la brea tar pits/ humphreys

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Originally posted by forgiven:
quetzal, i think the creationist view runs something like, there's at least one area (i've read many), only about 4 cubic feet, in which so many fossils are located, from so many different types of creature, that it would be impossible without the 'catastrophic' scenerio (ie the flood)... you might wanna look into that, i haven't been able to find any website that even attempts to explain the occurance in evolutionary terms

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Am I mistaken in thinking that the tar pits are ... um tar, or used to be? And things placed in tar don't stay put over thousands of years but get jumbled around.------------------
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Originally posted by peter borger:
PB: ...and upon the entrapment of the carnivores more packs of carnivores came, who became entrapped, and that attracted more carnivores, who became entrapped, that attracted more canrivores, etcetera. So, it probably took only a couple of centuries to fill the tar pit with thousands of skeletons. It elegantly explains the 10:1 ratio.

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Your scenario of chain feeding carnivores would require an enormous population density of carnivores, an unreasonable density. What you propose would quickly wipe out the carnivores locally, and by the time more colonize the area the trapped animals would sink into the muck and stop the cycle. Until another herbivore wandered into the trap.------------------
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Originally posted by peter borger:
PB: Actually these carnivores are wiped out: extinct.

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LOL.... Yes, they are extinct, but that has nothing whatever to do with the scenario in question. You've missed the point.

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PB: Still the ratio is 10 carnivores to 1 herbivore. It puzzled me for a while. From ecology we know that emtied niches are pretty quick replenished by wanderers.. Probably the solution it is somewhere in between.

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But your chain feeding scenario would wipe out local populations of carnivores before the more distant populations colonized the area. Not to mention that it would drive the carnivore/herbivore ratio way up from 10-1 to 100-1 or more.------------------
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