I haven't been gone. GNN has been down.
Of the bog men you wrote:
>I'll try to find the book. The fellow wasn't a fossil, I'll wager?
>
That was not the issue. You said that nothing could remain for long without
decaying. This decay prevents fossilization without rapidy burial. I
provided the bog men as a counterexample.
>At first blush (gotta watch that term) it would appear that the
>preservation was due to the chemical composition of the swamp water. The
>deposition was probably a secondary factor although it contributes
>chemically to the process. Here in Maryland it was a common practice
>(prior to copper-arsenic salts) for Eastern Shore waterman to submerge
>mast spars in the tidal marshes as a means of preserving them. Many tree
>branches and sections are found in the marshes as well. The anoxic
>conditions in the water prevent bacterial decomposition and oxidation of
>the plant tissue. We also see this phenomenon in the peat bogs here in
>Garrett County.
The same phenomena allows organic remains to avoid decay long enough for
fossilization to occur!
>
>Marshes are excellent preservers. They do not fossilize. Lay down enough
>mineral sediments and weight on top of them and they help to make
>excellent fossils.
Marshes do fossilize things, just not rapidly. As the marshes fill with
sediment, and are subsequently covered by other sediments, the objects which
had not decayed in the marsh become fossils.
>
>But that is marshes. Morris and Whitcomb were discussing fossilization
>in lakes.
>
Anoxic lakes provide similar environments as marshes. The bog men are several
thousand years old. For a lake to provide similar preservation is not out of
the question. Plus there is another mechanisms for preserving flesh of a dead
fish. (see below)
>If anyone applies this apologetic inappropriately (as might be the case
>of the global flood accounting for the full Green River formation), that
>does not mean that the apologetic is wrong. It is only its application
>that is in question.
>I personally think that creationists should spend more time developing a
>geologic model for post-Eden pre-Noah times. This would help to avoid
>having to see the baby thrown out with the bath water by defending weak
>application of otherwise good and valid explanations.
>
>BTW, Whitcomb and Morris' question still needs an answer.
>
here is what Whitcomb and Morris state:
"How does one explain, for example, a dead fish lying on the bed
of a lake for about two hundred years while the slowly
accumulating sediments gradually cover it and then fossilize it?
Where does this happen in modern lakes?"~John C. Whitcomb and
Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book
House, 1961), p. 427
An article this month in Geology, Wilby et al, "Role of Microbial mats in the
Fossilization of Soft Tissues," Geology, 24:9, Sept. 1996. pp 787-790.
The authors note that in anoxic environments phosphate depositing microbial
mats can cover a dead fish, prevent scavenging and preserve the fine tissues.
They cite the modern observation of Williams and Reimers. Wilby et al write
of microbial mats:
They are believed to prevent carcasses from floating and to protect them from
scavengers and currents. Microbial mats may also be sites of rapid
mineralization (Chafetz and Buczynski, 1992), perhaps because they create
localized oxygen-minimum environments." p. 787
What this article discusses is evidence they found for microbial mats in
Jurassic fossils. This should answer Whitcomb and Morris' question.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm