Re: Canadian Coal and dinosaurs

On Sun, 7 Mar 2004 00:21:24 -0700 "Kevin Sharman" <ksharman@pris.bc.ca>
writes:
> Hi Bill,
>
> Let's turn our attention to some concrete evidence pointing to an
insitu
> origin for Mesozoic coal - dinosaur tracks.

[snip]

> Think hard about this, Bill - the floor, top of the seam, and
sediments
> above the roof all have dino tracks. Will you admit that the floor of
the
> peat was subaerially exposed or had minimal water cover before
deposition of
> it, and that the peat and roof rocks were also subaerially exposed or
had
> minimal water cover?

OK, if I have to.
 
> Furthermore, where did these dinosaurs come from, if the Flood killed
> every air-breathing animal except for those on the ark?

I can think of two possibilities: 1) the Flood was receding but still had
not killed all of the air-breathers, or 2) this is sometime after the
Flood and repopulation of the biota had begun.

> We have already
> examined the "rode on a floating mat" idea and found that it can't
account
> for the distribution of different species of dinosaurs in the fossil
record.

I'm inclined to tentatively agree, but this is a side issue for me and
one I'm not ready to give up on.

> Between these coal bearing units
> are thick, monotonous sequences of shale and siltstone with marine
fossils
> and high sulphide sulphur content. These shale units do not have coal
OR
> dinosaur tracks. Care to explain why coal and tracks are only found in
the
> units mentioned, and not in the thick shales?

That's a nice observation. How abundant are the marine fossils? We have
many carbonates, shales and sandstones in Alabama with no fossils
whatsoever.

> I think this is the end of the line for your floating mat idea..

Possibly for the Cretaceous, but these strata are younger and different
from the Pennsylvanian. Don't panic though; we don't have Pennsylvanian
dinos, but there are vertebrate trackways associated with coals.

Bill

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Received on Tue Mar 9 00:13:05 2004