The settings where dinosaur tracks are found tell us a lot about what was going on at the time. In this post, I will describe two areas where the rocks show key points about how they were deposited. Both examples are from rocks formed in the Cretaceous period. Most FG would describe these as from late in the flood. I am not sure where the dinosaurs were during the early flood model, but the model dictates that these are well into the event. After dramatic rainfall, erosion and “the fountains of the great deep burst forth”, surely the deposition late in the flood would have been very, very rapid. The tracks that examined in this blog seem to be from much more normal processes. The first tracks seem to be from normal river settings and the second from a swamp/marsh setting. This second one addresses the YEC claim that coals formed rapidly by catastrophic processes.
The first example is from the Clayton Lake and Dinosaur Trackways State Park in northeastern New Mexico. Conventional interpretation is that these were formed by many different types of dinosaurs 100 million years ago along ancient rivers. The sandstones are consistent with what one would expect in such a setting. It is difficult to understand how so many going in various directions would have been preserved in a major flood event. One of the beds shows classic desiccation features that formed as a somewhat clay rich bed dried out. I am sure that you are familiar with mudcracks. These polygonal features are telling us that the environment was dry for a period of time. We don’t know how long that period was, but the short period of the Genesis flood just doesn’t allow for this.
The left photo shows ancient mudcracks that formed when the sands dried for a period of time. The right photo is from nearby showing modern mudcracks that formed the same way.
The second track site shows more issues for a flood geology model. Conventional models interpret that coal formed when dead plant matter from ancient swamps decayed into peat and was converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. YEC author, Andrew Snelling proposes that coal was largely deposited by flood waters, perhaps from large clumps of plant material that were swept off the continents or else as large floating masses of plants that grew on water. He postulates that huge floating islands were present before and during the flood. Dinosaur tracks help to show that this was certainly not the case for some coals. Some coals may have formed from moving water, but that just doesn’t explain coal.
I was on a field trip in Utah to learn from examples of sandstone on the surface in order to better visualize what happens in the subsurface. These Cretaceous sandstones form a broad band across Utah and are interpreted to have been deposited along large wave-dominated river deltas similar to those found off the Texas coast today. Interfingered with these sandstones towards the coast are coal beds. The leader of our trip, Dr. John Balsley, has done extensive work mapping in these coals. His mapping inside the coal mines shows fascinating features. Often within these massive coal seams are thinner beds of silt that were carried into an ancient swamp by local floods. Very similar layers are deposited over swamps and marshes today, particularly when large spring floods occur. The base of these beds provides a snapshot view of what the area looked like during coal deposition. When the lower beds of coal are thick, the common practice is to mine the lower bed of coal and leave the siltstone in place. Dr. Balsley mapped features in the base of the silt bed that formed the roof of the mine. One feature mapped was where the coal preserved the root systems of the trees. Plant fossils, commonly as leaf impressions, included conifers, palms, and ferns. Many of the trees were clearly in growth position when the silt bed formed, demonstrating clearly that they were not rafted plant debris.
Map of the ceiling of a Utah coal mine showing dinosaur tracks, tree roots and petrified logs. The grey areas are pillars that had not been mined away.
The firmness of the silt over the swamp apparently provided a nice firm place for dinosaurs to walk on. Dinosaur tracks are common there and John mapped their position. It looks like the base of a modern cattle feedlot except that the feeders were dinosaurs instead of cows. You can see where the dinosaurs walked around, feeding off the tasty ferns. This all suggests that very normal rates of sedimentation were taking place then, just as they do today, except that the cast of animals and plants was different in the Cretaceous. It also says that these dinosaurs were not panicked by a catastrophic flood. These coals were not deposited as clumps by the great flood or as floating plants.
Let’s see, we have:
1) sands deposited in what look like classic coastal plain environments.
2) a sizable accumulation of coal from an accumulation of plant material such as we see today in swamps and marshes associated with coastal plain deposits
3) tree roots that show that the trees were growing in the swamp
4) Dinosaur tracks that show that these giant beasts were walking around the area presumably feeding on the tree leaves, not running from an advancing flood.
These could have been deposits from along an ancient coastal plain, or they could have formed in a few hours in the waning global flood. What do you think?
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