The Geologic Column and the Fossil Record - Chapter 2
Many evolutionists are recognizing the lack of real evidence for the geologic column and the lack of support in the fossil record for evolution. The geologic column was developed in the early 1800's. It is based upon the evolutionary assumption of "uniformitarianism" proposed by James Hutton (1726-1797) and popularized by Charles Lyell (1797-1875). Uniformitarianism held that "the present geologic processes were the key to the past". In other words there was no cataclysmic world re-shaping flood as God had stated, but instead long ages of slow geologic processes which laid down the sediments and the fossil record. At the same time, William (Strata) Smith (1769-1839) was developing the idea of "guide" or "index" fossils which were used to determine where layers would fit on the geologic chart or column.
Although not the only founders, Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin became two of the main "fathers of evolution". Lyell popularized the idea of vast ages and Darwin in 1859 with his book "Origin of Species" added the biological side of evolution. The chart itself, in present form, shows sedimentary layers arranged in order of the type of fossils found in each layer. The order is based on the theory of evolution where life evolved from simple forms to more complex ones over millions of years. If a layer contains simple fossils it is placed at the bottom of the chart signifying an older layer. If a layer has more complex fossils such as mammals it is placed at the top of the chart signifying a young layer because mammals supposedly evolved last. As far as the physical evidence goes you cannot find this complete column anywhere on earth. Missing layers are theorized as having eroded away. Yet generally there is a continuous contact line from one layer of sediment to another with no evidence of erosion. Many times you can find supposed older layers on top of younger layers completely out of sequence.
While Charles Darwin expected the fossil record to provide numerous intermediary forms as life evolved from one kind to another the record after 130 years is basically zero. Listen to what some of the top paleontologists have to say about the absence of transitional forms. Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History says that if he had found a transitional form, fossil or living he would have included them in his book. Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology and Paleontology at Harvard University says that all paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.
What is found in the sediments and the fossil record is a record of living things generally buried in their natural ecosystem. Also found are fossils buried in graveyards with other fossils of abnormal circumstance. The creation model would have predicted both types of occurrence. In a worldwide flood the first things to be rapidly buried and fossilized would be the least mobile creatures. Clams, trilobites, nautilus' etc. would generally be buried en mass. Animals which could reach the highest ground or were strong swimmers would have survived the longest. They eventually would have drowned, floated and rotted rather than be fossilized.
What Makes a Fossil?
When you think about fossilization the evolutionary theory of long ages with slow burial and a gradual transformation just does not fit the facts. Anytime an organism dies it immediately begins to decay, scavengers come and in a short period of time there is nothing left. In order to get a fossil you need special circumstances. The main need is rapid burial which the creation model predicts as part of the flood. From here you can add superheated water, chemicals and sediment due to the internal meltdown of the earth. The recipe provided by the flood is perfect for fossil creation. You may have heard the old coke can story used by evolutionists where the can is slowly buried and fossilized over a long period of time. This example is rather deceptive because if you substitute a living organism for the coke can you will never get a fossil.
Fossil Graveyards
Fossil graveyards have been found all over the earth. In Agate Springs, Nebraska a fossil graveyard of around 9,000 animals was found buried in "alluvial deposits" i.e. water laid sedimentary rock. The remains of rhinoceros', camels, giant wild boars, birds, plants, trees, sea shells and fish are mixed and intermingled in great confusion. Consider the Cumberland Bone Cave in the state of Maryland. In one cave was found a graveyard of animals hopelessly intermingled, covered and preserved by a flood deposit of gravel and rocks. The graveyard contained wolverines, bears, tapirs, ground hogs, rabbits, coyotes, beaver muskrat, mastodon, elk, crocodile, pumas etc. What event could have made such strange bedfellows?
In Como Bluffs, Wyoming a dinosaur graveyard was found which was seven miles long littered with tons of bones. Several miles north of Como Bluffs a dinosaur quarry was found which yielded 483 specimens weighing 146,000 pounds. The Cleveland Lloyd quarry in Utah has yielded over 12,000 bones of 70 different animals and 10 different kinds of dinosaurs. At Dinosaur National Monument near Vernal, Utah twenty complete skeletons as well as bones and parts of skeletons representing nearly 300 individual dinosaurs were extracted. There are similar graveyards in the Gobi desert of Mongolia, in Africa, in the foothills of the Himalayas, in South America, in Europe, in short, all over the world.
Consider the frozen soils of Alaska and Siberia. In the frozen graveyard of central Alaska were found bears, wolf, fox, badger, wolverine, saber-tooth cat, jaguar, lynx, mammoth, mastodon, horses, camel, antelope, bisons, caribou, moose, elk, sheep, musk-ox, yak, ground sloth, and several rodents buried and frozen in great number. Henry Howorth wrote about the fossil graveyards of Siberia in his book called "The Mammoth and The Flood" published in 1887. Think about a 2,000 mile long graveyard of mammoths, bison, horses, cattle, sheep, rhinoceros' as well as other unidentified remains buried and frozen in water laid sediments. Howorth estimated over 5 million mammoths alone.
Consider the fossil fish graveyards of California and Great Britain. The shale beds of California are estimated to contain more than a billion fish of 6 to 8 inches in length. In the "old red sandstone" of Great Britain massive quantities of fish are buried in an area covering thousands of square miles. They are buried together in contorted and convulsive positions as the flowing mud entombed them. Think about this fossil for a minute. A fossil skeleton of a baleen whale was found in a quarry in Lompoc, California. What makes this fossil of special interest is the position it was buried in. The whale was found to be standing on its tail! Did the whale stand on its tail for millions of years while the sediments slowly built up around it?
Coal Formation
Most people have the evolutionary induced idea that coal formed from swampy peat bogs over millions of years. A trip out to the coal fields in Australia reveals a different story. Investigation of the physical evidence in the coal fields of Australia reveals that they are the fossilized remains of pre-flood vegetation. Examination of coal under an electron microscope clearly reveals plant remains which have undergone a metamorphosis. Dr. Andrew Snelling of Answers in Genesis has studied the coal beds of SE Australia in the Latrobe Valley. His observations and conclusions per the next 3 paragraphs pointed to the transport and burial of pre-flood vegetation in water laden sediments rather than any peat swamp growth in place theory.
When you visit some of the open pit coal mines of Australia you will witness a number of peculiar things. All over the pit are water sprinklers keeping the coal wet. Investigation proves that the coal is little more than a mass of rotting vegetation which will spontaneously ignite if not watered down.
But even more interesting is what is found in and through the coal layers. In many places are found petrified tree logs vertically penetrating numerous coal seams. If the coal was laid down in a swamp over millions of years how did the petrified tree logs come about? Besides this, within the coal layers were found many fossilized pine logs and stumps and a continuous pollen layer. Think about it, do pine trees grow in swamps? How did a continuous pollen layer arise?
An important clue was observed. The coal sat on a layer of white clay which had decomposed from volcanic ash. Where was the soil from the swamp? The answer becomes obvious when flood conditions are thought through. The coal never was formed by a swamp. During the flood you had volcanic activity, vegetation was ripped up by the moving flood waters, deposited en mass and covered by sediments. The moving waters had gathered and sorted the pollen and laid it down in a continuous layer. The physical evidence shows coal as pre-flood vegetation. According to the Genesis account it was formed rapidly not slowly over millions of years.
When we consider its rapid formation we can refer to hard scientific support. Coal has been formed rapidly in the lab through simulating the right conditions. The experiment involved boiling wood chips in slightly acidic water combined with white clay. After 28 days the wood chips took on the consistency and chemical composition of coal. The conditions used in the lab are precisely the conditions present during Noah's flood. The internal meltdown of the earth superheated the waters, chemicals and decay of vegetation would have made the water acidic and the tremendous volcanism provided the white clay.
Sediment Formation
The geologic column purports to represent the formation of sediments over millions of years. However our evidence of rapid coal formation contradicts this idea. Throughout the world you find coal layers mixed with sediment layers. The coal and sediment layers in the creation account were laid down at the same time during and after Noah's flood.
The geologic column alleges to cover earth history from the Cambrian age (570 million years ago) where simple life forms began. From here life forms supposedly became more complex until man appeared on the scene 1-2 million years ago. But when we look at the physical evidence we see another story. Evidence for man's existence should only be found in the most recent layers according to the geologic column. However again there is evidence that contradicts this. Evidence of man's existence is found in almost every layer of the geologic column. In Cambrian strata (570 m.y.) there was found sandal and footprints and iron bands, Ordovician strata (500 m.y.) a sandal print and metal hammer, Silurian strata (435 m.y.) a human skeleton, Pennsylvanian (318 m.y.) a iron pot, tools and a gold chain, Jurassic (192.5 m.y.) leg and foot bones and footprint, Cretaceous (136 m.y.) human skeleton, shoe prints, and cast metal nodules and on and on. This is only a small sample of what has been found proving man's existence throughout the geologic column.
We've looked at some of the evidence which refutes sediments slowly building up over millions of years. Consider for a moment the eruption at Mt. St. Helens. On May 18, 1980 the dormant volcano erupted but not in the usual manner. Mt. St. Helen's erupted sideways through a bulge on its north side. It literally blew down the heavily forested area over many square miles. Tremendous mud flows devastated the area and flowed into the north fork of the Toutle river which flows west to the Pacific. Over the next two years the inner cone was building up and erupted again in 1982 sending forth more mud flows. These flows cut a 125 foot deep canyon through the previous mud flow sediments as well as older eruption formations. When scientists went back in they found a miniature grand canyon system created in less than a week with a small creek flowing at the bottom. What they observed were canyon walls of finely laminated sediments.
Catastrophic forces at Mt. St. Helens had created sediments in a matter of days not over millions of years as evolutionary theory supposes. This is entirely consistent with the description in Genesis where all the fountains of the deep were broken up. Extensive volcanism, superheated water and mud flows are made to order with the internal meltdown of the earth.
So how does one view the Grand Canyon then? Did the Colorado River slowly cut the Grand Canyon over millions of years? Or did the Grand Canyon capture the Colorado River after catastrophic events had completed most of the erosion of the canyon during post flood events? A couple of conditions post flood would point to rapid erosion of the Grand Canyon in a short period of time. Two post flood conditions could account for this erosion, one, flood waters running off the continent, two, bodies of water temporarily captured in soft sediment basins north of the Grand Canyon. The whole continent post flood, for a time, would be composed of soft water laden sediments. Basins of captured water if breached would slice through the soft Grand Canyon sediments and carve out most of the canyon in a very short amount of time. The aftermath of this event would then capture the Colorado River.
Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs seem to fascinate everybody. Every time there is a new fossil discovery the media runs a big story emphasizing its 64 million year old age. The movie Jurassic Park begins with the line "64 million years ago". Evolutionary dogma has dinosaurs living millions of years before man came on the scene. Let's examine the dinosaur in relation to the creation model, historical accounts and the physical evidence. The word "dinosaur" is a Latin word meaning "terrible lizard". It was coined in 1841 by an Englishman named Richard Owen. The corresponding word used in Greek is "dragon" meaning "reptilian like being". In the Old Testament the Hebrew word used is "tanniyn" meaning "a marine or land monster". Because the term dinosaur is a relatively new name we usually find the name dragon, behemoth, whale or leviathan used to describe them in the Bible.
In Genesis 1 v 21 it says God created great whales (tanniyn) on the fifth day. Genesis 1 v 24-26 describes God creating the land animals which would include the dinosaurs on the sixth day. Man was also created on the sixth day. It becomes important to realize that the creation account has man and dinosaur living together at the same time. This is in direct conflict with evolutionary dogma. The Old Testament mentions dragons (dinosaurs) a number of times in the post-flood account of history.
The book of Job chapter 40 v 15-24 describes a creature called Behemoth. Reading the description reveals he has a tail like a cedar tree and legs like pillars of bronze. Footnotes in various Bibles suggest this might be a hippo or an elephant however neither have tails like a cedar tree. A straightforward analysis seems to reveal that the Bible is describing a giant sauropod dinosaur.
Job chapter 41 describes the leviathan. The description is astounding. In verse 7 man is unable to penetrate its skin with iron spears. Verse 14 says its teeth are large and fierce looking. Verse 15 says his scales are impenetrable. Verse 18-21 says it can spew a burning chemical spray from out of its mouth like fire. Verses 26-28 says iron and brass weapons and arrows are as straw and stubble to him. Verse 31 says he makes the sea to boil like a pot when he moves through it. The description here appears to be of a ocean/land dinosaur which is fearless indeed.
Job lived after the flood and these two Biblical descriptions confirm that man and dinosaurs lived together after the flood. From the creation model perspective there would have been young juvenile dinosaurs taken on the Ark not full grown ones. But with the pristine pre-flood world destroyed, dinosaurs would of had a tougher time surviving due to harsh post flood conditions and hunting of them. It is thought that most dinosaurs went extinct by about 1,500 AD. An old science book from Europe called "Historia Animalium" states that dragons were not extinct until the 1500's. The dragons had become extremely rare and small by then.
But until that time humans and dinosaurs would have lived together. And we do have evidence of this of which I have only provided a few examples. Ancient peoples all over the world have accounts of dinosaur-like creatures roaming the earth. Some accounts over time have become embellished or exaggerated. However many accounts are descriptive, straight-forward and told in a factual manner.
There have been Indian cave drawings which look uncannily like an Edmontosaurus and an Apatosaurus.
Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899) was the preeminent American Paleontologist with credit for 80 finding new species of Dinosaurs. The restoration above was originally classed as Claosaurus but later recognized as Edmontosaurus.
Apatosaurus
In 2006 Dr Donald Patton and Dr Dennis Swift travelled to Cambodia to inspect
and ancient temple that had a carving of a Stegosaurus on its wall. Did the
Cambodian artist have a live one to base his carving on or his own paleontology
department in 1186AD?
Fresh soft and stretchy Triceratops horn tissue which did not require decalcification! Begs some thought about the age of these creatures?
Discovery by Mark Armitage in 2012 from the Hell Creek formation of Montana. His site linked below. https://dstri.org - Dinosaur Soft Tissue Research Institute
Further evidence that man and dinosaur lived at the same time has been discovered in the Paluxy River area near Glen Rose, Texas. Excavations have revealed 57 human footprints, 197 dinosaur footprints and a fossilized human finger. Human footprints and dinosaur footprints together absolutely refute the evolutionary dogma that dinosaurs lived over 60 million years before man. These human footprints right along side dinosaur footprints have been cross-sectioned and clearly reveal the pressure deformations below the footprint. This would be expected with a human walking through a soft mud flat. In fact in some of the dinosaur footprints they have found human footprints within the dinosaur print.
Unfossilized Dinosaur Bones? How Old can this stuff be?
In the Liscomb bone beds of Alaska scientists have collected fresh unfossilized dinosaur bones. They found numerous dinosaur bones sticking out of the permafrost. The bone portion above the ground was fossilized but the deeper they dug the less the bone was fossilized. Surely a fresh unfossilized bone would not have survived for 64 million years intact. It would have disintegrated in all the supposed climate changes that evolution postulates. It seems more logical and reasonable that a fresh unfossilized dinosaur bone would survive for a few thousand years after the flood if in a permanently frozen state. Remember the fossil graveyards of Siberia with an estimated 5 million mammoths buried. You can add some dinosaurs to that scenario.
Dinosaur Fossil Yields Pliable Soft Tissue and Blood Vessels??
In the March 25, 2005 issue of "Science" it was reported that Dr. Mary Schweitzer and her team found Dino soft tissue and pliable blood vessels after the hind limb of a T-REX was cracked open in order to transport it from the field. The T-Rex fossil (allegedly 68 million years old) was found in the Hell Creek Formation of Montana within a soft (read porous) sandstone. The fossil was found in a "disarticulated" state and the sandstone was interpreted as "estuarine" in origin. Don't be dismayed by the technical words. Disarticulated means the fossil had been broken apart and estaurine means the fossil had been found in sediments sorted and laid down by flood waters. Kind of reads better without the technical words eh! How would your body stay together being pounded by mud flows in fast moving water!
Anyways, it was quite a surprise to find soft tissue and pliable blood vessels and possibly some blood cell remains in an allegedly 68 million year fossil. It was thought that at the outside the tissue and blood vessels could have lasted no more than 100,000 years (although I would question even this number). As you might guess, quite a contradiction to the evolutionary religion. But on the other hand fits the creation model of most dinosaurs perishing in flood laid deposits some 4,400 years ago very well indeed!
A: The arrow shows that the demineralized tissue fragment is flexible and resilient and, when stretched returns to its original shape. Which defies belief that this is really millions of years old. B: Parts of demineralized bone which could endure repeated hydration and dehydration and remain elastic C: Parts of the demineralized bone showing fibrous nature which should not exist if this fossil was millions of years old
Photo credits: Dr Mary Schweitzer Soft flexible dinosaur blood vessel and cellular remains within
In brief summary the sediments, coal, fossils and dinosaurs fit remarkably well with the eyewitness account that we have in the book of Genesis. The Creation Model with the perfect pristine pre-flood world to the fallen flood ravaged one we live in today fits very well indeed.
Some Reference Material for Fossils, Graveyards, and Dinosaurs
- 1. The Deluge Story in Stone by Byron C. Nelson published by Bethany Fellowship, Inc.
- 2. The Flood by Alfred M. Rehwinkel published by Concordia Publishing House
- 3. Dinosaurs by Mace Baker published by New Century Books, Redding, Calif. Author's address, 2620 Cecelia Court, Redding, Calif., 96002