Re: Canadian Coal and dinosaurs

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Payne" <bpayne15@juno.com>
To: <ksharman@pris.bc.ca>
Cc: <glennmorton@entouch.net>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2004 10:07 PM
Subject: 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,
I think the Bible is pretty clear on this - the Flood killed them, not the
aftershocks or whatever it is that you're driving at here. You would need
to have the dinosaurs swim for most of a year, which is ludicrous, and it
still wouldn't explain the distribution of differing types of dinosaurs
throughout the fossil record, something which you once said is strong
evidence for evolution and long ages.
> or 2) this is sometime after the
> Flood and repopulation of the biota had begun.
Then you're back to explaining coal seams as post-Flood, aren't you? Still
doesn't explain the appearance of new types of dinos. You can't explain
these and younger coals with floating mats, if you're saying the Flood was
over, and you can't explain them with in-place peat growth, since you only
have a few thousand years to accumulate the peat, coalify it, uplift it,
fold it, etc.
>
> > 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.
Nice sidestep of the question, Bill. These shales have abundant microfauna
(foraminifera) and less abundant macrofauna (mainly ammonites). Now care to
answer the question?

>
> > 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.

I take this as an admission from you that the floating mat scenario is much
less probable than the mainstream in situ model for Mesozoic and younger
coals. Thanks; it only took us 3 months.

Now you want to continue your floating mat scenario for Paleozoic coals,
which in most respects are the same as post-Paleozoic ones. Difference in
vegetation types is not enough to propose a completely different mode of
formation.

Kevin
Received on Wed Mar 10 09:05:44 2004