The Fossil Record

1. The Fossil Record

2. Understanding the fossil record. • Most people don't realize that in terms of numbers of fossils 95% of the fossil record consists of shallow marine organisms such as corals and shellfish.

3. Understanding the fossil record. • Within the remaining 5%, 95% of that are the algae and plant/tree fossils, including the vegetation, and all the other invertebrate fossils including the insects. • Thus the vertebrates (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) together make up very little of the fossil record -- in fact, 5% of 5%, which is a mere 0.25% of the entire fossil record. • So comparatively speaking there are very, very few amphibian, reptile, bird and mammal fossils, yet so much is often made of them.

4. Understanding the fossil record. • For example, the number of dinosaur skeletons in all the world's museums (both public and university) totals only about 2,100. • Furthermore, of this 0.25% of the fossil record which is vertebrates, only 1% of that 0.25% (or 0.0025%) are vertebrate fossils that consist of more than a single bone! • For example, there's only one Stegosaurus skull that has been found, and many of the horse species are each represented by only one specimen of one tooth!

5. What is a “fossil”? • The remains of an animal or plant preserved from an earlier era inside a rock or other geological deposit, often as an impression or in a petrified state World English Dictionary

6. What is a “fossil”? • Are all fossils extinct?

7. Living fossils • Have they found any fossils of animals that are alive today with dinosaur fossils? • Everywhere you find dinosaur fossils, you find fossils of animals living today. • Here are a few.

8. Living fossils

9. Living fossils • Coelacanth (see-la-can-th) • Was thought to be an extinct fish that was the first to walk on land because of it’s unique fins. • In 1938 off the coast of Africa they caught one. • It used it’s fins to “blow” the sand away and find food.

10. Living fossils

11. Living fossils • These were thought to be one of the first living creatures to become extinct, but they were recently found in Australia alive and well.

12. Living fossils • Do you recognize any of these fish fossils?

13. Living fossils

14. Most of the fossils found are of animals that are still alive today.

15. What is the fossil record? • It is a “snapshot” of all the animals that were alive before the flood. • What person was alive when this bluegill was in the pond? • NOAH!

16. An amazing thing! • Of the animals we find in the fossil record that are still alive, • They are the same as the ones that are fossilized! • They haven’t changed.

17. What is a “fossil”? • Are fossils the actual bones? • No, they are “fossilized.” • Either they leave an impression • Or the minerals replace the bone and it becomes petrified.

18. What is a “fossil”? • However, actual “fresh” dinosaur bones have been found. • In 1961, in Alaska, a petroleum geologist discovered a large, half-metre-thick bone bed. As the bones were fresh, not permineralized, he assumed that these were recent bison bones. It took 20 years for scientists to recognize duckbill dinosaur bones in this deposit as well as the bones of horned dinosaurs, and large and small carnivorous dinosaurs.

19. What is a “fossil”? • Axel Heiberg Island in the Canadian Arctic, less than 1,200 kilometres from the North Pole, a prehistoric “frozen forest” was found. • The plant material is not petrified. The logs are still wood which can be sawn and burnt.

20. What is a “fossil”? • What kind of rock are fossils found in? Dictionary Definition. • Fossil, remains or traces of prehistoric plants and animals, buried and preserved in sedimentary rock • Why couldn’t they be found in granite? • Granite is igneous rock, or rock formed from magma.

21. What is a “fossil”? impression petrified • A fossil is an _________ or __________ remains of an animal or plant. • Most fossils are found in _____________ rock. • A few are found in _______, or _______ deposits, etc. sedimentary tar pits resin La Brea Tar Pits

22. Where do we find fossils? • Do we find fossils of “road kill” just under the ground on the side of the highway? • If we were to dredge the river, would we find fossils of deer and other animals which are alive today becoming fossils? • Do animals which die in the woods become fossils?

23. Where do we find fossils? • We find fossils in ____________ rock. Sedimentary

24. What is sedimentary rock? • Existing crushed rock accumulated together at the bottom of a body of water. • Commonly known as ________layers. sediment

25. What is sedimentary rock? • The mud at the mouth of a river is called sediment. • Most sediment is created by a flooding action.

26. What is sedimentary rock? 80% • Sedimentary rock covers ____of the earths crust • Or you could say 80% of the earths crust is _____________. • The rest of the rock has been pushed up from under the earths crust by a ___________ event. • All ________of a world wide catastrophic flood. flood sediment catastrophic evidence

27. How do fossils get into sedimentary rock? • First they must fall into a body of ______. • For an animal to just fall into water it would bloat and be consumed by birds or crabs etc. way before it could ever become a fossil. • Obviously a catastrophic situation must have occurred to bury them in sediment. water

28. How do fossils get into sedimentary rock? • Then it must be ______ by sediment and put under great pressure. • Here they either rot, leaving an __________. • Or the minerals leach into the bones replacing the bone with rock – _________ it. buried impression petrifying

29. How do fossils get into sedimentary rock? • Eventually when the water recedes and rain erodes the earth away it ________ the fossil and we find them. • When would the best time to find fossils be? exposes

30. How do fossils get into sedimentary rock? • Most fossil finds are only partial because the animal was caught in a mud slide or other catastrophic event which ______ it apart. ripped

31. The Bible account • How long did the flood last? __________ • What would you expect to find trapped in the sediment layers? • Plants & animals that were alive at that time • Noah’s flood was actually like a “snapshot” of everything that was alive then. Approx. 1 yr.

32. What would be buried first? • Plants and small animals. • Why? • Then Larger animals in the upper layers of sediment. • Few, very large animals because they would have escaped the flood and drowned when the waters covered the mountain tops.

33. That’s exactly what we find. • Plants, small animals, & fish on the bottom layers.

34. That’s exactly what we find. • Then larger animals, some caught in mud slides etc.

35. That’s exactly what we find. • Most of the large animals would escape being buried in mud flows but would drown when the water covered the earth. • Thus floating by wind and currents to huge graveyards, which we call “fossil graveyards.”

36. That’s exactly what we find. • Ongoing excavations in the Gobi Desert tell of one such sight that has become an embarrassment to evolutionists. • Twenty-five dinosaurs have been discovered along with 200 skulls of mammals.

37. That’s exactly what we find. • The Ashley Beds, in the southern United States, is an enormous phosphate graveyard that contains mixed remains of man with land and sea animals, notably dinosaurs, pleisosaurs, whales, sharks, rhinos, horses, mastodons, mammoths, porpoises, elephants, deer, pigs, dogs, and sheep.

38. That’s exactly what we find. • Professor F.S. Holmes (paleontologist and curator of the College of Charleston’s Natural History Museum) described the fossil graveyard in a report. • He said they found, “Remains of the hog, the horse and other animals of recent date, together with human bones mingled with the bones of the mastodon and extinct gigantic lizards." • The gigantic lizard is pictured on the cover of his book.

39. Footprints • How do footprints become fossilized? • Are there any fossil footprints being formed from when you walked in the mud last? • They would need to be made and covered _________. quickly

40. Footprints • Notice they seem to be ______ as if from some catastrophe. • They are found in ash type sediment which was covered quickly. running

41. Footprints • Footprint fossils can only be evidence of a great catastrophic event. • We know this event as ____________. Noah’s Flood

42. Dinosaur egg nests • Are there any nests of animals being fossilized now? • What would have to happen for a nest to become fossilized? • It would have to be covered quickly or other animals would eat them.

43. Fish eating fish • How is this is clear evidence of a catastrophic event.

44. Polystrate fossils • Poly = many • Strate or strata • Means fossils that extend through many layers of sediment strata. • Usually trees like in Joggins Nova Scotia.

45. Polystrate fossils • Sometimes whales and other big animals are found with their bones going through more than one layer of sediment. • This is what you would expect from a world wide flood.

46. Sediment layers • How were they formed? • Could they representmillions of years? • Do we have nice even layers forming now? • How would the top and bottom be so straight?

47. It’s so clear, why can’t they see? • Footprints story & the TV. • They know in their heart that evolution isn’t true, but they don’t know what to do. • If you push creation you build a wall and an argument. • If you show them the gospel, they’ll get saved and want to know about creation.

48. The end The Fossil Record