Dinosaur Tracks and Flood Geology (Part 1)

by | May 26, 2020 | Age of the Earth

Everyone is fascinated by dinosaurs.  Huge, sometimes ferocious beasts capture our imaginations. They tell us of a time when this world was dominated by a large population of animals that do not exist today, certainly not in documented human history. Conventional age models have them ruling the earth for around 160 million years. How do they fit in the young earth model?  In the 6000-year version of young earth creationism (YEC), God created thousands of species of these creatures, only to have them taken out about 1600 years later.  (see YEC stratigraphic column on Age of the Earth page.) This would also be true for thousands and thousands of other less glamorous species.  Some YEC propose a few thousand more years, but even so, it has got to be shocking that God would create huge populations of such spectacular animals to exist for just a short time. It is not as if God were surprised by the flood.

What happened to dinosaurs in the flood geology (FG) model?  Some proponents suggest that they just didn’t make the boat but Genesis 6:19 says, “And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you.” (ESV) If the YEC reading of Genesis is consistent, then surely two of every sort of dinosaurs had to be there.  Answers in Genesis (AIG) is consistent with this.  They report “Dinosaurs were created by God on Day 6 of creation, approximately 6,000 years ago, and were originally vegetarian. During the global Flood, many were buried and fossilized but two of each kind survived on Noah’s Ark. They eventually died out, due to human activity, climate changes, or other factors.”  https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/

We find often dinosaur bones, dinosaur eggs, and dinosaur tracks in many parts of the world.  They are very common in the area where I focused my age of the earth study.

Dinosaur Tracks in my area

Map showing dinosaur tracks reported through Texas, NM and northern Mexico.  They are found from the Mesozoic sediments.  The Dinosaur Valley State Park near Glen Rose, Texas is key to this discussion.  BTW, the Permian tracks are pre-dinosaur reptiles and other animals (See references).

This post is to address the strange claim that there are human tracks with dinosaur tracks together in the same units.  To be fair, most leading YEC have abandoned the claim but it is still very popular online.  Maybe the most famous claims have come from near Glen Rose, Texas in the Cretaceous Paluxy Formation.  Many legitimate tracks are found there and the state park is a great place to visit.  Be prepared to walk out in the shallow stream to get good views in many cases.  Bring a broom to sweep them off for better viewing.

Dinosaur tracks are mainly found along one bed there, although a few are found on other levels.  In 2017, Glen Kuban gave my wife, grandson and I an amazing tour of the sites.  Glen is recognized as an expert on dinosaur tracks and in particular those in the Glen Rose area.  His website is a great resource:  http://paleo.cc/  He is a co-author of a paper by Farlow and others that documents the tracks very well. He helped us to understand the tracks and their setting.

Here Glen showed us therapod tracks outside of the park.

Four sources of tracks from the Lower Cretaceous Paluxy formation (see image). The two track types on the left are clearly from dinosaurs as agreed by all. Those on the right are often taken to be Cretaceous human tracks. The upper right tracks are identified as a type of dinosaur known as “metatarsal”. The lower right “track” an example of a fake, known as the “Burdick Print”. 

 

The “Burdick print” is one of several track examples on loose stones. The actual place the stone originated is unknown and key details are missing. It is difficult for such pieces to be evaluated seriously by scientists. Detailed examination of the “Burdick print” has demonstrated that the “human print” was carved (Kuban 2010). One key problem is the fact that it was carved on the wrong side of the rock. Fossil algal mats, known as stromatolites, are the “smoking gun.” They are upside down in the print. Although it is unproven who forged this print, geologist Clifford Burdick (1919–2005) who brought the footprint to fame is at least guilty of bad judgment (Numbers 1993).
An additional location, known as the Taylor site, is found near the Dinosaur Valley State Park. It is stratigraphically younger than the main tracks and has an entire path of prints. Many YEC interpret them as human. You can find a number of YEC Web sites that present the Taylor tracks and other such tracks as authentic human tracks. Fortunately, in this case, it was investigated in depth by Glen Kuban while the tracks were in their best condition. Details show that while the tracks are authentic, they are not human. This web address provides a description of his investigation: http://paleo.cc/paluxy/tsite.htm. He demonstrated that the best explanation is that the tracks were made by tridactyl (three-toed) dinosaurs who walked a bit differently, by impressing their lower leg or metatarsi into the sediment. The result is that the footprints tend to be elongated, and when less than perfectly preserved, they can appear almost human. Kuban was able to document that in other sites the tridactyl dinosaurs had a variety of walking styles that varied from the more common toe-walking to walking partially on their metatarsi to tracks similar to the Taylor site
It is not uncommon to find YEC websites that still report both the metarsal and carved tracks as authentic human tracks. Even AIG do not support the claims of human tracks here. https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/footprints/paluxy-river-tracks-in-texas-spotlight/ Other prints have been claimed to be human, but any claims would need to have very good evidence. All tracks I have seen or seen pictures of seem pretty unconvincing. They are typically either just too poor to prove any claim that they are human or loose tracks that are just too perfect and probably fakes.
Are dinosaur tracks compatible with a global flood?
How could animal tracks such as dinosaur tracks be preserved within the flood deposits? Raging flood waters would seem to be the wrong place to find them. Well preserved examples are found from Permian, Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments all around the world and in this study area as shown in the map above. It is unlikely enough that tracks are preserved at all, but in the middle or near the top of the flood deposits? How would that work? Where were the animals during the flood? Creative solutions have long been proposed by YEC authors from Whitcomb and Morris (1961) to Snelling (2009). Some invoke the idea that more mobile larger creatures were moving up into the higher lands. During the few hours or days that might have been available, were they running for high ground? If we considered the thickest deposits in my study area, deposition had to average 150 feet (47 m) per day if the Mesozoic is included as flood deposits (Mitchell, 2018). Locally the rates might have been much slower, but still keep in mind that very rapid deposition had to occur most of the time in the YEC model.
Paluxy Paleogeography

Here is a paleogeographic map compiled from geologic literature that includes the Paluxy period. Dinosaur Valley State Park location is labeled. The dinosaur tracks are in coastal zone west of an ancient delta, the “Paluxy Delta”. Finding tracks in such setting makes perfect sense.

Farlow reports that the sauropods from the Paluxy Formation in the Glen Rose area were preferentially heading southward (Farlow et al. 2012). Why would they have been walking toward the modern Gulf of Mexico? The tridactyl tracks show that the three-toed dinosaurs went both north and south. They must have been confused. If dinosaurs were running toward high ground that existed before the flood, it is really unclear where that was. As the maps above shows, the rocks confirm that then as now, southward meant going towards the coast, towards water.

I could imagine preserving footprints after a flood if the units were close to granite or some rock that the YEC could say were created mature. At Glen Rose, the Paleozoic and Mesozoic section below the prints is about 8000 feet (2.4 km thick). How do you get dinosaurs walking around atop over a mile of recent flood deposits? There were no massive coals to represent floating islands here. The “flood sediments thicken down to the coastline and into the present Gulf of Mexico. Why were no dinosaur tracks preserved running during what was supposed to have been the early flood? Why don’t the late Precambrian or Cambrian or Ordovician sediments have footprints? No such prints are found, not only here, but anywhere in the world. In the YEC model, one might expect dinosaur tracks in the pre-flood deposits, but late in the flood?

Dinosaur tracks are certainly not the only issue for Cretaceous rocks. YEC author Paul Garner observed, “The occurrence of in situ eggs and nests in Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous sediments indicate that at least these systems must be post-Flood. This deduction is supported by the recent discovery of apparently in situ termite nests in the Triassic sediments of Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park” (Garner 1996). I am not aware of any dinosaur nests identified in this book’s study area, but the Petrified Forest is not far away. Why no dinosaur nests in the Paleozoic? Probably because they were not around then. Perhaps the Cretaceous dinosaur tracks were formed after Noah’s flood. When I wrote about the flood stratigraphy in the post: Flood Geology and the Stratigraphic Record, I showed that most authors make the Cretaceous part of the late to middle flood record. Two writers, Gardner and Scheven would include the Cretaceous section in the post-flood deposits. That solves that problem but creates many more. That is for later posts.

Summary

• Tracks reported to be human in the Glen Rose consist of
        1. Therapod dinosaur tracks made by dinosaurs who walked a bit on the metatarsal.
        2. Fakes that were carved back in the 1920’s.

• Most YEC authors interpret Cretaceous rocks such as the Paluxy Formation to be deposited in the middle to upper part of the flood.

• Any dinosaur tracks preserved in a large flood are difficult to explain.

• Tracks near Glen Rose are on top of 8000 ft of what YEC call flood deposits. Where were they before?

• Tracks in the Paluxy formation heading southward would have been towards the deepest water around and do not make sense in a flood model.

• God created dinosaurs for his own purposes. They glorified God in their way for 160 million years. Our few thousand years is just a beginning. Eternity with God can be ours, far exceeding the day of the dinosaurs.

References
Answers in Genesis (AIG): https://answersingenesis.org/about/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMInqPbyKnS6QIVgobACh3avADTEAAYASAAEgKlUfD_BwE

Farlow, J., O’brien, M., Kuban, G., Dattilo, B., and Bates, K. 2012. Dinosaur Tracksites of the
Paluxy River Valley (Glen Rose Formation, Lower Cretaceous), Dinosaur Valley State Park,
Somervell County, Texas. Actas de V Jrnadas Internacionales sobre, 41–69. Retrieved from  http://opus.ipfw.edu/geosci_facpubs/69/Kuban

Galloway, W., 2005. “Chapter 15 Depositional Evolution of the Gulf of Mexico Sedimentary Basin.” In The Sedimentary Basins of the United States and Canada, Sedimentary Basins of the World

Mitchell, Stephen, 2018, A Texas-Sized Challenge to Young Earth Creation and Flood Geology, Christian Faith Publishing, Inc., 832 Park Avenue, Meadville, PA 16335, https://www.christianfaithpublishing.com/books/?book=a-texas-sized-challenge-to-young-earth-creation-and-flood-geology

Numbers, R. 1993. The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism. Berkley: University of California Press.

Snelling, A. 2009. Earth’s Catastrophic Past, Vol. 1 and 2. Dallas: Institute for Creation Research.

Whitcomb, J., and Morris, H. 1961. The Genesis Flood. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.

Spectacular Permian tracks in New Mexico

Permian trackways in New Mexico: https://nmdigital.unm.edu/digital/collection/bulletins/id/5421/