Mummified hadrosaur evidence of recent global flood

This was recently posted on Kent Hovind's website (currently being run by his son) and has been doing the rounds in creationist circles.The story: In 1999, a teenager named Tyler Lyson unearthed a rare find on his family's farm in North Dakota. It is the fossil of a hadrosaur which has been mummified, though to be more specific, the bones have been mineralised and the whole body is in an unusually excellent state of preservation, which includes skin and soft tissues. This find has recently been in the news because of the publication of a book by National Geographic, titled Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs: Soft Tissues and Hard Science. You can read more about it here, though the news story is easy to find in many places on the web.Hovind claims that due to the rare preservation of skin and mummification, the creature had to be buried "very rapidly, in flash flood conditions." And this could have happened 4,400 years ago during the Biblical global flood. The fossil was encased in siderite, which bears out the idea that the fossilisation occurred quickly. I also cannot find any information about possible radioisotope dating of rock surrounding the fossil.I'm going to play devil's advocate here. This hadrosaur fossil is excellent evidence of the Biblical global flood that occurred 4,400 years ago. The fossil is not millions of years old. Refutations welcome.Geology and the Great Flood?

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

So you believe that this animal died, was buried and was completely mineralised within the last 4000ish years? If so, what is wrong with the idea that the animal died, was buried in a local event and was completely mineralised within a 4000 year period in the mesozoic and has been preserved in this state ever since? What specifically tells you that this must have been a recent event?

Told you so.Floods cause dessication now?

LL, There is nothing to date the Hadrosaur to 4,400 years ago rather than millions of years ago, nor is there anything that says "global" about it, either. It fails as evidence of anything biblical on all counts.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Sort of true. The carcass had to be buried quickly, geologically speaking, but it absolutely did not have to be buried in flash flood conditions. Hovind is ignorant of how meandering rivers work. High flow conditions could have interred the carcass on a point bar within the river channel as well...that isn't flash flooding. Besides, this specimen comes from the Hell Creek Formation. The paleoenvironmental interpretations for the Hell Creek in the uppermost Maastrichtian (~67Ma) are more like northern Mississippi than an arid area which is likely to experience flash flooding. Was the carcass buried during a period of high flow? Almost certainly. Is this splitting hairs with "flash flooding?" Maybe, but science is about detail. The skeleton is encased in sandstone which is cemented with siderite. The nature of the cementation of the sand grains is a different matter than the process of burial. We've got good paleomag data from the uppermost Hell Creek Formation. I'm not sure if there are ash beds in this particular part of the unit. The best estimates right now on the ages of the rocks are ~67 million.

Thanks Dr. A. I did a search on this topic before I started a new thread, typed in "hadrosaur" and "North Dakota." Maybe it didn't work because at least one person on the thread called it a "hydrosaur."Forgive my lack of scientific knowledge about fossils, I honestly tried to find some websites that would tell me about how this kind of fossil forms but couldn't find anything that wasn't full of scientific jargon, i.e. studies published in journals.Desiccation is the process of removing water from an object. How does that happen for a fossil which is actually created underwater, in the mud?

No. I'm not a creationist. I'm not even religious. I'm refuting creationists on another site and they posted this drivel. I thought I'd come here and throw it out, and give everyone some fun by trying to defend it from the scientifically ignorant point of view I keep encountering there. It won't be hard because I don't have any expertise in the process of fossilisation. What is your evidence that this DID happen? The earth is 6,000 years old and nothing about this fossil indicates that it has to be any older than that.

You evolutionists interpret the evidence one way only, all the time. You dig up a fossil and automatically assume that it is millions of years old because you won't accept any other possibility, i.e. THE WORD OF GOD IN THE BIBLE.Where is your proof that this fossil is millions of years old and that it DIDN'T get formed in the Noachian flood?(It's too easy to sound like them. Help, my brain is melting.)

Thanks for the info. Back to creationist mode.You are giving possibilities but it's clear you aren't certain of anything. You still haven't proved that this fossil WASN'T deposited in the global flood 4,400 years ago. The flash flooding was the Noachian flood, as the Bible says. Whatever. The point is that this process can occur rapidly and doesn't have to take your hypothetical millions of years. What do the uppermost parts of the formation have to do with fossils being deposited on the riverbed? And why do you seem to be assuming that Hell Creek had to have been formed at the same time that the hadrosaur died?(At this point, most creationists would probably say that paleomag and radioisotope dating are problematic and erroneous, but this is OT. I keep trying to pin them down on this myself but they are as slippery as eels in a barrel LOL.)

A. Science doesn't prove things. We disprove things. Learn some science before you try to throw out barbs.B. Please cite the chapter and verse in the Bible where it says that all flood deposits are the result of the Noachian Flood. Flash flooding happens today. I personally watched one happen two summers ago and studied the deposits which resulted from it. If the Bible says that this deposit is the result of The Flood, then the Bible is in error.C. Please cite your evidence where the deposits in which this carcass were buried are flood deposits. If you read what I wrote, I never asserted that they needed to be.D. Please explain the geology of the Hell Creek Formation within the context of a single flood event. I never asserted that cementation of sand grains take millions of years as a rule. Can you point to the river in which the carcass was interred? No, unless you're looking at the rocks in the uppermost part of the formation. The uppermost part of the formation has everything to do with it, since it is in the uppermost part of the formation that the skeleton is preserved. Are you asserting that the Hell Creek came before the hadrosaur died? Then how did it get buried within the Hell Creek? Perhaps I'm not understanding your question.

LL, The word of the bible is evidentially vacuous, so damn right I won't accept it. Secondly, I never said it was millions of years old, I just said that there was nothing to tell whether it is 4400 years old or millions of years old. As such it isn't evidence of the biblical flood timeline as you claimed. You said it was 4400 years old & formed in the flood, so the burden of proof is on you to show it, not me to disprove it.My point is that a fossilised animal with soft parts preserved isn't therefore evidence of it being recently fossilised.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

I wasn't able to find much detail about the area in which the fossil was found. It was in the upper part of the formation, clear on that now.Do you know if there are any volcanic strata near where the fossil was found that could help to give an absolute date? Creationists are fond of saying that fossils date rocks and rocks date fossils.For that matter, the sedimentary layer in which the fossil was found could be good evidence against the flood. For a global flood you'd expect a thick layer of sediment with a lot of "stuff" in it, rather than delicate deposition. The frustrating thing is there just doesn't seem to be much specific info about these things on the web.By the way, don't get hot under the collar. I am NOT a creationist. But I figured if I didn't take up their cause in this thread, it would die pretty quickly.

I agree. But the people I'm arguing with aren't exactly the most rational, logical people you could find. They would say that this fossil is potential evidence of a global flood unless proved otherwise, and also that it is potentially only a few thousand years old. Telling them that the burden of proof is on them isn't going to get them to do anything other than repeat the above. I was hoping there might be some convincing evidence I could present to them. An analysis of the rock in which the fossil was found maybe? If the paleomag dates came from strata above the fossil, that would help too.

I don't believe there are any ash beds in the upper part of the Hell Creek. But even so, because the Hell Creek/Lance sequence is so well studied, we've got pretty good age control. The 67Ma date isn't bad. Hah...good eye. You should come over to the Lance/Hell Creek as a flood deposit thread we've got going where we're dissecting this very issue. Hah...I know. I did catch the Devil's Advocate comment. I just figured I would give you an argument worthy of your effort.