Whale bones in sea sediments are completely consumed in just a few years in “whale falls” studies:
So how could bones of both land and sea creatures become fossilized in “ancient seas” on the continents, as claimed by evolutionary scientists, in the fossil record?
The conditions are quite rare. Something has to quickly halt the decomposition process. In one case it was when a whale caught in shallows was buried with other animals in sediment just before a volcano covered the area in a lava flow. Yes it takes more than just being buried in sea sediments.
It’s very rare for living things to become fossilised. Usually after most animals die their bodies just rot away and nothing is left behind. However, under certain special conditions, a fossil can form.
Evolutionary scientists would hold that in the majority of cases, whale bones are consumed exactly the way you say. But stuff happens. Every so often the right place and conditions come around to bury and fossilize bones. For instance, generations back I have a relative who died in a massive mountain slide. He was at the wrong place at the wrong time, but otherwise, not some big mystery. Just because the vast majority of people do not die in slides does not mean that all accounts of death by slide are false. We know slides happen under water as well.
How could 99.9% of all species have been turned to rock by The Flood™ in 150 days 4,370 years ago?
Just asking, yer know, for expert, empirical, evidence based, tested, repeatable opinion from the supermajority of scientists in all fields. There’s a nice name for that. Not plenum is it? You are one aren’t you?
But if we have a lot of fossils, and they rarely form, that would take a long time for them to accumulate in such numbers, wouldn’t it?
Over out in left field, I keep thinking about the enormity of the whole, from which these rare samples come. What volume of life could the earth support at any one time?
If the rare conditions are global catastrophes, ecocides, with landslides, floods, mudslides, benthic ooze tsunami, rock avalanches from meteor and comet strikes with corpses and sediments piling up in draining valleys, canyons, gorges once every million years or ten, I’d expect them to accumulate in vast numbers. Is that what we see anywhere I wonder?
Sorry about your relative, but this massive, sudden burial in a landslide or mudslide is the kind of burial we know is necessary for fossilization of bones.
In other words, we could say that it takes more than a bone falling into sediments–the sediments must (suddenly and massively) fall onto the bone. For fossilization to occur, a bone must be buried suddenly, completely, and deeply by sediments.
But this is not what is claimed by most scientific articles I have read about all the marine fossils throughout the fossil record. Rather, they claim that–for example–a fish dies…then goes through “bloat and float”…then is scavenged…then the bones drift down to the sea bottom, where–after long periods of time–they are gradually covered up by sea sediments until, lo and behold, they become fossilized!
That is one of the ways fossils form. Another is for a body to settle into an area with low oxygen levels. See The Role of Anoxia in the Decay and Mineralization of Proteinaceous Macro-Fossils for example.
How gradually? This is not what I have read in peer reviewed, on topic literature, but it would not surprise me that there are popular level articles by science journalists which are sloppy in their explanations. Fossilization is exceptional, but exceptions do happen.
Different animals fossilize differently. Another example are crinoids (which is actually an animal):
They are made up of hard plates and segments. When they die the segments break up and litter the sea floor. Over long periods these can really pile up.
That formation alone has enough crinoid deposits to cover the Earth 1/4 inch deep in crinoid segments. That is just one formation, and there are many more like them.
Yes, that’s actually the point of “suddenly, completely, and deeply”–to seal out oxygen as much as possible.
But thanks for the link!
Yes, in all fairness, other articles did emphasize “rapid burial in sediments.” But it concerned me how many educational and government institutions had articles that simply spoke of bones drifting down and somehow burying themselves in sea sediments…and so, becoming fossils.
Yes, though you are not talking about bones fossilizing, are you? Calcium carbonates (with crinoids) and calcium phosphates (in shark teeth) do not break down. They do not go through permineralization to fossilize, as bones do.
Instead, they qualify as fossils simply by…being old.
Sequence stratigraphy has been narrowing down the possibilities for us. The fossils were formed by rapid, complete, and deep burial in genetically related ocean sediments–especially, sand (to become sandstone), clay (to become shale), and calcium carbonate (to become limestone).
In fact, the ordering of these layers even tell us whether the ocean flows were “transgressive”–a marine incursion across the continents (in which case, there is a “thinning up” of sediments)-- or “regressive,” where ocean flows were retreating off the continents (in which case, there is a “coarsening up” of sediments).
Distinct “packages” of these facies are bound, above and below, by erosion layers called “unconformities.”
“Genetically related” means that the stacked sedimentary rock layers lay adjacent to one another in the ocean environment.
They qualify as fossils because they are representative of a living organism.
I would think that “genetically related” would mean they have a common source (i.e. a common parent).
Here’s how Science Direct explains it: “A group of sedimentary facies genetically linked by common processes and environments comprises a depositional system.” Sequence Stratigraphy–an overview.
The sand (to become sandstone) is beach environment. The clay (to become shale) is shallow marine. The calcium carbonate (to become limestone) is from deeper ocean waters. So, again, the sediments lie adjacent to each other before being transported onto and across certain extents of the continents by strong ocean flows.
To recognize “genetically related” for each sequence is informative and significant. It means, for example, the sand in a sequence was not primarily from the continent interior (though eroded sands might be picked up by the oceanic flooding, as happened with the Sauk (Cambrian, Ordovician) transgression–a flow so strong it eroded basement granite, resulting in the “Great Unconformity.”
Actually, some define fossil also in terms of its age. One source said, “at least 10,000 years old.”
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