The Fossil Record

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The Fossil Record
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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.

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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.

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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!

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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

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What is a fossil?

• Are all fossils extinct?

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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.

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Living fossils
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Living fossils

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

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Living fossils
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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.

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Living fossils

• Do you recognize any of these fish fossils?

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

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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!

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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 havent changed.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 couldnt they be found in granite?
• Granite is igneous rock, or rock formed from
  magma.

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What is a fossil?

• 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.

impression
petrified
sedimentary
tar pits
resin
La Brea Tar Pits
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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?

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Where do we find fossils?

• We find fossils in ____________ rock.

Sedimentary
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What is sedimentary rock?

• Existing crushed rock accumulated together at the
  bottom of a body of water.
• Commonly known as ________layers.

sediment
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What is sedimentary rock?

• The mud at the mouth of a river is called
  sediment.
• Most sediment is created by a flooding action.

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What is sedimentary rock?

• 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.

80
flood sediment
catastrophic
evidence
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
• Noahs flood was actually like a snapshot of
  everything that was alive then.

Approx. 1 yr.
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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.

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Thats exactly what we find.

• Plants, small animals, fish on the bottom
  layers.

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Thats exactly what we find.

• Then larger animals, some caught in mud slides
  etc.

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Thats 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.

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Thats 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.

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Thats 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.

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Thats exactly what we find.

• Professor F.S. Holmes (paleontologist and curator
  of the College of Charlestons 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.

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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
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Footprints

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

running
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Footprints

• Footprint fossils can only be evidence of a great
  catastrophic event.
• We know this event as ____________.

Noahs Flood
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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.

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Fish eating fish

• How is this is clear evidence of a catastrophic
  event.

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Polystrate fossils

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

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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.

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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?

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Its so clear, why cant they see?

• Footprints story the TV.
• They know in their heart that evolution isnt
  true, but they dont know what to do.
• If you push creation you build a wall and an
  argument.
• If you show them the gospel, theyll get saved
  and want to know about creation.

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The Fossil Record
The end