Continuing debate with Howard F on Geology / Palaeontology (Updated through 21-V-2015)

Three Meanings of Chronological Labels

In detail:1) How do Fossils Superpose?, 2) Searching for the Cretaceous Fauna (with appendix on Karoo, Beaufort), 3) What I think I have refuted, 4) Glenn Morton caught abusing words other people were taught as very small children

In debate or otherwise on Assorted Retorts: 1) ... on How Fossils Matter , 2) ... on Steno and Lifespan and Fossil Finds, 3) Geological Column NOT Palaeontolical [Censored by CMI-Creation-Station? Or just by the Library I am in?], 4) Same Debate Uncensored, One Step Further, 5) Continuing debate with Howard F on Geology / Palaeontology, 6) Howard F tries twice again ... , 7) Is Howard F getting tired? Because up to now, he has failed., 8) Resuming Debate with Howard F

On Correspondence blog: Contacting Karoo about superposition of layers and fossils

Howard F

+Hans-Georg Lundahl "1) You dug that deep or only bored that deep?"

There are thousands of petroleum wells with cuttings and core. I can't teach you all of stratigraphy in a note, but there is no doubt the layers tracked from the surface to the subsurface are the same.

[Maybe for Kansas, have doubts about North Dakota]

"Pelycosaurs have NOT been found locally below Dinos. Which was my point."

I am sure I could find a place where they are directly above and below each other (and I will look), but the same argument works for microfossils, which are small enough they can be found in petroleum well cuttings. Marine conodonts are always found below marine coccoliths. Never mixed, never in reverse order. No chance of an ecological zonation to explain away the data.

"BECAUSE, if one and same sandstone layer had covered both a pelycosaur in one place and a dinosaur in one other place, they would have been diagnosed as different layers.

Tracing rock type is not that easy and unequivocal that you have no wiggling room for that."

No, there are many places around the world where rock strata can be traced hundreds of miles in continuous exposures. The Morrison Formation can be walked out for several hundred miles, and only has dinos. No ungulates and no pelycosaurs.

"somewhere on the globe, you would find trilobites locally under pelycosaurs,..."

[not quoting the OTHER criteria of stratification to find I had said, just two lowest layers ...]

Yes, there are many places where this occurs. Where trilobites are directly below pelycosaurs. Trilobites are small enough they are easily found in petroleum well cores. They have been widely found below and mixed in with pleycosaurs. Trilobites are widely found below, but never mixed in, with dinosaurs, and always below ungulates. It is easier to find the relationship you demand with small fossils that with large ones.

You mentioned the stratigraphy of Kansas:

"Ianthasaurus find Kansas (a pelycosaur, thus "Permian fauna"), Garnett : Garnett is a city in and the county seat of Anderson County, Kansas, United States.

And on map, Garnett in Anderson county is midway NS and very far E. So the two "indications of Permian" do not match as to locality."

I have excavated fossils at Garnett and know it well. The rock strata in Kansas are very continuous, and dip at a low angle to the west. The stratal zones of the Pennsylvanian and Permian are thick, and so cover a wide, north-south stripe in eastern Kansas. The rock units have been tracked physically in painstaking detail. No bait and switch. They can be matched exactly to well logs starting at the surface and extending as far west as Denver. Because the units do not change much, they are very easy to trace using physical evidence, not fossils. But the fossil zonation is consistent.

In the east are pelycosaurs and marine units with trilobites and conodonts (and other fossils). In the west are dinosaurs and marine units with no trilobites and lots of coccoliths. Wells that drill down in the west find trilobites and conodonts directly below. Of course it is very unlikely to find an identifiable pelycosaur bone in core, and never in cuttings because of the size.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Main points:

"I am sure I could find a place where they are directly above and below each other (and I will look)"

Do!

That is the main point of my argument.

"Marine conodonts are always found below marine coccoliths. Never mixed, never in reverse order. No chance of an ecological zonation to explain away the data."

Marine non-vertebrates have another relation to Flood geology than land vertebrates.

The interesting point would be, can you document such land vertebrates are always found with conodonts and never coccoliths? Can you document such other land animals are always found with coccoliths and never conodonts?

That would start looking like an indirect way of getting around my argument.

How different are conodonts and coccoliths to look at even?

Other point was main too:

"In the east are pelycosaurs and marine units with trilobites and conodonts (and other fossils). In the west are dinosaurs and marine units with no trilobites and lots of coccoliths."

OK.

What would this tell a Flood geologist about habitat of pelycosaurs?

I don't have a ready answer for that one yet.

But Pennsylvanian layer being traceable under Permian one where it overlays it (I am sorry I mistook Pelycosaurs for a Permian only creature type) and other layer of creatceous getting on top of the Permian one in the West would be the way deposit layers from different parts of flood overlay, and then the interaction with the different habitats of pre-Flood fauna gives a false impression of time zones rather than ecological ones.

My take on cretaceous (with land fauna) is, it was mainly coastal zones. Often covered with shrimps during flood, sometimes including ducks, plus some of the creatures being built to have part of weight supported by water, as it seems ... but the pelycosaur habitat with conodonts ... do not know.

Nearly missed:

"No, there are many places around the world where rock strata can be traced hundreds of miles in continuous exposures. The Morrison Formation can be walked out for several hundred miles, and only has dinos. No ungulates and no pelycosaurs."

I very definitely believe you, but here we talk about "continuous exposure".

I am sure Morrison Formation is what I could have called a "Cretaceous habitat".

No ungulates? What horses or cows in their five senses would get down to a beach with lots of HUGE dinos on it? If they went miles away from it, so much better were they off!

When I spoke about wiggling room, I meant while tracing multiple layers under surface.

Like the layers in North Dakota:

Creation vs. Evolution : Glenn Morton caught abusing words other people were taught as very small children
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2014/01/glenn-morton-caught-abusing-words-other.html

Howard F

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Somehow I though I was using italics and instead got crossed out words. Sorry.

"The interesting point would be, can you document such land vertebrates are always found with conodonts and never coccoliths? Can you document such other land animals are always found with coccoliths and never conodonts?"

Yes, absolutely yes. Pelycosaurs are never found with coccoliths, only between layers with conodonts and other marine fossils such as fusulinids. Dinosaurs are never found in between layers with conodonts and fusulinids, and, if there are marine layers, they always have coccoliths. The order is the same for marine fossils and terrestrial.

"I am sure Morrison Formation is what I could have called a "Cretaceous habitat"."

If there were really Cret habitats and Pennsylvanian habitats, it just happens that the Penn ones are always below the Cret ones? The Cret land animals always associated with coccoliths, and the Penn. ones with conodonts and never coccoliths?

"What horses or cows in their five senses would get down to a beach with lots of HUGE dinos on it? If they went miles away from it, so much better were they off!"

Still, we should somewhere find a layer of rock where the transition can be seen, but it never has. And there would have to be a parallel transition in marine life. But the marine life is stacked vertically exactly the same as we found in outcrops.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Excuse on strike accepted, I thought you were making a stylish difference, like italicising where you thought I had a point, but striking where you thought I was completely off. I was not offended.

"If there were really Cret habitats and Pennsylvanian habitats, it just happens that the Penn ones are always below the Cret ones?"

As to land animals, you have so far not shown ANY place where land vertebrate Penn fauna has been found below land vertabrate Cret fauna.

Coccoliths are not land fauna, remember.

//What horses or cows in their five senses would get down to a beach with lots of HUGE dinos on it? If they went miles away from it, so much better were they off!//

"Still, we should somewhere find a layer of rock where the transition can be seen, but it never has."

Because where you find dinos fifty feet east of a line and ungulates fifty feet west of it, you will try to say they are different layers, even if that is the only clue for them being so.

You have still not shown a place where (leaving out triolbites this time):

• first you find an ungulate
• then you dig on, not boring but digging and find a dino
• then you dig even deeper, still not boring but digging, and you find pelycosaurs.

Just a wild hunch, what if pelycosaurs could swim and dive and really fancied a diet of conodonts and other marine fossils animals such as fusulinids? Found mixed with their favourite dinners? Or lived on fish who really liked a fusulinid diet?

What if, for instance, pelycosaur sails were good swim belts? What if they lived in an archipelago, whereas Cretaceous was more coastline?

Now, looked up coccoliths (a species known today), and conodonts and fusilinida.

Fusilinida could be some shell fish found today but with less thick shells, and which got their shells vastly misshapen during the Flood when they formed calcium rocks.

The factor which contributed to that may be the same which attracted a habitat of pelycosaurs.

Conodonts, we simply don't know what they were. If they were sth like reconstructed, they may have been a favourite food with pelycosaurs, they just had to make sure not getting hurt on the teeth.

Note well, these hints on a reconstruction of pelycosaur habitat or one version of Pennsylvanian habitat, are much more tentative than my reconstruction of how the Cretaceous one would have been like.

For the Cretaceous we have - as I know thanks to CMI - one modern animal confirming the also otherwise reasonable impression it was a coastline habitat.

As I am not a biologist, either marine or lizard zoologist, I am also appealing to experts: does this make any sense?

The experts in question need not be geologists of course, I am mainly appealing to the scientists who study modern parallels to what I take pelycosaur lifestyle to have been.

Sure conodonts weren't a variety if squid, btw?

"But the marine life is stacked vertically exactly the same as we found in outcrops."

That can be arranged with Flood geology.

Squid or whatever conodonts were drown and get to bottom, and are then covered with lots of water masses including algae, obviously also Coccoliths.

Added later:

Here is a link I was looking for in regards to "wiggle room":

Phenomena: Laelaps
Why I’m Not Tuning in to the Creation vs. Evolution “Debate”
February 4, 2014, by Brian Switek
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/04/why-im-not-tuning-in-to-the-creation-vs-evolution-debate/

"Standing in the Triassic and looking back in time towards the Permian at Dinosaur National Monument, Utah. Photo by Brian Switek."

How do YOU visually tell that where he is looking at and where he is standing are two different laters?

If he were to answer limit is below camera angle, that is cheating (as far as my question is concerned, which he may not be concerned with). If he says it is on the photo, I say the rocks look so alike (except perhaps angle and very slightly in colour) that it's time to say "wiggle room" and suspect he was classifying as two different layers what were simply one layer because of two fossilized habitats. A Triassic and a Permian one.

Update

through morning of 19-V-2015, feast of St Peter of Morono, or Pope Celestine V.

Howard F

+Hans-Georg Lundahl

You asked if there was any place where dinosaurs can be found directly above pelycosaurs. An excellent example is the Karoo Basin of South Africa where the strata are well exposed in a desert setting and the section can be walked unambiguously upsection along steep outcrops from Permian beds with pelycosaurs to early dinos in the Triassic. Now it is not a vertical cliff, but close enough, and the outcrops are 3 dimensional so no chance of the animals living in different places. And this is the same succession of land animals that is found world wide. Nowhere is the order different. Here is one of good reference:

Smith, R. M. H. (1995). Changing fluvial environments across the Permian-Triassic boundary in the Karoo Basin, South Africa and possible causes of tetrapod extinctions. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 117(1), 81-104.

Regarding dinosaurs and ungulates, basically anyplace where there are fossil dinosuars in the ground and living ungulates works. Or dead ungulates laying on the surface. In the mid-west there are many examples of fossil ungulates, such as sabre tooth cats, camels, etc, preserved on top of beds with dino bones.

Of course, nowhere in the world are fossil ungulates mixed or below dinosaurs, and never are either group below pelycosaurs. As I keep saying the stratigraphic order is never violated.

+Hans-Georg Lundahl

Now you asked about a photo of the Triassic rocks looking “back in time” toward the Permian. Of course the photo does not offer evidence of this, but it is based on geologic mapping. There is a long history of using surface mapping to determine the structure in the subsurface. This is how we know the Permian beds in eastern Kansas are below the Cretaceous in western Kansas. And these results are used around the world and confirmed by millions of petroleum wells (yes millions). For example, the succession of fossils observed in petroleum wells in western Kansas is identical to the succession observed by walking the surface deposits from east to west. Not only are coccoliths above fusulinids, trilobites and conodonts, but the succession of fusulunid species (and trilobites and conodont species) is the same. Not only is the succession of coccolith species the same in the Kansas outcrops as in the wells, but it is the same succession as in Wyoming, or Utah, or England for that matter. And the order of species is the same independent of rock type (shale vs limestone for example).

Now you want to distinguish drilling a well from digging a hole, but the only difference is size. Wells are very deep, narrow holes. And the succession of fossils is identical to what is observed on the surface; the only limitation is that the fossil to be observed in a core must be smaller than the core.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+Howard F, I went through Karoo myself.*

"Now it is not a vertical cliff, but close enough, and the outcrops are 3 dimensional so no chance of the animals living in different places."

You talk of it, as if it were a place about the size of Regent Park in London.

As far as I have gathered, it is more like Lake District**. Plenty of place for a Triassic biotope to graze beside a Permian one.

I spent at least a month on Karoo, and palaeocritti site is really excellent on Karoo fossils.

I never saw a Permian species found (as far as holotype is concerned at least) in same locality as a Triassic one.

Karoo is divided into assemblage zones and each of them is big enough to include more than one village.

"In the mid-west there are many examples of fossil ungulates, such as sabre tooth cats, camels, etc, preserved on top of beds with dino bones."

Where would you find a sabretoothed cat over a dino?

Are you sure you are not talking about either sabre toothed cats above creatceous rocks without dinos or, reverse, dinos below palaeocene rocks without Uintatherium in them?

By the way, unlike Uintatherium, a sabre toothed cat is not an ungulate. You meant "early extinct mammals, some of which are ungulates" I presume.

Now, show me one or two or three of the places in midwest where you not only get a palaeocene rock layer above a cretaceous or jurassic one, but actually a palaeocene land vertebrate fossil find above a createceous or jurassic or triassic land vertebrate fossil find.

"Fossils of U. anceps have been found in the Bridger and Wakashie rock formations, in the states of Wyoming and Utah near the Uinta Mountains, which are commemorated in the generic name."

Now, rock formations, unlike localities, are in certain ways geological abstractions, I presume.

But is there even a dino found near the Uinta mountains?

If so, how far from the Uintatherium?

"Of course, nowhere in the world are fossil ungulates mixed or below dinosaurs, and never are either group below pelycosaurs. As I keep saying the stratigraphic order is never violated."

So far, neither is it kept in any one place you have shown me.

"Many places in the Midwest" is too unspecific. Karoo is too big to be called a place. It's more like, unless I get it totally wrong, a large landscape like the Scanian Plain (Skåneslätten) in the South tip of Scandinavian Peninsula or by now, since 1660, of Sweden.

"And the succession of fossils is identical to what is observed on the surface; the only limitation is that the fossil to be observed in a core must be smaller than the core."

I have so far made no argument claiming to either explain or explode the succession of marine invertebrates.***

And the big difference between size of a drill core and size of a dug hole is that drill cores work better for entire fossils of marine invertebrates than for entire fossils of land vertebrates.

My point on where Brian Switek stands stands. The layers he is talking of would have been "mapped" rather by fossil content (i e essentially pre-Flood biotopes, unless I am mistaken) than by visual difference of rock type.

But suppose there was a genuine exceptionless layer superposition so that everywhere a layer with dinos superposes genuinely, rather than by wiggling layer definitions, with uintatherium and smilodon layers above and pelycosaur layers below : that could have been arranged by demons directing water currents during flood.

The Catholic Church exorcises water before using it for holy water or for baptismal water. When Christ stilled the storms and waves, He was angry at SOMEONE who was there doing the rocking of the boat. Demons enjoy deception as well as destruction.

* By internet, not in corpore.

** I was going to say Yellowstone, but that is too big.

*** Just starting one half explanation earlier, when it comes to conodonts and what were the other blighters?

Update

through 21-V-2015, St Valentine Bishop, martyred with three boys.

Howard F

+Hans-Georg Lundahl You said: "The layers he is talking of would have been "mapped" rather by fossil content "

No. the mapping is based on physical relationships. The order of the layers is determined by superposition, not fossils. The order of fossils is determined only after the stratigraphic order is proven. Only then, once the order of fossils is proven in many locations from physical relationships, can the fossils alone be used to determine the ages of rocks.

You said: "...smilodon layers above and pelycosaur layers below : that could have been arranged by demons directing water currents during flood."

Very unlikely since all the associated plants and marine fossils are in the same order. In other words you would need some sorting mechanism in the flood that would sort large and small pelycosaur bones below large and small dino bones. And the pelycosaurs always end up with the same microfossil marine organisms and large plant fossils. With absolutely no mixing. Not even a little bit.

You asked a couple times about finding even one place where the Pelycosaurs are physically below dinosaur fossils. I pointed out such a case earlier. What do you think? If this does not impress you, then why did you ask?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"You asked a couple times about finding even one place where the Pelycosaurs are physically below dinosaur fossils. I pointed out such a case earlier. What do you think? If this does not impress you, then why did you ask?"

Because the case you pointed out was just stratigraphically "below" not physically literally below.

I pointed that out a few times too.

"No. the mapping is based on physical relationships. The order of the layers is determined by superposition, not fossils. The order of fossils is determined only after the stratigraphic order is proven. Only then, once the order of fossils is proven in many locations from physical relationships, can the fossils alone be used to determine the ages of rocks."

To start with, yes.

There was even a time when chalk and slate was all from Cretaceous, I suppose.

But once fossils have been assigned, I think many layers have been considered as different from each other because of fossils with already assigned "ages".

As to your answer about the demons, you missed the point about an artistic deliberate activity. They knew how they could use such a thing and also waited these centuries in order to use it. IF you are correct about stratigraphy in every place being proven independently of fossils, which Switeks photo at least didn't show.

Added later:

If you are in any doubt as to what I mean, I mean that (novelistic reconstruction, not pretending to be prophecy):

• God tells demons they had seduced humanity, except Noah, so far they deserved to get them, He was providing water, they should make sure no one outside Arc survived, and livestock too.
  
  
• Demons respond with a "yeah" and grasp this gives some options for preparing further deceptions. And ask if they can pile animals according to a scale of perfection (there is such a scale, it's just not evolution based) so as to give an illusion of evolution.
  
  
• God denies them (as far as I have seen so far) land vertebrates, pelycosaurs straight under dinos, dinos straight under Uintatheria but grants them (if I got you right on how EVERYWHERE layers are proven physically, if that is what you claim, no layer anywhere "proven" only by fossil content) using marine invertebrates surrounding land vertebrates.

If you wonder if I find this at all realistic, look at St Thomas:

On the contrary, Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 4) that "all bodies are ruled by the rational spirit of life"; and Gregory says (Dial. iv, 6), that "in this visible world nothing takes place without the agency of the invisible creature." I answer that, It is generally found both in human affairs and in natural things that every particular power is governed and ruled by the universal power; as, for example, the bailiff's power is governed by the power of the king. Among the angels also, as explained above (55, 3; 108, 1), the superior angels who preside over the inferior possess a more universal knowledge. Now it is manifest that the power of any individual body is more particular than the power of any spiritual substance; for every corporeal form is a form individualized by matter, and determined to the "here and now"; whereas immaterial forms are absolute and intelligible. Therefore, as the inferior angels who have the less universal forms, are ruled by the superior; so are all corporeal things ruled by the angels. This is not only laid down by the holy doctors, but also by all philosophers who admit the existence of incorporeal substances.

and a bit further on:

On the contrary, Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 8,9) that the angels use corporeal seed to produce certain effects. But they cannot do this without causing local movement. Therefore bodies obey them in local motion. I answer that, As Dionysius says (Div. Nom. vii): "Divine wisdom has joined the ends of the first to the principles of the second." Hence it is clear that the inferior nature at its highest point is in conjunction with superior nature. Now corporeal nature is below the spiritual nature. But among all corporeal movements the most perfect is local motion, as the Philosopher proves (Phys. viii, 7). The reason of this is that what is moved locally is not as such in potentiality to anything intrinsic, but only to something extrinsic--that is, to place. Therefore the corporeal nature has a natural aptitude to be moved immediately by the spiritual nature as regards place. Hence also the philosophers asserted that the supreme bodies are moved locally by the spiritual substances; whence we see that the soul moves the body first and chiefly by a local motion. Reply to Objection 1. There are in bodies other local movements besides those which result from the forms; for instance, the ebb and flow of the sea does not follow from the substantial form of the water, but from the influence of the moon; and much more can local movements result from the power of spiritual substances. Reply to Objection 2. The angels, by causing local motion, as the first motion, can thereby cause other movements; that is, by employing corporeal agents to produce these effects, as a workman employs fire to soften iron. Reply to Objection 3. The power of an angel is not so limited as is the power of the soul. Hence the motive power of the soul is limited to the body united to it, which is vivified by it, and by which it can move other things. But an angel's power is not limited to any body; hence it can move locally bodies not joined to it.

Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Q 110, A 1 sed contra and corpus, A 3 sed contra, corpus and answers to objections.

Howard F

+Hans-Georg Lundahl you said: case you pointed out was just stratigraphically "below" not physically literally below."

No. The reference I provided to the Karoo basin in South Africa is an example where they pely's are physically (and stratigraphically) below the dinos. Here is the reference again:

Smith, R. M. H. (1995). Changing fluvial environments across the Permian-Triassic boundary in the Karoo Basin, South Africa and possible causes of tetrapod extinctions. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 117(1), 81-104.

You said: "But once fossils have been assigned, I think many layers have been considered as different from each other because of fossils with already assigned "ages"."

Not really. The order of fossils is not circular, but determined by stratigraphic relationships. This always comes first, and the fossils come second. once the order has been firmly established, commonly using cliff exposures, they the fossils can be used as a guide.

You said: As to your answer about the demons,

I never asked about demons

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You asked about mechanism for stratification of marine invertebrate fossils.

You meant the South African example, not the Kansas one.

I have so far NOT been able to check this source on paper, but I DO know very well that as far as I checked Karoo precisely on Palaeocritti, never ever did I find Permian holotypes under Triassic or Lower Jurassic ones.

Now, I did write the South African Geological association to ask them if I got anything wrong, but have so far got no answer.

I am NOT quite sure you are aware of the size of Karoo. I thought you might have misunderstood the case by underestimating the size of "location" (something Karoo is far to big to be). So far, I have neither been able to verify your source on paper, nor heard from the people I checked with.

To make my criteria perfectly clear:

• 1) below means in my book along a line from upper and through lower fossil down to the centre of earth, ideally;
  
  
• 2) I am willing to accept a deviation of 45°;
  
  
• 3) where a horizontal or mainly horizontal relationship has turned into a vertical one by folding, that does not quite fit my criteria either.

Suppose these criteria were met in Karoo, it would make Karoo rather unique on earth as far as I know.

There are not that many places on earth where either Palaeocene / Danian meets Cretaceous / Maastrichtian (three, I looked at each of them as best as I could) OR the line crossed is between Palaeozoic and Mesozoic.

In Yacoraite, to take the Danian / Maastrichtian meeting point, there was a question of snail fossils, as far as I recall, and on top of that I found no real indication (but I would hardly call different snail species a real one anyway, land vertebrate biassed as I am) that the reason fossils are ascribed to two eras is not simply there is a line ascribed to an event thought to have been boundary between Cretaceous and Tertiary.

So, I am awaiting an opportunity to verify a really LOCAL above and below of pelycosaurs and dinos in Karoo.

The reason I was not impressed is I feel I know Karoo - as far as one can know a locality from a distance and from a limited palaeontological perspective at all.

I tried my usual two library resources. And a third one.

If you like, feel free to send me a photo copy of the pages.

Will give you adress in a pm.