Where Do the Flood Rocks End in the Fossil Record? Part 2

[Originally published on ZooCreation.com. The first section was presented on this website HERE.]

Given the importance that a Flood Model holds within creation science, the debate over the Flood/post-Flood boundary placement in the geological record is critical. That placement directly affects how we view the Genesis Flood narrative (specifically what the ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ kinds represented), how we understand post-Flood diversification and dispersal of animals, and how we interpret the stratigraphic fossil record.

Here I review and summarize paleontological arguments that argue for a Lower Cenozoic Flood Model or against an Upper Cenozoic Flood Model. In a Lower Cenozoic Flood Model, the Flood/post-Flood boundary may vary a bit by location, but is often indicated as near the K-Pg boundary in most terrestrial deposits.

Arguments relating to the stratigraphic order of fossils

8. The Post-Flood Fossil Continuity Criterion (PFCC) posits that “high preservability baramins should have a continuous fossil record back at least to the Flood, and high preservability groups with a first-appearance in the fossil record substantially after the Flood are sub-baraminic.”

Wise (2008) proposed the PFCC as a way to determine the Flood/post-Flood boundary, noting that “if mammal preservability was constant following the Flood,” this suggests a boundary between the middle Eocene and lower Oligocene, while “if (as is more likely) mammal preservability rose with population following the Flood, the boundary is lower.” Wise suggested that many mammalian holobaramins [highest level of related animals] might be identifiable with superfamilies or even higher groups.

9. The continuity of boundary-crossing species at each delineated stage can be used to suggest pre-Flood/Flood and Flood/post-Flood boundaries.

Wise and Richardson (2023) evaluated overall patterns and percentages of boundary-crossing species from the Precambrian through the Cenozoic. The high boundary-crossing values derived from this research indicate that the Flood/post-Flood boundary is best placed in the early Cenozoic.

10. The heavy bias in survivorship (crossing the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary) among genera in the uppermost stratigraphic layers of the Cenozoic, argues against an Upper Cenozoic Flood Model.

When I looked at terrestrial mammal presence across Cenozoic epochs, 640 out of 5,586 genera crossed the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary (Arment 2024). Of those boundary crossers, 0% were found in Paleocene deposits, 0.8% in Eocene deposits, 4.1% in Oligocene deposits, 52.8% in Miocene deposits, and 91.6% in Pliocene deposits.

As all Cenozoic genera should have been on the Ark (within an Upper Cenozoic Flood Model), there is no reason we should see such a high survivorship bias by the fossil genera in the uppermost layers. Rather, the pattern of mammal presence reflects post-Flood diversification and dispersal over time throughout the Cenozoic.

Arguments relating to post-Flood markers

11. In situ fossilization in a Cenozoic layer where the process requires a time period greater than the length of the Flood, did not occur during the Flood.

The best example of this are the giant Miocene ichnofossils now known to be the fossil burrows of a burrowing beaver, Palaeocastor (Arment 2023). Fossilization of these burrows only occurred due to silicification after complete infiltration of the burrow walls by grassland plant roots. The size of these burrows, upright helical burrows up to 9 feet high, ending in a sloping, nearly horizontal tube almost 15 feet in length, dictates a very long period of time for grassland plants to reach and infiltrate the walls.

In burrows that were active, roots remained in the walls, but in abandoned burrows the roots infilled the entire burrow. Today, grassland root growth to that extent would take 3-5 years. These fossil burrows are found over hundreds of square miles in western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming, with some burrows staggered above each other in different layers of sediment. Clearly these were not formed during ‘brief exposure’ periods during the Flood, as some creationists argue.

12. Fossil material that is discovered within cave sediments and cave flowstone, rather than original host-rock, will be post-Flood.

A similar argument placed Neanderthal material found in cave sediments in a post-Flood context (Wood 2022). For an argument to specifically support a Lower Cenozoic Flood Model, however, the fossil material must be in strata below a suggested Upper Cenozoic Flood Model’s proposed boundary. Pliocene or Miocene material would be necessary to argue against a Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary, for example.

Fossils found in caves include animals which were permanent residents, temporary residents (including use for den sites), seasonal hibernators, prey dragged in by predators, those randomly killed by falling into trap caves, and those transported after death by flooding or other means (Lundelius 2006; Plotnick et al. 2015).

Cave sites include recognizable caves, as well as cave deposits in ‘unroofed caves’, where the top sediments have been removed through karst denudation (Arena et al. 2014). (Karst is a landscape formation in which soluble carbonate bedrock has been dissolved by acidic water, leaving behind caves, sinkholes, underground rivers, and similar features.)

A middle Miocene cave deposit in Queensland, Australia, has been interpreted as a pitfall trap (Arena et al. 2014). This is an ‘unroofed cave’, recognized by a delineated lithology, speleothem features, and abundant bat fossils. A late Miocene cave site in Spain has also been interpreted as a pitfall trap (Domingo et al. 2013), pointing to a very high abundance of carnivores and very few herbivores. As the cave host rock in each case was fully lithified for cave formation, this points to the fossils in those cave deposits being part of a post-Flood biota.

Care must be taken in evaluating paleokarst sites, to properly distinguish between actual cave deposits and infill from the dissolution and transport of bedrock fossils. Generally, cave fossils are found back to Miocene deposits, while earlier paleokarst fossils are mostly ‘fissure fills’ (Plotnick et al. 2015). Post-Flood caves can act as natural traps for eroding surface sediments, including those that include Flood fossils (e.g. Carboniferous paleokarst ending up trapped as cave fill in north-central Illinois [Plotnick et al. 2009]).

Further Discussion

Reactions by proponents of other Flood Models to these varied arguments have been to claim that

1. the Ark Kinds do not represent Created Kinds, but included multiple lineages within each Created Kind;
2. each single Ark Kind pair quickly produced offspring that were virtually identical to a wide range of pre-Flood relations via hyper-convergence;
3. the strata that incorporate multiple living members of the same kind may actually be post-Flood, and are simply misidentified as being below the Pleistocene;
4. the geological column is an evolutionary fabrication;
5. fossil identification is arbitrary and fraudulent.

Rebuttals to these assertions are discussed by Ross (2014a; 2014b) and Arment (2020b; 2022).

References

Arena, D. A., et al. 2014. Reconstructing a Miocene pitfall trap: Recognition and interpretation of a fossiliferous Cenozoic palaeokarst. Sedimentary Geology 304: 28-43.

Arment, C. 2014. Fossil snakes and the Flood boundary in North America. Journal of Creation 28(3): 13-15.

Arment, C. 2020a. To the Ark, and back again? Using the marsupial fossil record to investigate the Post-Flood boundary. Answers Research Journal 13: 1-22.

Arment, C. 2020b. Implications of creation biology for a Neogene-Quaternary Flood/Post-Flood boundary. Answers Research Journal 13: 241-256.

Arment, C. 2022. Ruminating on Created Kinds and Ark Kinds. Answers Research Journal 15: 391-404.

Arment, C. 2023. Palaeocastor burrows as Post-Flood biostratigraphic markers. Answers Research Journal 16: 183-187.

Arment, C. 2024. Examining biostratigraphic correlation to post-Flood survival bias within Upper Cenozoic Flood Models. Abstract. Creation Biology Society Annual Conference.

Arment, C. 2025. To the Ark, and back again? Using the marsupial fossil record to investigate the Post-Flood boundary: A reply. Answers Research Journal 18: 5-11.

Domingo, M. S., et al. 2013. Origin of an assemblage massively dominated by carnivorans from the Miocene of Spain. PLoS ONE 8(5): e63046.

Lundelius, E. L., Jr. 2006. Cave site contributions to vertebrate history. Alcheria: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology 30(S1): 195-210.

Plotnick, R., F. Kenig, and A. C. Scott. 2015. Using the voids to fill the gaps: Caves, time, and stratigraphy. Strata and Time: Probing the Gaps in Our Understanding. Geological Society, London. Special Publications 404: 233-250.

Plotnick, R. E., et al. 2009. Pennsylvanian paleokarst and cave fills from northern Illinois, USA: A window into late Carboniferous environments and landscapes. Palaios 24: 627-637.

Ross, M. R. 2012a. Evaluating potential post-Flood boundaries with biostratigraphy—the Pliocene/Pleistocene boundary. Journal of Creation 26(2): 82-87.

Ross, M. R. 2012b. A preliminary biostratigraphic analysis of the K-Pg boundary as a post-Flood boundary candidate. Journal of Creation Theology and Science Series C: Earth Sciences 4: 1-3.

Ross, M. R. 2014a. Improving our understanding of creation and its history. Journal of Creation 28(2): 62-63.

Ross, M. R. 2014b. Reliable data disconfirm a late Cenozoic post-Flood boundary. Journal of Creation 28(2): 66-68.

Whitmore, J. H., and P. Garner. 2008. Using suites of criteria to recognize pre-Flood, Flood, and post-Flood strata in the rock record with application to Wyoming (USA). Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Creationism 6: 425-448.

Whitmore, J. H., and K. P. Wise. 2008. Rapid and early post-Flood mammalian diversification evidenced in the Green River Formation. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Creationism 6: 449-457.

Wise, K. P. 2008. Baraminology and the fossil record of the mammals. Abstract. Occasional Papers of the BSG 11: C11.

Wise, K. P., and D. Richardson. 2023. What biostratigraphic continuity suggests about Earth history. Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism 9: 611-625.

Wood, T. C. 2022. Neanderthals are post-Flood. CBS Annual Conference Abstracts. Journal of Creation Theology and Science Series B: Life Sciences 12: 10.