Is the bible inerrant?

[Paraleptopecten (Timothy Campbell)]

@Burrawang

We find massive sheets of sedimentary rock that were clearly laid down very rapidly, as there are virtually zero, soil horizons or evidence of erosional weathering in the strata that contain billions of beautifully preserved fossils that were laid down ‘rapidly’ by water.

We know the strata with fossils was laid down rapidly because of the complete absence of bioturbation in the sedimentary strata and the fossils, that is, the fossils were not attacked by predatory creatures and torn apart, nor were they destroyed by bacterial and fungal action that would normally leave little trace if they were laid down over millions or billions of years.

Both of these sets of claims are just wrong.

@Burrawang

Nowhere on Earth in the last four thousand years do we see sediments being laid down at the scale of what is evident all over the Earth.

Let’s actually do the math for this–If we assume that the layers off the coast near where I live are reasonably complete for 80 million years (not very realistic, so our estimate will be low), then the deposition rate has been about 6 cm/millenium over that time. As this is within an order of magnitude or so of most of the modern deposition rate values that I have seen, this is suggestive of reasonably consistent deposition rates across time.

@Burrawang

Of course there are some places where there is some bioturbation and soil horizons that I suggest likely indicate either the deposition was post the global flood of Noah’s day, or they were laid down during brief exposures of land during the inundatory stage of the global flood

That model is completely incompatible with every Cenozoic shallow marine layer I have ever read a paper about. There is no way to get large endolithic bivalve holes in a rock in less than a few years of exposure to clean seawater. Let’s take an example of the strata at one mine in Horry County, South Carolina: the bottom of the pit hits a clayy limestone that has occasional dinosaur bones in other places and some bioturbation of its surface, above this there is a thick, hard limestone with lots of endolithic bivalve burrows in its upper surface that then got eroded down, then a non-leached shell marl with multiple transgressive-regressive pulses within it. This indicates the following sequence of events:

1 The clayy limestone is deposited.

2 It is colonized by various animals at its surface (takes a few years at an unrealistic minimum).

[a bunch of other layers get deposited and eroded away, based on other sites]

3 The animals whose skeletons compose the limestone live and die (a few centuries at an unrealistic minimum, given the known lifespans of some of the animals in it).

4 The sediment later to become limestone is exposed to fresh groundwater for a few decades at an unrealistic minimum (fastest way for limestone to form).

5 The limestone goes back under the ocean, is excavated from topsoil by water motion, and is then colonized by (among other things) lithophagiform mussels. These mussels live for a decade or more to get to their final sizes.

6 Sea level goes back down and the surface of the limestone is eroded down such that some burrows are only a few mm deep.

[a couple more layers come and go based on other sites]

7 Sea level rises again, and a new marine fauna colonizes the top of the limestone.

8 Sea level then drops and rises about three more times (over at least a few centuries, again based solely on measured lifespans).

9 Sea level drops a final time, a river erodes through the site, and leaves a sand layer at the top outside of its channel (at least a few decades more).

10 The river moves elsewhere.

11 People arrive in the area, as the sea level and river courses have not changed significantly since human habitation.

This means that the layers here took more than 500 years to be deposited, with sea level going up and down by intervals of over 30 meters during that time (which adds at least 2000 years more to allow for deposition of clay-sized grains in the layers). If that was during the flood, then the flood took centuries. If it was after, then we would have records of sea level changes of that size range in archeological deposits. The only other option is a pointless, deceptive miracle.

@Burrawang

WHY isn’t there any evident bioturbation and why aren’t there evident soil horizons?

If the layer is from more than about 550 MYA, then there was nothing doing bioturbation, seemingly. More recently, the obvious possibilities for why there is an absence of bioturbation are: the top of the layer got eroded down (pretty common), the layer was deposited in a relatively hostile environment (e.g., hypersaline or anoxic), or the traces of bioturbation were ephemeral enough not to be preserved.

@Burrawang

You don’t need a degree in Geology to see what is plainly evident for ALL to see.

Let me once again quote Michael Tuomey’s 1848 Geology of South Carolina:

@Paraleptopecten

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@Burrawang

Please look for yourself, get out in the field and check it out for yourself, it’s plain enough for anyone to see once you remove the evolution

I have, and what is absolutely plain, has been suspected for 330 years, and known for 250 is that the geologic column is not compatible in any way, shape, or form with an age for the earth of less than hundreds of thousands of years. Again, quoting Michael Tuomey “It was usual, at one time to refer the phenomenon of the distribution of organic remains in these rocks to the Deluge; but no one, who has ever examined a fossiliferous deposit for five minutes can hold such an opinion.”

@Burrawang

The slow and gradual deposition of sediments over millions upon millions of years is a myth.

@Burrawang

It is not I that needs to get his facts straight.

Okay, in that case, be the first person to give me a detailed explanation for how a fossiliferous shallow marine deposit came to be that does not require thousands to hundreds of thousands of years and is compatible with the ones that I have visited or seen photographed. The same challenge applies to sequence biostratigraphy and global planktonic foraminiferal dating.