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Flower Fossils 100,000,000 Years Out of Place? (article)
Institute for Creation Research ^ | Oct. 11, 2013 | Brian Thomas

Posted on 10/16/2013 7:50:38 AM PDT by fishtank

Flower Fossils 100,000,000 Years Out of Place?

by Brian Thomas, M.S. *

European scientists have now discovered flowering plant fossils in rock layers supposedly 100,000,000 years older than expected.1 This new finding challenges conventional evolutionary assumptions as scientists struggle to account for what they interpret as an enormous time gap.

Publishing in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science, Peter Hochuli and Susanne Feist-Burkhardt described fossil-pollen grains recovered from a drill core in the north of Switzerland.1

They wrote, "In this paper we focus on fossil evidence, presenting the so far oldest angiosperm-like pollen from the Middle Triassic (ca. 243Ma), a record that predates the generally accepted first occurrence of angiosperm pollen by more than 100Ma [million years]."1

The researchers' distinct color photographs show pollen-grain features diagnostic of flowering plants, not gymnosperms like palms or cycads. "The described pollen grains show all the essential features of angiosperm pollen," according to the Frontiers report.2

And instead of the few primitive-looking pollens that evolutionary scientists were expecting to find in lower rock layers, the researchers discovered many fully-formed pollens of different but well-developed types. The study authors wrote of the "sudden appearance" of angiosperm fossils "on most continents as well as the rapid radiation of numerous clades [which] implies a considerable diversification within approximately 3.5Ma or else it represents a wave of immigration from other areas."1 In other words, they had difficulty explaining how such a wide variety of flowering plants suddenly occur in this Triassic layer.

They encountered an equal challenge in trying to decipher why, after this sudden burst of supposed evolutionary creativity, angiosperms disappeared for 100 million years. The study authors wrote, "If we accepted the monosulcate [e.g., angiosperm] pollen from the Middle and Late Triassic as evidence for a pre-Cretaceous origin of crown group [ancestral] angiosperms the lack of fossil records throughout the Jurassic would remain difficult to explain."1

To account for this difficulty, they invoked speculative "stem relatives," writing, "Considering the hundred million year gap in the record as well as morphological differences to the earliest Cretaceous we suggest that these pollen grains most likely represent stem relatives of the angiosperms."1

Yet, are these conclusions based on scientific observation? It's one thing to assert that these fossils must represent evolutionary ancestors of modern plants because they are millions of years older than the accepted age, but it's entirely circular to then assert that the angiosperm fossils must have formed millions of years before the accepted age simply because conventional evolution tells us plants evolved over long ages.

The Bible's record of all the major phases of world history shows no trace of a Triassic deep-time epoch and offers a better explanation for these fossils.

First, the Bible doesn't rely on circular reasoning or speculations but on "eyewitnesses" who wrote "words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and…the apostles of the Lord and Savior."3,4

Second, Scripture asserts that angiosperms existed alongside all other plants (including gymnosperms) and animals from the very start of creation—reporting instant creation of each plant kind. This exactly fits these fossils' sudden appearance. Third, it describes in detail a worldwide Flood capable of preserving life's traces in fossil forms. And in that context, Triassic flora and fauna do not represent a separate time but distinct ecosystems buried by sediment-laden Flood waters.

Finally, the Bible's timeline shows a creation that is thousands, not billions, of years old, erasing any need to explain why pollen grains buried deep in fossil layers look so similar to living herbs and flowers today.

References

Hochuli, P. A. and S. Feist-Burkhardt. 2013. Angiosperm-like pollen and Afropollis from the Middle Triassic (Anisian) of the Germanic Basin (Northern Switzerland). Frontiers in Plant Science. 4 (344): 1-14.

See Hochuli and Feist-Burkhardt, Frontiers in Plant Science 4 (344): 1-14. The team compared gymnosperm pollen grains found at the same site to show "a distinct contrast to the exine structure of the columellate, angiosperm-like grains." 2 Peter 1:16. 2 Peter 3:2.

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on October 11, 2013.


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KEYWORDS: creation; flower; fossils
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To: whattajoke

“Skulls classified as erectus are considered by evolutionists to exhibit key characteristics that differentiate them from modern humans. Key characteristics include: prominent browridges; insignificant chin; large mandible; forwardly projecting jaws; a flat, receding forehead; a long and low-vaulted cranium; occipital torus; relatively large teeth; relatively large facial skeleton; and a thick-walled braincase.77 A major problem for evolutionists is that many (if not all) of the above-mentioned features, which supposedly differentiate erectus from modern humans, also occur in modern humans. This is illustrated in recent native Australians by the prominent browridges of cranium 3596 from Euston,78 and the closer affinity of the modern human cranium from Australia, WLH-50, with the Ngandong erectus, compared to modern human late Pleistocene Africans and Levantines.79 According to Shreeve,

‘While some of the early modern humans from Australia look much like people today, others bear all the markings of a more robust kind of human, with thick skull bones, swollen browridges, and huge teeth, even bigger than those of Homo erectus in some specimens.’80
Examples of other typical erectus-type features in modern humans, such as flattish receding forehead and insignificant chin development, can be seen in a photograph of a living native Australian, published in the late Victorian age, when there was appalling racism within anthropology.81 Native Australians are as human and ‘modern’ as anyone else, and so the above erectus-type features cannot be considered ‘primitive’.

Stringer and Gamble, advocates of the Out of Africa theory of modern human origins, referred to the presence of the erectus-type features in Australian Aborigines as perhaps ‘apparent evolutionary reversals’,82 triggering a heated response from a group stating ‘such statements and their implications are unfortunate’.83 Controversy aside, the statement does illustrate the chameleon-like nature of evolution theory, which appears plastic enough to accommodate almost any scenario. Clearly, there is no valid basis for rejecting erectus fossils as being fully human because of skull features that some evolutionists regard as being ‘primitive’ characters. “

http://creation.com/fossil-evidence-for-alleged-apemenpart-1-the-genus-homo


61 posted on 10/17/2013 8:45:26 PM PDT by Greetings_Puny_Humans (If anyone tells you it's a cookbook, don't believe them.)
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To: fishtank
Here's the formula.

1000 (years) = 1 (day)
1 (day) = 1000 (years)

Tehillim 90

Say you want to know the age of the 6000 years of human history...

First plug in the lunar year numbers. After all the Hebrew word for year is Shana, Shin Nun Hei.

Gematria of Shana is 355

Shin = 300
Nun = 50
Hei =5

Which is the number of days in the year, the lunar year...

A lunar calendar is a calendar that is based on cycles of the lunar phase. Because there are about twelve lunations (synodic months) in a solar year, this period (354.37 days) is sometimes referred to as a lunar year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_calendar

So: 354.37 x 1000 (day) = 354370 x 7000 (1 week) = 2480590000 x 6 (millennium) = 14,883,540,000 years.

Note: This criteria differs from the scientific age. The scientific age measures from the big bang to the present day, my calculations are from the Tzimtzum to 6 millinum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzimtzum

Still confused see: Genesis 2 ''but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Adam did not die the 'day' he ate from the tree of knowledge. He lived 930 years.

For more background See: The Missing Link in the Debate, Isibiel Myrna Cohen
http://www.yashanet.com/library/missing_link.htm

62 posted on 10/18/2013 11:15:49 AM PDT by Jeremiah Jr (EL CHaI)
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Comment #63 Removed by Moderator

To: R7 Rocket

Do not bring disputes from prior threads to new ones - and do not make the thread “about” another Freeper. That is also “making it personal.”


64 posted on 10/18/2013 7:14:40 PM PDT by Religion Moderator
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