Sea Turtles

[laptoppop]

One objection to the flood model has been the disposition of sea turtles. There are several references - but here's a free one on the web that covers this topic. Its called "Taphonomy of fossil turtles and microvertebrates and sedimentology, of the Eocene Bridger Formation, Wyoming"

http://www.llu.edu/llu/grad/natsci/brand/bridger.html

 

[Jadis40]

One objection to the flood model has been the disposition of sea turtles. There are several references - but here's a free one on the web that covers this topic. Its called "Taphonomy of fossil turtles and microvertebrates and sedimentology, of the Eocene Bridger Formation, Wyoming"

http://www.llu.edu/llu/grad/natsci/brand/bridger.html

I'd be curious what they dated those rocks and fossils as. The reason I'm asking is it's pretty well established that there is a massive magma dome under Yellowstone, and that there have been numerous eruptions during the last 2.1 million years or so. The calderas from these eruptions are still visible, with the West Yellowstone caldera rim dating back 640,000 years ago. From their model, it appears that they do believe that volcanic activity has taken place. If that's the case, then it does make a strong case of ash dust contributing to those massive turtle kills.

I'm referring specifically to this:

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/history.html

I looked up Uinta county, and it's in the SW corner of Wyoming. Yellowstone is directly north of it.

 

[shernren]

Again, you're in trouble with this one too. How does flood geology explain "the repeating pattern of turtles concentrated in large, mass mortality assemblages right above limestones"? And how would you expect volcanic sediments to be laid down in a global flood?

 

[laptoppop]

Why is this a problem? I would expect MAJOR volcanic activity during a flood, and also multiple waves of water, both during initial flood and during post flood drying.

The point is that this answers the question of why they are found where they are in the fossil record.

 

[Mallon]

The point is that this answers the question of why they are found where they are in the fossil record.

Actually, it doesn't. This article focuses on an accumulation of turtles over time in a single, localized area. That is, Eocene sea turtles in the Bridger Formation of Wyoming. Sea turtles extend as far back as the Cretaceous, IIRC, and their depositional environments are nothing like those of the Bridger Formation.

It's like looking at the fossil bears preserved in the La Brea tar pits and arguing that all bears died this way. Doesn't work that way, pop.

 

[Jadis40]

Why is this a problem? I would expect MAJOR volcanic activity during a flood, and also multiple waves of water, both during initial flood and during post flood drying.

The point is that this answers the question of why they are found where they are in the fossil record.

As Mallon stated, not really. There is something else too - underwater volcanic eruptions form specific forms of lava flows. We don't see those at all in this case.

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Products/Pglossary/PillowLava.html

 

[laptoppop]

Who said the eruptions had to be underwater?

 

[Jadis40]

Who said the eruptions had to be underwater?

I was assuming that since you appeared to be arguing for volcanic activity before, during, and after the flood, that all these, especially underwater eruptions would have left signature lava flows that are specific to volcanic eruptions underwater and those on land. If there were volcanic eruptions underwater during the flood, there would be tell-tale signs, especially along the western coast of America and Eastern Asia, in what is now referred to as the "ring of fire", for example.

My point of view is that the Bible doesn't make any mention of this geologic activity, and it doesn't make any mention of significantly cooler weather. It does, however, state that Noah planted a vineyard.

What we do see however, is evidence that the ice age was coming to an end about 10,000 years ago.

Speaking of climate change, I dug this up:

http://advance.uconn.edu/2004/040426/04042612.htm

 

[Deamiter]

laptoppop, is it your position that any and all features that are found (or perhaps that COULD be found) are explainable by a currently non-existant "very complex" flood model?

You seem to love to throw around conjecture as if it's just as valid as detailed explanations predicted by equally detailed models. Can you explain ANY of the processes that could explain the pattern of volcanic and sedement deposits or does your faith simply require that you assume this non-existant model makes no predictions (or alternately, can predict any possible formation which is just as useless).

 

[laptoppop]

I'm not saying it very well (as usual <grin>). My position is that if there is some explanation for the observed strata consistent with the Scriptural history record of the flood - we are wise to believe it.

Just as conventional paleontologists and geologists look at the strata for a given location and try to figure out how the strata was formed, a catastrophic geologist looks at a given location and figures out how it could be formed. The question becomes - is the strata we observe consistent with the Scriptural account?

Yes, the global flood had a lot of variety. It covered the entire globe. Even today - weather throughout the globe is not uniform. Local floods are not uniform -- one would expect even more variety in a much larger flood. This variety would be both in time as well as spatially. This is to be expected for a global flood. Computer modeling of possible patterns reveal hypercanes and huge currents over the continents as well as calmer areas. The work is continuing to proceed -- it is a huge job to model even parts of the flood. Even with the best of today's modeling we cannot model global weather accurately -- just approximations -- and a global flood from beginning to end is even more problemmatic, especially because we also have to try to figure out the continental configurations, etc.

Just to note -- AFAIK, conventional geology for the most part explains rather than predicts the strata to be found in a given location, just as I am doing. The conventional geologists put together conjectures of contintental configurations, just like creationists. The key is to be able to explain the observed data and fit it within a particular model.

 

[gluadys]

The key is to be able to explain the observed data and fit it within a particular model.

I don't think so. That sounds like exactly the reverse of proper scientific method. The key is not to fit data within a particular model, but to develop a model that fits the data. That is why scientific models change---to fit new data as it becomes known.

The model that best fits all the known data, and is not falsified by any known data, is the one provisionally accepted as correct.

Currently no global flood model comes anywhere near to fitting the data as well as standard geology.

 

[shernren]

You get into a number of problems here:

1. There are four separate turtle deposition layers here, not one. Where did the extra turtles come from in the midst of a global flood when practically everything is dying everywhere, and why do they settle down in four separate layers instead of one - over pretty much the exact same unit?

2. In relation to this, how did you get four separate limestones and turtles right above limestones? Assuming that only hydrological separation is used, there should be no reason to get very widely spaced layers of limestone between large layers of mudstone, and turtles only in mass mortality assemblages above limestones. You have two choices: the turtles died as the limestone was being deposited, or right after the limestone had been fully deposited. If they died as the limestone was being deposited, they should disrupt the limestone sediment. If they died right after the limestone had been fully deposited, you essentially still need to cram four limestone deposition events (and four corresponding mudstone deposition events) into roughly a year, or 40 days per layer (amounting to half a meter a day), and you need to get turtles in precisely as the limestone has been finished, before the mudstone has started, without making it look like they disturbed either of the sedimentation processes. (And I'm being kind. There are only four turtle mass death layers, but there are actually more than four limestone layers in there.)

3. And, how do you get volcanic ash into the sediments right between the limestones and the mudstones? Mudstones are very fine sediments (measured in hundredths of mms), whereas volcanic ash is anything under 2mm. If you rely on hydrological sorting, there should be no reason for the ash to sort out so neatly. Furthermore, if the flood covered the whole earth from the 40th day onwards, out of a year, then for the majority of the time volcanoes were underwater, and underwater you wouldn't expect ash particles to go very far at all. Your own rapid sedimentation theories mean that ash ejecta from submarine volcanic explosions (if indeed they produce any ash at all) should be rapidly deposited, especially since ash particles on average have much larger sizes and should thus be deposited far more easily than mudstones.