Re: The Santana Formation - Rapid or Slow Burial?


Seanpit wrote:
Richard Forrest wrote:
Seanpit wrote:
Richard Forrest wrote:

Where on Earth is your anoxic lake/ocean notion preserving
fossils to the degree and extent that we see in the fossil record?

Lagoa Vermelha, Brazil
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1365-3091.2003.00550.x

Come on now. Only microorganisms live in the coastal lagoon of Lagoa
Vermelha, Brazil. I'm talking about fossilized macroorganisms in fine
condition - like fish, other vertebrates, etc.

These are exactly the same conditions under which the fossil fishes of
the Santana formation are preserved in such exquisite detail. The
organic components of the fish are replaced by permineralising bacteria
of the sort which are described here, and can be seen under an SEM.

You need to do a bit more reading about the Santana Formation. The
Santana Formation of Brazil contains fish whose gills and muscles are
so perfectly preserved that geologists believe they were completely
fossilized within five hours of death. The foremost expert on these
Brazilian fossils, Dr David Martill, has called this "the Medusa
effect", after the creature of Greek mythology who could instantly turn
people to stone just by looking at them.

Is this the same expert who mentioned that the fossils were not rapidly
buried,
in Martill, David M. 1990. Macromolecular resolution of fossilized
muscle tissue from an elopomorph fish. Nature 346:171-172. ?

"Many models for exceptional preservation require rapid burial,
anoxicity, or both. There is evidence of scavenging of many of the
exceptionally preserved Santana specimens suggesting that anoxic and
rapid burial modes are not applicable here."

Give it up - flood geology does not make sense, otherwise there would
have to be ONE burial event, and particle size distributions concordant
with that.

Fish simply do not fossilize in modern "anoxic lakes" like they did in
the past.

Was chemistry or physics different back then?

The idea is rather simple - usually organisms get eaten when they die.
Sometimes they do not for one reason or another. Rapid burial is one
of MANY mechanisms of preservation of form. Inhibition of the "eating"
process by multiple ways is another. Martill proposed high salinity,
citing
evaporites in the sediments (hardly consistent with a Flood, either).

[snip]

Tracy P. Hamilton

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Santana Formation - Rapid or Slow Burial?
    ... preservation of fossil plesiosaur I am describing as part of my PhD ... periods of formation where fish would die, ... such a formation of various kinds of nearly perfectly preserved fossils ... They do point to catastrophe on a large scale. ...
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  • Re: All Creationists are Evil Liars
    ... preservation is a few hours, not "within an hour" as you originally ... The fact that most fossils are not exceptional, ... UNFOUNDED ASSERTION ALERT!! ...
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  • Re: Taphonomy - Anoxia does not inhibit decay
    ... sediments were anoxic, and didn't contain the bacteria which cause ... decay. ... is not an adequate explanation for well-preserved fossils - ... complex processes leading to soft-part preservation. ...
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  • Re: All Creationists are Evil Liars
    ... good experimental evidence that preservation of soft tissues of this ... I've answered this false misrepresentation many times Richard. ... the Santana formation was the result of rapid burial. ... This flatly contradicts your statement that ""most fossils show clear ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: The Santana Formation - Rapid or Slow Burial?
    ... Santana Formation of Brazil contains fish whose gills and muscles are ... Brazilian fossils, Dr David Martill, has called this "the Medusa ... preservation of fossil plesiosaur I am describing as part of my PhD ... They sink to the bottom. ...
    (talk.origins)