DINOSAUR DISCUSSION 5
An Academic Exercise
Where did the dinosaurs come from?
Did dinosaurs ever exist?
Are dinosaur fossils simply fabrications or constructions?
Audience: Young Earth Christians
OK there's some pretty crazy stuff here. And maybe I'm at fault and should have been aware of this before. But it maybe would have made no difference. And my stories docs etc still would have gone ahead using the Creation point.
Anyway let's get into it.
If you have been reading my other stuff you will know that I have drawn the conclusion, correctly, that the geological column could not have been laid down as a result of the Flood. Rock layers take, supposedly, millions of years to form.[2] If the world is only 6,000 years old, we have not had enough time for their formation, using natural methods of formation, that is.
Similarly the dinosaur fossils would have taken a minimum of 10,000 years to form, we are told by National Geographic.[1] And the rock layers they are contained in, millions of years.[2] So if you want to go back to the bones, you have to go back 10,000 years [along with the millions of years of the layer formation]. Anyway the point is made, if we can only go back 6,000 years we can't get back to the bones, and before that back to the living dinosaur. So NONE of the dinosaur fossils that are currently being found can be tracked back to the living creatures.
Conclusion? NONE of these dinosaurs EVER existed as living breathing creatures at ANY time in the past!
And I concluded that 6,000 years ago at the Creation point, they looked just like they look like now, as the paleontologists have found them, just as fossils in the rocks.
Which means that is when they came into existence, 6,000 years ago at the Creation point when this world came into existence from the hand of God.
Other problems that were mentioned were that the rock layers supposedly laid down at the time of the Flood also are impossible as by ordinary rules of deposition the heaviest objects would be in the bottom layers and the lightest in the top. So really large heavy dinosaurs would be at the bottom and the really light and small dinosaurs would be in the top layers.
But the dinosaurs are found in the Mesozoic layers, more closer to the middle, well not near the top or bottom layers.
So the layers in the geological column were not laid down at the time of the Flood.
And again I drew the conclusion that these layers came into existence at the Creation point along with all the dinosaur fossils built into them just as the paleontologists have found them in the rocks.
Anyway all this was my first supposition. Which I still feel is pretty reasonable.
But from here things get a little crazy.
As I said this is an academic exercise. And an alternative conclusion that I have become possibly aware of is a very curious thought. And it gets a little interesting too.
So in some church writings I found some very interesting comments about the Flood.
At this time very large forests were buried. And since the Flood have been turned into coal beds that now exist.
Words similar to that.
Unfortunately I have two big problems with this.
Is there a solution?
We will investigate that.
First the problems.
1. Location.
In the geologic column these occur in the Carboniferous, at supposedly 358.9 to 298.9 million years ago.
Not agreeing with the ages but these nevertheless give an idea where these coal deposits sit.
A LONG way down below an imaginary 6,000 year boundary.
If we are to believe they were formed from the Flood, they would be way up in the top layers. Not where they are currently found.
2. Formation.
OK let's look at the quote:
Coal formation
Coal is a solid, black, readily combustible fossil fuel that contains a large amount of carbon-based material - approximately 50% of its weight. The formation of coal takes a significant amount of time (on the order of a few million years), and the first coal-bearing rock units appeared about 290-360 million years ago, at a time known as the Carboniferous or "coal-bearing" Period. As well, there are extensive coal deposits from the Cretaceous age - about 65 to 144 million years ago.
https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Coal_formation
So using normal processes, coal would take millions of years to form. Definitely not enough time since the Flood.
An interesting find!
I believe I have found some evidence of trees buried at the time of the Flood!
‘Like finding a pyramid’: What buried ancient yew trees tell us about the Fens
The discovery of woodlands believed to have been buried by flooding 4,200 years ago challenges popular perceptions of the Fens landscape
Scientists from the University of Cambridge studied hundreds of tree trunks, dug up by Fenland farmers. Most of the ancient wood came from yew trees that populated the area 4,000 to 5,000 years ago
By Tom Bawden
Science & Environment Correspondent
November 24, 2023 6:00 am(Updated 9:18 am)
The Fens of eastern England will, for many, conjure up vast fields of wheat, potatoes and sugar beet.
But this flat, low-lying, farm-heavy landscape was once a vast woodland filled with huge yew trees, a study has found.
Scientists have studied hundreds of tree trunks, dug up by Fenland farmers while ploughing their fields.
They found that most of the ancient wood came from yew trees that grew between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago in the area – a 1,500 square mile patch of fertile land taking in parts of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.
They believe the trees died suddenly about 4,200 years ago after a rapid rise in the sea level – possibly connected to a bout of climate change – flooded them with salty water.
“Finding these very old trees in the Fens is completely unexpected – it would be like turning a corner in rural Cambridgeshire and seeing an Egyptian pyramid – you just wouldn’t expect it,” said Tatiana Bebchuk, of Cambridge University.
“Wood rots and decomposes easily, so you just don’t expect a tree that died five or four thousand years ago to last so long.”
Much of the Fens is barely above sea level, and a sudden rise in sea level around 4,200 years ago would likely have killed the Fen woodlands, according to the researchers.
The period that the Fen woodlands died coincided with major climatic changes elsewhere in the world.
At roughly the same time, a megadrought in China and the Middle East was a possible trigger of the collapse of several civilisations, including Egypt’s Old Kingdom and the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia.
https://inews.co.uk/news/science/buried-ancient-yew-trees-fens-2772821?ITO=msn
4,000 to 5,000 years old? 4,200 years old? That's approximate.
The Flood's about 4,350 years ago. It fits. All these tree trunks were buried at the Flood. As expected in the top layers. And what are the farmers digging up? Tree trunks. They haven't changed much in 4 to 5 thousand years. No coal formation.
Further proof that these are from the Flood:
“a rapid rise in the sea level – possibly connected to a bout of climate change”
“a sudden rise in sea level”
A sudden rise? Some bout.
This is the Flood of Noah!
Further proof of this is what is stated next:
“At roughly the same time, a megadrought in China and the Middle East was a possible trigger of the collapse of several civilisations, including Egypt’s Old Kingdom and the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia.”
A megadrought?
Isn't that interesting.
What did the Bible say about rain before the Flood? Well at least before the Fall and there is no reason to expect this to change till the Flood:
when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up--for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground;
but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground--
Genesis 2:5,6 RSV.
So at the Flood God hits the world with a deluge. Guess what that does to his watering system. It's like messed right up.
So after the Flood God's watering system is right out of whack.
What do you get?
A megadrought!
And that's what we have in the above quote.
All these tree trunks the farmers are digging up are from Noah's Flood!!!
The trees have been buried in the top layers, not way down in the Carboniferous ones.
So what do we do with the church quotes?
Well the person writing about the Flood would have realized a lot of trees were buried and had to go somewhere and the coal beds were supposedly formed by organic matter so wrote what they did, not realizing that by natural processes it would have taken millions of years for the coal to form.
A simple enough mistake to make and I would not worry about this detracting from their writings at all.
BUT
I did say by “natural processes” so yes we will have to investigate this a little further.
And this is where it gets interesting. Really interesting. Really really interesting.
What if we circumvent natural processes and have the coal beds constructed by the Lord at the time of the Flood from the buried forests?
You would have to extend this to the whole geologic column.
But this is where it gets funny. What about the dinosaur fossils then?
Well if the Lord has chucked everything in there and fossilized all the bones [circumventing millions of years of natural processes] THEN we have the curious question: Were there living dinosaurs at the time of the Flood? They're in the rocks God chucked in there!
Note: the order in the rocks no longer matters as here God has chucked the dinosaurs in the Mesozoic layers.
You can now see that looking at this alternative case has taken us into a very strange direction!!
Can we get an answer for this?
I believe we can. And we can thank Robert J. Schadewald for his contribution, although his work was against Young Earth Creationism. A dedicated evolutionist and against the God of the Bible, he used a rather fascinating quotation mentioning an estimate for the approximate number of fossilized animals in the Karoo Formation. With this he did a questionable calculation using the estimate to determine a vast number of animals per acre that he supposed must have been living at the time of the Flood:
... there must have been at least 2,100 living animals per acre, ranging from tiny shrews to immense dinosaurs. ...
I saw this in reverse that since this was a ridiculous result that instead it was showing that the fossil record was instead in question. And I decided to have some fun with this and use the quote in reverse to determine a dodgy dinosaur density calculation for say, the dinosaurs in the Early Jurassic. I came up with about 1 dinosaur per 4 square meters. As a result I referred to my dinosaurs as “Covid safe” dinosaurs.
BUT though we are obviously in different camps, we can still use his calculation to resolve the problem here, even if it is a bit dodgy.
IF we take this version of the geological column as constructed by God with all the animals in it supposedly from the Flood, then according to Schadewald's calculation, it just can't work.
Another quote from this mob suggests “If all of the fossilized animals could be resurrected, they would cover the entire planet to a depth of at least 1.5 feet.”
This just shows that the geologic column was not constructed as a result of the Flood, using natural processes of course.
In short we have to reject the number of animals in this version of the column as reconstructed by God. It may have been completely reconstructed by God with all the bones in it fossilized and all the coal beds and rock layers also made. But we can't accept the animals as it is too many. So have they all been added or just a few? Actually a lot more than just a few!
It doesn't matter. And we can go back to scrubbing the dinosaurs.
This alternative is still possible* [all things are possible with God] but this one I feel is a bit of a stretch.
*Maybe not. See the Final determination below.
I'm going to stick with the Creation point. It's a lot simpler!
But if anyone wants to go with the Flood point, fine.
It's a moot point. Either way they are an act of creation. By God.
As I said it's an academic exercise.
Enjoy.
Some afterthoughts
Both of these models are valid* since they are both constructions or creations by God.
*Maybe not. See the Final determination below.
But there are some very important differences.
The Flood point model is much more complicated and raises more questions than it answers:
too many animals, so which ones have been added, or maybe all of them?
Animals placed in various layers not following general rules of deposition
burial of organic matter formed as coal etc in the Carboniferous layers instead of close to the top and formed at time of construction instead of taking millions of years by natural processes
bones of buried animals automatically fossilized at time of construction
layer clocks all set to long ages supporting appearance of age approach
And so on.
No conclusions can be drawn about the dinosaurs from this model as they may simply be one of the groups of animals that have been added and never existed at the time of the Flood.
The Creation point model:
Since these layers could not have been formed by natural processes from the Flood, the question is when?
If it didn't rain before the Flood that takes it back to the Creation point.
Which means the whole lot were constructed at the point of Creation.
In short the whole geological column [excepting the last 6,000 years] is a complete fabrication.
Doesn't matter what's where or how many animals are contained therein.
It's all a complete fabrication.
And that includes all the dinosaur fossils.
According to this model they came into existence as fossils in the rocks and never existed previously as living breathing creatures at any time in the past.
Further reflections on the Flood point model
Investigating this a little further I have come to the conclusion this model is a lot more complicated than first envisaged.
We first consider those coal beds. Supposedly laid in Cretaceous and Carboniferous layers. The one of interest here is the Carboniferous, being at supposedly 360 million years ago, so much lower down in the rock layers. If these were supposedly deposited at the time of the Flood, then that takes in all layers above also. Generally Christians take in the whole geologic column, at least most of it.
I'll come back to this but the most interesting question to ask here is, what about the Fens woodlands deposits in the UK? They're in the top layers, just where we would expect them to be. OK at some point here I am going to need a date. You'll see where I am going soon enough. Both articles presented here in this study are dated November 2023. So it would be fair to assume that this discovery about the Fens has come to light in 2023. The docs claim that "the trees died suddenly about 4,200 years ago". About 4200 years ago? Literally 4200 years? or maybe 4200 ± 10, 25, 50 years? Pick one.
Nomatter we will use the 4200 value, so from 2023 we arrive at approx [we're definitely going to round this] 2180 BC.
Now I had before that the Flood was approx 4350 years ago, but that's using a rough approximation of 1650 yrs from the Creation point 6,000 years ago. But that's pretty loose as no one knows exactly the Creation point only that it is approximately 6,000 years ago. So we could easily be off by a hundred years or more. Interestingly the Jews have a year count on their calendar and for late 2024 it's about 5785. A difference of about 215 years as of 2024. Think of that what you will.
Using the Jewish count the Creation point is approximately at 3760 BC.
And that is approximate as even with the Jewish count we are still going back into the mists of time.
However, we could accept the Fens discovery giving a reasonable time position to have a guess at the Creation point using the 1650 yr approximation for the Flood.
So using the scientific discovery we can make an adjustment in the time calculations.
If we take the Flood point at approximately 2180 BC we simply go back the approximate 1650 yrs to get to 3830 BC.
Alternatively add 1650 to 4200 and subtract 2023 and we have 3827 BC, rounding gives 3830 BC as above.
Note in all of this there may need to be an adjustment for no year zero. But it will make no appreciable difference anyway as this is all approximate.
Sure it's approximate but you must admit, it's a pretty good guess.
OK let's get back to the coal. If the Carboniferous layers were from the Flood that takes in all the layers up to the Fens at the top. So why weren't the Fens woodlands buried with other forests in the Carboniferous layers? We find the answer in the church writings...
the furious movement of the water heaped rocks and earth upon treasures, animals, and forests. Hills and mountains became flat plains and many flat plains became hills and mountains. These differences were more pronounced in regions that were more troublesome.
Words similar to this. It gives a good idea of what was written.
Simply put, some forests were buried deep. Really deep. And some were not.
So we have the Fens woodlands in the very top layers, and a lot of forests buried way down in the Cretaceous and Carboniferous layers.
So with this model we have all these layers supposedly deposited at the Flood, from the Fens layers down to, well all the way down, forming the geologic column. And that takes in the Mesozoic layers. And now we come to a big headache. A real big one.
If we take the Mesozoic layers as formed from the Flood, we come to a real large amount of craziness. Take your pick, we have dinosaur eggs, nests, and tracks. An enjoyable area for evolutionists and those that don't like Noah's Flood.
So what's going on here? Simply put all these things have been found in multiple rock layers and various depositional environments. Since they are found in multiple rock layers they must have taken many years to form. As with the coal formation, we can circumvent the many years required for their formation by having the Lord do this automatically when these layers were formed. But that's only the individual formation of each rock layer. It makes sense that some or a lot of time would be required here between these various layers and depositional environments.
Nests and eggs are another problem. Dinosaurs building nests and laying eggs is a bit difficult to speed up. Especially as these occur also in many different layers and depositional environments. But this has to happen all at the time of the Flood as everything is being buried and the rock layers are all being formed!
I have heard of one Christian group suggesting the dinosaurs trod water and moved from place to place as the waters rose, where they left more tracks, nests, and eggs, and so on.
I think that's beyond pushing it since the Bible states it rained for 40 days and nights [Genesis 7:4,12]. Hardly enough time for the dinosaurs to do this. And in bad weather. These were clearly not sunny days.
If these layers came into existence then, it was not by natural processes. In short, the only way we could get this is it must be a complete fabrication. At least for these layers.
Given that at this time many animals were added to the rock layers, the dinosaurs are very good candidates. It would be fair to assume that most of the column was fabricated. Some layers were laid and then processed, the coal forming instantaneously instead of taking millions of years, and so on. And some layers like the Fens were just plain laid.
So there you have it. The Flood point model.
Many animals have been added to the various rock layers;
No conclusions can be drawn about the dinosaurs from this model as they may be one of the groups of animals added and never existed at the time of the Flood;
Some layers were laid and then manipulated, circumventing millions of years of natural processes;
Animals placed in various layers not following general rules of deposition;
All the doomed animals perished, those buried were automatically fossilized;
All the added animals were simply constructed as fossils in the rock layers;
Many layers are clearly straight fabrications;
And some layers were just plain laid;
All from approximately 2180 BC down;
layer clocks all set to long ages supporting appearance of age approach.
It's a real fruit salad of a model.
I have just run across some points that appear to be insurmountable. So we have...
A final determination on the Flood point model
The Fens woodlands layer discovery wipes out the Flood construction of the geologic column.
OK so what's going on here? Some points:
1. If the Fens trees buried at the Flood are being dug up by farmers then how can there be layers deposited below them from the Flood? There can't be some sort of rapid burial at this point of many things and animals and it just happens the Fens trees are sitting at the very top of all this stuff? It just doesn't seem possible. Or logical.
and
2. Not too dissimilar from point 1. If the Fens layer is sitting at the very top of the geological column with layers going down to ... ? supposedly 4.5 billion years. THEN what about any layers sitting below the Fens layer just BEFORE the Flood? Were there any layers if it had never rained? What was there and if it came into existence since the 6000 year Creation point, how could any of these foundational rock layers etc sit BELOW a Flood constructed geologic column supposedly going down to 4.5 billion years according to their set layer clocks?
One could argue that God could simply have set all the original layer clocks so they would fit nicely below the geologic column when it was formed at the Flood. In fact they would simply look like part of it at the very bottom. It's possible, and maybe this is the answer? But it just seems like every time something comes up we find ourselves again diving through another hoop. And even if this was the case, point number 1 still makes a mess of it all.
This is like an interesting case of mathematical induction. At this point the whole model has pretty much completely fallen apart. Even with all the pussyfooting done above to try and explain how the geologic column could come into existence as a result of the Flood, at this point it looks like it is just plain untenable.
Further, some Christians complain that the geologic column may not even exist, only appearing in text books. But evolutionists have answered this query:
“the entire geologic column is found in 25 other basins around the world, piled up in proper order.”
Conclusion point 7
The Geologic Column
and its Implications for the Flood
https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geocolumn/
So it's fair to assume that the geologic column exists below the Fens layer in the UK. And that completely messes this model up.
Nomatter, we now come to point...
3. The Fens of England very strongly suggest that the geologic column could NOT have been formed from the Flood!
"There is evidence of human settlement near the Fens from the Mesolithic on. The evidence suggests that Mesolithic settlement in Cambridgeshire was particularly along the fen edges and on the low islands within the fens,"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fens#Pre-Roman_settlement
"The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, mesos 'middle' + λίθος, lithos 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. ... In Europe it spans roughly 15,000 to 5,000 BP;"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesolithic
Before Present (BP) or "years before present (YBP)" is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use 1 January 1950 as the commencement date (epoch) of the age scale, with 1950 being labelled as the "standard year".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Present
Basically, we have some settlement stuff here predating the Flood! So if the geologic column rock layers were formed from the Flood, then these pre-Flood discoveries would not exist, or at least be visible. In short, they weren't buried under all the layers forming the geologic column supposedly from the Flood! Which means the geologic column was not formed from the Flood!
There may be a problem here with the references. Referring to the Mesolithic and then launching into a discussion of Pre-Roman settlement. That may hardly be before the Flood, but I will add the reference to this in the References section below.
OK I found I didn't have to go into the Mesolithic at all. The Neolithic would do fine so I looked for something that would clearly be before the Flood but not too far before. And I found the following. Not near the Fens but that hardly matters for what we are discussing here!
Stonehenge: A pre-Flood construction of 25 ton solid stone blocks
Constructed of 25 ton solid stone blocks, Stonehenge PROVES that the geological column was NOT formed as a result of the Flood!
"Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons
Stonehenge was constructed in several phases beginning about 3100 BC and continuing until about 1600 BC. The famous circle of large sarsen stones were placed between 2600 BC and 2400 BC."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
OK nowhere near the Fens, but that doesn't matter. This fits very nicely just before the Flood at supposedly 2180 BC, and clearly makes the point. Constructed of 25 ton solid stone blocks, Stonehenge PROVES that the geological column was NOT formed as a result of the Flood! If the geological column WAS formed by the Flood, then Stonehenge would be sitting at the very BOTTOM of it, or underneath it, not where it currently is at the very top of it!
The following was part of 3 but I am making a new number for it...
4. You can't have your cake and eat it. It appears that there are Carboniferous layers in various parts of England, maybe all of it? If the Carboniferous layers were formed from the Flood, then the Fens woodland layers with all the tree trunks being dug up by farmers, WOULD NOT EXIST. They would all be down with the rest of the organic material, in the Carboniferous layer below the Fens.
The Fens and Carboniferous layers in England PROVE that the geologic column was NOT formed as a result of the Flood!
"The Fen Basin
the fenland basin is underlain mostly by Jurassic clays that are world famous for the fossils of huge marine reptiles ... Underlying the southeast edge of the Fens is the Cretaceous Chalk,"
https://www.cambsgeology.org/565-2-3
Well if the Cretaceous and Jurassic layers are underlying the Fen basin, then the Carboniferous layers are way below them. As above, if the Carboniferous layers are way below the Fens, then the Fens woodlands tree trunks would have been buried way down in the Carboniferous layers and the farmers would NOT be digging them up. That is, if the Carboniferous layers were formed as a result of the Flood.
Again the conclusion is pretty simple. The geologic column rock layers were not formed as a result of the Flood.
The Flood point model is no longer a viable model.
So what does all this do to the church writings? I have already commented on this above.
So from a Christian perspective I would suggest that the Creation point model is the only other viable option.
Except for those Christians who want to believe theistic evolution and long ages and accept the geologic column as it stands with long ages supporting deep time.
Well they are welcome to it, but I'm not buying it. The extinction of the dinosaurs at the 66 Ma K-Pg boundary point with all the associated destruction by a meteor supposedly releasing an impact energy of up to 138 billion Hiroshima A-bombs and the resulting devastation this supposedly caused very strongly suggests the rock and fossil record is not reliable. See discussion 3 for more info about this.
If the geological column WAS formed by the Flood, then Stonehenge would be sitting at the very BOTTOM of it, or underneath it, not where it currently is at the very top of it!
Postscript 2024 Dec
New study now completed: Finding the Flood.
This has led to an adjustment in the Flood point and Creation point dates. We would now have:
The Flood point 2250 BC
The Creation point 3900 BC
See new doc for further information.
REFERENCES
The flat Fens of eastern England once held vast woodlands, study finds
by University of Cambridge
Scientists from the University of Cambridge studied hundreds of tree trunks, dug up by Fenland farmers while plowing their fields. The team found that most of the ancient wood came from yew trees that populated the area between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago.
The Fens of eastern England, a low-lying, extremely flat landscape dominated by agricultural fields, was once a vast woodland filled with huge yew trees, according to new research.
These trees, which are a nuisance when they jam farming equipment during plowing, contain a treasure trove of perfectly preserved information about what the Fens looked like thousands of years ago.
The Fen yew woodlands suddenly died about 4,200 years ago, when the trees fell into peat and were preserved. The researchers hypothesize that a rapid sea level rise in the North Sea flooded the area with salt water, causing the vast woodlands to disappear.
The climate and environmental information these trees contain could be a valuable clue in determining whether this climate event could be related to other events that happened elsewhere in the world at the same time, including a megadrought in the Middle East that may have been a factor in the collapse of ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom. The researchers have published their findings in Quaternary Science Reviews.
https://phys.org/news/2023-11-flat-fens-eastern-england-held.html
In lithostratigraphy, coal measures are coal-bearing strata, with the term typically applied to European units of the Upper Carboniferous System.
In the United Kingdom, the term is equivalent to regional components of the Westphalian-age Coal Measures Group. ... Within the Pennine Basin, these barren measures are now referred to as the Warwickshire Group
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_measures
The Westphalian is a regional stage or age in the regional stratigraphy of northwest Europe, with an age between roughly 315 and 307 Ma (million years ago). It is a subdivision of the Carboniferous System or Period
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_(stage)
Other links giving some more information about the Fens and the Carboniferous in the UK...
The Fens
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fens
Coal measures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_measures
Maps of England
https://www.worldatlas.com/maps/united-kingdom/england
The Fens England map
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Fens_England_map.svg
And the Mesolithic Mystery...
There is evidence of human settlement near the Fens from Mesolithic times.
https://www.fensforthefuture.org.uk/the-fens/heritage
OK this didn't eventually matter as we only need to go a little further than 2200 or 2300 BC. That's down into the Neolithic:
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Greek νέος néos 'new' and λίθος líthos 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Europe, Asia, Mesopotamia and Africa (c. 10,000 BC to c. 2,000 BC).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic
and we can't do better than the following!!...
Stonehenge2007 07 30.jpg
Stonehenge
Attribution: garethwiscombe
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stonehenge2007_07_30.jpg
Stonehenge was constructed in several phases beginning about 3100 BC and continuing until about 1600 BC. The famous circle of large sarsen stones were placed between 2600 BC and 2400 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the bluestones were given their current positions between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at the site as early as 3000 BC.
One of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom, Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
1.
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains, or traces of remains, of ancient animals and plants.
Fossils are not the remains of the organism itself! They are rocks.
A fossil can preserve an entire organism or just part of one. Bones, shells, feathers, and leaves can all become fossils.
Fossils can be very large or very small. Microfossils are only visible with a microscope. Bacteria and pollen are microfossils. Macrofossils can be several meters long and weigh several tons. Macrofossils can be petrified trees or dinosaur bones.
Preserved remains become fossils if they reach an age of about 10,000 years.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/fossil/
2.
OK an amendment on this. From a youtube video[3] referring to a doc by Scott Dunn about clay depositions says something like "Basic soil mechanics shows that consolidation times for 1000 m-thick clay layers are in the order of millions of years".
So a conclusion is that each rock layer may have taken millions of years to go from sediment to solid rock. That may not be completely correct.
Scott Dunn was discussing clay layers with a lot of water and it was taking a LOT of time for the water to drain out. Also the millions of years time is for 1000 m thick clay layers.
So layers that are not formed from clay and a lot less than 1000 m thick may take a lot less time.
Sure, still a lot of time but maybe less than a million years.
What got me on this track is realizing a lot of megafauna have been found from the Late Pleistocene which supposedly covers between c. 129,000 and c. 11,700 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Pleistocene
Anyway if a lot of fossils have been found from Late Pleistocene rock layers, then these layers couldn't have taken millions of years to form.
Anyway the National Geographic quote suggests that fossils take a minimum of 10,000 years to form so we can take that as possibly the minimum rock layer formation time. [using natural processes of course]
Just some thoughts.
3.
The Mud Problem Precludes Young Earth Creationism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQcQSqH13xU
Gutsick Gibbon
Jun 14, 2024
OK not endorsing this site but there is a lot of interesting stuff here.
Stephen Buckley
E-mail: chodesh [at] duck.com
Last revised: 7 Dec 2024.
Constructed: 21 Oct 2024.
Companion pages
Stonehenge: A pre-Flood construction
Page design/construction
Copyright © 2024 Stephen Buckley. All Rights Reserved.