Nice try.
Henry Morris does not have a "PhD in Geology". He has a PhD in Hydraulic Engineering.
Jon Covey does not have a "PhD in Geology". He is a certified "Medical Technologist".
Anita Millen does not have a "PhD in Geology". She is a physician.
Leonard Brand does not have a "PhD in Geology". He has a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Harold Coffin does not have a "PhD in Geology". He has a PhD in Zoology.
Robert Brown does not have a "PhD in Geology". He has a PhD in Biology.
Arial Roth does not have a "PhD in Geology". He has a PhD in Zoology.
Steve Austin (author of your first quote) actually *does* have a PhD in Geology, but all by himself he does not qualify as "several Creationist PHD's in Geology", and two of your three quotes aren't by geologists at all, contrary to the impression you're trying to give.
that answers many of your questions about tracks and burrowings.
No it doesn't. Hand-wavings and straw-man evasions do not answer the questions that were posed.
Below it, I'll quote some key excerpts.
On Burrowings
"Modern marine and terrestrial organisms are 'biological bulldozers' which so thoroughly rework and burrow recent sediments that stratification is often completely homogenized...
"Often", not always. It critically depends upon the nature and depth of the strata and the number and kind of the burrowers. However, watch Austin's sleight-of-hand as he attempts to mislead the reader into turning "often" into "always":
The intensity of burrowing in sediments on land and under the sea causes us to ask a fundamental question. How could any laminae be preserved in the strata record if sediment accumulates very slowly and is in contact with burrowing organisms for so long?
Because "often" is not "always". In order for Austin to express mock surprise that "any laminae" could be "preserved in the strata record", he has to pretend that he doesn't know that while some soils are "often" well-churned by burrowers (such as my garden bed after years of earthworm activity), many others aren't (such layers of sediments too deep for their depth to be fully "bulldozed" by animals of various types, those rapidly covered by floods, landslides, etc., and those in areas where burrowers live but are not highly abundant enough to work over every cubic inch of sediment, etc. etc. etc.)
For example, although there are many lake-bed burrowers, annual laminae (layers) which have been laid down over the years (and actually OBSERVED being laid down gradually) remain mostly undisturbed and neatly layered, so obviously the presence of burrowers is no real impediment to the formation and continued existence of neatly layered sediments. I don't know how in the hell creationist Dr. Austin could have a PhD in Geology and *not* be fully aware of this, so the most likely explanation for his "forgetting" to mention this fact which torpedoes his "point" in the above paragraph is that he's just being purposely dishonest. But then what else would we expect from the guy who submitted dishonestly prepared samples to a radiometric dating laboratory in order to dishonestly try to discredit the accuracy of radiometric dating?
Also note Austin's straw-man ploy: He asks how layering could be preserved "if sediment accumulates very slowly and is in contact with burrowing organisms for so long". Actually there are *two* straw-men tricks in this sentence. The first is that (as Austin well knowns, he's just pretending he doesn't) sediments are not always laid down "very slowly". While the *average* deposition rate is quite slow, the deposition rate of any *given* layer can be quite fast, due to sandstorms, flooding, landslides, rapid erosion, etc. No real-world geologist (as opposed to the cartoon-version the creationists describe which don't actually exist) believes that the geologic column was built up exclusively gradually. Austin knows this, he just pretends he doesn't.
The second straw-man trick is in the phrase, "in contact with burrowing organisms for so long". Um, *how* long exactly? Again, Austin tries to mislead the reader into presuming that this means that as every allegedly microscopically thin layer (false, see above) is added to the geologic column, it lays there on the surface for long spans of time before the next one arrives. Nonsense. Clearly there will be countless cases where deposition was rapid, and/or one surface will be soon overlaid by another. I don't know how the creationist readership of this pap can be so gullible, but anyone who watches the news (or lives in California...) should know that landslides, mudslides, tsunamis, earthquakes, sandstorms, floods, etc. can and do frequently bury the current landscape with a new layer of mud, silt, sand, or dirt.
Furthermore, while it's probably true that animal burrows will seldom be found in those areas which *do* happen to experience nothing but slow, gradual sedimentation for long periods of time, there are ways in which burrows can *still* be preserved (albeit less often than in areas of sudden coverage). For example, a particularly deep animal burrow might experience a cave-in, preserving the burrow several feet under the surface, and be unlikely to be re-excavated by another animal even in the long time it takes for another few feet of sediment eventually accumulates and puts it beyond reach of any further disturbance.
Another method is a change in climate (again, even in a slow-deposition region) which causes the region to be abandoned by a deep-burrower species (leaving their burrows abandoned as well), and replaced by more shallow-burrowing replacements more comfortable in the new climate. The shallow-burrowing activity will soon collapse the upper sections of the older deep burrows, preserving them in the strata to be discovered by geologists eons later.
And so on.
Again, Austin must already know this material. Why is he misrepresenting it? And why do his readers lap it up despite its obvious holes (no pun intended)?
Some evolutionists proposed that the deep-burrowing activity of organisms had not yet evolved when most Grand Canyon strata were deposited. (Thayer, 1979) However, this opinion was strongly challenged by more recent investigators who document deep-burrow structures even in Cambrian strata. (Miller; Sheehan, 1984)." [Austin, p. 31]
Straw man -- even if deep-burrowers existed from the very start, that would not invalidate the many methods by which burrows would still be preserved in the strata, although that's the impression Austin *wants* the reader to draw...
Furthermore, Austin "forgets" to mention that many parts of the geologic column have *multiple* layers of burrows *overlaying* each other in *widely* vertically separated layers. This shoots the whole "they musta been buried in The One Big Flood" theory all to hell, and yet again points unmistakably to the "many layers laid down over each other separated by long periods of time" scenario...
On raindrop impressions
"Related to animal tracks that have been thus preserved are the many instances of preservation of ancient ripple marks or raindrop impressions. But that such ephemeral markings could have been preserved in such great numbers and in such perfection is truly a remarkable phenomenon and one for which there is little if any modern parallel.
Horse manure.
It is a matter of common experience that impressions of this sort in soft mud or sand are very quickly obliterated.
Usually, yeah. Not always, and that's the point the author of this quote (Morris) is trying to sweep under the rug. Even today you can sometimes see raindrop (or other delicate impressions) being buried without destruction by blowing sands, for example, I've seen this happen myself at the beach. And clearly a similar process preserved the many raindrop impressions "fossilized" in the Coconino strata in the Grand Canyon, among other places. Is there some reason Morris is trying to pretend that these things don't actually happen? Other than the reason that he's lying in order to try to con his audience, I mean...
It seems clear that the only way in which such prints could be preserved as fossils is by means of some chemical action permitting rapid lithification [rockification] and some aqueous action permitting rapid burial.
ROFL! Yeah, sure, the "only" way...
Some sudden and catastrophic action is again necessary for any reasonable explanation of the phenomena.
Complete twaddle. On the contrary, a "sudden and catostropic action" would be almost certain to wash away the delicate raindrop impressions, as would any "rapid" kind of "some chemical action" (unspecified -- Morris is waving his hands very frantically here) which would obviously necessitate some "chemical" being flushed through the sands at a fast clip, again destroying the delicate impressions. Nice try.
And YET AGAIN, we see the spectacle of a creationist "forgetting" to remind his audience that such impressions are frequently found *overlaid* veritically, with one layer of raindrop impressions appearing several feet *above* another. I'd just *love* to know how this "sudden and catostropic action" could "suddenly" preserve raindrops on a sandy surface, *then* allow a few more feet (containing *multiple* layers itself) of new sediment to be stacked on top, then *more* raindrops to delicately impress themselves upon this new, smooth, non-turbulent surface, and then *again* be "suddenly and catostrophically" preserved in some [wave hands here] manner, then *more* layers, then *more* raindrops, etc. Nice try. Do the creationists even *think* before they write this pap?
Again, the clear and obvious explanation for these observations is that raindrops landed on the sandy surface of an arid region, and then baked to a fragile crust by the Sun (again, you can see this happen on the beach when the conditions are good), only to be covered by fine blowing sand, then later (perhaps much later, no rush) after more sand has accumulated, more raindrops manage to get preserved, etc., over many hundreds or thousands of years, scores of independent layers (many with raindrop or animal track impressions) end up stacked like a sandy layer cake, eventually to be lithified by time and pressure (of subsequent layers) to be someday discovered by geologists.
On Tracks
However, the Flood didn't overrun the entire earth immediately after the ark door was sealed. We shouldn't expect all land animals and birds to get wiped out by the first encroachments of ocean water on the land. They wouldn't be as vigorous as later inundations. The Flood waters ebbed and flowed, increasing in height day by day until finally the land was submerged. Prior to that time, the deposition of marine layers over land layers would not prevent animals from running, walking, slithering or flying across the topmost layers later on. Indeed, most animals would try to escape the Flood by heading for higher ground, and animals living at higher elevations prior to the Flood would also have been spared. These would later be able to make their tracks in the mud left from earlier wave deposits.
That's a sweet fairy tale and all, but again it "forgets" to mention -- or even try to explain -- how and why tracks are found *LAYERED* through the geologic column, and not just on the "one" geologic horizon which was allegedly the surface of the planet at the time the Flood(tm) hit.
How, exactly, do burrows, tracks, raindrops, etc. get preserved on *multiple* layers (and often displaying different climates) which are *vertically stacked* through the geologic column if they're done by *one* big-ol' flood, eh?
I can't believe there are people who lap this stuff up uncritically.
And I can't believe that you haven't yet taken our advice to try to learn some *science*, from *science* sources, instead of filling your head with just this sort of "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain -- or all that other evidence which torpedoes our lame-ass attempt to explain just this *one* thing we're focusing on right now" nonsense.
Creationist sources are almost without exception misinformation and propaganda. Your heros are lying to you (sometimes directly, sometimes by omission). Why do you keep trying to fill your head with it? Afraid some actual knowledge might sneak in otherwise and challenge your cherished preconceptions?