Creationism and the Problem of Biogeography

[I_Leatherman]

Orogeny:

Proof positive, no doubt.

Living proof, you might say.

Ok, say we go with your scenario. 20,000,000 varves in 5,000 years comes out to 4,000 varves a year (assuming that the deposition is still occurring, which, of course, it is not) or roughly 11 varves per day. I have a hard time accepting those numbers. Do you have any evidence what so ever that these numbers are realistic?

Well Orogeny, 5000 yrs is your number not mine.
Could you do something for me, make sure 20,000,000 varves is correct. Is it paired varves or individual layers.

Could you also give me an example of an existing glacial lake which has been creating annual varves continuously for the last 20 million years, or if you know of any lake which is 20 million years old.

What is your criteria for “perfect”?

Something [lifeform] which existed long enough to produce a fossil record of it-self.

Where did you cut and paste that from?

It was the distilled essence of my own thoughts.

So, when did they grow in order to die and be sorted by the flood that covered the entire earth?

How do you identify fossil flowering plants.

Perhaps that is because limestones used for sculpture don’t contain many macrofossils.

Certainly every effort is made to get ‘the good stuff’. Perhaps the micro fossils are morphed out of it also to some extent.

As far as your english geologist friend is concerned, with all due respect, he is an idiot. The Dover chalks are made up entirely of fossils.

No friend of mine! I quoted one geologist.

So, where did the water go?

Where did water come from?

Peace

Tim

I think I must experiment with quotes, there is a shortage of instructions.Patience.

 

[Orogeny]

I Leatherman:

I think I must experiment with quotes, there is a shortage of instructions.Patience.

To use quotes, surround the quote with [qoute] and [/qoute] except spell quote right. I had to misspell it so that you can read the tag, else it would have looked like this

and

.

Peace

Tim

 

[Orogeny]

Well Orogeny, 5000 yrs is your number not mine.

So, what would your number be?

Could you do something for me, make sure 20,000,000 varves is correct. Is it paired varves or individual layers.

I’ve actually seen it reported as both, but for the sake of discussion, let’s assume it is individual layers.

Could you also give me an example of an existing glacial lake which has been creating annual varves continuously for the last 20 million years, or if you know of any lake which is 20 million years old.

Not off the top of my head.

What is your criteria for “perfect”?

Something [lifeform] which existed long enough to produce a fossil record of it-self.

Ok. I have not seen the term used that way before.

How do you identify fossil flowering plants.

Pollen. Fossils.

Certainly every effort is made to get ‘the good stuff’. Perhaps the micro fossils are morphed out of it also to some extent.

Your limestones almost certainly contain microfossils. I didn’t say the macrofossils were morphed out of the rock, what ever that means.

As far as your english geologist friend is concerned, with all due respect, he is an idiot. The Dover chalks are made up entirely of fossils.

No friend of mine! I quoted one geologist.

Well, if he said what you report, he is an idiot unless he was specifically refering to macrofossils.

So, where did the water go?

Where did water come from?

What water?

Peace

Tim

 

[I_Leatherman]

Orogeny:

To use quotes, surround the quote with [qoute] and [/qoute] except spell quote right. I had to misspell it so that you can read the tag, else it would have looked like this .

Peace

Very kind, thank you.

 

[I_Leatherman]

Orogeny:

So, what would your number be?

Whatever the number is.

I’ve actually seen it reported as both, but for the sake of discussion, let’s assume it is individual layers.

O.k., does that mean 20,000,000 varves = 10,000,000 yrs.

Not off the top of my head.

I find a 20 or even 10 million year old lake hard to imagine, but thats just my opinion.

Ok. I have not seen the term used that way before.

again, just MHO.

Pollen. Fossils.

O.K.

What water?

Whatever water you’re talking about.

Peace

Tim

Peace

 

[atheos_sum]

This is great this topic sparks such a debate.

Could someone summarize the major positions and nuances that people can take in this debate?

I’ll start

1. Flood, local
2. Flood, global
3. No flood, evolution.

 

[I_Leatherman]

I’ll let someone else summarize for atheos_sum, as I’ve just joined.

Tidal Varves: (an idea which occured to me)

If the lake in question had a large catchment area and was fed by many rivers. And if the lake were tidal, this could answer these points:

1. The lake level rises at high tide, the current carrying in sand and silt. At high tide the sand settles out quickly because of its weight, the silt settles out quicker than in freshwater because of the saltwater acting as a flocculant.
   This would explain more varves formed around the lake shore than are found in the centre as the sediment settles quickly at high tide in the brackish water and more slowly in the centre at low tide as freshwater from the rivers reduces the salt content again.
2. Small wading birds have a more natural habitat on tidal flats than on freshwater lakes. The tidal nature allowing their footprints on the exposed mud to dry and harden before being covered by the next tide with its silt.
   Dried and cracked mud also explained by the exposed mud drying at ‘low tide’ and being covered with more sediment at the next ‘tide’.
3. The worm burrow fossils which were found look to be several inches deep & could be more consistant with large marine worms.
4. Because of its tidal nature the water could be brackish allowing some species of freshwater fishes to move from the rivers into the lake to feed at ‘high tide’. The lake water maybe too brackish for most marine life.
   The tidal nature also covering dead fish with sediment within a matter of days before they decompose.
   Or, the fish could have died naturally in the rivers and been deposited in the deeper lake area.
5. The number of varves, say 10,000,000 could reflect the number of ‘high tides’ in that lake.

Say 2 tides/day with a total of 10 million varves.

730 ‘high tides’ / year.

= 13,698 years.

Which would be a nicer age for a lake than 10,000,000 years.

 

[liv3ordie]

answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/migration.asp

answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i4/blanket.asp

Very Protestant site, but then again many creationists are Protestant. I didn’t bother reading it yet, but their site does tend to have pretty decent answers for this sort of question.

For a complete list, go here: answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.asp

The one about how all those dinosaurs (as you know, there were really only 55 kinds!) fit on the ark is really a stitch.

 

[rossum]

I Leatherman:

And if the lake were tidal

The sea is tidal and varves do not form under the sea. Your hypothesis seems to me to be unlikely. I suspect also that your “if” is rather a large one.
I Leatherman:

1. The number of varves, say 10,000,000 could reflect the number of ‘high tides’ in that lake.

Say 2 tides/day with a total of 10 million varves.

730 ‘high tides’ / year.

= 13,698 years.

Which would be a nicer age for a lake than 10,000,000 years.

I am not sure what you mean by “nicer”. 13,000 years is twice as long as the YEC age of the earth. Remember that to be consistent with YEC, any major surface feature on the earth like a lake has to be post-flood which gives you an even shorter timescale to work with.

rossum

 

[I_Leatherman]

rossum:

The sea is tidal and varves do not form under the sea. Your hypothesis seems to me to be unlikely. I suspect also that your “if” is rather a large one.

I am aware that the sea is tidal, I’m also aware of what I wrote, which was about a tidal lake, that is a lake with some degree of connection to the sea by river or otherwise. Tidal rivers can commonly be seen today in any country with a coastline, why not a tidal lake and varves form in lakes.

I am not sure what you mean by “nicer”. 13,000 years is twice as long as the YEC age of the earth. Remember that to be consistent with YEC, any major surface feature on the earth like a lake has to be post-flood which gives you an even shorter timescale to work with.

rossum

I havent started out with any preconcieved dates for the age of the earth. I live on what I am told is the bed of a post glacial lake, this lake covered almost 2/3 the length of the country and is no more.
That lake lasted less than 10,000 years possibly only half that, 5000 years, I have to question the probability of a lake lasting 10,000,000 or 20,000,000 years, bearing in mind that the lake must be absolutely stable for at least 10 million years in order to produce continously regular varves.

 

[Steve_Andersen]

atheos_sum:

This is great this topic sparks such a debate.

Could someone summarize the major positions and nuances that people can take in this debate?

I’ll start

1. Flood, local

Plenty of evidence for local floods…they happen all the time

 Since most early civilizations flourished in areas particularly prone to flooding by  their very nature (i.e. river valleys like the Indus, Nile, Tigris & Euphrates, and Yellow) it makes sense that flood stories are very common among ancient peoples which is why the Noah story was couched in the way it was. When you’re trying to teach people and get then to remember then you gotta hit them with something they know.

 Recent archeological evidence of large inundations of low lying areas when the Black Sea connected to the Mediterranean in the late Neolithic is just on more example of  large local flood that may have left a cultural mark on the survivors.

atheos_sum:

1. Flood, global

Absolutely no physical evidence and no practical mechanism for it to have occurred. It would have created a biological bottle neck that would have all species hopelessly inbred within a few generations.

atheos_sum:

1. No flood, evolution.

Fits all known, independently verifiable, data

Is corroborated by multiple independent fields of study

 

[rossum]

I Leatherman:

I am aware that the sea is tidal, I’m also aware of what I wrote, which was about a tidal lake, that is a lake with some degree of connection to the sea by river or otherwise. Tidal rivers can commonly be seen today in any country with a coastline, why not a tidal lake and varves form in lakes.

I havent started out with any preconcieved dates for the age of the earth. I live on what I am told is the bed of a post glacial lake, this lake covered almost 2/3 the length of the country and is no more.
That lake lasted less than 10,000 years possibly only half that, 5000 years, I have to question the probability of a lake lasting 10,000,000 or 20,000,000 years, bearing in mind that the lake must be absolutely stable for at least 10 million years in order to produce continously regular varves.

For more about varves, read this page from Glenn Morton about the varves in the Green River formation. Glenn is a professonal geologist, and knows a lot more geology than I do.

rossum

 

[I_Leatherman]

Thankyou for the info rossum, here are some things I found on that page together with additional info on those things.

[In support of my ‘Brackish water Tidal-Lake Varve’ idea]
Here are a few more things I’ve dug up (so to speak) about fossils in greenriver varves.

1. Types of fossil fish finds:

"clupeid:
Any of various widely distributed soft-finned fishes of the family Clupeidae, which includes the herrings, menhadens, and sardines. "

"The fish from Fossil Butte form an unusual array of genera unlike any now found living together. Included in the assemblage are forms usually found in marine waters and tropical, fresh-water fish.(Schaeffer and Mangus 1965).

sting ray
paddle fish
gar
bowfin
sand fish
herrings, shad
catfish
pirate perches
perches

Other creatures and things:

AMPHIBIANS.
“To date, no amphibian fossils are known from Fossil Butte. They must have been present, as this class of animals is recorded from Devonian rocks more than 350 million years old and from rocks younger than those at Fossil Butte. Living amphibians are typified by frogs, toads, and salamanders. The lack of amphibian remains at Fossil Butte is more likely due to nondiscovery than nonexistence.”

As far as I can remember Amphibians, frogs etc., can’t tolerate saltwater.

Caddisfly larvae:
Any member of about 7,000 species of mothlike aquatic insects (order Trichoptera) found worldwide, usually in freshwater habitats but sometimes in brackish and tidal waters.

“One of the most amazing finds on the edges of Lake Gosiute are bioherms made up of microbial deposited carbonate on caddisfly larval cases. A bioherm is a buildup of organic material, usually in domal-shaped structures. Some of the caddis-fly bioherms are 9 meters tall and 40 meters in diameter (Leggitt and Cushman, 2001, p. 378). These features are found in a linear trend, 70 kilometers (44 miles) along what was at the time the northern edge of the lake. These bioherms consist of caddisfly pupa cases interlaminated with stromatolite forming microbial-caddisfly couplets.”

Of the birds, you have Sandpipers, ducks, and Flamingos - which, famously, feed in shallow saltwater.

On the occurance of oscillation type ripple marks on the mud varves:

“Symmetric ripple marks -are symmetric on both sides of the ripple mark. Symmetric ripple marks are also known as oscillation ripple marks because they are formed by the back and forth motion of waves.”

Moussa (1968, p. 1436) “The area was probably a part of a near-shore shelf area in the Eocene Uinta Lake, and at that time the lake was apparently characterized by a rapidly vacillating water level.”

Which would support the tidal-nature of the varves idea.

 

[atheos_sum]

Steve Andersen:

Plenty of evidence for local floods…they happen all the time

Since most early civilizations flourished in areas particularly prone to flooding by their very nature (i.e. river valleys like the Indus, Nile, Tigris & Euphrates, and Yellow) it makes sense that flood stories are very common among ancient peoples which is why the Noah story was couched in the way it was. When you’re trying to teach people and get then to remember then you gotta hit them with something they know.

Recent archeological evidence of large inundations of low lying areas when the Black Sea connected to the Mediterranean in the late Neolithic is just on more example of large local flood that may have left a cultural mark on the survivors.

Absolutely no physical evidence and no practical mechanism for it to have occurred. It would have created a biological bottle neck that would have all species hopelessly inbred within a few generations.

Fits all known, independently verifiable, data

Is corroborated by multiple independent fields of study

Thanks
It’s not quite what i was asking for though.

I was asking if there are any other positions that i had not listed or if there were nuances to those positions i listed.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Steve Andersen:

it is only a problem for literalist

Like the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible ? ​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Orogeny:

To use quotes, surround the quote with [qoute] and [/qoute] except spell quote right. I had to misspell it so that you can read the tag, else it would have looked like this .

Peace

Tim

To include the name of the person quoted:​

[quota=Gottle of Geer]## quoted stuff ##[/quota]

• substituting quote for quota, which results in:

## quoted stuff ##

 

[Steve_Andersen]

## Like the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible ? ##

yeah, there are some folks out there (on both sides) who think the story of Noah is about a boat ride