Posted on 06/20/2013 6:51:51 AM PDT by fishtank
New Fossil Book Won't Showcase Obvious Catastrophe by Brian Thomas, M.S. *
Not just horses and fish, but—like a whole ancient zoo buried together—lizards, alligators, stingrays, snakes, squirrel varieties, bats, long-tailed turtles, lemur-like primates, birds, frogs, insects, and sycamore, palm, and fern leaves were all fossilized in Wyoming's Green River Formation. A new book showcasing some of the more spectacular fossils provides secularists another opportunity to reinforce their ideas about how these diverse creatures were encased in what became a giant rock formation. Commonsense observations refute their slow-and-gradual scenario, however, and point to a more violent explanation.
Lance Grande collected the stunning fossil images for the book, The Lost World of Fossil Lake: Snapshots from Deep Time. He works as one of the curators at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. One of his images shows a now-extinct variety of horse—one with a tiny stature and long hind legs for its size—surrounded by fossil fish. Horses and fish don't usually hang out together, but apparently they died together. How did they end up in the same fossilized bed?
LiveScience featured some of the book's images on its website, including the "Mini-Horse." There, its image caption reads, "Researchers aren't sure how the horse ended up at the bottom of the middle of Fossil Lake but they suspect it drowned, possibly trying to escape a predator."1 Then, supposedly its carcass sank neatly to the bottom without having been scavenged by any of the many fish represented in the formation's fossils.
The horse body's next trick also defied commonsense. According to LiveScience, "Over thousands of years, dead animals rained down into the muck deep below the surface of long-gone Fossil Lake."2 Not only does the slow-and-gradual story require a magic wand to wave off the persistent problem of scavenging, but it calls upon the ancient deep "muck" to do what experiments have shown it cannot do—keep a carcass from rotting away to nothing.
And what strange process preserved these animal bodies so well as they supposedly rested on the lake bed before the slow-settling sediments covered and buried them over the long years? This story defies horse sense. Clearly, they had to have been buried deeply by fast-building sediment in order to preserve at such high quality.
Supposedly, a lack of oxygen preserved the whole carcasses. But God created microbes to function even without readily available oxygen. The problem is that fish and other animal carcasses rot in just a few weeks, even when buried in mud that has very little oxygen.3 What the scavengers don't eat, anoxic microbes quickly consume. That is why today's anoxic lake and ocean bottom muds form no fossils.
Whatever buried the horse did so rapidly and catastrophically. Fast-flowing water mixed with fresh volcanic ash and washed over the diverse assembly of creatures, burying them alive and trapping them in the Green River's series of basins.
The Genesis Flood provides a context for that catastrophe. Some creation geologists suggest that residual catastrophes immediately after the Flood formed Green River Formation, while others propose that it formed when water ran off the continents in the waning Flood months. Either scenario sets a catastrophic-enough stage to trump slow-and-gradual speculations and to bury alligators, horses, lizards, and fish together quickly and completely.
References
Gannon, M. Images: Stingray Sex, Mini-Horses & Other Curiosities of Fossil Lake. LiveScience. Posted on LiveScience.com June 9, 2013, accessed June 10, 2013.
Gannon, M. Lost World Locked in Stone at Fossil Lake. LiveScience. Posted on LiveScience.com June 9, 2013, accessed June 10, 2013.
Donovan, S.K., (Ed.) 1991. The Process of fossilization. New York: Columbia University Press, 120-129.
Image credit: Lance Grande from The Lost World of Fossil Lake: Snapshots from Deep Time, © 2013, the University of Chicago Press. Adapted for use in accordance with federal copyright (fair use doctrine) law. Usage by ICR does not imply endorsement of copyright holders.
* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.
Article posted on June 17, 2013.
Technically correct, but there is something worthwhile to ponder.
Science is currently defined as "the stuff we can study empirically". If its measurable, then folks say "that's science!" But, if you cannot see it, touch it, measure it, then it's just airy-fairy fantasy stuff that many people refuse to take seriously. Unicorns? Ghosts? UFOs? I need proof!! The same goes with God. Scientists often turn up their nose at the idea of God (flying spaghetti monster? Old man in the clouds?) because they cannot see Him.
Now, if science were to say "abiogenesis cannot be explained, it would take a miracle for it to occur." Then we enter a realm in which our physical world is touched by something from outside of the world. Something supernatural. If science were to admit that supernatural things can be real, then abiogenesis becomes easier to grasp.
And, of course, if science were to admit that supernatural things can be real, then perhaps they would see less need to jump through so many hoops to insist that Evolution is the only way to explain the diveristy of life.
But so long as science refuses to admit that non-physical things can be real, I will continue to say, "Why should I trust you on Evolution?? You don't even understand how biological life got started! You clearly don't understand this stuff as well as you need to."
The physical evidence does not support the literal account of creation in the Book of Genesis...”
ok
“..and belief in an omnipotent God must assume He would be capable of creating life with the ability to evolve...”
I believe He had the power and will to create all life full grown and fertile in 6 days.
(why) the bible says so, there is NO proof to the contrary.
If you mean small changes within the species (adaptation) ok
but I reject the idea God had to use major cross special changes over vast amounts of time......kinda limits His power.
But , I understand where you are coming from.
I never claimed to have proof. I only claim that evidence exists to support it.
To what condition would you attribute a land animal growing legs and changing its genetic code, creating cellular changes, and then altering its entire system of production at a cellular level?
Posession of DNA designed to enable it to do that.
“...But here is the definitive explanation of the Great Flood that is commonly overlooked — even by Believers:..”
I didn’t miss it, but then, I love science and the Bible.
I did not see that in my early years. I am very happy with the progress and fortitude of the scientist that believe in creation. they have open a whole way to look at what the Bible says and the evidence around us.
As far as the great deep goes, the water is there, even now.......
thanks!
Common sense. And the Bible (if you believe.) Assuming one eschews both the Bible account of life AND common sense, just how does one "presuppose" that Life created Itself out of thin air? That it also "evolves" into altogether different species, altering its DNA, its cellular systems, and embedded "intelligence/instinct" of breathing, eating, waste disposal, reproduction, and...evolving BETTER than previous versions?
Fake science backed by ZERO proof and hoaxes receive NO slack from me -- especially when it's taught as dogmatic "fact." That's called a Cult.
Wouldn't the Genesis flood put out the volcanos? So where did the ash come from?
Did they carbon date that cassette yet? I’m guessing ‘89. They found one with yellow colored carbon remains and a small tube of graphite sticking through one of the plastic holes a couple of years ago. It was an excellent specimen but they still don’t know what the graphite was used for.
Put out a volcano?
The salt flats were created by the water.
There is no outlet, so just like the Dead Sea, as the water evaporates the salt is left behind.
Please peruse this site for free online info OR, you can buy a very reasonably priced book. You will be amazed. Many scientists have produced the information that utterly eviscerates the theory of evolutionism from A-Z while buoying Creationism and the Young Earth -- just as has is scriptural. evolution-facts.org
There is no outlet, so just like the Dead Sea, as the water evaporates the salt is left behind.
That's a simple, logical explanation, isn't it?
Yeah. Cover them with flood water and that tends to cut down on the ash and cool them off to the poin that they're dormant.
God deliberately created life that could not evolve. That is why we have the genetic code, to lock out all possibility of change that was not pre-programmed in the code.
A quick look at the USGS topographic maps would shown him that the water was trapped.
But there was a whole hekkuvalot coded into each species’ genes to enable adapting to a changing earth.
There isn't enough of a depression there to hold the amount of water it would take to dissolve that much salt.
Volcanoes go ‘dormant’ when the plates lock up in the area, which reduces the heat of friction that is generatwed by the plates grinding together.
Bible:
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth,
Science:
Volcanic gases undergo a tremendous increase in volume when magma rises to the Earth's surface and erupts. For example, consider what happens if one cubic meter of 900°C rhyolite magma containing five percent by weight of dissolved water were suddenly brought from depth to the surface. The one cubic meter of magma now would occupy a volume of 670 m3 as a mixture of water vapor and magma at atmospheric pressure (Sparks et. al., 1997)! The one meter cube at depth would increase to 8.75 m on each side at the surface. Such enormous expansion of volcanic gases, primarily water, is the main driving force of explosive eruptions.
The most abundant gas typically released into the atmosphere from volcanic systems is water vapor (H2O), followed by carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). Volcanoes also release smaller amounts of others gases, including hydrogen sulfide (H2S), hydrogen (H2), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen chloride (HCL), hydrogen fluoride (HF), and helium (He).
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/
Did Moses know volcanoes released water or was he just lucky?
I'll argue theories and evidence. If this is a theological debate, it's in the wrong forum.
There was a 2000 foot barrier for a while, that was broken down well after the hot water of the flood evaporated.
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