>In transferring some archives to my new server I think that I picked up
>on a post that may need some further clarification:
>
>GR> Stephen Jones earlier today made the
>GR>typical argument that was started, as near as I can tell, by Whitcomb and
>GR>Morris. They write:
>
>GR>How does one explain, for example, a dead fish lying on the bed
>GR>of a lake for about two hundred years while the slowly
>GR>accumulating sediments gradually cover it and then fossilize it?
>GR>Where does this happen in modern lakes?"~John C. Whitcomb and
>GR>Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book
>GR>House, 1961), p. 427
>
>GR>To which I would respond examples of long term preservation of fish on
> lake
>GR>bottoms has been documented.
>
>GR> "Smith, G.R. and Elder (1985) have shown that the
>GR>undisturbed fossil fish of the Clarkia Basin in Idaho were not
>GR>buried for at least several months after death. Other instances
>GR>of this phenomenon can be observed in both the fossil record and
>GR>recent lake bottoms. For example, skeletons resting uncovered at
>GR>several meters depth and less than 15o C on the bottom of Lake
>GR>Michigan have been observed to remain intact for several weeks
>GR>though the flesh became partially decayed."~R.L. Elder and G.R.
>GR>Smith, "Fish Taphonomy and Environmental Inference in
>GR>Paleolimnology", Paleogeography, Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology
>GR>62(1988), p. 577-592, p. 583
>
>The point being made by Whitcomb and Morris is that a mechanism
>involving HUNDREDS of years of slowly accumulating deposits cannot
>account for fossilization. Quick deposition is required.
>
Have you ever heard of the Bog men of Denmark? I will even cite a creationist
source for these fellows. A.E. Wilder-Smith Man's Origin, Man's Destiny, see
the plates. One of these fellows was hung by the neck and then tossed into a
swamp where slowly collecting deposits over hundreds of years preserved his
body better than the bodies of the pharoahs. If that was their point, then
Whitcomb and Morris are wrong.
>Smith and Elder's time frame is in months or weeks. That cite doesn't
>contradict the YECs. The fish were completely buried soon after their
>death and prior to complete decay. This appears to agree with Whitcomb
>and Morris' argument.
>
You forget that when Whitcomb and Morris discuss the Green River fish they
believe that the entire geologic column was deposited from the flood. The
Green River is about 2,600 feet thick and resides at the top of something like
another 25,000 feet of rock. If all the 27,000 feet of strata was deposited
in a year, then this is 3 feet per hour.
The 2600 feet of strata has 13 million layer alternating between an organic
goo and limey deposits. There are around 5000 layers per foot.
To deposit this in a one year flood requires the alternation of 15,000 layers
per hour for about a month. Large bodies of water can not change their
chemistry that rapidly and synchronously to deposit these layers.
>Whitcomb and Morris have asked "Where does this happen in modern
>lakes?", or...
>
>Where do we observe slow deposition over hundreds of years sufficiently
>preserving fish carcasses for fossilization? The question remains to be
>answered on the list.
A friend sent me an article on a whale found int he Santa Catalina basin whose
bones may have been on the bottom for 34 years, slowly being covered. see P.
A. Allison et al, "Deep water Taphonomy of vertebrate carcasses: a whale
skeleton in the bathyal Santa Catalina Basin," Paleobiology 17:1, 1991, pp
78-89
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm