>It is good that several other books were consulted because Savage and
>Russel's book was never intended or represented as complete. I seriously
>doubt that there are only 267 known species of living mammals found as
>Pleistocene fossils. In fact, for most of the world, the lists are only
>generated at the genus level.
I know. I hate genera lists. My cat is not a genera, she is a species.
There are very few species lists available so I used what I could. My point
in doing the analysis was to show how different the ancient life forms were.
If the flood model can't handle changed life forms, then Christians need to
re-think what they teach.
For example, see:
>
>Marshall, Larry G., et al. 1984. Mammals and stratigraphy: geochronology of
>the continental mammal-bearing Quaternary of South America..
>Paleovertebrata, Memoirs Extr. 1984:1-76.
>
>I did my own checking on the percentage of fossil and living Quaternary
>mammals, and found that the percentage of known Pleistocene fossils
>compared to living species is a direct function of the distance to the
>nearest university with a strong paleontology department. I studied the
>lists of known Rancholabrean Land Mammal Age(late Pleistocene) fossil
>mammals of California arranged by county and published by:
>
>Jefferson, George T. 1991. A catalogue of Late Quaternary vertebrates
>from California: part two, mammals. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles
>County, Technical Reports, Number 7, p 1-127.
>
>It was immediately apparent that the farther that a county was from either
>the University of California, Berkeley (San Francisco Bay area) or the
>Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the fewer were the known
>fossil localities and the fewer number of known fossil species. Most of
>North America is not located near a major university with a strong
>paleontology program. There are even fewer places around the world near
>paleontology programs.
>
I disagree with what you are saying here, at least for the Savage and
Russell book. I pulled a page at random which showed the localities for the
fossils listed in part of the Miocene. there is one locale in Washington, 7
in Oregon, 11 in California, 4 in Nevada, 4 in idaho, 3 in Montana, 5 in
Arizona, 2 in New Mexico, 5 in Mexico, 1 in Honduras, 5 in Texas, 1 in
Oklahoma, 6 in Kansas, 1 in colorado, 1 in Wyoming, and 3 in nebraska, 1 in
Alabama, 1 in Georgia, 6 in Florida and 1 in Virginia. That looks like
pretty good coverage to me. I can provide similar coverages for other ages.
I will agree that it is more difficult to get info in South America and East
Asia. But all of the Tertiary is quite well covered in North America
>I next compared the actual fossil species list with the list of living
>California mammals at:
>
>http://arnica.csustan.edu/esrpp/calilist.htm
>
>Surprisingly, 57% of living terrestrial mammals are also found as fossils
>(80 of 141, living volant and marine mammals excluded as were introduced
>species) in the late Pleistocene of California. Even more surprising, of
>the large mammals (carnivores, ungulates), 88% (28 of 32) of those living
>also had a fossil record. There is clearly a collecting or preservation
>bias in favor of large mammal species. If one looks closely at the small
>species to see why the number of fossil species seems to be
>under-represented, it becomes clear that there are species complexes where
>the characters that are used to differentiate the species are not
>represented as skeletal characters. For example, there are 13 living
>species of chipmunks in California today. Most are differentiated by
>slight pelage differences, the skeletal characters being virtually
>identical, yet paleontology usually has only skeletal characters to work
>with. Therefore, even though only three of the thirteen chipmunk species
>are reported in the fossil record, there are a large number only identified
>to genus which probably represent these other not-reported species.
>
Are the fossils from the Recent or are they from Pleistocene. If the fossil
was not found in the Pleistocene I didn't count it. I will order the
jefferson work and thanks for pointing it out to me.
>Unless there is something very different about fossil preservation in
>California compared to the rest of the world, there should be at least 50%
>representation of fossil to living or an order of magnitude difference
>between Glenn's report and what is predicted to be known. Therefore,
>Glenn's argument is more one of under-study than required evolution since
>the Flood.
>
I will agree that this work is under study and I would like more info.
You are a vertebrate Paleontologist. What is the oldest fossilized living
species known? What is the percentage of living species vs extinct species
as one goes back in time? does it not bother you that the oldest Genera
with living representatives is Eocene. There are NO living genera from the
Paleocene? The genera list is below. It is mostly from Romer.
I might mention, that in a previous attempt to deduce the oldest fossils I
had taken data from Walker, "Mammals of the World,
Vaughn Mammalogy
A.S. Romer, Vertebrate paleontology
Loose, Pleistocene Rhinocerotidae of W. Europe
Kurten and Andersont Pleistocene mammals of North America
V. J. Maglio and H. cooke, Evolution of African Mammals
e. Raymond Hall, Mustelid Mammals from the Pleistocene of North America
Dawson Later Tertiary Leporidae of North America, Vertebrata 6, 1-75
In the above attempt, which was included in the present work, I was only
able to find 237 species which were found as fossils.
>>
>>As one goes back into the past, there are fewer and fewer living species
>>found as fossils. The data is as follows:
>>
>>Recent 4631(including species which went extinct in historical times)
>>Pleistocene 256
>>Pliocene 69
>>Miocene 2
>>
>>The two living species found in the Miocene are the carnivore Callorhinus
>>ursinus and the bat, Rhinolophus ferrum-equinum.
>>
>>The final implication of the data is that other than these (aggregate 267
>>species), ALL species found in the fossil record are different from those
>>living today. The number of extinct species found in the various epochs of
>>the Tertiary are:
>>
>>Pleistocene 786
>>Pliocene 1119
>>Miocene 2988
>>Oligocene 1282
>>Eocene 1819
>>Paleocene 604
>>
>>The average species is only found in one of these epochs. This implies that
>>the fauna almost entirely turns over with the passing of each epoch. This
>>is another difficulty for the global flood--explaining why different forms
>>are deposited in the various layers, inspite of the fact that most ecozones
>>are represented in each epoch.
>
>It is true that the fossil record can be characterized by fossil turnover,
>more so the lower one goes down the geological column. To me, this just
>means that there were more biomes prior to the Flood than after. It does
>not preclude the geological column being produced by the Flood.
Name the living genera of mammals which were alive in the Paleocene? If none
of them were alive, then why isn't there turnover.
The total list of mammalian genera is:
Triassic there are 4 genera--none living
Jurassic 43 genera-none living
Cretaceous 36 genera-none living
Paleocene 213 genera-none living
Eocene 569 genera- 3 living
Oligocene 494 genera 11 living
Miocene 749 genera 57 living
Pliocene 762 genera 133 living
Pleistocene 830 genera 417 living
One a generic level this doesn't look like it could be due to the flood.
What I am trying to do is extend this to the species level
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm