DINOSAUR DISCUSSION 8
A Review
And again...
Where did the dinosaurs come from?
Were they part of the creation?
Were they bred by the antediluvians?
Audience: Young Earth Christians
This is pretty much a review of our models. But a very important read.
So far we have come up with three different climactic points in the history of this world [from a 6,000 yr Christian perspective] where the geologic column as we currently see it could have come into existence.
From these 3 climactic points we have actually come up with 4 different models. Three of them are the same but occurred at different points in time. They are very easy to outline. The fourth model occurred at the third time point and is a different sort of animal. A bit of a strange mix to fit extra constraints.
The four models are outlined as follows.
The Creation Point Model
This is the simplest model to explain and it is where I started from.
Firstly I went by the Creation point and quite a few of my other studies mention this point. It was where I started from so those studies will be left where they are as most of those studies are not written for Christians and it is a very good point to start from. If anyone runs across my Dinosaur Discussions they should eventually end up here. So here we are.
How did I get to this model?
Well the original study was about the extinction of the dinosaurs and that is covered more in Discussion 3 but we can get to this quicker by looking at the geologic column.
If we go by the deposition of the dinosaurs when these layers were formed, the usual point is considered to be at the Flood. If all these layers were laid then, the dinosaurs should follow rules of deposition, lightest in the top layers and heaviest in the bottom layers. That’s not where they are found so these layers weren’t all laid at the time of the Flood.
So when? Not before if it hadn’t rained before the Flood, so we start at the Creation point.
When this world came into existence, God added all these layers with all the stuff we currently find within them. This includes all the dinosaur fossils in the Mesozoic layers.
In a nutshell, that’s the Creation point model. Basically it’s a complete fabrication, brought into existence at the Creation of this world.
There are some observations about this after the next couple of models.
One point that usually gets mentioned is the problem of God saying that the Creation was very good at the end of Creation week. Would God say this if there was a record in the rock layers of death and destruction under Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?
It’s a good question and the following models solve this problem.
The Flood point model – simplified version
The Flood point is the most accepted point in Christianity.
Simply put, probably a majority of Christians believe that this is when all the rock layers with fossils that make up the geologic column were then laid with all the animals buried, now fossils, contained.
The problem is, with some investigation, this fails spectacularly.
--distribution of animals just doesn’t work. Large heavy dinosaurs should be in the very bottom layers and teeny weeny light dinosaurs should be in the very top layers. That’s not where they are found. The Mesozoic layers are roughly in the middle so this just doesn’t work.
--dinosaur finds all wrong. Tracks, nests, eggs, and young in nests [about a year old] all in different depositional rock layers. If these rock layers took some years to form, we have these multiple layers all needing to be laid at the time of the Flood. With dinosaurs building nests, laying eggs, and having young in the nests at approx one year old, all within a time span of about forty days while the rain was falling. And multiple layers needing years to form. It just can’t work.
--number of creatures found in the rocks. If all from the Flood, some evolutionists have claimed all these animals would have covered the earth to a depth of some feet. So there are too many animals in the rock layers to have been buried by the Flood.
Conclusion? For this simplified version we conclude that the layers weren’t laid at the time of the Flood. So when? Not before if it had not rained and that takes this back to the Creation. But there was no world wide flood then which would be required to form all these sedimentary layers.
This simply means that these rock layers were not laid down at all. They had to come into existence some other way. The only way this is possible is that they must have been constructed this way, with all the fossils in them.
This is the simplified version. These rock layers were a complete fabrication. For the Creation model they came into existence when this world was formed by God. But that’s the Creation model.
Here we are considering the Flood point model. So this fabrication occurs at the Flood point. But that also makes it a little different to the Creation model.
In the Creation model as the rocks came into existence all these layers were constructed with all the fossils in them.
But at the Flood point we already have a complete rock structure already in existence in the ground from the Creation below Noah and his family etc.
So if these layers were fabricated at the Flood point then this means that the original rock structure already in existence was reworked or refabricated to what we see today.
This is the simplified Flood point model. We’ll leave the more complicated version for later. Because well, it is pretty complicated.
The Fall Model
We don’t have an actual date for this from the Creation point but the general belief is that it wasn’t too long after.
How did I get here? Well from the Flood point simplified model it was clear we have a possible fabrication of the rock layers forming the geologic column. And a fabrication or construction could have occurred at the Creation point, giving the Creation point model. But having said that it was pretty clear that a fabrication of these layers could then have occurred anytime from the Creation to the Flood.
That’s when I stumbled upon this possibility. I looked at these events as most likely occurring at climactic points in the history of this world [from a 6,000 year Christian perspective]. I realised at a simple thinking about this there are three climactic points in the history of this world that could work.
The Creation. Pretty simple. God speaks and this world comes into existence. That’s pretty climactic.
The Flood. The heavens open and water rains down and floods the world.
For in seven days I will send rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground."
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.
And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. Genesis 7:4,11,12 RSV.
This was pretty climactic.
So is there another climactic point? Something that radically changed this world and had a world wide effect? On the climate? On animal life? On plant life?
There is one point. And it had a dramatic effect on the climate of the world. On all life. Animal life. On the land and in the sea, oceans, rivers etc. And all plant life. All over the planet.
That’s pretty climactic. So just when did this event happen? That changed ALL life on this planet?
It changed EVERYTHING!
So just when was this?
The FALL!!
Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden and they now found themselves living in a hostile world. There were now ferocious animals that were very dangerous. And plants.
And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Genesis 3:17-19 RSV.
The plant kingdom was also changed, now they had to battle thorns and thistles and probably a lot worse.
The weather also changed and was not favourable to them anymore.
Now here’s an interesting thought. Genesis 3:17 says that God cursed the ground. That means there were changes in geology also. So there is it. The whole geologic structure could have been changed.
A complete fabrication of the geologic column is actually quite possible at this point in time. But as mentioned above, this was not a whole lot of new layers being laid down, but simply a reconstruction or refabrication of the existing rock structure already in the ground from the Creation.
The Fall model is a very interesting one and has a very interesting theological implication. It does get away from the complaint that God would be unlikely to state that the Creation was “very good” if there were many rock layers containing a record of death and destruction sitting below Adam and Eve underneath the Garden of Eden.
But if the fabrication occurred at the Fall then this complaint is not necessary.
Simple observations on these fabrication models
If the geologic column is a complete fabrication then all the fossils contained therein are also complete fabrications. This means that none of the creatures contained were ever living at any time in the past. They simply came into existence as fossils and were contained in these rock layers until found and dug up by paleontologists.
They are not fossil remains but something else, fabrications or constructions.
This includes all the dinosaurs found in the Mesozoic layers. None of these dinosaurs ever existed as living breathing creatures at any time in the past. They were not created along with all the other animals that existed in the Garden of Eden.
There was no T rex in the Garden of Eden, and contrary to some Christian beliefs man did not coexist with non-avian* dinosaurs. There are no non-avian dinosaurs hiding in the deepest darkest jungles still waiting to be discovered.
*Birds are now considered to be dinosaurs – avian dinosaurs, so just covering that point.
There is no Deep Time. The long ages found in the rock layers are simply part of the fabrication.
The argument that the age of the Earth is dated from meteorites also fails as this solar system is a complete package. You can’t have a solar system without the Sun. So if this solar system came into existence at the same time, that includes all the stuff contained therein. Meteors and so on.
Before looking at the last model we need to consider a possible historical benchmark point, for lack of better terminology.
Given the geologic column is a possible fabrication, just how do we make sense of history with this?
The best historical point I have stumbled across for this is Stonehenge.
Stonehenge: A pre-Flood construction of 25 ton solid stone blocks
"Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons
...
Stonehenge was constructed in several phases beginning about 3100 BC and continuing until about 1600 BC. The famous circle of large sarsen stones were placed between 2600 BC and 2400 BC."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
We have the Flood approximately dating to 4200 BP [about 2250 BC]. See Discussion 5.
For the Creation and Fall models, this is very simple. The geologic column was already in existence, so anything we find dating before the Flood is not impacted by the column constructions.
Now the simplified Flood model has the geologic column constructed as a fabrication. Actually a refabrication of the underlying rock structure already in existence from the Creation. And since this has all happened underground it has little if no effect on any structures that are supposedly already in existence in the top layers.
It probably doesn’t make any sense but this is how it looks with the simplified model.
The Flood point model – church writings version
This is the last model we are considering. It is extremely complicated and possibly raises more questions than it answers.
The general Christian view is that all the animals in the geologic column perished in the Flood and so we find their fossils in the rock layers. There was no other world wide flood before the Flood of Noah. So there is no other time when all these creatures could have died and been buried. All around the world.
And then become fossils in the rock layers to be found by paleontologists many years later.
The church writings appear to support this but there are some very curious comments to consider.
Some paraphrasing follows…
At this time very large forests were buried. And since the Flood have been turned into coal beds that now exist.
the furious movement of the water heaped rocks and earth upon treasures, animals, and forests. Hills and mountains became flat plains and many flat plains became hills and mountains. These differences were more pronounced in regions that were more troublesome.
Words similar to this. It gives a good idea of what was written.
We can also construct a simple point list for the church writings model:
very large forests buried and turned into coal beds that now exist
some forests buried deep, some not. So possible to have coal beds in the Carboniferous layers etc and the Fens trees in the top layers. It may be puzzling but this model allows for it
a small representative selection of the animals which God had created were saved in the Ark
previously large trees had grown on the tops of mountains
men, animals, and trees were buried to give a record to later generations that the original world came to an end by a flood
creatures much larger than now exist, were buried, to give a record as above.
at the Flood the surface of the earth was broken. Maybe not everywhere. But some mountains disappeared and gave way to plains, and some plains gave way to mountains.
These points are very important to the construction of this model.
From this model the geologic column is made up of layers which contain creatures that perished in the Flood.
This model posits that
animals were buried at the time of the Flood
large forests were buried and formed the large coal beds that now exist. Some trees became petrified.
The geologic column with all the fossils in it came into existence at the time of the Flood.
To accommodate this we had to make an adjustment in natural rules
many animals were added, or fabricated, meaning the layers they occur in were fabricated
animals that were buried eventually became fossils
and so on.
A bit more on the added animals.
Evolutionists have studied this and found that there are too many animals in the rock layers to have all been buried at the time of the Flood, with complaints that all these creatures would have covered the earth to so many feet deep.
A quote from these people suggests “If all of the fossilized animals could be resurrected, they would cover the entire planet to a depth of at least 1.5 feet.”
They also had an interesting discussion on crinoids. Anyway they were 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).[1]
These were also mentioned in Discussion 1.
If these rock layers as we now find them came into existence at the time of the Flood then the only conclusion we could draw is that a lot of these creatures were added.
Which ones? That’s an interesting question but the following gives an interesting example.
There are some problems with the dinosaurs. Could they be some of the added creatures?
We have dinosaur tracks, nests, and eggs, and young [approx one year old] in the nests. All in different depositional environments. So different layers each taking many years to form. This is an impossible situation if all these layers came into existence at the time of the Flood.
The only way we could get these layers is that they must have been fabricated. But that includes all the fossils contained within. So that wipes out the dinosaurs in the Mesozoic layers. The dinosaurs were then added. Along with many other creatures.
So if some animals were buried and some were added or fabricated it makes this model very curious.
But you get the idea. This way we can say that the geologic column came into existence with animals buried at the time of the Flood.
So in the end this became a bit of a fruit salad. Some layers were laid and some or many were just plain fabricated.
Also there is the complaint that the coal beds may have needed millions of years to form. This was discussed in Discussion 5.
Note: I originally had quotes suggesting fossils may have taken millions of years to form, same for coal being formed.
But much shorter times have been found and coal simulating normal conditions has been formed in about 2 or 3 months.[2,3]
So with a bit of jumping around we can possibly get these layers.
HOWEVER, since discussion 5 I have found some new points that need to be factored in.
And these points are very, very interesting!
Decided to break these up:
The Flood completely transformed the surface of the earth. As the waters receded, all around were the carcasses of animals and people that had perished.
Words similar to this.
This is an astounding point.
The Flood itself DID NOT FULLY BURY the animals in layers!
At this point, the geologic column as we now see it, did not yet exist!
So when did they get buried?
A paraphrase of some parts:
The Flood completely transformed the surface of the earth. As the waters receded, all around were the carcasses of animals and people that had perished.
God decided to bury everything so nothing was left to rot on the surface of the earth. With a great wind he dried up any remaining unnecessary water. This wind violently moved the water removing the tops of some of the mountains and piled up vegetation, earth and rocks completely covering all that had died. This included great forests which since have become large coal beds which have been found. Many mountains and hills became flat areas and many plains became mountainous. For uninhabited regions and those that were less troublesome these changes were less pronounced.
Words similar to this.
This gives a pretty clear view of what happened but it completely changes any thoughts I had about the geologic column formation from the Flood.
Laid down as sedimentary layers, from the action of water? Not exactly by this. There was some or a lot of water being driven. But the burial of all this matter, animal, plants, and inanimate, was by the action of wind! [driving the water]
So the usual thought is that at the Flood, all the layers of the geologic column were laid down as sedimentary layers by the action of water. But that’s not exactly what we are told here. And how many layers? An approximate depth?
The evolutionists help us out here. They refer us to a well, the W. H. Hunt Trust Estate drilled to 15,064 feet deep.[4]
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!
And they tell us this is one place that the whole geologic column is piled up in proper order where an oil well drilled through it.
Now we have determined that some, or a lot, of these layers were most likely fabricated. So why not the whole lot? It would make it very simple and this would then just be another view of the simplified Flood point model.
However we are told that:
-men, animals, and trees were buried to give a record to later generations that the original world came to an end by a flood;
-great forests were buried which have since become the coal beds that have been found.
So a lot of stuff was buried. That makes this model very different to the simple fabricated one.
Further, this gives us an idea of depth. How far down are we looking?
Here’s the quote:
Coal formation
Coal is a solid, black, readily combustible fossil fuel that contains a large amount of carbon-based material - approximately 50% of its weight. The formation of coal takes a significant amount of time (on the order of a few million years), and the first coal-bearing rock units appeared about 290-360 million years ago, at a time known as the Carboniferous or "coal-bearing" Period. As well, there are extensive coal deposits from the Cretaceous age - about 65 to 144 million years ago.
https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Coal_formation
But I did find another quote that suggested that coal formation may not have needed millions of years:
Subsequent experiments have more closely simulated natural geologic conditions, with temperatures of only 257°F (125°C) and lower pressures (equivalent to burial under 5,905 feet [1,800 meters] of wet sediments).[10] After only 75 days, the original plant and wood materials still transformed into coal material, comparable chemically to coal from the same area of Indonesia. Because these experiments simulated natural conditions, we can be confident that the coal-forming process is rapid and requires only months. So there is no reason to insist that coal formation requires millions of years.[2]
The important thing here is where they are saying the coal formation has occurred. In the Cretaceous and Carboniferous layers.
The diagram we have used showing an approximate representation of the geologic column shows the Cretaceous layer, but not the Carboniferous. By the quote, the Carboniferous is the lower layer, supposedly from 290 to 360 million years ago. If we don’t believe these ages, it still gives a good indication of just where they sit in the column. A long way down.
The Carboniferous is a period before the Permian and after the Devonian. And is made up of the Mississipian and Pennsylvanian layers.
Note: from our view here it might be better to say the Carboniferous layers are below the Permian and above the Devonian. Better? Between the Permian and Devonian layers.
These are given in the data for the W. H. Hunt Trust Estate well.
The Devonian started at 11085 feet. So what’s above that is the Carboniferous. Up to where the Pennsylvanian started, at 7990 feet.
Above that is the Permian and no longer part of the Carboniferous.
So to these depths the large forests have been deposited and since have become coal beds.
But what about the lower layers down to the Precambrian at 14945 feet?
There is supposedly some life down to the Archean included. But we don’t have a depth for that but it’s pretty deep.
Could these lower depths have creatures deposited from the Flood? It’s not impossible but at some point we must reach a point of gross over-kill. I don’t have another word for this.
I will try to explain. It’s clear that some or a lot of these layers were probably just fabricated.
But I think we have progressed way beyond that assumption.
The point that all the animals and people that perished were still on the surface and at one year later changes a lot of things.
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.
And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark,
And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.
In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. Genesis 7:11-13,24;8:13 RSV.
But they didn’t leave the ark yet:
In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.
Then God said to Noah,
"Go forth from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Genesis 8:14-16 RSV.
So this brings us to about a year after the Flood started. But the face of the ground was dry on the first day of the first month. So why wait another month? This is probably when God buried all the dead bodies that were lying around on the surface of the earth. It’s a guess but possible.
But it makes the point. Nearly a year had gone by and all the animals and people who had perished were still lying around on the surface and were not buried.
So we come to the burial and we are told large forests were buried down in the Carboniferous layers.
That’s still a stretch. For the W. H. Hunt Trust Estate well, that’s about 8 to 11 thousand feet straight down. And we could assume a lot of other animals and people were deposited on the way down too.
Note: people are obviously in the top layers. And there is a curious question about the large forests. An earlier version of the church writings suggest they may have been buried by the actions of the Flood. This is a moot point how you read the great wind moving the waters with violent force and accomplishing the same thing.
When we think of the action of the Flood do we just mean the forty days or consider right to the end as the waters are subsiding? But still may be causing some trouble as here being driven by this great wind? If anyone wants to split hairs it is a simple matter of saying the action of the Flood waters covered these large forests, and one year later, God completes the job with this great wind. Still all encompassing the period of the Flood waters on the earth.
Now if anyone had suggested all of this to me say six months ago, I would have said, “not sure, or possibly no, or this is just a weird stretch, I’d need to think about it, or maybe not at all.”
But a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, and I have been toying with the idea of questioning the geologic column even with the concept of Deep Time. This will be covered in a later discussion.
So no, I’m not writing this off. There is something really weird here and it needs a little investigation. Not much, as I said I will cover this in more detail in a later discussion.
But to say it simply, we are not simply considering these layers were laid down at the time of the Flood. From the surface of the earth, we have another minimum of 11 thousand feet of rocks deposited straight on top of the ground?
I think that’s more of a stretch than believing in the Flood of Noah itself.
So what’s going on here?
From the surface we have all these large forests somehow now deposited 8 to 11 thousand feet straight underground?
This isn’t a fabrication, or a refabrication. Though it may suggest some sort of restructuring of the underlying rock structure that was in existence from the Creation.
The evolutionists talk of reworked fossils that have supposedly ended up in the wrong place. I think that is what has happened here. God buried all this surface matter placing them in certain layers. I don’t have any other answer here. And this is no piddly movement of some fossil the evolutionists are struggling with.
This is a massive undertaking done by God, the Creator of this world. God spoke this world into existence, so this is no problem for him at all.
And all the layers we now find? Restructured from the original rock structure underground. With dead creatures moved there or fabricated as necessary. So there were no added new layers, except perhaps something at the very top. But that’s probably it.
Further, the implications of this approach are staggering.
Before with other models we were considering a before and after scenario. For stuff we find historically before the Flood.
Like Stonehenge. Supposedly built before the Flood. But if the geologic column was laid down at the time of the Flood, then all the extra sedimentary rock layers would have been deposited right on top of Stonehenge. This means that Stonehenge should be sitting at the very bottom of the geologic column, not where it currently is, sitting at the very top.
This just shows that the geologic column was not deposited as a lot of sedimentary rock layers at the time of the Flood.
But if the geologic column was a complete fabrication, as in the Creation, Fall, and simple Flood models, then Stonehenge is not a problem. A refabrication etc, underground, has little impact on what is lying on the surface, like Stonehenge.
But this model?
The surface of the earth was broken up. It was a complete mess. Smooth and symmetric hills and mountains were now jagged and broken. Some mountains had become plains, and some plains, mountains.
Would something like Stonehenge have survived? It’s possible. Perhaps some things were left to give an indication of what life was like in the world that perished.
We may have more questions than answers. But there is little doubt that this model turns a lot of things upside down. If that’s the correct allusion.
Anyway, that’s about it. The Flood point model – church writings version.
A completely different animal to the other three models I have written about.
And considering some very serious problems with the geologic column, even with respect to Deep Time, I have no longer any problem with this model. It’s a complete work of God. All the models considered here are. Excepting straight sedimentation. And that will be discussed in a coming discussion.
Some afterthoughts
Clearly all these layers down to the Archean were not laid down as sedimentary layers from the Flood. Some may say well what about the large mountains that were eroded by God? Didn’t all that rock and dirt have to go somewhere?
Sure. But here’s a point. We are told that many plains were now replaced by mountain ranges. Whether that’s all from eroded mountains or the water piling up dirt and the action of the ground convulsing under the Flood is not clear.
The mountains before the Flood were much lower in height supporting vegetation even large trees on their summits. Something not possible with a lot of high mountains we now have.
So all the rocks and dirt from the pre-Flood mountains that God eroded probably wouldn’t even be a scratch on all the layers that have been supposedly laid to form the geologic column as we currently find it.
Yet we are told animals and people were buried to provide a record that the previous world perished by a flood. And clearly we find a lot of this stuff in the very top layers just where we would expect it to be. Just ask the Fens farmers with all the tree logs they keep digging up. See Discussion 5 for more about that.
We have already mentioned, quite a few times, that the layers forming the geologic column could not have been deposited at the time of the Flood. Too many animals, not following proper rules of deposition, impossible layers, like dinosaur tracks, nests, eggs, young in nests and so on.
All requiring many years to form different depositional layers. Quite impossible to all be done at the time of the Flood.
The previous model conclusions were that this must have all been a complete fabrication.
But with this model we do have things buried. And some stuff, deep. Like large forests down to 8 to 11 thousand feet deep [for the W. H. Hunt Trust Estate well location]. Which we are told have since become large coal beds that are now being found.
And back on that fabrication point. This view is that the underlying rock structure has been manipulated, transformed, refabricated, whatever, to obtain what we currently find.
With this model that may include some animals that perished in the Flood. So they could be said to have been buried to give a record that the previous world came to an end with the Flood.
But clearly a lot of creatures have been added, like the dinosaurs, so are part of the fabrication.
So apart from a small amount of stuff buried in the very top layers, there is no massive amount of layers of rock that have been added. It’s mostly an underground reconstruction. And with the large forests, a lot of reworking. Possibly including some creatures also. But overall there are too many of them. So some have clearly been added, and are simply part of the fabrication, or reconstruction.
Just some thoughts.
REFERENCES
Stonehenge2007 07 30.jpg
Stonehenge
Attribution: garethwiscombe
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stonehenge2007_07_30.jpg
Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons
Stonehenge was constructed in several phases beginning about 3100 BC and continuing until about 1600 BC. The famous circle of large sarsen stones were placed between 2600 BC and 2400 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the bluestones were given their current positions between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at the site as early as 3000 BC.
One of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom, Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
1.
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/
2.
How Did We Get All This Coal?
by Dr. Andrew A. Snelling on April 1, 2013 ; last featured April 1, 2014
Featured in Answers Magazine
Subsequent experiments have more closely simulated natural geologic conditions, with temperatures of only 257°F (125°C) and lower pressures (equivalent to burial under 5,905 feet [1,800 meters] of wet sediments).10 After only 75 days, the original plant and wood materials still transformed into coal material, comparable chemically to coal from the same area of Indonesia.
Because these experiments simulated natural conditions, we can be confident that the coal-forming process is rapid and requires only months. So there is no reason to insist that coal formation requires millions of years.
It appears that lush vegetation might have covered up to 75 percent of the pre-Flood world, including the floating forests fringing the land. The Flood waters rose from the oceans and swept over the land, catastrophically destroying and burying all the vegetation in beds between other fossil-bearing sediments. The temperatures and pressures at these depths, aided by the presence of water and clay, converted these beds into coal within months.
Thus the huge coal deposits of today’s world can easily be explained.11 The coal formed quickly in the year-long Genesis Flood only about 4,300 years ago.
https://answersingenesis.org/biology/plants/how-did-we-get-all-this-coal/
10.
W. H. Orem, S. G. Neuzil, H. E. Lerch, and C. B. Cecil, “Experimental Early-stage Coalification of a Peat Sample and a Petrified Wood Sample from Indonesia,” Organic Geochemistry 24.2 (1996): 111–125.
3.
The most common way an animal such as a dinosaur fossilises is called petrification. These are the key steps:
1. The animal dies.
2. Soft parts of the animal's body, including skin and muscles, start to rot away. Scavengers may come and eat some of the remains.
3. Before the body disappears completely, it is buried by sediment - usually mud, sand or silt. Often at this point only the bones and teeth remain.
4. Many more layers of sediment build up on top. This puts a lot of weight and pressure onto the layers below, squashing them. Eventually, they turn into sedimentary rock.
5. While this is happening, water seeps into the bones and teeth, turning them to stone as it leaves behind minerals.
This process can take thousands or even millions of years.
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-are-fossils-formed.html
[Natural History Museum, London]
Lab-made fossils cram 1000s of years into 24 hours
By Ben Coxworth
July 25, 2018
In an effort to better understand how the fossilization process affects various types of biological materials, scientists at Britain's University of Bristol developed a lab-based process in which fresh specimens such as bird feathers, lizard limbs, and leaves can be converted into "synthetic" fossils within approximately one day.
Using a hydraulic press, the items are first packed into clay tablets about the diameter of a dime. Each tablet is then placed in a sealed metal tube, which gets heated to over 410 ºF (210 ºC) while also being subjected to 3,500 psi (241 bar) of pressure. After around 24 hours of this treatment, the tablets are cracked open to reveal their now-fossilized contents.
https://newatlas.com/lab-made-fossils/55619/
4.
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/
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/
Stephen Buckley
E-mail: snoaktrua [at] duck.com
Last revised: 10 Jul 2025.
Constructed: Mar 2025.
Companion pages
Stonehenge: A pre-Flood construction?
Page design/construction Stephen Buckley 2025.
Snoaktrua