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"Ecological partitioning" is a concept used by some flood geologists to explain fossil distribution patterns, specifically how segregated fossil assemblages are. The idea is that fossil distributions are the result of the areas in which organisms lived before the flood. Lower strata (which most geologists since the time of Steno would say are older) represent lower elevations, higher strata represent higher elevations. Lower strata contain more amphibians because amphibians lived in lower elevations, middle strata have dinosaurs because middle elevations were dominated by dinosaurs, and higher strata have higher elevation mammals.
They add to this something which as far as I can tell doesn't have a name so I'll call it "mobility partitioning". The idea is that particularly mobile organisms had better luck escaping the flood and were able to make it slightly farther uphill and (thus) were buried in higher level strata. This is mostly used to explain why birds are only found higher up but it's implied that it had effects on other organisms as well.
Here are some cartoons I've cooked up that explain the idea:
The idea only sort of works if you take the absolutely most general view of geology and paleontology. It only works if you're looking at rocks at the regional level, where higher strata tend to be higher in elevation, and looking at fossil assemblages at the highest possible taxonomic rank. Yes, in general amphibians are more common in lower strata, but they're completely different amphibians than we see higher up. We see mammals in with dinosaurs but they're completely different mammals than we see in higher strata. And if mobility partitioning explains why birds aren't found in lower strata then why are they found with dinosaurs and early mammals at all? They're flying! Why could they fly straight to the uppermost elevations? Same with pterosaurs!
So to overcome this preference for the regional scale I'm going to look at the smaller scale. For my falsifications I'm going to rely on observations I made during my time interning at a couple of national parks, mostly at Dinosaur National Monument. Here is a stratigraphic column showing the uppermost formations that are exposed at Dinosaur NM. All of the fossil occurrences I mention are those found actually in the park or immediately outside of its boundaries:
And for orientation this is what the landscape looks like. Dinosaur National Monument is home to Split Mountain, a westward-plunging anticline that has had its top eroded off and has been "split" by the Green River.
Here is an annotated version of the same photo which points out some of the formations listed above (I couldn't do them all because they get so small in the photo). I show the photo because it clearly illustrates that we're talking about laterally continuous deposits and not just surficial geology here. Layers stratigraphically below other layers were actually immediately below them.
So here we have a sequence of very fossiliferous rock where multiple fossil-bearing formations are stacked one on top of the other. To start with I would point out how impossible it would be for a rapid and violent flooding event which is scaring all of the animals to run uphill to have multiple layers with footprints - especially one layer that has delicate little scorpion and spider tracks (I've seen and molded them, they're there!).
Secondly we have a two layers that bear dinosaur fossils (the Nugget Formation and the Morrison and Cedar Mountain formations) separated by a marine layer (the Stump Formation). I can personally vouch for each of these claims - I've seen the dino fossils in the Nugget, I've crawled all over (and once accidentally broke) the dino fossils in the Morrison, and I helped excavate an ichthyosaur skeleton from the Stump. This is a sequence that is impossible to explain with flood geology. You can't have dinosaurs walking on dry land, then a marine deposit, then dinosaurs walking on dry land again all in a single vertical sequence. And even if you could the segregation we see between the fossils in the Nugget and the fossils in the Morrison (they show completely different faunas) cannot be explained by ecological partitioning because they exist directly on top of one another.
If me and a faster guy are both running away from a giant flood it's hard enough to explain how he would end up buried in a separate layer 30m directly above me:
But to then have a bunch of marine critters buried directly between us?
There's no way for this to happen and maintain ecological segregation.
Of course we're talking about people here. Mysteriously lacking from all of these supposed flood deposits are human skeletons. Not only would we expect humans to have lived in a wide range of elevations, but we would actually expect a much larger population density in lower elevations because they would have access to the sea and be nearer fertile floodplains for agriculture. Why are humans immune to ecological partitioning?
The next picture also falsifies the concept of flood geology. I can't say where it's taken, because the park doesn't want locality information getting out, but it shows three separate fossil occurrences all in a vertical sequence.
The blue and red dots are dinosaur footprints and the green dot is an undescribed bone site (I couldn't identify what kind of animal they came from). Again, this is impossible in a flood. You can't have animals walking around, then have ~10m of sediment deposition, then have animals walking around again, and then have 100s of meters of further deposition.
The whole idea breaks down once you get into scales smaller than regional. This is because at these scales you still have stratigraphically overlapping fossils, and you still have fossil assemblage segregation - neither of these can be explained by a single flood event.
They add to this something which as far as I can tell doesn't have a name so I'll call it "mobility partitioning". The idea is that particularly mobile organisms had better luck escaping the flood and were able to make it slightly farther uphill and (thus) were buried in higher level strata. This is mostly used to explain why birds are only found higher up but it's implied that it had effects on other organisms as well.
Here are some cartoons I've cooked up that explain the idea:
The idea only sort of works if you take the absolutely most general view of geology and paleontology. It only works if you're looking at rocks at the regional level, where higher strata tend to be higher in elevation, and looking at fossil assemblages at the highest possible taxonomic rank. Yes, in general amphibians are more common in lower strata, but they're completely different amphibians than we see higher up. We see mammals in with dinosaurs but they're completely different mammals than we see in higher strata. And if mobility partitioning explains why birds aren't found in lower strata then why are they found with dinosaurs and early mammals at all? They're flying! Why could they fly straight to the uppermost elevations? Same with pterosaurs!
So to overcome this preference for the regional scale I'm going to look at the smaller scale. For my falsifications I'm going to rely on observations I made during my time interning at a couple of national parks, mostly at Dinosaur National Monument. Here is a stratigraphic column showing the uppermost formations that are exposed at Dinosaur NM. All of the fossil occurrences I mention are those found actually in the park or immediately outside of its boundaries:
And for orientation this is what the landscape looks like. Dinosaur National Monument is home to Split Mountain, a westward-plunging anticline that has had its top eroded off and has been "split" by the Green River.
Here is an annotated version of the same photo which points out some of the formations listed above (I couldn't do them all because they get so small in the photo). I show the photo because it clearly illustrates that we're talking about laterally continuous deposits and not just surficial geology here. Layers stratigraphically below other layers were actually immediately below them.
So here we have a sequence of very fossiliferous rock where multiple fossil-bearing formations are stacked one on top of the other. To start with I would point out how impossible it would be for a rapid and violent flooding event which is scaring all of the animals to run uphill to have multiple layers with footprints - especially one layer that has delicate little scorpion and spider tracks (I've seen and molded them, they're there!).
Secondly we have a two layers that bear dinosaur fossils (the Nugget Formation and the Morrison and Cedar Mountain formations) separated by a marine layer (the Stump Formation). I can personally vouch for each of these claims - I've seen the dino fossils in the Nugget, I've crawled all over (and once accidentally broke) the dino fossils in the Morrison, and I helped excavate an ichthyosaur skeleton from the Stump. This is a sequence that is impossible to explain with flood geology. You can't have dinosaurs walking on dry land, then a marine deposit, then dinosaurs walking on dry land again all in a single vertical sequence. And even if you could the segregation we see between the fossils in the Nugget and the fossils in the Morrison (they show completely different faunas) cannot be explained by ecological partitioning because they exist directly on top of one another.
If me and a faster guy are both running away from a giant flood it's hard enough to explain how he would end up buried in a separate layer 30m directly above me:
But to then have a bunch of marine critters buried directly between us?
There's no way for this to happen and maintain ecological segregation.
Of course we're talking about people here. Mysteriously lacking from all of these supposed flood deposits are human skeletons. Not only would we expect humans to have lived in a wide range of elevations, but we would actually expect a much larger population density in lower elevations because they would have access to the sea and be nearer fertile floodplains for agriculture. Why are humans immune to ecological partitioning?
The next picture also falsifies the concept of flood geology. I can't say where it's taken, because the park doesn't want locality information getting out, but it shows three separate fossil occurrences all in a vertical sequence.
The blue and red dots are dinosaur footprints and the green dot is an undescribed bone site (I couldn't identify what kind of animal they came from). Again, this is impossible in a flood. You can't have animals walking around, then have ~10m of sediment deposition, then have animals walking around again, and then have 100s of meters of further deposition.
The whole idea breaks down once you get into scales smaller than regional. This is because at these scales you still have stratigraphically overlapping fossils, and you still have fossil assemblage segregation - neither of these can be explained by a single flood event.
