That is just a back of the envelope calculation to show how absurd the global flood is when it comes to explaining fossils. Even allowing for depth you also have to allow for all of the other species that were alive at the same time. There just isn’t enough room in the ocean.
And as Phil pointed out these fossils were laid down in a shallow mid-continential sea. No great ocean depths there that we know about.
For another back of the envelope calculation let’s try to figure out how deep the ocean would have to be to support all of these squids at the same time.
Assumptions:
44.4 belemnites per square foot per Joel’s calculations.
Assume each belemnite requires a cube of 10 x 10 x 10 cubic feet of water to live. That’s 10 x 10 square feet for one surface which is probably too small.
Now the 100 sq feet would have to support 4440 belemnites if they could live anywhere in the column of water.
Now if each belemnite has it’s own 10 feet of vertical space that would require a depth of 44,400 feet.
Current average depth of the ocean is 12,100 ft.
So the required depth would be 3.6 times the average depth of the ocean.
The assumption you are making, John - that the squid must have been distributed somewhat randomly with respect to depth and location–actually agrees with the assumption that Duff makes. Given that common assumption, the question we are trying to answer is: how would we expect the fossil squids to be placed in the geological column, based on our model of how the sediments were deposited? If we have different models of how the sedimentary layers were formed, then we could see how they predict different placements of the fossils. Then we would compare the actual fossil observations with the predictions of our sedimentation models in order to select the best model.
The flood geology model states that all of the strata in the column were deposited over the course of a single year. Whenever the deposits occurred during that year, we would have expected at least some of the squid to be swimming in the vicinity (as you yourself point out) and thus would have been trapped by the sedimentation event. Under this model, then, we would expect the fossil squids to be stochastically distributed throughout all of the strata in the column.
In contrast, the model proposed by the vast majority of geologists claims that the various animal-trapping sedimentation events occurred over many geological eras separated by tens and hundreds of millions of years. This model predicts that the ecosystems affected likely would have been differed from one event to the next. According to this majority model, then, only a small portion of the layers in the column would be expected to have fossilized squids.
So we have two very different predictions, John, about how the fossilized squids would be distributed through the geological strata in the Bighorn Basin. The flood geology model predicts that they should be distributed in a stochastic fashion throughout all the strata, and the majority model predicts that they should be found in only a narrow stratum.
Time to look at the evidence and do some scientific thinking, John: Which of the two models does the placement of the fossilized squids in the Bighorn Basin support, and why?
Further, @John_Warren, we will have to explore the assumption that a book written about God that we read in English is a reliable representation of a God 4000 years ago … written by an unknown scribe … with an unknown context … with unknown motivations for why he (or she?) was writing!
I think there are a great many more unknowns in your scenario than in the scenario of understanding how Gravity changes as an object rises higher in the sky …
if E=mc2 wasn’t reliable, my GPS would probably put my car right into your front porch, instead of in front of a KFC, ordering one of their delicious chicken pot pies!
This kind of reliability is pretty gosh darn impressive … while a comparison of Genesis or Kings with Chronicles reveals a barrage of differences, disagreements and contradictions regarding names, time spans, genealogies and even events!
Why would God give us Chronicles ? … when all it does is vouch for the unreliability of the Old Testament?
My ventured answer: … because the Chronicles then vouch for our inability to glean the needed insights from Kings alone.
I swear, George, you remind me of my brasher self who, after getting a different answer to a math problem than all the rest of the world asks incredulously, “how could all of you get it wrong?” “oh wait – maybe the mistake is mine. Maybe. I’ll check again.”
I think a better example would be someone who argues with himself about being right or wrong. I didn’t write Chronicles. But if God did, then Inerrancy doesn’t seem to be something God worries about …
The Flood Geology model does not necessarily predict that everything should be randomly distributed throughout all the strata. The Flood, though catastrophic in that it wiped out all life, doesn’t have to be seen as maximally catastrophic (i.e., everything randomly mixed). People right now are working on models of hydraulic sorting and models of the order of catastrophic events that constituted the Flood Year. Give them time, just like evolutionists needed time to find the tons of transitional forms that should be there.
And John, I would be fascinated with what the Flood crowd comes up with.
But the one thing that I’ve never read any convincing response regarding is:
Why extinct Marine Mammals (Whales) and extinct Marine Reptiles (like the Kronosaurus) would not be found intermingled in at least some layers. After all, they both breath air. So it’s not like one was going to drown first.
Nor have we found any evidence that whales hunted dinosaurs or vice versa.
And if most of humanity drowned, along with thousands of Elephants, Tigers, T-Rexes and Brontosaurs … then we would expect to either find humans mixed in with T-Rexes and Brontosaurs, or T-Rexes and Brontosaurs mixed in with Elephants and Tigers.
Instead, what we find is that in the middle of the fossil stack, suddenly dinosaurs disappear (including the marine forms) and suddenly the larger mammals start to appear (but not yet whales). And then finally proto-whales and whales are found fossilized.
There isn’t a flood around that can be that precise and that specific.
Why would you expect them to be drowned together? In addition to the Flood doing the sorting, the animals would sort themselves by their varying ability to deal with rising muddy floodwaters
So large land mammals and whales had a similar ability to handle rising Flood waters, while large land dinosaurs and (aquatic) mosasaurs were also similar in their ability, which was very different from that of mammals. In other words, bison could handle Flood waters much better than reptiles that lived in the ocean. Is that really the argument?
Because the scientific community, using the scientific method, discovered they were frauds.
There have been frauds in support of the YEC position, too. In a very prominent YEC book published in the 70s, I saw supposed pictures of human and dinosaur footprints together in Paluxy, TX. Exciting stuff! Except the dinosaur tracks were a hoax, and the human tracks were just odd erosional markings. I trusted the book’s author, who went forward with his claims even though the scientific community had long before shown them to be a nothing-burger.
Well, no, I wouldn’t expect you to. What’s more interesting is that no one else has constructed a detailed explanation about fossils based on the Flood, and that includes people who do indeed do that sort of thing for a living. That’s because Flood geology and conventional geology are doing different things. Flood geology exists as an exercise in apologetics: its goal is to defend a belief. Conventional geology exists to understand the history of the earth.
