Buz's seashell claim

I probably should start a "Book NooK" topic on this book...The book is a compilation of some of his previous books, plus some new material. About 700 pages; $35.00(US) when I bought it a number of years back - A not overly technical book - Strongly recomended.Anyhow, on page 124 he's talking about the formation of the Himalaya Mountains.

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When the climbers in 1953 planted their flags on the highest mountain, they set them in snow over the skeletons of creatures that had lived in the warm clear ocean that India, moving north, blanked out. Possibly as much as twenty thousand feet below the seafloor, the skeletal remains had formed into rock. This one fact is a treatise in itself on the movements of the surface of the earth. If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.

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Moose

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...in order to fossilize, these organisms had to be burried suddenly and that indicates catastrophy. They don't just lie around for eons on the surface until they fossilize. On the surface it doesn't take long for them to decay.

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Indeed, fossils have a tough time being preserved on land surfaces, but... What we are talking about are marine fossils - The animal lived beneath the sea.The material remains of the creature is probably Calcium Carbonate. This material will not decompose (rot) by (general) biological processes. It can be destroyed by 1) Solution - but they are in a carbonate saturated environment, or 2) Physical distruction (crushing, abrasion, etc.) I put the "general" above, because this physical discruction can have a biological component. But essentially, a shell is just another piece of limestone.Catastropic processes are not required for preservation. Indeed, a limestone deposit is very much an indicator of a quiet marine environment - there is little non-carbonate detritus being introduced.Moose