The great flood and fossils

[mindlight]

Assuming that the geological rock layers are the result of the great flood and the fossils formed in them mainly due to the flood. Why did the fossils fall in the rock layers that they did?

 

[Job 33:6]

@mindlight

Just to add to the above question, to be more specific, there are aquatic organisms, dominating ordovician and silurian rock, as well as even devonian rock. Dinosaurs are confined to mesozoic rock, that is triassic, jurassic and cretaceous. Birds and mammals are not found prior to the mesozoic. Complex bodied fossils are not found beyond the ediacaran.

Terrestrial organisms are typically found in terrestrial rock. Aquatic animals are typically found in marine or shallow marine rock. Flowering plants are not found prior to the mesozoic, and vascular plants are not found prior to silurian rock. And this is understood via superposition of rocks in the earth.

Just wanted to add a little bit to the question to make it just a bit harder for the great flood supporters to support.

 

[mindlight]

One answer I found in Answers in Genesis implies a gradual covering of the earth by the flood, superheated water from the deeps killing many of the marine organisms first.

"Many people have the completely mistaken notion that the biblical flood covered the whole earth almost instantly, stirred everything up, and then suddenly dumped it all. Not at all! According to the biblical record, Noah was in the ark for over a year. It was about five months before “all the high mountains under the whole heaven” were covered, and it took several more months for the water to subside as “the mountains rose up and the valleys sank down” at the end of the Flood. As the Flood waters “slowly” rose over the earth, plants and animals were buried in a sort of ecologic series: sea-bottom creatures, near-shore forms, lowland plants and animals, then upland (with sea creatures deposited from bottom to top, as the sea eventually covered everything). Evolutionists and Flood geologists may agree that the fossil-bearing rocks were laid down in “short periods of terror,” but Flood geologists see the “long periods of boredom” between layers as minutes or months, not millions of years!"

The Grand Canyon

The ICR echo this answer:

"How much more simple and direct it would be to explain the fossil-bearing rocks as the record in stone of the destruction of the antediluvian world by the great Flood. The various fossil assemblages represent, not evolutionary stages developing over many ages, but rather ecological habitats in various parts of the world in one age. Fossils of simple marine invertebrate animals are normally found at the lowest elevations in the geologic strata for the simple reason that they live at the lowest elevations. Fossils or birds and mammals are found only at the higher elevations because they live at higher elevations and also because they are more mobile and could escape burial longer. Human fossils are extremely rare because men would only very rarely be trapped and buried in flood sediments at all, because of their high mobility. The sediments of the "ice-age" at the highest levels are explained in terms of the drastically changed climates caused by the Flood."

Geology and the Flood | The Institute for Creation Research

 

[Job 33:6]

To be perfectly sincere, and to openly and honestly judge the AIG explanation, i would ask myself if the AIG statement can account for the specific statements I made in my above post. For example, why would dinosaurs be contained to the mesozoic, or why would tetrapods be limited to the devonian, superpositionally. Why would...flowering plants be also superpositionally limited in comparison to vascular plants etc.

why would...theropods superpositionally exist, prior to feathered theropods and further prior to birds? Yet early birds superpositionally are below pleistocene megafauna. i could go on and on with the specifics.

But to give just an idea, to be fair and honest, these are the questions the AIG explanation, I presume would have trouble answering.

 

[mindlight]

@mindlight

Just to add to the above question, to be more specific, there are aquatic organisms, dominating ordovician and silurian rock, as well as even devonian rock. Dinosaurs are confined to mesozoic rock, that is triassic, jurassic and cretaceous. Birds and mammals are not found prior to the mesozoic. Complex bodied fossils are not found beyond the ediacaran.

Terrestrial organisms are typically found in terrestrial rock. Aquatic animals are typically found in marine or shallow marine rock. Flowering plants are not found prior to the mesozoic, and vascular plants are not found prior to silurian rock. And this is understood via superposition of rocks in the earth.

Just wanted to add a little bit to the question to make it just a bit harder for the great flood supporters to support.

Before the Ediacaran rocks we may be looking at preflood rocks. The other layers (aside from the highest level) all correspond with the notion of gradually rising waters covering the earth and taking marine organisms first. It seems there was something inhospitable about the waters during their rise (could have been superheated water from the deeps, could have been toxins in the ocean, could have been the ferocious currents killing creatures or disrupting feeding cycles, could have been lack of sunlight killing off the food supply, and cooling reptile blood especially making them weak and lethargic ) and this would explain why water dependent fossil crocodiles would be in a lower layer than fossil Mammoths/elephants and also why more reptilian birds that lacked feathers would be lower down

 

[Job 33:6]

Before the Ediacaran rocks we may be looking at preflood rocks. The other layers (aside from the highest level) all correspond with the notion of gradually rising waters covering the earth and taking marine organisms first. It seems there was something inhospitable about the waters during their rise (could have been superheated water from the deeps, could have been toxins in the ocean, could have been the ferocious currents killing creatures or disrupting feeding cycles, could have been lack of sunlight killing off the food supply, and cooling reptile blood especially making them weak and lethargic ) and this would explain why water dependent fossil crocodiles would be in a lower layer than fossil Mammoths/elephants and also why more reptilian birds that lacked feathers would be lower down

I've heard this idea tossed around before. I've also heard people suggest that all rocks mesozoic and older, are pre flood rocks.

There is nothing wrong with proposing ideas. But to put your idea forward, you really have to rip it open. For example, if you would like i could just keep dropping questions. For example, if pre flood rocks are those that are high grade metamorphosed rocks of the precambrian, what does that tell us about metamorphosed cambrian rocks that exist above non metamorphosed rocks of other periods in the phanerozoic? And what is the K-T boundary, and why does this boundary also rest above all mesozoic and cenozoic rock?

 

[Job 33:6]

Also, plants do not have legs, so i dont know that AIGs response is referring to plant succession in the superposition of rocks. For example, plants in lower rocks are not vascular, do not have seeds or flowers. But as you go up superpositionally in rock, you get the appearance of each of these features in plants, one at a time.

Typical uniformitarian responses for this are stated something like "well the flood could only sort by density, so how could this happen?" I think i made a post about this actually, ill have to share it.

 

[mindlight]

I've heard this idea tossed around before. I've also heard people suggest that all rocks mesozoic and older, are pre flood rocks.

There is nothing wrong with proposing ideas. But to put your idea forward, you really have to rip it open. For example, if you would like i could just keep dropping questions. For example, if pre flood rocks are those that are high grade metamorphosed rocks of the precambrian, what does that tell us about metamorphosed cambrian rocks that exist above non metamorphosed rocks of other periods in the phanerozoic? And what is the K-T boundary, and why does this boundary also rest above all mesozoic and cenozoic rock?

Variable patterns of metamorphosed rock actually fit the flood account quite well. When the floods of the deep opened releasing superheated water or volcanic eruptions they would have had an immediate impact on the sites around them but less so further afield. So previous rocks may have sometimes been unaffected and other times not so. There is no reason to believe in a uniform pattern of metaphorisation really and especially if the water was coming from below and superheated causing pressure wave currents and impacts.

The K-T boundary is assumed to have been caused by asteroid impact because of the composition of the debris in this layer being out of synch with that found in the sea and because of the big crater found in Mexico which they suggest was where the asteroid struck. It is perfectly possible of course that an asteroid strike was a part of the flood event and indeed one of the triggers of the immense rainfall and openings of the deep. But then it did not happen 65 million years ago but rather at the point in the flood when we had reached the particular sediment layer it fell in. Or we could explain this debris layer in terms of an undersea eruption that ripped through the earths mantel of the time and released the debris associated with that breakage, the uniform distribution across the world could then be attributed to debris falling from the sky after the eruption and sinking through the flood waters or currents that distributed it across the whole globe. Either way a layer could have formed right across the world.

 

[Job 33:6]

Variable patterns of metamorphosed rock actually fit the flood account quite well. When the floods of the deep opened releasing superheated water or volcanic eruptions they would have had an immediate impact on the sites around them but less so further afield.

So, are you proposing that metamorphic rocks ought to be present at sites near the...openings of the floods of the deep? But not present further away from these openings? Or...ah, if i asked you for a geologic cross section of an area, that you could show this, what cross section would you point at to support this idea?

 

[mindlight]

Also, plants do not have legs, so i dont know that AIGs response is referring to plant succession in the superposition of rocks. For example, plants in lower rocks are not vascular, do not have seeds or flowers. But as you go up superpositionally in rock, you get the appearance of each of these features in plants, one at a time.

Typical uniformitarian responses for this are stated something like "well the flood could only sort by density, so how could this happen?" I think i made a post about this actually, ill have to share it.

Fossil Plants

Some plants would have been sub aqua, some would have been associated with conditions that existed before the flood. But the same plant principles can be observed throughout the geological record and the creationist view seems to be that fossil plants support special creation.

 

[mindlight]

So, are you proposing that metamorphic rocks ought to be present at sites near the...openings of the floods of the deep? But not present further away from these openings? Or...ah, if i asked you for a geologic cross section of an area, that you could show this, what cross section would you point at to support this idea?

But you could not do that in the conditions of the flood and especially at the distance we are . Eruptions would be smoothed over by the ferocious deep sea currents , their openings buried and their outputs distributed across the world. In short we cannot know.

 

[Job 33:6]

Fossil Plants

Some plants would have been sub aqua, some would have been associated with conditions that existed before the flood. But the same plant principles can be observed throughout the geological record and the creationist view seems to be that fossil plants support special creation.

If precambrian rocks are pre flood rocks, and plants are found in post cambrian rock, then how is it that conditions pre dating the flood, would affect how plants were deposited during the flood?

 

[mindlight]

If precambrian rocks are pre flood rocks, and plants are found in post cambrian rock, then how is it that conditions pre dating the flood, would affect how plants were deposited during the flood?

Creationists believe that the earth was altogether more hospitable place for life before the flood. The biblical evidence for this includes the massive decline in lifespans following the flood from a thousand to less that a hundred years. Longevity and better conditions would support larger organisms like dinosaurs and big trees and the massive graveyard of life forms that we find in the fossil record. This is what I meant about preflood conditions. When we look at plants in the rocks it is possible they had a far better deal before their destruction than plants today. But I would not expect there to be too many Precambrian plant fossils for the reason that the world was not a catastrophic place until the flood and stuff got eaten and reprocessed by the things that were still alive rather than left to fossilise in the mud as would have occurred in a mass extinction event.

 

[Job 33:6]

But you could not do that in the conditions of the flood and especially at the distance we are . Eruptions would be smoothed over by the ferocious deep sea currents , their openings buried and their outputs distributed across the world. In short we cannot know.

Plenty of magmatic features such as dikes and sills exist in the earth that have not been eroded away. The rock succession also displays erosional features. They are unconformities, disconformities, non conformities and angular unconformities. So, something should be evident in the rocks, that you might be able to point at to demonstrate your statement.

 

[Job 33:6]

Creationists believe that the earth was altogether more hospitable place for life before the flood. The biblical evidence for this includes the massive decline in lifespans following the flood from a thousand to less that a hundred years. Longevity and better conditions would support larger organisms like dinosaurs and big trees and the massive graveyard of life forms that we find in the fossil record. This is what I meant about preflood conditions. When we look at plants in the rocks it is possible they had a far better deal before their destruction than plants today. But I would not expect there to be too many Precambrian plant fossils for the reason that the world was not a catastrophic place until the flood and stuff got eaten and reprocessed by the things that were still alive rather than left to fossilise in the mud as would have occurred in a mass extinction event.

But this doesnt explain the plant succession. Why the appearance of vascular plants prior to seeded plants, and why not until later, are the flowering plants present?

 

[Job 33:6]

And you said before the flood the world was more hospitable, and you referred to large dinosaurs. But dinosaurs do not occur in pre flood rock, and also do not occur in any paleozoic rock. And they dont occur in cenozoic rock either. Whats up with that? If they lived in pre flood times, you would expect them to be in pre flood / precambrian rock, along with other pre flood/pre cambrian animals like the ediacaran. Or at the very least they should be in the paleozoic.

 

[Job 33:6]

this would explain why water dependent fossil crocodiles would be in a lower layer than fossil Mammoths/elephants and also why more reptilian birds that lacked feathers would be lower down

Mammalian fossils pre date a number of reptiles in the fossil succession. Mammal fossils pre date the cretaceous, which was in the age of reptiles. Were these mammals not warm blooded enough?

 

[mindlight]

And you said before the flood the world was more hospitable, and you referred to large dinosaurs. But dinosaurs do not occur in pre flood rock, and also do not occur in any paleozoic rock. And they dont occur in cenozoic rock either. Whats up with that? If they lived in pre flood times, you would expect them to be in pre flood / precambrian rock, along with other pre flood/pre cambrian animals like the ediacaran. Or at the very least they should be in the paleozoic.

As I said before most stuff before the flood was eaten or reused by the life around and could not have become a fossil. It took a major catastrophe to create the fossil record.

 

[mindlight]

Plenty of magmatic features such as dikes and sills exist in the earth that have not been eroded away. The rock succession also displays erosional features. They are unconformities, disconformities, non conformities and angular unconformities. So, something should be evident in the rocks, that you might be able to point at to demonstrate your statement.

So ocean currents, etc are not erosive and earthquakes and plate movements not disruptive? There are a million reasons that such deformities / unconformities could form and also at a rapid rate.

 

[Job 33:6]

So ocean currents, etc are not erosive and earthquakes and plate movements not disruptive? There are a million reasons that such deformities / unconformities could form and also at a rapid rate.

Ocean currents are not erosive in the sense that they erode away dense metamorphosed rock such as...quartzite. Certainly not in a year at least.

The point is that, something should be evident in the earth to support your statement that the oceans of the deep are what metamorphosed local rocks. But when asked about it, there is nothing to say.