To: Fester Chugabrew
A simple comparison between animals of equal size but different epochs quickly puts paid to any concept of hydrographic sorting put forth by creationist types. For instance, the largest land mammal to ever walk the Earth, Indricotherium massed about 20 tonnes, which makes it larger than all but the largest sauropod dinosaurs. However, remains of this animal are never found mixed with the latter, nor are they found deeper in the the fossil record than relatively smaller dinosaurs, such as the four tonne triceratops or the five tonne T. Rex. However, before you claim that this means that heavier animals settled much more slowly, Indricotherium is also not found deeper than the 50-150 tonne sauropods who were contemporaries of the aforementioned dinosaurs and are found mixed with those critters.
1,153 posted on
12/02/2004 1:00:48 PM PST by
Junior
(FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
To: Junior
I appreciate your efforts in describing what you believe transpired during the creation of the fossil record, but your paragraph reads with difficulty. Could you possibly reread what you wrote and try to put it a little more clearly?
In attempting to understand what we're looking at, if it is a given that the fossil record was formed largely under aquatic conditions, one should take into account more factors than size and weight. Abilities to cope with the environment, for example. Stratigraphy as effected by currents. Furthermore, there is more to density than overall size and weight. But, as a general rule, smaller things, when acted upon solely by gravity, have a tendency to sift downard between large objects, just like filling a jar of marbles with sand. Thus I would expect to find a preponderance of tiny, amoeba-type fossils in the lower strata.
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