From: bivalve (bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com)
Date: Sat Mar 22 2003 - 15:50:55 EST
>Bivalve fossils (eg. clams) are commonly found closed, yet today when bivalves die the shells open and are disarticulated. Articulated bivalves are further evidence for rapid burial.
>Please point out the false statements and semantic games.
The claim that bivalves invariably open and get disarticulated after death is a false statement. The forms most commonly found articulated are those that are deep burrowers or borers, e.g. the geoduck, Panopea. Their life position is deeply buried, and extensive disturbance is required to unearth them. Most bivalves normally live buried, so ordinary conditions are often adequate to bury them beyong the reach of normal bioturbation.
Other species have extremely tightly attaching hinges, so that it takes breaking the shell to detach the valves. Also, there is variation in strength and decay-resistance of the ligament.
Secondly, although the total number of articulated fossil bivalves is quite large, disarticulated specimens are much more common, and fragments commoner still. Very good specimens are exceptional, especially as one gets further back into the fossil record. Claiming that articulated specimens are the norm is false.
Finally, the evidence of myriad separate events of rapid burial, interspersed with abundant evidence of slow deposition or even erosion, in no way supports a young earth.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
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