowering plants and insects. At 35 Ma, grasses evolved from among the angiosperms. About ten thousand years ago, humans in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East develop agriculture. Plant domestication begins with cultivation of Neolithic founder crops. This process of food production, coupled later with the domestication of animals caused a massive increase in human population that has continued to the present. In Jericho (modern Israel), there is a settlement with about 19,000 people. At the same time, Sahara is green with rivers, lakes, cattle, crocodiles and monsoons. At 8 ka, Common (Bread) wheat (Triticum aestivum) originates in southwest Asia due to hybridisation of emmer wheat with a goat-grass, Aegilops tauschii. At 6.5 ka, two rice species are domesticated: Asian rice, Oryza sativa, and African rice Oryza glaberrima.

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Why are there no grasses below the Cretaceous—Paleogene_extinction_event layers?Why are there no angiosperms below the Cretaceous layers?Why are there no conifers below the Permian layers?Why are there no vascular plants below the Silurian layers?Why are there no plants with roots or leaves below the Devonian layers?Why do all these plant fossils form a consistent pattern within the geographical/geological/temporal matrix, a pattern that seemingly shows new groups evolving from existing groups?Did they suddenly appear/develop during the flood ?? Full grown ???More preposterous things have been suggested.Why are the Banded Iron Formations (BIFs) only found in the same age/stratigraphic layers around the world?How did the flood omit Iron Oxide in rock layers below the BIF?EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : .