DINOSAUR DISCUSSION 1
The Geologic Column
Where did the dinosaurs come from?
Were they part of the creation?
Were they bred by the antediluvians?
Audience: Young Earth Christians
So there I was, looking at another Christian video about Dinosaurs and Noah’s Ark and the speaker was talking about Creation week and that God had made all the land dwelling creatures on day 6. And the same day God created Adam and Eve.
Video displayed a pic showing dinosaurs in the distance with Adam and Eve closer.
And with some minor exceptions this appears to be the view that most Christian videos present.
But a few years back I had looked into the dinosaurs and came to a completely different conclusion. Certainly one that is diametrically opposed to this view.
So who’s right? Or are Christians correct in believing that dinosaurs were created on day 6 of Creation week along with all the land dwelling animals, and along with Adam and Eve?
There are some interesting points from a Creation beginning:
If dinosaurs were in the Garden of Eden, then they co-existed with man.
Further they were there at the time of the Flood and:
a. all perished in the Flood waters;
or
b. some were taken on the Ark to survive the Flood and then:
i. died later from being hunted or whatever;
or
ii. survived and are still around today probably hiding somewhere in the deepest darkest jungles just waiting to be discovered.
Is any of this possible from a 6,000 yr Christian perspective?
The general Christian view appears to be to start with the Garden of Eden with all the living dinosaurs.
And taking that view leads to all these interesting videos about Noah’s Ark and so on.
But that’s starting with an assumption of living dinosaurs.
What if we start with what we currently have.
You can’t go to your local zoo and look at a growling T rex.
So how do we know about dinosaurs?
Well for some years, quite a few, people have been finding their fossils. And that’s how we know about dinosaurs.
So that’s where we should start.
So where are these fossils found?
In layers of sedimentary rock. In the Mesozoic rock layers. And scientists tell us these rock layers formed about 66 million years ago. Now from a 6,000 yr Christian perspective, that’s just not going to work. And we need a lot of water for our sedimentary rock layers to come into existence. Using natural processes of course.
And just how did we get all these sedimentary rock layers with all these dinosaur fossils in them?
That’s easy we are told. The Flood of Noah should certainly do it.
Well that makes a lot of sense. We need a lot of water to deposit all these sedimentary layers full of dinosaurs. Which then over some time would become fossils. In fact the general belief is that ALL the layers of the geologic column were formed at this time [excepting perhaps a few layers at the very top]
And sure, for quite a few years, as a new Christian, I did actually believe this. In 6,000 years there are not too many choices here. Before the Flood, it may not have even rained. That’s not leaving too many options. We either have the Flood of Noah, or we have … the Flood of Noah. That’s it!
But ever since having a closer look at this I just kept running into problems. Very, very interesting problems.
Dinosaur deposition is a great place to start. Probably the simplest.
Here’s a good depiction of the column:
OK lot of rock layers here. And this diagram is a simplification. There are MANY layers and only some main ones are here represented. And the dinosaurs are found in the Mesozoic layers, roughly in the middle.
That’s how we know about the dinosaurs. People have dug their fossils up from these layers.
Now if the dinosaurs were deposited in these layers from the Flood, they should be following general rules of deposition. Heaviest at the bottom, lightest at the top. That sort of thing.
Now this is a real simple determination to make. But about now, some Christians may be asking, Wait a minute. The pic looks interesting, but this may only exist in text books.
The concept is "quite prevalent among some Christians that the geologic column does not exist":
Now, the geologic column is an idea, not an actual series of rock layers. Nowhere do we find the complete sequence. Morris and Parker (1987, p. 163)[2]
[from a doc about the geologic column]
Now this I find extremely interesting.
If the geologic column does not exist, then there is no reason for Christians to believe in dinosaurs. Their fossils are found in the geologic column. Which if not existing, then neither do the dinosaur fossils.
It’s a curious point.
But probably the belief is that the layers exist here and there, and the scientists have put them all together forming the column.
However in this same doc about the geologic column they mention a well drilled to a depth of 14,945 feet.
[Yeah, I’m still trying to get my head around that one!]
And they list the different layers encountered starting with the Tertiary Ft. Union Formation at 100 feet and going down to the Precambrian at 14,945 feet!
Now this is one place, we are told, that the whole geologic column is piled up where an oil well drilled through it.
Further, they claim that “the entire geologic column is found in 25 other basins around the world, piled up in proper order.”
And give a pic of this:
And just to drive this point home they also had a discussion on crinoids [that we DO NOT need to get into]. Anyway they are talking a LOT of crinoids and close the discussion saying, that’s
enough crinoids to cover the entire earth to a depth of 3 inches and yet this deposit is only a small part of a vast Mississippian crinoid bed that almost does cover the world (Morton, 1984, p. 26-27).[3]
Note you can see a representation of the Mississippian layer on our geologic column diagram above.
Don’t worry about the crinoids. But the important thing we take from this is that the vast Mississippian layer nearly covers the whole world.
And given the above world pic it is fair to assume that the geologic column spans the world.
Now given this added information we can take the geologic column diagram above as a reasonable approximate representation of these rock layers that have been dug into with lots and lots of dinosaur fossils being found.
Further, since the general Christian supposition is that these layers were laid down at the time of the Flood, then we can consider the deposition of dinosaurs according to this event.
Simpy put, since all of these layers were formed then from the swirling mass of water and sediments and animals being buried, the dinosaurs should follow the simple rules of deposition as these layers were being laid.
We could expect that the really heavy dinosaurs should be in the very bottom layers, and any really light small dinosaurs should appear in the very top layers. Let’s check the diagram again here:
The problem is, when we look for the dinosaurs we find them in the Mesozoic layers, and that is where the paleontologists have found them. As you can see this is roughly in the middle layers and nowhere near the very top and bottom layers.
And just what sort of conclusion can we make from this?
Actually a few conclusions but the main one right now is that the dinosaurs as buried in these layers, were not deposited as a result of the Flood. In fact, the whole geologic column comes under this judgment. It is not the result of the Flood of Noah. These layers were not laid then.
And if these layers were not laid then, then when?
From a 6,000 yr Christian perspective, it doesn’t leave too many choices. If it didn’t rain before the Flood, then that pushes things back to the Creation. But there was no world wide Flood at that point in time or near it that could bring about the formation of this amount of sedimentary rock layers.
And as far as sedimentary rock layers being formed we have an impossible situation.
They weren’t laid at the time of the Flood, or before. So how do we get them?
There is only one possible answer. And there is no other.
They weren’t laid down at all. At any time. They came into existence some other way. And the only way that could have happened is that they were fabricated. Constructed as you will.
[discounting Deep Time. See Discussion 3]
So the only way these layers came into existence is that they were fabricated. At some point in time. Either at the Creation point or near. Or even the Flood point.
[these different points are discussed through my Discussions]
So sure, they could have come into existence at the time of the Flood. But they are the result of a construction or a fabrication. They were not laid down as a result of the Flood.
So just what does this mean? And what impact has this on the dinosaurs?
Well if all these layers [below the 6,000 yr boundary of course] were a fabrication, then all the fossils contained in the layers were constructed that way.
In other words, they came into existence as fossils. That’s what they were when they were formed and that’s what they look like now. Just as the paleontologists have dug them out of the ground.
The dinosaurs came into existence as fossils. They were never living breathing creatures at any time in the past. They were not living creatures at the time of Adam and Eve. They only existed in the rocks below them in the ground. Or later when these rock layers were fabricated, depending which construction point you choose.
And the crinoids? Which we did not get into. They’re in the Mississippian layers way down in the geologic column. So they never existed as living creatures either. They came into existence formed in the Mississippian rock layers as fossils. So we don’t need to worry about any controversial discussions about crinoids. Just leave them in the rock layers. That’s where they are and where they belong. End of story.
REFERENCES
3.
That is enough crinoids to cover the entire earth to a depth of 3 inches and yet this deposit is only a small part of a vast Mississippian crinoid bed that almost does cover the world (Morton, 1984, p. 26-27).
https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geocolumn/
1.
The W. H. Hunt Trust Estate Larson #1 will in Section 10 Township 148 N Range 101 W was drilled to 15,064 feet deep. This well was drilled just west of the outcrop of the Golden Valley formation and begins in the Tertiary Fort Union Formation. The various horizons described above were encountered at the following depths (Fm=formation; Grp=Group; Lm=Limestone):
Tertiary Ft. Union Fm ..........................100 feet
...
Precambrian...................................14945 feet
The Geologic Column
and its Implications for the Flood
https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geocolumn/
2.
First, as I have noted before, the concept quite prevalent among some Christians that the geologic column does not exist is quite wrong. Morris and Parker (1987, p. 163) write:
Now, the geologic column is an idea, not an actual series of rock layers. Nowhere do we find the complete sequence.
Morris, Henry M. and Gary Parker, 1987. What is Creation Science? (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers).
They are wrong. You just saw the whole column piled up in one place where one oil well can drill through it. Not only that, the entire geologic column is found in 25 other basins around the world, piled up in proper order. These basins are:
The Ghadames Basin in Libya
...
The Beaufort Sea Basin/McKenzie River Delta
The Geologic Column
and its Implications for the Flood
https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geocolumn/
Pic: basin3.gif
(Figure courtesy of Thomas Moore)
The Geologic Column
and its Implications for the Flood
https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geocolumn/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Denbora_geologikoa.jpg
Denbora_geologikoa.jpg
Description
Basque: Scheme of geological time
Date 19 September 2020
Author: Koldo Biguri
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
My changes:
Removed people and truck and bird; changed text to English, and fixed up the dates in line with
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale
as at 21 Sep 2023.
My pics:
“Geologic Column” constructed using
"Denbora geologikoa" by Koldo Biguri, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Geological Column”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 by Stephen Buckley.
Licenses
CC BY-SA 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Note: just as a point of interest a link to the old page using the old out-of-date fossilization quote is given below. For comparison if anyone is interested. The old study page is of course not being revised, but is replaced by this page you are currently on. This new page was a complete rewrite. From top to bottom. Enjoy.
Stephen Buckley
E-mail: snoaktrua [at] duck.com
Last revised: 29 Apr 2025.
Constructed: 10 Aug 2024.
Companion pages
Page design/construction Stephen Buckley 2024,2025.
Snoaktrua