scubafire:
How do evolutionists explain the trees that extend through several layers of the geological column?
Mate - the 'geological column' is not some thin layer of dirt that a tree can grow into: its the 10's of kilometres of deep marine, shallow marine and land-deposited sediments that lie buried beneath your feet and the 1000's of kilometres of sedimentry rocks that lie exposed around you: these sediments have continually been buried, baked, bent, uplifted into mountains and then eroded into later sediments that, in turn, go through the burial cycle again and again. They record periods of continental drift, large climate changes, and the evolution of life.
This isn’t a story – we observe the sedimentary environments today (deep sea, river deltas, deserts, shallow marine, volcanic areas, etc), categorise the unique pattern sediments deposited in each one, then we can look at the rock record and can read it like a book.
The development of the fossil record through successive layers of rock indicates a slow gradual process of evolution and extinction, and interbedded intrusions and lavas allow us to put a time scale on it.
I have seen trees partially buried by landslide deposits and volcanic ash - the sediments were laid down over a mater of hours, not millions of years. Please show me a scientific paper or location of this said tree - it must be several Km high and many geologists and biologists would be very interested to see it. Likely its one of the above mudslide or volcanic ash examples, but with creationists stating that the couple of metres of sediment represents the geological time scale.
scubafire:
how do they explain fish skeletons and sea life at the top of mountains?
As stated above the earth is not a quiet place - continents bang into each other (continent drift is now measured accurately by satellite) with the forces involved pushing up mountains, creating volcanoes and earthquakes etc. Sediments that were on the seafloor millions years ago get buried, uplifted and exposed on mountain peaks (the uplift of active mountain ranges such of Himalayas can also no be measured accurately nowdays). Over time these mountain will erode away forming new sea floor sediments, with a more recent fauna preserved as fossils, that one day may also be uplifted.
This isn’t my belief – it’s the conclusion you come to when you observe and measure what is happerning in the world today then apply this to what the rock record over the world shows.
Cheers,
Rohan.
