Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Dinos and the Flood?

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Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Okay, Omega, I'll bite...

Riddle me this.. If most of the Dinosaurs, as well as 99.999% of the animal and human life on the Earth died at the same time in the Flood...

How come we find the bones in different strata? It can't be because the heavier dinosaurs sank faster, because we find heavy dino bones in strata above light dino bones, and smaller animals, and mixed in... but nobody's EVER found a Saurian skeleton lying on top of an H. Sapiens one, as should have happened at least occasionally if the Flood story were true..

Nope, what we find, descending (and heavily simplified) are:

People and higher Mammals (and no dinosaurs)
Medium mammals (and no dinosaurs)
Primitive mammals and such(and no dinosaurs)
Shrewlike minimammals (and no dinosaurs)

(Iridium discontinuity)

More Big dinosaurs (and occasional tiny mammals)
Big Dinosaurs (and occasional tiny mammals)
Primitive Dinosaurs
Reptiles
Amphibians
Fish
And so forth

And this pattern repeats globally, aside from variation in the species found Everywhere, the same thing.

If the flood theory were correct, we should expect to see all the above jumbled together, hominid and saurian, as they would all have drowned in the same areas at the same time, and all fossil layers should be indistinguishable. They would have to be.

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

That's Jubes' status line, not mine. : )

OK, first, there are many exceptions. Second, what you don't know about is liquefication. It's a little-known event, believed to be caused by water forming a layer around particles of sediment. Liquification happens frequently in earthquakes, especially in port cities, because such cities are usually built on soft, unconsolidated clay-rich sediment, or on filled areas with large amounts of loose earth has been dumped to build up the level of the land. When these saturated deposits are shaken by an earthquake, they become a highly fluid mud, which can cause buildings to tilt or colapse. An example would be walking along the beach in such a location that, when a wave comes in, the water is up to your knees, and the rest of the time you're on dry ground. When each wave comes in, water is forced into the sand. When the wave returns to the ocean, the water forced into the sand gushes back out, removing the top layer of sand, forming a mush, which your feet sink into. On an Earth entirely covered in water, at high tide the sediment and the water it is saturated with would be compresssed slightly, as there would be more water above it. Then, when high tide passed, the water's buoyancy force would force the sediment upward. That's liquification. The sediment would have been so loosly packed that it would sort into denser and lighter particles. This would happen for several hours, twice a day, every day. If you had two layers of sediment, with the lower being more permiable than the upper, than when high tide came, water would accumulate at the interface, forming a lens. As these interfaces were almost never quite horizontal, the water flowed uphill. Organisms would have floated up to the lens immediately above during liquifiaction, and then would have been spread out over miles. Experiments have been performed, confirming that liquification would indeed account for the geologic layers and fossil sorting in the same order you mentioned.

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Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :

I think the Iridium layer says it all. Asteroid, impact, bad air, little Sun light, death on a large scale.

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Outside of a dog, a book is a mans best friend. Inside of a dog, it's to dark to read. Groucho Marx

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Nevertheless, liquefaction doesn't explain why dinosaurs are not found mixed in with hominids, large mammals, or other "modern" fossils. Show me a trilobite in the same rock with a mammoth, and we'll talk.

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Iridium layer? I'm not familiar with the name. Please enlighten me.

Will a trilobite and a human footprint do? In 1968, fossils of human footprints and definite trilobites were found 43 miles northwest of Delta, Utah. I'd scan you the picture if I had a scanner. And as I said, when mixed at random in liquefication experaments, fossils sort out into the general order found most places on Earth. This includes dino fossils.

Posted by HMS White Star (Member # 174) on :

Iridium is a substance (perhaps an element I don't quite remember) that isn't found commonly on earth but is found in some asteriods, what happened would be the big *ss asteriod fell out of sky, impacted with the ground vaporized and left this Iridium dust to settle on the ground, after a while the Iridium gets covered by dirt and is found by science dudes. Well that's not a good explaination but I have to go to sleep and my mom is annoying me.

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HMS White Star (your local friendly agent of Chaos:-) )

Posted by Diane (Member # 53) on :

Another theory of how dinos became extinct.

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"I would be delighted to offer any advice I can on understanding women. When I have some, I'll let you know."
--Picard to Data, "In Theory"

Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :

It is a very thin layer, I think I've seen somewhere that it covers the earth, about the same time as a mass extinction.

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Outside of a dog, a book is a mans best friend. Inside of a dog, it's to dark to read. Groucho Marx

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

There are many dino fossils below the iridium layer, there are none above it, only small mammals. Logic would seem to dictate that whatever caused the iridium layer had a hand in ending the dinosaurs. Since iridium is rare on Earth but common in asteroids, and since only a global atmospheric event would be enough to distribute it worldwide...

*idly wonders if the Utah footprints all have the same heel-toe depth. Bets they do. Human feetsprints slogging through mud won't, however*

Actually, I wouldn't hold much belief in footprints unless the toes were clearly visible. Too many theropods or thecodonts could leave, and have left, similar footprints in mud -- causing the occasional brief stir.

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

Yes, but God caused all the water of the Flood, and if he wanted it to have iridium in it, he could.

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Well, that's the advantage of believing in an omnipotent deity, isn't it? When the facts desert you, you can always say "If He wanted it to be this way, it could be, and nothing would change about my argument."

Of course, the depths of faulty logic THAT idea dwells in are only explorable with the Alvin probe...

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

OK, first there are several iridium layers, each as thick as the one usually associated with mass extinction, and none of them have any extinction associated with them according to the geologic timescale. Second, you still ignore my argument about liquification arranging the fossils in their present order. Third, there is no evidence that that iridium came from an asteroid. It's quite possible that the iriduim was on Earth to begin with, and was distributed by the flood. And maybe I should be more specific about that footprint. SHOEprint would be more accurate. I've got the picture of the inprint of a relatively modern street shoe (no tread, heal extended about .5", not sure what you'd call that) with a trilobite fossil imbedded in the sole.

Posted by Diane (Member # 53) on :

And the approx. age of the shoe is the same as the trilobite?

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"I would be delighted to offer any advice I can on understanding women. When I have some, I'll let you know."
--Picard to Data, "In Theory"

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

And the source of these reports on the multiple layers of iridium and their relative thicknesses is...? (By "source" I don't mean the Creationist book you found this in, but rather HIS source, or the original source, the research or scientific paper that describes it.)

You know, around here (where I live) that would be a new thing, a Creationist book that actually documents its scientific sources WITHOUT referring only to other Creationist books.

That, I might have to buy and read.

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Oh, and regarding "Liquification:"

If explanations based on victim habitat and mobility are absurd, the hydraulic sorting apologetic is flatly contradicted by the fossil record. An object's hydrodynamic drag is directly proportional to its cross sectional area and its drag coefficient. Therefore when objects with the same density and the same drag coefficient move through a fluid, they are sorted according to size. (Mining engineers exploit this phenomena in some ore separation processes.) This means that all small trilobites should be found higher in the fossil record than large ones. That is not what we find, however, so the hydraulic sorting argument is immediately falsified. Indeed, one wonders how Henry Morris, a hydraulic engineer, could ever have offered it with a straight face.

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Ziyal:

Yep. A two inch slab of rock with shoeprints and a trilobite in it. The thing was apparently killed when whoever was wearing the shoe stepped on it. The back of the heel was even worn down, like most shoes today that are worn for any length of time.

1of2:

I guess I should start refering to you as 1of2 or something like that, to distinguish from The First One. Oddly enough, no source is given for the Iridium layers claim. I say oddly, because he references scientific papers throughout the book. And yes, that includes some Creation Science papers, but it also includes "Geology", "Nature", "Science", "Science and Arts", "Science Newsletter", "Anthropological Institute Journal", et al. Again, it's titled "In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood", by Walt Brown. If you get it, please tell me if it's newer than sixth edition. That's what I have, and it's three or four years old.

And as for liquefication, it would be more of a quasi-fluid, as it would have to be composed mostly of sediment (something like quicksand), so I doubt many people have much experience with it. As I said, bones of various animals were buried in a liquefication experiment, with the result being that the bones sorted into the same order as fossils throughout the world, but size didn't matter.

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

You know, I suppose, that Walt brown has been accused of deliberately misquoting paleontologists to support his theories, most especially on his writings about early hominids: "Lucy's knee."

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

Posted by Diane (Member # 53) on :

Maybe you should take a look at First of Two's flood link in the Evolution thread, Omega.

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"I told you. You're dead. This is the afterlife. And I'm God."
--Q to Picard, "Tapestry".

Posted by Diane (Member # 53) on :

I just read an article on the Ark that 1of2's article lead to. http://www.biblerevelations.org/ronwyatt/noahsark1.htm

And you know what? I completely agree with the first scientific argument, but I can't refute the evidence of the second, which as left me utterly, thoroughly, and totally confused.

I think I'm gonna go lie down now.

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"I told you. You're dead. This is the afterlife. And I'm God."
--Q to Picard, "Tapestry".

[This message has been edited by Tora Ziyal (edited August 20, 1999).]

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

I subscribe to Walt Brown's hydroplate theory. And my responses to their objections to it:

"How was the water contained? Rock, at least the rock which makes up the earth's crust, doesn't float. The
water would have been forced to the surface long before Noah's time, or Adam's time for that matter."

OK, here it assumes that the Earth had actually been around billions of years before the flood, which can be quite
easily disprooven. But that's for another thread. If the Earth had been around for around 1500 years before the
flood, the water would have remained contained. You also have to assume that the Earth was created by an intelligent
designer, who placed the water under the rock.

"Even a mile deep, the earth is boiling hot, and thus the reservoir of water would be superheated. Further heat would
be added by the energy of the water falling from above the atmosphere. As with the vapor canopy model, Noah would
have been poached."

Not if you account for the pressure. It would have shot the water so high into the stratosphere that it would have
frozen (which also accounts for frozen mammoths and such). Water from above the atmosphere? I think they're
getting their theories confused.

"Where is the evidence? The escaping waters would have eroded the sides of the fissures, producing poorly
sorted basaltic erosional deposits. These would be concentrated mainly near the fissures, but some would beshot
thousands of miles along with the water. (Noah would have had to worry about falling rocks along with
the rain.) Such deposits would be quite noticeable but have never been seen."

Try the floor of the Atlantic. They apparently don't know the general theory, which is that a crack appeared for some
reason in the shell, and the pressure forced the water out. The force of the water escaping spread the crack around the
globe, at somewhere around three miles per second. This also explains the origin of the Atlantic, as the creation of the
ridge would have pushed the continental plates apart. The water would have shot miles into the sky, then fallen as
rain or ice.

"Why weren't the Sierra Nevadas eroded as
much as the Appalachians during the Flood?"

They weren't eroded at all. They were created by the flood, or, more specifically, by the plates sliding around when
the Mid-Atlantic ridge was created. The impact was greatest on the west side of the Americas, so that's where all the
big mountain ranges are.

"Tree ring records go back more than 10,000 years..."

Only if you make liberal assumptions about how old certain specimines are.

"How was the fossil record sorted in an order convenient for evolution?"

As I said, liquefication. And as for the evolutionary sequence, I'd say that if it was any other way, you'd still say it was in evolutionary sequence. In other words, if birds were below dinos (as some actually are), you'd probably say that dinosaurs evolved from birds!

Nearly all the rest can be explained by liquefication.

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

>"Tree ring records go back more than 10,000 years..."

>Only if you make liberal assumptions about how old certain specimines are.

Wrong. Tree rings are easily the most verifiable records of history, especially climactic history. Trees add 1 ring sequence (light and dark) in a year. The rings vary in size due to climactic conditions, usually, water supplies. You can tell how old a tree was by counting its rings. You can tell WHEN a tree was alive by comparing its rings to the rings of other trees whose lifetimes you know. For instance, say you have a bristlecone pine that has lived for 1000 years (many have, it's believed to be the longest-living plant in the world). You look at it and note 1000 rings.. the first 20 or so of which are very narrow due to an extended drought at the time.
Then you find a nearby, long-dead tree. You check its rings. You notice that the spacing of the rings is the same, except that the 20-year drought period is only halfway through the life of the tree. Conclusion: This tree was halfway through its life when the drought struck, therefore it is another 500 years older than the living tree.
Through continuous regression in this manner, using only trees and fossils of trees found in the same area, we can find, and have found, complete tree-ring records at least as far back as 10,000 years.
Without a SINGLE "liberal assumption."

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge as a site for a giant eruption of water? You can't possibly be serious. The Mid-Atlantic ridge sits on top of the thinnest place on the ocean floor, and MAGMA constantly upwells beneath it, and spreads the seafloor apart, at the rate of a centimeter or so a year. It is highly unlikely any water could coexist with the magma for a second, much less the "years preceeding the flood." And there exists zero evidence to show that it ever did.

"Water shot high into the air would freeze"
Well in that case, it would have SNOWED for forty days and forty nights.

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

If the water was under extreme pressure, it could coexist with magma, as on Europa in 2010: Odyssey Two. The book (In the Beginning, not 2010) explains the theory a lot better than I can. And it's got purdy pictures.

Only that water that got thrown into the stratosphere would be turned to ice or snow, and it would only stay frozen in the upper latitudes. In the lower latitudes, it would melt on the way down. (All assuming you're in the northern hemisphere.) For all we know, it did snow for 40 days and nights in the polar regions, and that's what formed the ice caps! : )