>Vernon Jenkins wrote:
>I'm sure you will agree that an understanding of the true nature of the
>Noahic Flood is crucial ... For an evolutionist like
>yourself this, clearly, is no longer an issue: the inundation must have
>been 'local'.
What do you mean by evolutionist? The disparity between the geologic
record and a global flood of the sort endorsed by Flood Geology was
recognized before the general acceptance of biological evolution among
scientists. Sidney, 1866, Conversations on the Bible and Science, for
example, rejected Darwin's novel ideas as inadequately supported by the
evidence, but cited II Pet. 2:5b "upon the world of the ungodly" as proof
of a regional rather than global flood.
Glenn Morton replied to another point
> Stokes law which is the physical law that
>defines how rapidly something falls in a viscous fluid shows that an
>objects rate of fall is predominatly determined by density and size.
>Shape plays a minor, I repeat MINOR role. Surface features play NO role
>whatsoever.
Density plus size is related to shape, and surface features are a part of
the shape, so I think it needs clarified just what is being talked about
here. A feather does sink more slowly than a sphere of equal density and
volume, but sinks at pretty much the same rate as anything else with the
same density, volume, and surface area.
However, the index fossils in question do not differ drastically in shape,
surface features, density, or size from those always found either above or
below it. They do differ drastically in these ways from other index
fossils, characteristic of the same layers. For example, in the Pliocene
of the southeastern U.S., certain large scallops (dinner plate sized) and
calcareous nannofossils (about 10 microns) consistently occur in certain
layers and not those above or below, which contain different large scallops
and calcareous nannofossils.
>>>>(2) Do I gather from your illustration re conodonts that exactly the
>same sequence is found in every site worldwide, without exception?<<<
>
>YES. Among the index conodonts.
There are some common-sense [;)] exceptions. When a boulder with conodonts
was carried along by a glacier and then redeposited elsewhere, the
conodonts are probably out of sequence relative to the rocks the boulder
was redeposited upon. When there is a fault with traces of rocks having
slid past one another (cracks, scratch marks, crushed rock, layers moved
relative to each other on either side, etc.), then crossing the fault may
produce a jump in the sequence, possibly backwards, depending on the ages
of the rocks above and below. Finally, the fossils may occasionally be
reworked. If some of the conodonts in a rock are worn-down, scattered, and
showing variable ratios of types whereas others are fresh, occasionally
associated into groups, and occur in characteristic ratios, there is good
reason to suspect that some of the conodonts have been washed out of an
older deposit, washed around a while, and then redeposited along with new
ones from the conodont animals that were alive at the time the old
conodonts were washing around on the seafloor. [Conodonts are tooth-like
structures. The animals had sets of them. Thus, just as if you were at a
site with human teeth and found 100 canines, two molars, and an incisor,
you would figure something unusual had happened, certain types of conodonts
are normally found in ratios approximating their ratios within the animal.]
David C.