Evolution Impossible (11 page)

The present-day geologic time scale assumes that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and divides this time period into eons, eras, periods, and epochs.

The Precambrian Eon dates from 4,500 million years (m.y.) to 542 m.y.

The Phanerozoic dates from 542 m.y. to present.

The Phanerozoic is divided into three eras:

• Paleozoic Era dates from 542 m.y. to 251 m.y., which in turn is divided into seven periods:
  
  1. Cambrian 542 m.y.–488 m.y.
     
  2. Ordovician 488 m.y. –444 m.y.
     
  3. Silurian 444 m.y.–416 m.y.
     
  4. Devonian 416 m.y.–359 m.y.
     
  5. Mississippian 359 m.y.–318 m.y.
     
  6. Pennsylvanian 318 m.y.–299 m.y.
     
  7. Permian 299 m.y.–251 m.y.
     
• Mesozoic Era dates from 251 m.y. to 65.5 m.y., which in turn is divided into three periods:
  
  1. Triassic 251m.y.–199.6 m.y.
     
  2. Jurassic 199.6 m.y.–145.5 m.y.
     
  3. Cretaceous 145.5 m.y.–65.5 m.y.
     
• Cenozoic Era dates from 65.5 million years to the present, which in turn is divided into two periods:
  
  1. Tertiary 65.5 m.y.–1.8 m.y., which is divided into five epochs: Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene and Pliocene
     
  2. Quaternary 1.8 m.y.–present, which is divided into two epochs: Pleistocene and Holocene
     ⁹
     

This new geology paradigm is based on unproven radiometric dating results, together with the assumptions of uniformitarianism and hundreds of millions of years’ time periods for life on earth. The often-asserted observation that fossils in the oldest rocks seemed to be less complex biologically than the fossils in the younger rocks, in conjunction with an expanded “scientific” time frame for the history of the earth, served as a suitable foundation for the development of the theory of evolution. Consequently, most university texts now cite the fossil record as the evidence that evolution has occurred.
¹⁰
So let us now
examine the scientific evidence from the fossil record in more detail.

Firstly, it is important to note that virtually all the fossils used as evidence for evolution have been found in sedimentary rocks. That is, fossils are mainly found in rocks that formed under water.

Secondly, these rocks are found all over the world. This means water deposition of these rocks was occurring regularly everywhere for supposedly hundreds of millions of years, burying millions upon millions of animals and plants.

Thirdly, for the fossilization process to occur, these plants and animals had to be buried rapidly so that they would not rot or decay, or be eaten or break up under weathering conditions. Many of the animals are more than a few millimeters in size — and require large amounts of rapid sediment to bury them, as do especially large fish and whales and dinosaurs. In other words, fossils usually would only form under what we would call catastrophic conditions. It would actually be very difficult for fossils to form under slow uniformitarian conditions where a few millimeters of sediment are being deposited slowly. Uniformitarianism assumes conditions in the past like the present. But we do not observe large numbers of plants and animals being fossilized under present conditions.

Fourthly, the fossil record shows that a huge number of different types of plants and animals existed in the past that no longer exist today. In fact, as we have already discussed in a previous chapter, it has been estimated on the basis of the fossil record that 98 to 99 percent of the different types of species that once existed are now extinct. In other words, the fossil record is evidence of a much larger variety of plants and animals existing in the past that are now extinct. So the fossil record is a record of the extinction of preexisting life forms.

Over the past 2,000 years, scientific observations have been recorded. We do not see footprints left on sandy beaches being fossilized. Nor do we find evidence of recent fossilization of starfish, crabs, seaweeds, or washed-up dead sea birds occurring around our seashores or river deltas. Nor have the recent massive floods in Queensland, Australia, for example, which covered an area estimated to be the size of the state of New South Wales, led to the first stage of fossilization of thousands of kangaroos, lizards, or other animals. We have not read in our newspapers of reports of natural events that have fossilized thousands of penguins or polar bears or whales or locusts or fish or rabbits. Nor did the prairie killing to near extinction of thousands of bison (American buffalo) for sport in North America during the 19th century result in the formation of large numbers of bison fossils. In other words, we do not observe fossils forming in the conditions that produce the regular annual alluvial deposits we see today, which presumably correspond to conditions that Lyell assumed for his calculations of great ages. The existence of massive fossil beds that contain remains of large animals and fish indicates that catastrophic processes occurred in the past, and that we cannot use the uniformitarian assumptions to calculate the age of fossils and life on earth.

For example, there are many huge fossil beds, some thousands of feet thick, containing thousands and millions of fossil organisms. The most likely explanation is that these fossil deposits must have formed under massive catastrophic conditions, involving processes on an enormously much larger scale than anything we have observed happening on earth during the last several thousand years.

University of Sydney–educated research geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling describes a number of examples of massive fossil graveyards that illustrate the scale and magnitude of the fossilization processes of the past.
¹¹
For example, extensive fossil graveyards are found in the Morrison Formation and its equivalents that stretch from New Mexico in the south to Canada in the north, over
an area of 579,150 square miles (1.5 million square km). This formation consists of layers of limestone, mudstone, siltstone, and sandstone, with the latter conglomeratic layers containing abundant dinosaur remains, including relatively pristine, semi-articulated skeletal segments. Fossil remains of many different types of dinosaurs have been found, including the well-known stegosaurs and the giant sauropod dinosaurs that grew up to 98 feet (30 meters) or more in length. Imagine the catastrophic conditions that must have wiped out and buried these giant animals. Furthermore, buried with the dinosaurs remains are fossils of fish, frogs, salamanders, lizards, crocodiles, turtles, crayfish, and clams, as well at pterosaurs, the flying lizards often referred to as pterodactyls. These massive fossil beds tell us that the same types of animals that exist today existed in the past with animals like the dinosaurs, which are now extinct.

An important point to note with regard to this extensive fossil graveyard is that giant land-dwelling dinosaurs, as well as water-dwelling animals, were buried in a massive conglomeratic sandstone formation deposited by rapidly moving water.
¹²

Another spectacular fossil dinosaur graveyard has been found in the Nemgt Basin of Mongolia, where hundreds of well-preserved articulated skeletons of dinosaurs have been found buried together with skeletons of mammals, lizards, and birds. Many of the skulls are virtually complete with the lower jaws still joined, that is, in articulation, and even ear parts are well preserved.

In the Cedarberg Mountains of South Africa, the Soom Shale formation contains thousands of exceptionally well-preserved fossils of brachiopods, nautiloids, arthropods, and conodonts in locations spread over hundreds of miles. These fossils are so well preserved that the sensory organs, walking appendages, fibrous muscular masses, and even gill tracts of the arthropods (shrimp-like animals) are remarkably preserved, as are the complete feeding apparatuses of the conodonts.

The Cow Branch formation of shales that occurs in the Virginia-North Carolina border area of the United States contains an abundance of complete insect fossils. There are also fossils that have preserved the shape of the soft parts of backboned animals, and many articulated specimens of aquatic reptiles have been fossilized, complete with outline of the muscles on the tail and ligaments in the webbed hind feet. There is a mixture of terrestrial, freshwater, and seawater organisms buried together and fossilized in a highly preserved state. As Dr. Snelling points out, these shale fossil deposits are consistent with catastrophic deposition and burial, as insects do not simply die, fall into a body of water, and sink with dying fish to be gradually covered up by slowly accumulating sediments.
¹³

One of the most spectacular examples of the massive size of the catastrophic conditions that prevailed on the earth leading to the extensive destruction of life and its subsequent burial and fossilization are the chalk beds assigned to the Cretaceous period in the geological column. These beds, which include the famous White Cliffs of Dover, stretch from Ireland across Europe to Turkey, Egypt, and Israel, and are also found in parts of the United States such as Texas and Kansas, and on the coast of Western Australia. This is a global distribution of uniform beds of chalk up to 328 feet (100 meters) or more thick made up of countless microscopic remains of coccolithophores and other tiny creatures. It also contains fossils of other larger marine creatures such as gastropods, ammonites, and extinct squids known as belemnites.

The eminent United States Geological Survey geologist and paleontologist Dr. William A. Cobban notes that the deposition of massive chalk deposits across the world corresponds to “the time of the greatest flooding of the earth’s surface,” and that the close of this period was marked “by the extinction of the dinosaurs, flying reptiles, and huge marine reptiles, as well as the ammonites and certain other groups of marine mollusks.”
¹⁴
In fact, the fossil record is a record of mass extinctions under marine conditions. As Dr. John Avise and coworkers from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California point out, the fossil record shows that there were massive extinctions at the end of the Ordovician period, and during the Devonian, Permian, Triassic, and the Cretaceous periods.
¹⁵

Therefore, the strata or fossil beds corresponding to these geological periods represent a massive burial of animals so catastrophic that it permanently removed to extinction large numbers of species of animals. A summary of the effects of these extinctions can be found, for example, on the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre website.
¹⁶

The extinction assigned to the near end of the Ordovician period resulted in the disappearance of one-third of all brachiopod and bryozoan families, as well as numerous groups of conodonts, trilobites, and graptolites. In total, more than 100 families of marine invertebrates, as well as much of the reef-building fauna, were destroyed.

The extinction assigned to the latter part of the Devonian period affected 70 percent of marine invertebrates, including reef-building organisms. More extinctions also occurred among the brachiopods, trilobites, and conodonts, as well as jawless fish and placoderms.

The so-called Permian mass extinction is the greatest mass extinction evident in the fossil record, with 90 to 95 percent of marine species being eliminated. Those fauna wiped out included fusulinid foraminifera, trilobites, fugose and tabulate corals, blastoids, acanthodians, placoderms, and pelycosaurs. Other groups of organisms that lost substantial numbers of species included bryozoans, brachiopods, ammonoids, sharks, bony fish, crinoids, eurypterids, ostracodes, and echinoderms.

The second largest extinction is assigned to the end of the Cretaceous period, as mentioned above. This mass extinction has generated more than usual public interest mainly because the dinosaurs became extinct in the fossil record at this time. Other types of organisms that were wiped out during this catastrophic event include the pterosaurs, the vast majority of birds, belemnoids, ammonoids, marine reptiles, and rudist bivalves, as well as many species of plants.

Geologists conventionally date these water-based extinctions as occurring millions of years apart on the basis of the assumed uniformitarian time scale. But as we have noted, if these worldwide mass extinctions and burials only occur under catastrophic marine conditions, the rock formations must have formed in a very short period of time — days and weeks — like after the Mount St. Helens eruption of May 18, 1980. After the eruption, flows of hot gas and pumice fragments moving at an estimated 93 miles (150 kilometers) per hour produced laminated strata of the form that would normally be interpreted by geologists as taking many thousands of years to form, but which actually formed in just a few hours. For example, a 65-foot (20-meter) thick bed of multiple strata was deposited during a single evening on June 12, 1980. Two years later, on March 19, 1982, a small eruption melted snow within the crater and displaced water which formed a 20-mile (32-kilometer) long mudflow, cutting a new 140-foot (43-meter) deep canyon through solid rock where there had been no canyon. Thus geologists were able to observe a miniature Grand Canyon form in a single day under catastrophic conditions.
¹⁷

When we examine the fossil record we see the evidence of catastrophe on a much, much larger scale — a scale that involved marine and volcanic catastrophes throughout the world. In other words, the fossil evidence suggests that all these animals were wiped out in one enormous worldwide flood event — not half a dozen worldwide floods millions of years apart, or thousands of local floods occurring every ten million years or so. The rock formations that formed after the Mount St. Helens eruption clearly prove that the uniformitarianism assumption cannot be used to calculate the ages of the rocks. These must be, in fact, very much younger than the millions of years conventionally assigned to them. Once we move away from the assumed uniformitarianism paradigm, the fossil record becomes clear evidence for a global catastrophic flood that wiped out the living flora and fauna on earth.