Re: dinosaur footprints again
Joel Duff (crinoid@midwest.net)
Wed, 28 Apr 1999 16:07:28 -0500
>At 09:34 AM 4/28/99 -0500, Joel wrote:
>
>>Even disregarding the later, I will tell you what I logically conclude from
>>this. I have been asking myself if these footprints could have been
>>produced underwater and I have concluded probably not. The reason is that
>>there are footprints from many different dinosaurs of different sizes. It
>>seems to me that the water depth has to be just right for a dinosaur to be
>>swimming along and leave a trail of prints and that same water depth will
>>not allow for smaller or larger dinosaurs to efficiently leave prints. I
>>would have to propose wildly changing depths of water over time in order to
>>account for the variety of prints. Is my logic way off, the only thing I
>>can come up with otherwise is that all the prints were made by the same
>>animal but at different times at different depths of water (thus the weight
>>placed on the sediment varied giving what appears to be different prints).
>>Anyway, I thought this particular discovery might be worth keeping an
>>eye on for future developments.
>
>The dinosaur tracks are entirely unrelated to the Permian Coconino tracks
>we have discussed previously. The dinos are not walking on cross beds, as
>the Permian amphibians/reptiles were, but on flat bedding planes; thus the
>arguments related to water depth and other features cannot apply here.
>Also, the trackways do not show the dinosaurs to be walking sideways, as
>the Coconino trackways do, a feature difficult to explain in any
>circumstance other than in water.
Art,
I knew I could count on you to reply:-) I guess I was thinking more
generally about flood models when I was comparing the two but I see now
that these are different questions in many ways. I must have missed
something in the previous discussion because I thought that the means by
which the tracks were laid down in the Coconino was being applied generally
to explain a wide variety of tracks that seemed to have been created in
"dryer" conditions not possible during the flood. Maybe I am thinking
more of Allen Roy's multiple tsunami model wherein the dinosaurs could have
been around late in the flood and between tsunami events wandered out onto
this temporarily exposed horizontal beach. To me it is not just the sheer
number of tracks but the variety of tracks that makes such a model
difficult for me to envision.
Regards,
Joel Duff