THE FOSSIL RECORD
Overview
COMMENT
Around 2000 I found James Maxlow's and others' expanding earth models online and considered them fairly persuasive at first, but I guess Mike Fischer's Shock Dynamics model at http://NewGeology.us (for explaining how the Pangaea supercontinent broke up and produced the present arrangement of continents and islands etc), which I first found in about 2010, was the most persuasive that earth expansion was unneeded for explaining the shapes and positions of the continents. I also didn't see how the Earth could expand significantly, or where the extra matter would come from to expand it, or how it could. Prior to that, in the 80s or 90s I came across evidence that many sedimentary rock strata must have been deposited altogether, since there was little erosion between strata (Ian Taylor's book, In the Minds of Men, was most interesting in that regard. He also said a school of mudsharks in Ohio was smashed flat to about a quarter inch thick, in swimming positions, which indicated that they were overwhelmed by thick mud and then increasing weight of sediments many feet thick, in order to smash them so thin). By 2007 I favored Thornhill's model for a while, that megalightning carved out the Atlantic ocean basin and deposited the strata on the continents. But that had numerous problems, whereas Shock Dynamics never had such problems.
FOSSILIZATION
Intro. I recently wrote a post on Electric Fossilization at cataclysmicearthhistory.substack.com/p/10a6-electric-fossilization. I still need to see if there's a way to determine how much fossilization involved electrical effects. This post will discuss the fossil record and only say a little about how fossilization occurs. I may update it eventually. For now I can say that, when any organism is buried deeply enough that decomposition cannot occur in the normal way, it may petrify, mummify, or permineralize, with the last being apparently the most common. I’ll quote now from a paper on fossilization called “Fossils in a day?” at https://creation.com/fossils-in-a-day
Taphonomy scientists have long recognized that heat and pressure are especially necessary ingredients for forming fossils. Of course, there is plenty of pressure on deep sediments, and in addition to the heating associated with this there are also many lava flows throughout the fossil record.
{In experiments} they first buried the organic specimens within easily-compacted clay, and then applied pressure to make a ‘tablet’ of clay with the specimen inside.
The outcomes were fascinating. They looked like real fossils. The research highlights the importance of sediment in fossil formation.
First, the scientists confirm that sediment plays an important role in removing unstable and volatile molecules that would otherwise prevent fossilization.
Second, rapidly deposited sediments are needed to induce the pressure needed.
{Fossils seldom form now.} Instantaneous deposits from flooding rivers are typically only millimetres or centimetres deep, not the metres or tens of metres needed to induce pressure to speed chemical degradation.
In short, current surface processes of erosion and deposition of sediments cannot explain the billions of fossils found globally. What was needed was a flood of unprecedented magnitude, capable of providing vast quantities of sediment over a short time period.
{The Great Flood} provided unprecedented rapid burial in deep sediment that was able to remove unstable and volatile molecules and cause the pressure needed for extensive organic fossil preservation.
That’s a start, but I hope to have a more thorough explanation later. End of Intro.
THE FOSSIL RECORD
https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j10_1/j10_1_032-069.pdf
Below are article titles from an ICR.org webpage, which I've reorganized and edited in a way that I hope it can help explain the fossil record quite a bit. I’ll add a diagram from another article to show an overview of the fossil record in a way that is pretty easy to understand. In the linked webpage there the diagram is on the second virtual page.
By Dr. John Morris. He received his Ph.D. in geological engineering from the University of Oklahoma.
Fossils are the remains of once-living things. They can be plant or animal bodies that have been partially or completely replaced by minerals. They can be impressions that just show the shape of a creature, or tracks left behind by a traveler, or other remnants that testify to the lives of long-gone organisms. Some rare fossils even have original organic soft tissue encased in rock, showing that their organisms couldn't have been dead for millions of years, as evolution claims.
All fossilized creatures appear suddenly and fully formed in the rock record, with no clear history of evolutionary transitions.
Second, fossils formed very quickly, before the animal or plant completely decayed or was scavenged. This means that fossils formed through catastrophic circumstances. Most fossils can be attributed to the worldwide catastrophe of Noah’s Flood, in which countless creatures were killed and then rapidly buried, or to its residual effects.
The names of the rock strata are at the top. The strata are indicated by the vertical dotted lines. They were deposited from left to right in this diagram. Smaller creatures mostly living in water were buried first by the Flood in the Cambrian etc. Then fish, then insects, then amphibians, then small reptiles began to be buried during the middle stages of the Flood. Trilobites and armored fish went extinct at that point. Finally, dinosaurs, birds and some mammals began to be buried and the dinosaurs mostly went extinct at the Tertiary boundary. That must be where the Great Flood ended. All of those strata were deposited in about 5 months time. At about the end of the Tertiary more animals were buried by the Younger Dryas megafloods from Ice Sheet meltwater and tsunamis with rapid sea level rise. The diagram shows only animal fossils. Many plants were buried during the Carboniferous, which produced coal. It seems that mammals were rare before the Great Flood.
INTERACTIVE WORLD FOSSIL MAP. https://paleobiodb.org/navigator/
MAMMOTH. Locations of Mammoth Fossils
Evidence that Noah's Flood Formed the Fossil Record
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These below are article titles & descriptions from ICR.org at https://www.icr.org/creation-fossil/ .
FOSSIL QUESTIONS
_Are Fossils the Result of Noah's Flood? {Yes, most are. Many were also a result of the Younger Dryas megafloods etc.}
_Cambrian Explosion Alive and Well? {Yes. Image is a trilobite.}
_The Flood of Fossils {Where?}. Fossils are featured in national parks, textbooks, and museums around the world.
_Is Every Fossil in Its (Evolutionary) Place? {No, there hasn’t been much evolution, because there hasn’t been much time for it.}
_Don't the Fossils Prove Evolution? {Same answer.}
_Should We Expect to Find Transitional Forms in the Fossil Record? {No.}
PLANT FOSSILS
_What Are Polystrate Fossils? The term "polystrate" was coined to describe a fossil which is encased within more than one (poly) layer of rock (strata) thus "polystrate or "many layers." {These are evidence that the strata were deposited over a short time period.}
_Mystery Fossil Study Fits Creation. In the mid-1800s, a mysterious new fossil, Prototaxites, was described. The large, tree-trunk-shaped fossils were found in some of the lowermost fossil-bearing rock layers.
_Destruction of Plants Fits Flood Narrative. A study has found that the destruction of plants preceded the destruction of many forms of animal life in the rock record as predicted in ICR’s Flood model. {That’s because animals could flee, but plants could not.}
_Diverse Devonian Plant Assemblage from Early Flood. Scientists discovered a diverse assemblage of fossils in South Africa claimed to be some of the earliest land plants known as seedless vascular plants.
_Sudden Appearance of Flowering Plants Fit Flood Model. A study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution has claimed that flowering plants, the most common type of plant on Earth, first appeared in small numbers in rocks of the Early Cretaceous.
_Change in Plant Fossils at K-Pg Fits Flood Model. Many plant species changed dramatically at the K-Pg (Cretaceous-Paleogene) boundary in Argentina.
_South American Plant Fossils Confirm Flood Boundary. Fossil pollen, leaf and fruit impressions, and petrified wood {were} taken from multiple locations across the massive Central Andean Plateau....
_Ancient Forest Frozen in Time by Volcano. The area surrounding what is now Wuda, Inner Mongolia, once teemed with tropical plants before a tremendous ancient volcanic explosion overwhelmed it. The ash-entombed forest {was} buried between coal layers....
_Greenland: Ice-Free Not That Long Ago. Preserved leaves and twigs in a tube of soil show Greenland was largely ice-free in the relatively recent past.
GREAT FLOOD ANIMAL FOSSILS
_'Oldest' Animal Fossils Evolved in the Wrong Place. Fossils from South China are being touted as the first animals to have evolved on the planet. A study on these tiny organisms, however, presents a fresh evolutionary puzzle.
_Possible Parasites Found on Cambrian Brachiopods. Scientists from China, Sweden, and Australia have discovered what they claim is the oldest known parasite, publishing their results in Nature Communications.
https://ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/giant-ammonite-fossils/
_Ammonite Evolution? "Cephalopods of Subclass Ammonoidea and especially the Mesozoic forms known in the vernacular as 'ammonites' are amongst the most abundant and well known of all fossils."
_Out of Place Marine Fossil Disrupts Evolutionary Index. A rock layer designated as "Ordovician" contains distinctly Cambrian fossils.
_Armored Fish Fossils. Australian fish fossils preserved detailed soft tissue body features.
_Big Fish Fossil. The coelacanth is an endangered deep-sea fish. Its fins fit to unique, wrist-like bones, and unique bony plates....
_Rapid Burial in the Flood Explains Strange “Squid”. A study published in Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association has found what is claimed to be the oldest recorded attack by a squid-like creature.
_First Land Bug Buried in the Flood. The Scottish island of Kerrera has produced the earliest known bug in the fossil record, a millipede. It was found in Silurian System rocks.
_Massive Cache of Dangerous Carnivores Found. A study published in the journal ZooKeys has claimed to have found the most dangerous location to live in Earth’s history {in eastern Morocco’s Kem Kem beds: large theropod dinosaurs, sharks, bony fishes, and lobe-finned fishes, such as the coelacanth, turtles, crocodyliforms, pterosaurs, as well as invertebrate, plant, and trace fossils -- e.g. car-sized coelacanths and other marine fossils along with a 50-foot Spinosaurus dinosaur}.
_Spinosaurus Swam! How a Swimming Spinosaurus Fits Scripture. Spinosaurus aegyptiacus had a longer body than the enormous T. rex. In Nature journal, researchers published a new reconstruction of the extinct reptile’s tail, showing that it would have undulated....
_Dinosaurs vs. Birds: The Fossils Don't Lie. The term "Dinosauria" was first used in 1841 by Sir Richard Owen in an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
_We Still Can’t Determine the Sex of Dinosaurs. A study led by Queen Mary University of London concluded that dinosaur bones tell us little about their sexes.
_Dinosaur “Raptors” Likely Hunted Alone. A study published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology has found that the behavior of dinosaurs in movies is not very accurate at all.
_New Evidence Hurts Feathered Dinosaur Theory. A study points to some fascinating evidence that contradicts the idea of feathered dinosaurs and confirms created kinds.
_No Evidence T. rex Hatchlings Had Feathers. The discovery of a tiny tyrannosaur jaw bone fragment and a claw....
_Soft Dinosaur Eggs Deflate Bird-Dinosaur Evolution. A pair of studies found that some dinosaurs, and possibly some marine reptiles, laid squishy eggs. One study discovered that many dinosaurs, like turtles and snakes, laid soft leather-like eggs....
_Is Newfound Dinosaur Fossil the Biggest Ever? {in Patagonia, Argentina}
_Ireland’s First Dinosaur Bones Found in Flood Rocks - marine rocks.
_Dinosaur Washed Out to Sea with Its Last Meal. In 2017, a large dinosaur was discovered washed out to sea, similar to the dinosaur bone found 70 miles off Norway’s coast.
_New Australian Dinosaur Surprises Evolutionists. A study published in the journal Gondwana Research has identified a rather out-of-place bone from a theropod dinosaur called an elaphrosaur that apparently didn’t eat meat.
_Even Sherlock Holmes Can’t Explain African Dinosaurs. A new species of duck-billed dinosaur, Ajnabia odysseus, was unearthed in North Africa, the first hadrosaur-type dinosaur ever discovered on the continent of Africa.
_Desperate Dinosaurs Cannibalized During Global Flood. Scientists discovered evidence that large theropods were possibly guilty of cannibalism. {If they were running from tsunamis, it makes sense that they would have soon run out of food. And since they often ran in herds, they would have to eat their own kind.}
https://creation.com/dinosaur-disarray
_Flood Buried Dinosaurs with a Bang. Scientists from the University of Bath have found that dinosaurs were thriving up to the end of the Cretaceous.
_The Devastating Issue of Dinosaur Tissue. A discovery in the field of paleontology sent shockwaves through the scientific community. Evolutionist Mary H. Schweitzer of North Carolina State University has discovered flexible blood vessels {in a T. Rex bone}.
_More Proof That Dinosaurs Lived with 'Later' Creatures.
_Rewriting the Last Dinosaur's Tombstone.
_Discovery of Smallest Known Mesozoic Bird. {It was} trapped in Burmese amber.
_Bird Fossils Offer Clues to Dinosaur Question.
_Is New Fossil a Bird-Eating Dinosaur? A fossil was uncovered in China with bird bones in its ribcage—right where its stomach must have been. Researchers consider it to be a predatory dinosaur that ate an adult bird.
_New Pterosaur Discovered. Pterosaurs were amazing flying reptiles that came in all shapes and sizes. Not surprisingly, when these bizarre creatures are found in the fossil record they are 100% flying reptiles.
_First Tapejarid Pterosaur Found In Great Britain. {It} was found on the Isle of Wight along the southern coast of England.
_Archaeopteryx Is a Bird. . . Again.
_Cretaceous Bird Beak. Rock layers in China have yielded yet another strange bird. Two features in its partial skull—the only parts found—make it both a unique discovery and a challenge to nature-only origins stories.
_New Amber Discoveries Down Under. Paleontologists in Australia have discovered a treasure trove of amber with trapped insects, spiders, and fungi.
_Whole Lizard Encased in Amber. The Amber Museum in the Mexican city of San Cristóbal de las Casas has {the} specimen.
_Monkey Fossil Confirms Neogene-Quaternary Flood Boundary. A newly published analysis of four fossil molar teeth from a monkey dug up along the left bank of the Yuruá River in the Peruvian Amazon is causing a great deal of evolutionary confusion.
POSTFLOOD ANIMAL FOSSILS
_Marine Reptile Fossil Rewrites Evolution. {It's a} particular variety of the dolphin-shape marine reptiles.
_Frog Fossils Found in Antarctica! {It} has significant implications for Earth’s climate history as well as the fossil record.
_Mammoth DNA. Scientists have sequenced small amounts of DNA from the teeth of two Siberian mammoths....
_Noisy Narwhals in Greenland’s Frigid Fjords. After audio-recording underwater in Greenland’s fjords, two geoscientists published research on vocalizations made by narwhals.
https://steemit.com/life/@sharps/the-petrified-forest-of-axel-heiberg-island
_What Is a Turtle Fossil Doing in the Arctic? A fossilized turtle shell, along with a host of lithified tropical plants and animals, has been discovered on Axel Heiberg Island in the High Canadian Arctic. {Before Pangaea broke up, the continents were centered on the equator, or the polar regions were warm.}
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d5/78/29/d57829f7a3f54375af2810de6d4c8d19.jpg
_Camels Once Roamed America’s Uplands. A study published in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science indicates that North America was once home to large populations of {camels}.
_A Strange and Mysterious Hypercarnivore.
_Fossilized Brain. {It was} found inside a Stone Age skull from Norway.
_Fossil Whale Brain Proves Paleontologist Wrong. A woman found a fossilized whale brain in San Luis Obispo County
_Whales in the Desert. Workers expanding a highway in 2010 found fossils of 80 huge whales in desert sandstones in Chile.
_Tibetan Cat Fossil.
_Europe’s Oldest Human Footprints—Dated in Error. {They are} at Happisburgh on England's east coast.
_Ancient Human Footprints Look Modern. {They were} found on two separate but close sedimentary layers in Kenya.
_Are Human Artifacts Ever Petrified?
SOME EVIDENCE FOSSILS FORMED RECENTLY
(There's also evidence above)
_Fossil Anemone Tracks _ on a rock in Newfoundland _ were trails left by seafloor-dwelling animals....
_Fossil Cuttlefish Has Original Tissue. Cuttlefish are mollusks with a hard, supportive structure made of cleverly woven strands of a biochemical material called chitin and mixed with a hard biomineral called aragonite. A team of paleontologists found a _ fossil cuttlebone that still had both the original aragonite and chitin. This is significant, because one might expect the hard aragonite to persist in the fossil record, but not the organic chitin or protein.
_Fossil Feather Colors: _ organic molecules like pigments, and especially proteins, shouldn't be there if the specimen is older than a million years. {Evidence against the conventional timeline.}
_Fossil Feathers Convey Color. Analysis of an unusual Brazilian fossil has led U.S. researchers to link microscopic fossil features to bird feather colors. The fossil has dramatic black and white banding patterns that have been interpreted as post-fossilization bacterial activity. However, there are structures in the rock in which it was found that are the same size and shape as cells from living dark feathers.
_Fossil Moth Still Shows Its Colors. Many butterflies and moths have colors that show a metallic sheen. That sheen occurs because the refracting material in their wings and bodies is spread out in layers precisely as thin as the wavelengths of the light they refract. Researchers _ found these delicate structures in moth fossils from Germany....
_Fossil Pigment Paints Long Ages into a Corner. The famous Confuciusornis sanctus fossil from China contains patches that appear to be residue from the bird's original tissues. Long evolutionary ages {w}ould have made this impossible.... _ Researchers recently confirmed the presence of original organic material. There is a serious problem with this fossil's age assignment.
_Fossilized Biomaterials Must Be Young. Institute for Creation Research scientists documented several clock-like processes in rocks during the groundbreaking Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth (RATE) project, confirming an age of 6,000 years.
_Fossilized Brain _ is what researchers found inside a Stone Age skull from Norway.
https://www.icr.org/article/polar-bears-fitted-fill-flourish/
_Circular Reasoning in Polar Bear Origins Date. Biologists agree that polar bears, brown bears, and black bears all descended from a prototype of the bear kind. {They may have diversified after the Great Flood, due to catastrophic electrical effects etc.}