Re: Praclaux Crater and the global flood (fwd)

Glenn Morton (
Thu, 06 Nov 1997 19:48:28 -0600

At 07:07 AM 11/6/97 -0800, Arthur V. Chadwick wrote:
>At 10:03 PM 11/5/97 -0600, Glenn wrote:
>Hi, Glenn, just a couple of points of information:
>You say
>>We know that the burrows were filled in from the sand above them.
>What percentage of the burrows? Are the burrows only in the shale?
That is what the article says:

"Trace fossils in the form of sand-filled burrows are present on
every sandstone sole, but nearly absent within sandstone beds.
~Earle F. McBride,"Stratigraphy and Sedimentology of the Haymond
Formation," in Earle F. McBride, Stratigraphy, Sedimentary
Structures and Origin of Flysch and Pre-Flysch Rocks, Marathon
Basin, Texas (Dallas: Dallas Geological Society, 1969), p. 87-88

Art, these are turbidite sands. For those who don't know the sands are in
essence deposited in an underwater landslide, but the shales, would require
much time for the tiny shale particles to settle out of a water column.

> Thus the
>>burrow was open when the sand was deposited on top of the shale. Surely
>>some of the animals would be killed, leaving fewer animals to recolonize.
>>Yet we find burrows as numerous at the top as at the bottom.
>How surely?
>> Remember that the Haymond formation was being deposited at a rate of 1300
>>feet/95 days=13.6 feet per day.
>How do you know this? Why not all of it in one day or a couple of days?

Here is the calculation again. There is 5000 m of sediment in the Marathon
Basin. If it was all deposited in one year, as global flood advocates say,
then the 1300 m thick Haymond formation must have been deposited in
1300/5000 of a year. This is 95 days. 15000 layers in 95 days works out to
157 per day or one layer every 10 minutes.

If you deposit the Haymond in one day, one must explain the burrows as
something other than being produced by living creatures. They must become
depositional features. We don't see this sort of thing in modern turbidites
if there are no burrows in the underlying strata.

>There were also 157 layers with burrows
>>deposited every day.(15000 layers with burrows/95 days) What this means is
>>that these animals would have to dig 157 burrows per day only to have them
>>filled with sand and then recolonize. At 157 burrows per day the animal had
>>to dig a new burrow every ten minutes. When did he eat?
>Burrowing organisms generally eat as they burrow, especially if they are
>worms which pass the stuff through their digestive tract. Besides whats a
>day or two without food???

But the burrows were open so that the sand could fall into them. Worm
burrows close behind the animal. The animal crawls through the sediment like
a sub through water.

>All this is assuming they were not escape burrows (as I assume they were),
>and that the burrowers were not brought in with the sediment. Both of
>htese would change the meaning of the burrows dramatically.

How do you bring burrowers down with a sandstone, and then have the animals
dig deeper into the underlying shale. Most escape burrows are upward when
the animal tries to escape from the sediment. They don't dig themselves
deeper into the sediment.


Foundation, Fall and Flood