Creation & EvolutionForum for the discussion of this important topic. This forum is open to non-believers. There is a Christians-only forum in the Christians-only section too.
The frumious Bandersnatch - love your signature. Memorized that whole poem many, many years ago (30). My daughters hate when I recite it. Lewis Carrol's Jaberwocky (may be spelled incorrectly).
Trace fossils that are incompatable with deposition by a worldwide flood are found all through the thousands of feet of strata that YECs claim are flood deposits. These trace fossils falsify the claim that the world's sedimentary geology can be explained by a worldwide flood.
The frumious Bandersnatch
I think what Chris is not telling you is that he believes in 'flood surges' which frequently left dry (and even arid) land between innundations during the year of the flood. Never mind that he needs hundreds of such surges perhaps only hours apart, life was able to repopulate the flood plains, build nests have offspring and find forage.
This is why Chris is so adamant that there are no buried, in situ forests in the geological record (he recognizes that it would take more than a few days to grow a complete forest). In addition to all this, it seems to me that in order to cling to a biblical flood he has gone completely extrabiblical.
I think what Chris is not telling you is that he believes in 'flood surges' which frequently left dry (and even arid) land between innundations during the year of the flood. Never mind that he needs hundreds of such surges perhaps only hours apart, life was able to repopulate the flood plains, build nests have offspring and find forage.
This is why Chris is so adamant that there are no buried, in situ forests in the geological record (he recognizes that it would take more than a few days to grow a complete forest). In addition to all this, it seems to me that in order to cling to a biblical flood he has gone completely extrabiblical.
I'v heard this goofy flood surge excuse before. First some of the layers just don't make sense as flood deposits. Consider the Cambrian Bright Angel shales. Shales require still water for deposition and the fossils and trace fossils indicate deposition in still water and not flood surges.
The Tonto Group is the lowest group in the Canyon which preserves fossils of complex metazoans. The fauna is dominated by trilobites, 47 species of which have been reported. The most common genera include Olenellus, Antagmus, Zacanthoides, Albertella, Kootenia, Glossopleura, and Bolaspis (Middleton and Elliot, p. 93). Olenellus is found only in Cambrian deposits. Also present are brachiopods (Lingulella, Paterina, Nisusia), primitive molluscs(Conchostraca), one species of 'primitive' echinoderm (Eocrinus), algal structures, two species of gastropod (Hyolithes, Scenella), and some sponge (?) fragments (Chancelloria - common in Cambrian deposits). The specific assemblages of fossils found in the Tonto Group suggest an early to Middle Cambrian age for Tonto deposition. Middleton and Elliot note that the excellent preservation of the Eocrinus speciments in the Bright Angel Shale suggests a quiet water environment, since they would quickly disarticulate if subjected to strong currents.
Numerous bedding planes within the Tonto Group preserve trace fossils and burrows. These look very much like traces being made today in modern ocean sediments by bottom dwelling and burrowing organisms. Since trace assemblages are depth, environment and substrate dependant, trace fossil assemblages in sedimentary formations can often be used in addition to lithologic features to infer depositional environments. For example, vertical and u-shaped burrows made by a variety of organisms (worms, various arthropods, molluscs, echinoderms) are the dominant trace fossil types in modern intertidal and nearshore deposits. The same type of structures (Corophioides) are also the most common trace fossils in shallow-water deposits of the Tapeats Sandstone and the lower Bright Angel Shale. Higher in the Bright Angel Shale, in deeper-water deposits, trace fossil assemblages are dominated by horizontal traces (Palaeophycus, Phycodes, and Teichichnus) made by organisms moving about on the substrate. This too is mirrored in modern subtidal and distal shelf deposits, where horizontal traces made by various benthonic organisms.
Austin (1994, p. 40) has argued that the vertical burrows, Skolithos and Diplocraterion, in the Bright Angel Shale are 'escape traces' left by organisms escaping rapid sedimentation, and thus do not require long time periods to form. However, as Miller and Byer note, most escape traces "are characterized by down-bent laminae around a pooly defined axial zone and thus are readily distinguishable from Skolithos and Diplocraterion" (Molly Fritz Miller and Charles W. Byers, Abundant and Diverse Early Paleozoic infauna indicated by the Stratigraphic Record, Geology, 12, Jan. 1984, p. 40). The authors also note that both spreiten structures within diplocraterion represent both upward and downward movement of the burrower.
I would also like someone to explain to me how the Grand Wash Dolomites could have been deposited by a flood surge.
Even if deposition all those layers by flood surges made sense (and it doesn't) The claim is falsified by trace fossils. In the area of the Colorado plateau there would have been no place for animals to survive the flood surges so that they could be around to come back in and make tracks and build nests.
I have discussed the absurdity of YEC claims about the Coconino Sandstones before.
It would have taken a lot of flood surges to deposit the Tapeats Sandstone, Bright Angel Shale, Muav Limestone, Grand Wash Dolomites, Temple Butte Limestone, Redwall Limestones, Surprise Canyon Formation, Supai Group and Hermit Shale Formation before the animals made those tracks throughout the lower 2/3 of the Coconino Sandstones.
The flood surge that could have carried 10,000 cubic miles hundreds of miles and spread it over 200,000 square miles to form the Coconino sandstones must have really been something and yet after all this and after further flood surges deposited the Toroweap Formation, Kabab Limestones, Moenkopi Formation, Chinle Formation and Wingate Formation there were still dinosaurs around to make tracks in the Navajo Sandstones.
You can see all the layers at this site. I don't seem to be able to display or attach the image for some reason.
Does any really think all of that could have been deposited by flood surges and if it was that anything could have survived those flood surges to make tracks and build nest in the upper portions of the layers deposited by the flood surges? It is beyond me how anyone can fail to see that trace fossils falsify the worldwide flood.
Does any really think all of that could have been deposited by flood surges and if it was that anything could have survived those flood surges to make tracks and build nest in the upper portions of the layers deposited by the flood surges? It is beyond me how anyone can fail to see that trace fossils falsify the worldwide flood.
The frumious Bandersnatch
Well, no one who has the vaguest understanding of trace fossils and other geological processes. By the way, flood surges are also supposed to be the explanation for cyclothems according to some surgers.
Well, no one who has the vaguest understanding of trace fossils and other geological processes. By the way, flood surges are also supposed to be the explanation for cyclothems according to some surgers.
Yeah right, the flood surged in and out carrying and depositing a few thousand feet of sediment here and a few thousand feet there, putting the fossil record in order and perserving animals and insects so that they could build nests and make tracks. It spread sand over hundred of thousand square miles and deposited huge layers of salt and massive layers of limestone and allowed soil layers to form between surges and occasionally set forests one atop the other. I suppose the cyclothems were deposited by those gigantic hypercyclonic currents that Baumgardner talks about. They supposedly occured over the continents while part of the ocean was being blasted into space and mega-hurricanes blew around everywhere.
Meanwhile, during all this chaos a 600 year old man and a giant wooden boat full of animals floated serenely around as if nothing were happening and animals were going about their buisness burrowing, eating, pooping, building nests and laying eggs as if nothing special was happening.
I do not have to explain anything. I will only have faith in the superior knowledge of God as opposed to the false intelligence of mankind. God is my hope and my rock and I will follow His word and believe Him to the day that I die and then into eternity. All else pales in comparison to Him who saved me.
Does any scientist, creationist or evolutionist, really know the specific date of the Flood, and of the specific rock layers that it is in?
No, and that's one of the significant problems of creationism. You ask a different creationist and get different answers each time. Modern creationism has no specific or coherent theory, as it is merely guesswork and wishful thinking rather than science at this point.
Except God doesn't say that. Men wrote the Bible, not God. Whereas God wrote His Creation. And God's Creation does not show a recent, worldwide flood.
__________________ Creationism has not made a single contribution to agriculture, medicine, conservation, forestry, pathology, or any other applied area of biology. Creationism has yielded no classifications, no biogeographies, no underlying mechanisms, no unifying concepts with which to study organisms or life. - Botanical Society of America's Statement on Evolution
Linear Mode
