Did bones actually become fossilized in the sediments of "ancient" epeiric (inland) seas on continents?

Faith & Science Conversation
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Do you realise that this is something that happens on a regular basis today? Lahars, mudflows and landslides are very much a thing.

It is unrealistic to suggest that similar events on a similar scale could not have happened in the past. Evidence for a planet-wide flood that created the fossil record needs to have features that can not be explained by a large number of localised catastrophes similar to what we see today.

Just claiming that slow sedimentation can not account for the fossil record proves nothing.

It doesn’t work like that. The reason why people reject young earthism and Flood Geology has nothing whatsoever to do with the kind of scoffing and mocking that Peter is talking about.

The thing that you need to understand here is that evidence has rules. More to the point, honesty has rules. If you are going to try to claim what evidence does or does not exist, whether or not it is hiding, and what it does or does not support, you need to stick to the rules. Rules such as this one for starters:

¹³Do not have two differing weights in your bag — one heavy, one light. ¹⁴Do not have two differing measures in your house — one large, one small. ¹⁵You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lᴏʀᴅ your God is giving you. ¹⁶For the Lᴏʀᴅ your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly. (Deuteronomy 25:13-16)

Here’s the thing. Any creation model, any interpretation of Genesis 1, any challenge to the scientific consensus on the age of the earth or evolution must obey these verses. Any that does not is not scientific, is not Biblical, is not honest, and is not true.

If young earthists want to have a legitimate claim to being “scoffed at” in the way that 2 Peter talks about, they must first demonstrate a commitment to obeying the rules. It is one thing being mocked or scoffed at for being a Christian. It is a completely different matter being “mocked” or “scoffed at” for fudging measurements, quote mining, misrepresenting evidence or scientific procedures, making things up, or exaggerating or downplaying the extent or significance of errors.

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Yes, this transport of sediment from the ocean onto the craton or continent occurs during a “transgression,” as described in sequence stratigraphy.

Notice this quote:
Cratonic sequence - Wikipedia

“Cratonic sequences are also known as “megasequences”, “stratigraphic sequences”, “Sloss sequences”, “supersequences” or simply “sequences”. They are geologic evidence of relative sea level rising and then falling (transgressing and regressing), thereby depositing varying layers of sediment onto the craton , now expressed as sedimentary rock. Places such as the Grand Canyon are a good visual example of this process, demonstrating the changes between layers deposited over time as the ancient environment changed.”

You wonder why the “inland sea” ocean does not have its own sediment. Actually, it’s one and the same body of water. That is, the “inland” (ancient) “sea” is the transgressive ocean flow. But since the evolutionary model, with its millions-of-years time scale, is being used, they must slow this transgressive flow way down–turning it, in fact, into a “sea”…a very, very slowly moving sea. So, the ocean sediments are being transported by this sea across (in the case of the Sauk transgression) 75% of the North American continent, and then back again. All over a period of several million years, they claim.

Erosion from the Rockies–and from the Appalachians–becomes swept up in the transgressive and/or regressive ocean flows, and so are included in their depositions.

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In other words, you’re saying that mere local mudslides, say from excessive rainfall, account for the fossilization we find in the fossil record?

But not so. The kind of “mudslides” recorded in the fossil record all contain ocean fossils, on all the continents. In other words, they were caused not by local, but by global, catastrophic flooding (flood waters was packed with muddy ocean sediments).

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In other words, there must be honesty and integrity in our approach to evidence. Right? I agree. Though, of course, you know this applies to all of us, doesn’t it?

So, how do you justify denying the worldwide Flood that the Apostle Peter says is evident to those who do not mock at the Word of God?

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Peter, here in 2 Peter 3, says that this Flood flooded and “destroyed” the world. Are you saying you accept that the Flood happened, but that it was just local? Or, do you accept what Peter says here?

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I’m sorry, but that’s just deflection. Whataboutism.

Yes, the rules apply to all of us. But before young earthists can make such a point, they must demonstrate that their own approach is accurate and honest first.

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Having been a victim of the Flood, but not YEC (I mean, there are limits! Not really: I was a Gap man), I fully understand the impenetrability of matters of religion and how they twist all facts. There are no limits to the lengths a hermetically sealed mind will go to. This is a by-product of the evolution of psychology obviously. I only changed as the leadership of my cult acceleratingly did. If it hadn’t, I couldn’t.

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This is an interpretation of Scripture in light of current understanding. This is NOT what Scripture alludes to or says. This claim reflects a reading into the text of what is not there.

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The inland ocean experiences sedimentation similar to any ocean. There isn’t any need of a dominant net transport at all. But as you have admitted, you do not know where the ocean sediment comes from, but somehow are sure of where the interior seaway sediment came from. What is so difficult to fathom that similar geological processes account for the sediment in all ocean basins including the inland sea?

Sedimentary Basins of the World - The Western Interior Basin Sedimentary Basins of the World

The distinctive paleogeography of the seaway throughout its history represents variations on a basic theme:clastic sediment sources were generated at different times by contractional orogeny at discrete locations along thelength of the Cordilleran Orogen. These shed detritus eastward, forming clastic wedges deposited in a range of nonmarine and shallow-marine environments

The Western Interior Basin in Space and Time

Sedimentation in, and marginal to, the basin was controlled by several factors, which exerted their own special influence and interacted with one another in a complex, exceedingly dynamic, paleo ­
oceanographic system. The factors include (1) tectonic growth of both proto-Cordillera and basin, which affected, for example, the source, supply rate, and depositional site of the predominantly terrigenous clastic sediments that accumulated; (2) eustatic changes, which are recorded in widely correlative transgressive-regressive cyclicity and sequence-stratigraphic response; and (3) watermass dynamics in the epicontinental seas of the basin, which influenced deposition of carbonate sediments (mainly in the southern basin), and spatial distribution of both environmentally sensitive emigrant biotas from the bordering oceans to north and south, and resident biotas.

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In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. Genesis 7:11

Allusion is in the beady little eye of the beholder.

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Of course. Forgot about that.

So, if the fountains were related to plate tectonics, the earth would have been flooded with lava, though. Nõ?

But water came out. A lot of it. From under the earth’s surface. Isn’t that different from plate tectonics? Even with all the ground water we have in Michigan, my limited imagination isn’t finding that water volume under ground to cover the surface of the whole Earth more than a mile deep.

maybe that was just part of the water since the story also talks about the rain. How much water was up above that dome, anyway? Wait, or is/was it a dome?

But if we’re talking about ground water, we aren’t talking about plate tectonics, since the ground water is in pockets in the crust, rather than under the crust, where the magma is.
This is confusing!

Fountains (generally) do expel water, not lava. Broken fountains, generally don’t function, or they leak. It depends on the situation. But if they leak, they leak water still, not lava, which is what is involved with plate tectonics.
This is all very confusing.

I have many more questions about this interpretation, which are all related to untestable inconsistancies.

Like maybe, since physical constants are now up for grabs, the matter under earth’s tectonic plates was, indeed, at one time water? I suppose that might be right, because there was water under the earth in the account of creation.

So many questions.

I also wonder, why no one understood anything about plate tectonics between the time of Noah’s biographers and the early 20th century, when plate tectonics were developed as a “theory” which may or may not be testable, as radiometric dating seems to be. Or not.

So many questions.
I’m sure there are Answers somewhere.

< /sarcasm >

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Wot? In Genesis?!

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Yes, there are fish bones present in modern shallow marine deposits–especially otoliths (fish earbones).

Yes, sea level does seem to have been that much higher.

Keep in mind that the fastest transgressive/regressive pulses take 40,000 years.

They can do so far better–the layers were deposited gradually on the continents while the ocean was above them, not transported from deeper areas.

If the flooding was gradual, it could just move to the higher ground–about 50% of earth’s current land area was still above sea level.

NO THEY DO NOT! They assume that deposition worked in a comparable way to how it does today–sediment gradually accumulating and staying where it accumulated.

If the rate were not constant or nearly so, then either the earth would turn into a plasma emitting a billion times as much energy as the sun does, or every atom would fall apart.

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“Yes, the rules apply to all of us. But before young earthists can make such a point, they must demonstrate that their own approach is accurate and honest first.”

This is what this thread is about.

It is scientifically inaccurate to argue that ancient inland seas created fossilized bones, although this is the mainstream explanation for where marine fossils came from. Empirical science today is proving that seas consume (via bacteria) bones–they do not fossilize them.
This has implications: it means that the ocean flows that deposited sediments over all the continents were just that–flows–not seas. In fact, very dynamic, catastrophic flows. This is the only kind that would be able to suddenly, completely, and deeply bury bones, and so, fossilize them.

As you said, there must be accuracy.

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My understanding of this is that it is a judgment call as to whether it is due to sea levels or to continental subsidence/uplift.

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Your interpretation leaves much to be desired. So you think scoffers back then missed the physical evidence for a global flood, but believers picked up on it? Was anybody studying hydrology, geology, sedimentation, and the like back then? I would love to know more.

The disciples took little lightly. They certainly weren’t cult members with brains switched off.

First let me ask you, @donpartain: Since the Bible clearly says in several places that the earth doesn’t move. do you believe that?

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This is according to the evolutionary time scale, though.

And a problem with this is, it means that ocean waters were covering (in the case of the Sauk) 75% of the North American continent for about 5 million years. In later megasequences, this would mean this much of the continent was under water for 25 million and even 50 million years, according to Sloss diagrams. How could any terrestrial life have survived being under ocean water those long periods? Evolution would have to repeatedly reboot, wouldn’t it?

In fact, how could ocean water even hold in suspension sediments to deposit throughout both the transgressive and recessive flows, if even taking 40,000 years to cross the continent?

I believe this is a serious misconception–and a reason I started this thread: the misconception that the continents were covered largely by primitive or “ancient” seas. And that this explains both the presence of marine fossils on the continents.

Yet, even if such seas existed, we know–for example, from whale falls–that bones even of marine creatures do not slip down into ocean sediments and become fossilized. Rather, these bones are consumed, ultimately by bacteria. So, the existence of marine fossils does not evidence primitive seas, but instead evidences the kind of ocean flow that would be powerful enough and dynamic enough to suddenly, completely, and deeply bury marine (and land) organisms in muddy ocean sediments.

And, it’s significant that these ocean waters were indeed flows–they moved…they “transgressed” and “regressed” across major extents of the continents. Strange “sea,” wouldn’t you say?

On the North American continent, 75% of the land was covered by ocean waters during the Sauk (Cambrian, Ordovician) transgression. So, only 25% of the land was elevated above the water. And this transgressive-regressive flow supposedly took about 5 million years. So, 75% of the continent was under ocean waters for all this time.

Yes, land animals certainly have crowded together upon this 25%–for 5 million years? Yet, how would the plants have survived being under ocean waters for 5 million years?

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So evolution is false because organisms die? Really?

Are you saying that evolution predicts all organisms should be immortal?

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Perhaps they were on the dry land on either side of the inland sea? I don’t know, just a guess.

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In every single case? How can you know this?

We have deposits that are 2,000 feet thick made up of crinoid plates. You don’t get 2,000 feet of dead crinoids with a single, fast event. You get these deposits from a sea that sits in place for millions of years.

There are also massive chalk deposits across the Earth, one of the most famous being the white cliffs at Dover:

image

You don’t get these deposits from a catastrophic event. It requires massive amounts of time for the organisms to grow, die, and then slowly settle to the ocean floor.

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