Dinosaur footprints destroy flood geology.

[juvenissun]

Where is the layer that represents the global flood, and why do you think it does?

How about the Tapeat Sandstone in the Grand Canyon? Why? Because flood deposits sand layers.

 

[Baggins]

How about the Tapeat Sandstone in the Grand Canyon? Why? Because flood deposits sand layers.

Oh goody, I always love it when a Creationist hazards a guess as to which layer is the flood deposit it always leads to fun and hilarity.

First thoughts:

Why would a year long global flood deposit a sandstone? Surely a conglomerate would be more the thing.

This sandstone is also dated as Cambrian, so it isn't 4000 years old.

The sandstone contains copious worm burrows, strange in a flood deposit that supposedly killed all life on earth, these aren't dead animals, they are trace fossils of animals in life and going about their normal habits:

http://www.earthscienceworld.org/im...Category=&Continent=&Country=&Keyword=Fossils

4th pic down

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Grand_Canyon_area

Tapeats Sandstone (averages 545 million years old) – This formation is made of cliff-derived medium- to coarse-grained sand and conglomerate that was deposited on an ancient shore (see 3a in figure 1). Ripple marks are common in the upper members of this dark brown thin-bedded layer. Fossils and imprint trails of trilobites and brachiopods have also been found in the Tapeats.

So plenty of ripple marks and trace fossils, would seem a bit odd for a flood deposit.

I know why Creationists chose the Tapeat Sandstone as a flood layer - because it is, in general, the oldest sedimentary rock they are aware of. It lies at the base of the Cambrian in the Grand Canyon.

There are late Pre-Cambrian sediments below it so it all seems a bit arbitrary to me, it is at the base of the Palaeozoic and therefore it is the flood. Why would the flood conform to scientific dating methods?

Still kudos for mentioning a layer at all. Most Creationists avoid it like the plague becaus ethey know it will be debunked in a few minutes.

As this one was

Finally considering that this layer only contains worm burrows and trilobite tracks and the flood killed all life on earth, that either means that none of this life was fossilsed or that the whole geological record above the Tapeat sandstone must also be a flood deposit, both of which are patently absurd.

It is interesting to note that Baumgardner appears to be the person pushing the Tapeat as the flood deposit, but he addresses none of these points only stating that it shows a a catastrophe overtaking an pre-flood earth.

He thus implies that the rest of the geological record is therefore also a record of the flood as he believes that all fossils are flood remains, but he never attempts to explain what things like multiple coal beds, chalks and desert sandstones are doing in his "flood", probably because it is easier to ignore the nasty stuff than address.

It amuses me that he believes that the flood start promptly at the start of the Palaeozoic, there is no reason for this as far as I can see.

Finally there is a far more complete detruction of the case for the Tapeat sandstone being the flood deposit here:

http://www.evcforum.net/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000136.html#11

They are specific to Moriss' claims that the sandstone was eroded by the river when soft.

 

[thaumaturgy]

How about the Tapeat Sandstone in the Grand Canyon? Why? Because flood deposits sand layers.

Tapeats sandstone averages about 540million years in age, interestingly enough if you go to the Rio Grande do Sul state in Brazil you can find an early Cambrian deposit called the Guaritas Fm which is made up of
“…red beds and Aeolian dunes thought be formed in a warm desert”

The Ecology of the Cambrian Radiation by Zuravlev,A., and Riding R., 2000, Columbia University Press pp525

(http://books.google.com/books?id=DSBc5zJGi3YC)

Now granted we could be talking about a wide span of time, but 545 MA puts it right near the beginning of the Cambrian and the desert deposits from Brazil are apparently near the beginning of the Cambrian. Does this mean the Global Flood of Noah wasn't actually Global in extent?

This is, mind you, just a rough, back o' the envelope estimation of a penecontemporaneous formation, but it underlies how a firmer understanding of correlation and stratigraphic relationships would be helpful in this discussion.

(And also we have a large block of time we are dealing with so global correlation will be hard. But why specifically the Tapeats? And not any of a zillion other marine sediments? In addition there's this bit about the Tapeats from the USGS:

The Tapeats fills in lowland areas and thins across or pinches out against young Proterozoic highlands.(SOURCE)

What was going on on the highlands during the global flood?

 

[beamishboy]

Wow, I'm so impressed. How did you all get so much information?

I don't believe in the flood story but it's very difficult to refute the arguments of people who raise things I've not heard before. Is there a site to explain scientifically every point a Young Earth believer might raise that a layman like me can understand. My school geography text book deals more with people in different countries that ancient rocks.

 

[Danyc]

Wow, I'm so impressed. How did you all get so much information?

I don't believe in the flood story but it's very difficult to refute the arguments of people who raise things I've not heard before. Is there a site to explain scientifically every point a Young Earth believer might raise that a layman like me can understand. My school geography text book deals more with people in different countries that ancient rocks.

Well that would be geography, not geology.

I don't know of any decent sites off-hand, besides talkorigins, but that's a little technical sometimes too.

 

[flatworm]

Wow, I'm so impressed. How did you all get so much information?

Don't feel too bad about it: several of the posters here are actually professional geologists, including some with PhDs.

No, I'm not one of them.

 

[thaumaturgy]

Wow, I'm so impressed. How did you all get so much information?

I don't believe in the flood story but it's very difficult to refute the arguments of people who raise things I've not heard before. Is there a site to explain scientifically every point a Young Earth believer might raise that a layman like me can understand. My school geography text book deals more with people in different countries that ancient rocks.

For me I usually just leverage my geology degrees to make effective Google searches. I have a pretty clear idea of what info I'm looking for, but not always able to find it quickly. In the case here this was just a matter of trying to find a rock formation that was about the same age as the Tapeats Sandstone and that was above water. But even Juvenissun will point out the blocks of time represented by the Tapeats may be quite long, so my attempt to "correlate" with a contemporary formation was just a wild throw, and may not be accurate. But the idea of locating a single formation as a marker for the Flood means it has to stand up to correlation without any "non-flood" formations being in the list. I really can't say with 100% assurity that this was the proper formation to do that, it was, as I said, somewhat of a wild grab.

As for where one can find refutations of creationist arguments usually http://www.talkorigins.org/ is the main site people hit. It's quite useful.

Normally I avoid resorting to a TalkOrigins reference unless I can't find a primary reference. It becomes too easy to get into battles of TalkOrigins posts. It's a thorough and well-done site.

Geology is a fun field and one that has a lot of detail in it. But with good Google-Fu you can usually take the terms and concepts and build a good search.

 

[beamishboy]

For me I usually just leverage my geology degrees to make effective Google searches. I have a pretty clear idea of what info I'm looking for, but not always able to find it quickly. In the case here this was just a matter of trying to find a rock formation that was about the same age as the Tapeats Sandstone and that was above water. But even Juvenissun will point out the blocks of time represented by the Tapeats may be quite long, so my attempt to "correlate" with a contemporary formation was just a wild throw, and may not be accurate. But the idea of locating a single formation as a marker for the Flood means it has to stand up to correlation without any "non-flood" formations being in the list. I really can't say with 100% assurity that this was the proper formation to do that, it was, as I said, somewhat of a wild grab.

As for where one can find refutations of creationist arguments usually http://www.talkorigins.org/ is the main site people hit. It's quite useful.

Normally I avoid resorting to a TalkOrigins reference unless I can't find a primary reference. It becomes too easy to get into battles of TalkOrigins posts. It's a thorough and well-done site.

Geology is a fun field and one that has a lot of detail in it. But with good Google-Fu you can usually take the terms and concepts and build a good search.

So you are one of those flatworm mentions. Cool. I have yet to come across a single geologist who accepts a young earth or who believes in the flood story. There's one but I consider him an ex-geologist. His name is Kurt Wise. Many writers bring him up to shame fundamentalists.

 

[mrghost]

I do not suffer from tunnel Vision, and only one way to view and analyze a subject. A coin has 2 sides A triangle 3 So on and So on.

I am A Christian, I believe in the Truth, Facts, and Divine intervention.

I believe there were Dino's, I use that term loosely for all reptiles of that time zone.
I believe in open and honest gathering of the Facts, without Bias or preconceived Ideals.

I believe in carbon dating. and mathematics and History
I believe in the Big Bang.

I also believe in degrees of evolution.
I also Believe in Curve Balls and all of the facts may be out to lunch.

There is nothing wrong with believing in Christianity and Science.
To believe that man is the only Humanoid in the entire Universe is against the odds..
I believe there were cave men and creatures close in appearence to Humans, But I also Believe that there is the possibilty that present man was not in the chain, That he himself may be a transplant from somewhere else.
So Who or what started the Big Bang, This is where Science and it Facts Drop off cause no one knows, At least not with facts anyway.

I believe that God Almighty started the Big Spark, Big Bang. And guess what, An Assumption, The Big bang Could have started and ended a Million times, No way to prove it or Disprove it.....

Have you ever seen and Angel or a Ghost, Science Does not have a Grip or clue on such matters in other Demensions. Cause it only gathers facts, It can see, Feel, or calculate...Very limited.

Time is a machine, A measurement, I believe there are many realms outside of the frame of Time and our abilities to gather Facts.

Humans Have a hard time trying to see without the bias of the time element. We are Finite beings in one sence and Eternal Beings in another. The Spirit is Forever, A finite mind does not easy grasp things that are not Finite, We see things from the point, biased by time; of Starts and endings. Did the spiritual Angels Evolve.
God's Time Frames and measurements are most likely different than ours.

I don't believe my uncle was a Monkey. Mabey yours was. I believe that some species may have been placed here, That started somewhere else other than earth.

I do not believe the earth was created in six consecutive day's in a row. The Bible does not say that..People assume that...People assume allot of things. The bible say's let us make man in our image. Us is more than one.

Moses was Human and may have gotten some of his Ideas down on paper Wrong, It happens..I do not agree with every writer in the 66 books of the bible. But every word of Jesus, I believe more than and above all others.

Some things Just don't get the point across very well. Like teaching KungFu to your Cat. Or a Screen door on a Submarine
or teaching a 4 year old on how to construct a nuke.
When the Prophets of Old saw Visions of Things blazing through the skies.
Well they did not have the word to describe it, certain words were not in there vocabulary like Rocket, Abomb, UFO, Sattelite, Space Shuttle. So they tried to use the words they had to get a point across, And sometimes that just did not do it justice..
There is more to the universe than meets the eye, or telescope, or Science. There are many many things unseen by this tiny race of humaniods.
There are allot of things you cant see or prove or Disprove
You cant see the Magnetic poles of earth changing and the earth spinning in the other direction, The sun rising in the West..
We see the the universe expanding at an alarming rate outwards, But what if it takes a U-Turn....
When you are flying down the Freeway at 70 miles/per-hour you don't even see the nail you just ran over......Everyone needs to stop being so one sided. We are just a speck in the Universe..The Universe is bigger than 100 billion minds can conceive and the spiritual side even larger...Mrghost

 

[flatworm]

I do not suffer from tunnel Vision, and only one way to view and analyze a subject. A coin has 2 sides A triangle 3 So on and So on.

I am A Christian, I believe in the Truth, Facts, and Divine intervention.

How did you end up believing in Divine intervention, without "Bias or preconceived ideals"?

There is nothing wrong with believing in Christianity and Science.

No disagreement here.

I believe there were cave men and creatures close in appearence to Humans, But I also Believe that there is the possibilty that present man was not in the chain, That he himself may be a transplant from somewhere else.

There's always a possibility. There's a possibility all the dogs in the world today were kidnapped last night by aliens and replaced with identical alien-built simulacra. The real question is- why would you take such a possibility seriously unless it were through "Bias and preconceived ideals"?

So Who or what started the Big Bang, This is where Science and it Facts Drop off cause no one knows, At least not with facts anyway.

I believe that God Almighty started the Big Spark, Big Bang. And guess what, An Assumption, The Big bang Could have started and ended a Million times, No way to prove it or Disprove it.....

That's right, science doesn't know what "came before" the Big Bang. The problem is that religion and faith don't know either, no matter how much they may claim to.

Science, as a method of gathering knowledge, has definite limitations. What I would like you to understand, though, is that the existence of these holes in science does not imply that they can be filled with religion or faith. Science can't explain everything, but there is a very sincere and rational question whether faith or religion can explain anything.

Time is a machine, A measurement, I believe there are many realms outside of the frame of Time and our abilities to gather Facts.

Humans Have a hard time trying to see without the bias of the time element. We are Finite beings in one sence and Eternal Beings in another.
The Spirit is Forever, A finite mind does not easy grasp things that are not Finite, We see things from the point, biased by time; of Starts and endings. Did the spiritual Angels Evolve.

God's Time Frames and measurements are most likely different than ours.

Please demonstrate the Eternal nature of humans, the existence of the Spirit and Angels.

Provide the evidence, or else explain how you came to be convinced in its absence without "bias or preconceived ideals".

I don't believe my uncle was a Monkey. Mabey yours was. I believe that some species may have been placed here, That started somewhere else other than earth.

Please show the evidence for this, or else explain how you came to be convinced despite its absence without "bias or preconceived ideals".

You see I'm very confused that you claim to be free of bias and yet you seem to hold all these beliefs without the benefit of evidence. If you accept certain unevidenced ideas and reject others without using observation to make your decision, isn't that the essence of bias?

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Wow, I'm so impressed. How did you all get so much information?

I don't believe in the flood story but it's very difficult to refute the arguments of people who raise things I've not heard before. Is there a site to explain scientifically every point a Young Earth believer might raise that a layman like me can understand. My school geography text book deals more with people in different countries that ancient rocks.

There are some good on-line resources regarding so-called "flood geology" and other YEC claims. One of my favorites is
Creation Science and Earth History
which has a good set of pages on the Grand Canyon and the strata of the Colorado Plateau starting HERE. Jon Wolf also has a good page on Creationism and the Grand Canyon. Of course the ultimate Grand Canyon reference is Grand Canyon Geology by Beus and Morales. I use my copy frequently in these debates but you might not want to buy it. A fun way to learn some geology is to first study a basic geology text or two and then get some of the "Roadside Geology" books. We had lot of fun in Northern California with this approach. They will point you to specific rock formations along roadcuts or with short hikes that you can look at in person.

For some specific anti-flood arguments it is hard to beat Glenn Morton's Homepage. The Old Earth Creationist Site Answers in Creation has some good stuff. You can find some good essays by Kevin Henke on John Stear's No Answers in Genesis site.

 

[beamishboy]

I don't believe my uncle was a Monkey. Mabey yours was. I believe that some species may have been placed here, That started somewhere else other than earth.

I think evolutionists do not say we evolved from monkeys. That's a common fallacy. They say we have a common ancestor with monkeys. But the common ancestor was not a monkey. The monkey is as much an evolved animal as humans are.

Francis Collins, the scientist who headed the huge human genome project, wrote a brilliant book which I've read called "The Language of God". He explains from a geneticist's point of view why evolution is a fact.

Just because there is evolution does not mean there is no God. It does mean we can't read Genesis literally but nobody reads Genesis literally. It's so obviously a fable. The last time I believed in Noah's ark and the animals in the ark and the Flood was when I was about 6 or 7. It's since been 6 years of enlightenment which will no doubt continue for the next 60 or 70 years.

I believe in God in the spirit. That's the only way to believe in him. I'm intellectually an atheist but spiritually a Christian.

 

[beamishboy]

There are some good on-line resources regarding so-called "flood geology" and other YEC claims. One of my favorites is
Creation Science and Earth History
which has a good set of pages on the Grand Canyon and the strata of the Colorado Plateau starting HERE. Jon Wolf also has a good page on Creationism and the Grand Canyon. Of course the ultimate Grand Canyon reference is Grand Canyon Geology by Beus and Morales. I use my copy frequently in these debates but you might not want to buy it. A fun way to learn some geology is to first study a basic geology text or two and then get some of the "Roadside Geology" books. We had lot of fun in Northern California with this approach. They will point you to specific rock formations along roadcuts or with short hikes that you can look at in person.

For some specific anti-flood arguments it is hard to beat Glenn Morton's Homepage. The Old Earth Creationist Site Answers in Creation has some good stuff. You can find some good essays by Kevin Henke on John Stear's No Answers in Genesis site.

Wow, thanks!!! This is really comprehensive. I've saved every single URL in my gmail so that I can read them at a future date. Thanks again!!!

 

[juvenissun]

I know why Creationists chose the Tapeat Sandstone as a flood layer - because it is, in general, the oldest sedimentary rock they are aware of. It lies at the base of the Cambrian in the Grand Canyon.

OK, then how about The Good Creek Formation, Pleistocene of Texas? It is pretty good to be an evidence of a global flood because it is full of fossils.

Hey, Chalnoth, I am answering your question. What is your idea on what I suggested?

 

[Chalnoth]

OK, then how about The Good Creek Formation, Pleistocene of Texas? It is pretty good to be an evidence of a global flood because it is full of fossils.

Hey, Chalnoth, I am answering your question. What is your idea on what I suggested?

I think you're reaching. But I'll let the geologists answer. My first impression, though, is that you should be looking for a worldwide formation, something akin to the K-T boundary, and that actually looks like a flood formation.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

OK, then how about The Good Creek Formation, Pleistocene of Texas? It is pretty good to be an evidence of a global flood because it is full of fossils.

Hey, Chalnoth, I am answering your question. What is your idea on what I suggested?

Robert Byers has recently told us that Creationists consider even Oligocene and Miocene deposits were post flood let alone Pleistocene. You guys need to get your stories straight.

 

[dlamberth]

Robert Byers has recently told us that Creationists consider even Oligocene and Miocene deposits were post flood let alone Pleistocene. You guys need to get your stories straight.

As hard as I've tried...I have never been able to get a straight story from Creationist. They are all over the board. The only thing they seem to agree on is that goddidit.

.

 

[Baggins]

OK, then how about The Good Creek Formation, Pleistocene of Texas? It is pretty good to be an evidence of a global flood because it is full of fossils.

Hey, Chalnoth, I am answering your question. What is your idea on what I suggested?

Now we are are back in familiar territory. This was what William Buckland was trying to do about 170 years ago. Find a recent, ubiquitous, chaotic layer. He found one as well, one that covers large parts of the Northern hemisphere. But it turned out to be of glacial rather than fluvial origin.

The first thing that strikes me about the good creek formation is that it has no dinosaurs ( in fact no lots of things ) in it.

Are you contending that there was an old earth with a recent global flood? That would put you at odds with most Creationists.

The sediments have been interpreted as river lain mainly because of their sedimentological make up but also because there are no marine creatures fossilised in them, that seems odd for a global flood, whereas there are abundant fresh water and terrestrial remains - but no dinosaurs, again odd.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1301089

What leaves you to believe that this is the remains of a global flood?

The evidence doesn't seem to point in that direction, I would expect to find extensive and mixed assemblages of marine Foraminiferids in any flood deposit, wouldn't you?

 

[thaumaturgy]

OK, then how about The Good Creek Formation, Pleistocene of Texas? It is pretty good to be an evidence of a global flood because it is full of fossils.

Is that your only "requirement"? That it be full of fossils? Why are you all over the geologic map on this one?

That's understandable because you have laid the groundwork by earlier showing your lack of understanding of stratigraphic correlation, and then later your work to eliminate any appreciation for "time" and "events" (all just part of one giant process), so now you have jumped about 600 million years and randomly chosen some other formation?

Do you have any reason to believe in this formation versus the one you threw out earlier? Or is your only criterion that you can identify the formation by name?

What is your actual criterion for suggesting these as potential "Flood" layers?

I'd be glad to look at this formation, could you provide me a quick link to a description of the geology and specifically what part of the Pleistocene this is from? I'm getting tired of "Creationist Whack-a-mole" so I'm not going to do the leg work to deal with yet another "unfounded claim" without supporting evidence.

You see, Juvenissun, as you know from having presented scientific research at GSA, in order for your research to have value to the topic, it has to have some background information. Otherwise people will just ignore it.

So, your homework, which I just know you'll be interested enough to actually do, is provide us the geology and stratigraphy of this particular formation as well as where it occurs in time. Then we can all look and see if we know of any other penecontemporaneous strata that would negate this by being subaereally exposed or if there was some facies change across the Good Creek Fm that would obviate a global flood hypothesis.

I know, I know, this whole science thing is hard! It involves details and occasionally people who know something about this area. So please, provide some background so we can fully assess your latest "wild guess" (and I do feel quite comfortable in labeling this a "wild guess" precisely because you jumped form a Cambrian formation to a Pleistocene formation, which is about as wild a swing as you can get and still stay out of the precambrian.)

Hey, Chalnoth, I am answering your question. What is your idea on what I suggested?

I bet Chalnoth is just so impressed at you randomly throwing out formation names he can barely type! Give him some time to recover. Then he can laud you by submitting your name for the Penrose Medal

 

[AV1611VET]

As hard as I've tried...I have never been able to get a straight story from Creationist.

We're waiting for the final draft. We're tired of something "new" being found every time someone wants his name in the papers.