by Dan Delane
The creationist armchair taphonomists state that "animals or plants must be quickly buried to avoid the action of scavengers“ and that "to become a fossil, a living thing must be out of the reach of other creatures and processes which would destroy it“ (https://answersingenesis.org/…/do-fossils-show-signs-of-ra…/). While this is true for many cases, the presence of insect borings and pupation chambers in many dinosaur bones indicates that these carcasses had been exposed on the surface for a prolonged period of time under dry conditions.
Insect-bone borings are known from terrestrial formations on every continent except Antarctica and Australia. Among the tracemakers are carrion insects, such as dermestid beetles, tineid moths, and termites. (1)
The activity of dermestid beetle larvae requires specific conditions, the most important of which are that the carcass must have lain on the sediment surface, was above water and dry, and partially covered by dried flesh. (2) Dermestid beetles are specifically attracted to carcasses that are drying out and have become leathery. They bore holes into the skin and dry muscular tissue and are apt to deposit their eggs in a locality where their larvae have little chance of drowning. (3) Larvae ready to pupate bore into hard substrates, such as bone or dried ligaments. The morphology of these borings and chambers in dinosaur bones is consistent with those found in modern carcasses. (2)
The presence of borings by dermestid beetle larvae suggests that the carcasses were exposed on the surface for a prolonged period of time and reached the dry stage of decomposition, allowing the infestation by dermestid beetles which explicitly do not infest submerged or moist materials; rapid burial of a carcass also prevents any activity (2). The eggs of dermestid beetles hatch into larvae in 2-10 days, and grow to adulthood in 6-9 weeks.
The taphonomic history of a sub-adult Allosaurus from the Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry in the Morrison Formation* with numerous insect borings suggests that it died during a drought and that the carcass lay exposed on a dry floodplain or in a dry river channel under hot and dry conditions for at least 2.5 to five months before it was eventually buried. (2)
It's obious that this scenario is not reconcilable with the notion of rapid, catastrophic deposition of wet sediments hundreds to thousands of meters thick and the rapid burial of dinosaurs drowned in the cataclysm of a global flood.
It's time to face the reality: There was no global flood. Genesis 6-9 is a myth. Get over it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Flood geology claims the Morrison Formation was deposited catastrophically: “slow sediment build-up could not possibly produce such widespread deposits, such broadly consistent sedimentary and paleontological features, as we see in the Morrison and St. Peter’s formations. In this case, knowledge of the present tells us that something happened on a much larger scale in the past than we see it happening anywhere today.“ https://answersingenesis.org/…/how-are-fossils-fo…/how-fast/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References:
(1) Roberts et al. (2007): CONTINENTAL INSECT BORINGS IN DINOSAUR BONE - EXAMPLES FROM THE LATE CRETACEOUS OF MADAGASCAR AND UTAH
(2) Hasiotis et al. (1999): PRELIMINARY REPORT ON BORINGS IN JURASSIC DINOSAUR BONES - EVIDENCE FOR INVERTEBRATE-VERTEBRATE INTERACTIONS
(3) Rogers (1992): Non-marine borings in dinosaur bones from the Upper Cretaceous of the Two Medicine Formation, Northwestern Montana
Photos:
#1, #2: (1)
#3, #4: Parkinson 2012 DERMESTES MACULATUS AND PERIPLANETA AMERICANA - BONE MODIFICATION CRITERIA AND ESTABLISHING THEIR POTENTIAL AS CLIMATIC INDICATORS http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/…/461727_Parkinson_MScDisserta…
No comments:
Post a Comment