I can't believe we're only 14 days out till Jurassic World is released! I'm super, super, super excited! I don't have many updates regarding what's happening in my life as of late. However, I'd like to bring to your attention that I have been rather MIA on Smiley's News over the past few weeks. I've been so busy that I haven't had time to publish new articles. Well, I had time this week so you can click this link to check out the latest article. As of today, the latest articles will be related to the upcoming Jurassic World film! But before you go there, read today's article. Since we're so close to the movie's release, I thought it only fitting to take a look back at one of my older articles on the
Days till:
It is: 14 days till Jurassic World's theatrical release
It is: 21 days till Inside Out's theatrical release
It is: 23 days till Father's Day
Topic of the Week by Christian Ryan
Disclaimer: The article you are about to read is terribly inaccurate based on what we now know about the Jurassic World movie and is only provided here for the purpose of informing readers just how much we've learned about JW since the article was first published.
Now it's time to talk about the interview that recently took place with Jurassic Park IV's consultant, John Horner. In April 2013, Horner said that one of the new dinosaurs in Jurassic Park IV was terrifying. He also said:
"I can't actually tell you who that will be...But you'll want to keep the lights on after you see this movie"
Since no one working on the movie has revealed anything else about this dinosaur, many fans have a list of possible candidates for this "scary dinosaur". I myself have my own little list:
Candidate #1: Carnotaurus
This 30-foot long carnivore that appeared in the novel "The Lost World" (Jurassic Park's sequel) has yet to appear in the movie series. In the novel, it was depicted as a stealthy, nocturnal carnivore that can change the color and texture of its skin to blend into its environment, like a chameleon.
Candidate #2: Troodon Pectinodon
This creepy seven-foot long theropod made its appearance in Jurassic Park: The Game. It is a sickle-clawed assassin, that hunts in packs, is nocturnal and has potent venom that attacks makes the prey disoriented and eventually paralyzed. Due to these reasons, it was supposed to be euthanized in Jurassic Park, but due to a rebellious JP scientist, they still persist . . . wouldn't they be great in JPIV? (Photo Credits)
Candidate #3: Mosasaur
The mosasaur also makes an appearance in Jurassic Park: The Game. These sea-going lizards grew up to 50 feet long and are hungry for anything they could catch: fish, ammonites (similar to the nautilus), sea turtles, sharks and even other mosasaurs! While it isn't a dinosaur, it could make its appearance in the fourth movie! (Photo Credits)
Candidate #4: Inostrancevia
This reptile isn't a dinosaur, but it was still a ferocious predator! At the size of a rhinoceros, this beast was also very fast for its size. If you look at its jaws, you'll even notice that it has four-inch long sabre-teeth, just like a familiar Ice Age cat. This animal hasn't made an appearance in Jurassic Park, or much else for that matter! I think it's definitely time to shed some popularity light on this great beast - and Jurassic ParkIV is just the way to do it!
Do you like my list? What animals do you think will appear in Jurassic Park IV? Please be sure to take my poll on the right side of the page and leave a comment or two!
Disclaimer: Many (or in some cases all) of the photographs and images above are not mine. If you own one or more of them and would like them to be removed, politely let me know via my email address.
Eeee! I'm so excited about Jurassic World! We're only about three weeks away and I can barely stand it! Today, I've got several interesting updates (they just don't stop releasing TV spots...and I love it!) on the film to share with you, plus the final part in my series I've been working on.
Days till:
It is: 3 days till Memorial Day
It is: 21 days till Jurassic World opens
It is: 28 days till Inside Out's release
It is: 30 days till Father's Day
In the Spotlight:
Yep, as usual, we've got more TV spots from Jurassic World. I will show just a few of them here:
In addition to numerous TV spots from Jurassic World, a new trailer for Lego Jurassic World was just released as well. Check it out!
And last but NOT least, we've got an all-new clip from the movie itself, which shows ___ giving Simon Masrani his first look at the hybridized dinosaur, Indominus rex.
As usual, all these new videos get me really stoked for the upcoming film. Three weeks is going to seem like an eternity!
Topic of the Week by Christian Ryan
The skull of Smilodonfatilis (boasting 7-inch canines) is an icon of the Cenozoic rock layers.
The geologic column, consists of many rock layers – some rock layers are thick, some are thin. Evolutionists claim that these rock layers represent the entire history of life the earth in time periods, which started 3.5 billion years ago. Now there are several problems with interpreting the geologic column, and the fossil record itself – as the entire history of life on earth over a period of millions of years. Radiometric dating and other commonly used dating methods are flawed due to several unverifiable assumptions. In addition to these problems, there are several reasons to suggest that the earth's fossils aren't nearly as old as evolutionists believe them to be (e.g. soft dinosaur tissue and bent rock layers). Is there another way to interpret the fossil record? In fact, there is. The Bible is the inspired Word of God Himself, the only individual who was there before the beginning of time. Since He cannot lie (Numbers 23:19), we can use His word to develop a worldview – a Biblical, or creation, worldview to look at the evidence we see in the rock layers. This three-part series will take a look at the fossil record through a creation worldview and showcase just how amazing the geological history of our earth was!
In part 2 of this exciting series, we looked at how the Flood of the Genesis account decimated the pre-Flood world, carved canyons, shifted continents and even pushed up mountains! After the Flood, the Bible records that all the animals and Noah's family exited the ark to multiply in the new post-Flood world. At this point in history, most Christians believe that the earth was quite like it is today at this point. This couldn't be farther from the truth! Once again, we can look at the fossil record and, using the Bible to help us interpret it, we can learn what happened in the world after the Flood.
Much of the world would have been fairly barren immediately after the Flood, but it wouldn't stay this way for long!
Most creation geologists believe the K/Pg boundary (the rock layer between the Cretaceous and Paleocene) represents the end of the Flood. But in order to find out what happened after the Flood, we have to travel back to soon after the 150th day of the Flood. What was going on? Well, on the 150th day of the Flood, the waters stopped rising. Even before the waters completely receded, plants regained a foothold upon the exposed earth. Immediately after the final Cretaceous layer was deposited, we find evidence of lots of ferns and similar plants (and let's not forget about the olive branch the dove brought to Noah). Ferns are one of the hardiest plants that reproduce via spores rather than seeds, so it makes since they would be some of the first plants to sprout following the Flood. Since plants began growing as the waters started receding, herbivorous animals and humans exiting the ark would have had plenty of food to eat. Carnivores would also have much to eat, considering the Flood would have undoubtedly left lots of rotting carcasses lying around.
Carnivores would have had little trouble finding enough food immediately after the Flood, given that a lot of rotting carcasses would have been lying around.
But the earth was still nothing like it is today. Because the Flood had disrupted the earth's climate, the global weather was unstable and unpredictable! Several “freaks of nature” occurred at this time that we don't experience today. For example, the early post-Flood world suffered from hypercanes. As I lived in Florida for the first several years of my life, I know full well what it's like to be in the midst of a hurricane. Don't even get me started about hurricane Katrina of 2005! But the hypercanes of the past were far worse! Caused by the differences in temperature between the ocean and the continents, hypercanes stormed the earth for hundreds of years following the Flood. These hypercanes could cover entire continents and possess intense winds of 500 mph! It would take weeks for these fierce storms to pass and they would have likely dumped 50 inches of rain per hour! This time in history also suffered from massive volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes that were still gradually calming down from the Flood.
Continent-sized hypercanes would have torn across the continents with wind speeds of about 500 miles per hour!
This post-Flood, pre-Modern world is reflected in rock layers above the Cretaceous. These rock layers are classified as Cenozoic, or “new life” and were deposited by a series of post-Flood catastrophes. The Cenozoic rock layers are: Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene and the Pleistocene. In these layers are a different set of animals from many of the the ones that appeared before the Flood. Giant killer birds, saber-toothed cats, terminator pigs and mammoths roamed the planet at this time. These animals descended from the collection of creatures that came off of Noah's Ark; as they spread from the cliffs of Ararat where the ark landed, they diversified into a myriad of different species as they adapted to this “new world”.
Many strange and wonderful animals roamed the earth after the Flood, becoming extinct before modern times.
Once again, let us travel back in time and see what strange and wonderful animals existed in this world after the Flood as they struggled to adapt to the ever-changing climates.
Paleocene/Eocene
Loads of volcanic activity pumped carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which prevented much heat from escaping and fueled the growth of great forests, turning earth into a living greenhouse, rich in biodiversity.
4,350 years ago, following the Flood, volcanic activity during the Flood cast debris and aerosols into the air. Not only did this prevent much of the sun's heat from entering earth's atmosphere, but it also kept the heat from the Flood's volcanic activity in. This created a “green house” effect upon the planet, turning earth into a beautiful, lush landscape. The earth was much warmer than today. Fossil subtropical and tropical plants have been discovered in regions that are freezing cold Arctic and Antarctic regions of today. It was green and lush all over the earth. As animals spread from the ark to the four corners of the earth, they found much food to eat. In the fossil record, we typically find small terrestrial animals and aquatic animals in Paleocene and Eocene rocks. This is exactly what we'd expect to find after the Flood; lots of aquatic animals would have survived the Flood and smaller animals can reproduce, and therefore spread across the earth, faster than large animals, which are found in higher rock layers. We can see one such Eocene habitat that developed shortly after the Flood buried in Germany's Messel Pit.
Leptictidium was a small insectivore living in the Eocene forests of Germany.
The Messel Pit hosts many strange creatures, many exquisitely preserved; this means that they were buried quickly by a regional disaster. Primates like the lemur-like Darwinius, bats (e.g. Palaeochiropteryx), and other primates, like Godinotia. Below the tree canopy, rodents, hedgehogs pangolins, ostriches and Propaleotherium fed in the leaf-litter. Eocene Germany wasn't without its predators though: owls, hawks, falcons, crocodiles and the cat-like Paroodectes were common predators of the region. Another bizarre creature was the Gastornis, a six-foot tall bird with a large beak. Initially, paleontologists believe Gastornis was a predator, but evidence now seems to indicate that it was mostly an herbivore, using its beak to crunch up fruits and tough nuts. While many animals ran from their predators, some could hop like kangaroos. Leptictidium was one such mammal. It consumed small animals like insects, small lizards and frogs; scientists believe Leptictidium had a trunk-like nose, similar to the ones seen in modern elephant shrews.
Gastornis, once thought to be a predator, was more likely a large herbivorous bird, using its strong beak to crunch up fruit and tough nuts...hm, kinda like a parrot...a really BIG parrot!
Strange creatures weren't restricted to the land. Different species of whales roamed the oceans, such as the 60-foot Basilosaurus and the dolphin-sized Dorudon. These whales are different from modern whales because they have a tiny pair of back limbs; they were used to help cling to a sexual partner during copulation.
Basilosaurus was a top predator of the Eocene seas, hunting fish, sharks, turtles and smaller whales, like Dorudon.
Oligocene/Miocene
As time passed, the earth began to slowly get drier, and eventually cooler, causing forests to recede and open plains to spread.
As time passes, the climate begins to dry out as the heat escapes the earth's atmosphere. Clouds of debris and aerosols are still blocking a lot of the sun's heat. The earth's great forests began to decline and ice caps appeared in the poles.
Embolotherium was a large Eocene mammal, adapted for life on the newly-formed open plains. Its horn, too fragile for combat, was used for display purposes.
As the climate dried, animals adapted to life in the open plains. Many grew quite large, like the rhinoceros-like brontotheres that roamed the earth for a short period of time as the forests receded and the plains spread. We find abundant fossils of camels and horses that spread across the plains, especially of the Americas. Rhinos at this time came in all shapes and sizes In Nebraska's Ashfall Fossil Beds, the rhinoceros Teleoceras died in great numbers. One specimen even includes a young Teleoceras attempting to suckle from its mother. Herds of these animals died in great volcanic eruptions and were deposited in ash (hence the name of the fossil beds). The Oligocene also brings us the largest land mammal that has ever existed, called Paraceratherium. Paraceratherium was a hornless, 16-foot tall, 15-20 ton behemoth of Eurasia. It was as tall as a giraffe and could reach into tall trees to consume the leaves.
Paraceratherium was the largest rhinoceros that ever existed. Its size alone was great defense against predators.
Some of what many would call the “ugliest” creatures have been found in Oligocene and Miocene rock layers. Meet the entelodonts, or “terminator pigs”; though they looked a lot like pigs, scientists believe the two were unrelated. Daeodon was the largest entelodont ever known, with a three-foot skull and a height of about six feet at the shoulder. Daeodon and other entelodonts were omnivores, eating anything from roots, vegetation, carrion and perhaps even other animals. Daeodon was probably a very aggressive beast. Fossil tooth marks on Daeodon skulls reveals that they even attacked each other! There were also several species of Hyaenodon alive during this time in earth's history, measuring anywhere between the size of martin to about the size of a modern rhinoceros.
The pig-like Daeodon was probably an omnivore, eating a wide range of food.
Despite the wide variety of Oligocene and Miocene creatures, we never see any evidence of evolution in these different kinds of animals. As they adapt to the ever-changing environment, we still clearly see that camels turn into camels, entelodonts into entelodonts, rhinos into rhinos and horses into horses. We only see animals turning into similar animals – animals within their own “created kind” that God created 6,000 years ago.
The Oligocene and Miocene habitats existed for a brief period of time after the Flood. The planet continued to change.
Pliocene
Much of the world in the Pliocene was starting to look like the world we know today.
As we reach the Pliocene, you'll notice that the world looks very similar to the world we know today. But there are still drastic differences. The ice caps were still expanding as the climate continued to get generally cooler and drier.
Bizarre in appearance, Deinotherium was a relative of the modern elephant.
If you visited Pliocene Africa, most of the same animals and plants would be seen (though the forests were probably a bit more extensive). Zebras, rhinoceros, leopards would be common sights here, but you'd also see more really weird and wacky animals, like the giant elephant Deinotherium. It differed from modern elephants thanks to its relatively short trunk and its pair of tusks that protruded from its chin! One animal you would definitely want to see is called Australopithecus. Instead of being the half-human, mostly-bipedal apeman from evolutionary textbooks, Australopithecus was a chimpanzee-like, knuckle-walking ape that would have been at home equally in the treetops and on the ground.
Instead of being the "ape-man" from evolutionary textbooks, Australopithecus was a knuckle-walking ape equally at home in the treetops as it was on the ground.
For a short period of time, the continent of South America appears to have been completely separated from the continent of North America, meaning the animals here adapted to be unlike any other animals on the earth. Toxodon and the trunk-nosed Macraucheenia grazed on the South American plains in massive herds while being preyed upon by the 10-foot tall Phorusrhacos. It was one of the largest species of terror birds – huge birds with long legs, large beaks with a sharp hook on the end and, unlike Gastornis, terror birds were probably carnivorous. Phorusrhacos could run up to 30 mph in pursuit of prey. Let's not forget about the giant armadillo, Doedicurus, which had a club-like tail with spikes on it.
Macraucheenia was likely common prey for terror birds.
Warm oceans after the Flood caused much evaporation; this created large clouds that dumped mountains (yes, mountains) of snow across much of the northern hemisphere and Antarctica. The cool summers and mild winters of this time created the perfect condition for one of the greatest natural history events since the Flood...the Ice Age!
Pleistocene
Huge glaciers, over 2,000 feet high, spread out across the landscape during the Ice Age.
By the time of the Pleistocene sediments, the earth was in the icy grip of the Ice Age. Contrary to what evolutionists believe, there was only one Ice Age in our earth's past. It began approximately 4,250 years ago. During the Ice Age, the snow in the north piled upon the continent until they became massive glaciers. With the cool summers, these mountains of snow and ice didn't melt and they spread southward. During the glacial maximum, about a century into the Ice Age, a third of the planet was covered in glaciers, some of which were over 2,000 feet high!
The woolly mammoth was an icon of the Ice Age; it had thick fur and fat underneath the skin to keep it warm.
The unpredictable climate would have been tough for any animal. But fortunately, God created His creatures with all the necessary genetic diversity to develop special features to help them cope with the cold. The most famous Ice Age mammal of all is probably the woolly mammoth. With thick fur, long and curved tusks and several inches of fat beneath the skin, these hairy elephants were denizens of the Ice Age. They roamed in herds and used their tusks to push through deep snow. Mammoths weren't the only Ice Age beasts – Irish elk (with 12-foot antler-spans), woolly rhinoceros, giant bison and loads of other hairy mammals also grazed upon the open grassy plains just beyond the glaciers. The Ice Age also hosted several predators, like cave hyenas and cave bears of Eurasia, the 12-foot tall short-faced bear of North America and the infamous Smilodon, or saber-toothed cat with its seven-inch long canines.
The Irish Elk's antlers span 12 feet from the tip of one to the tip of the other!
Smilodon were apex Ice Age predators. Many scientists believe these cats hunted large prey in packs.
With all these animals roaming the earth, where were the humans at the time? Fossils of humans and their artifacts don't appear until the highest Pleistocene sediments. The Bible reveals that contrary to the instruction God gave humans, which was this:
“Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.'” Genesis 9:1.
God told Noah and his sons to fill the earth and multiply. But as they multiplied, the human population disobeyed God. In Genesis 11, we learn that they remained in one place in the Middle East and decided to construct a tower that would reach to the heavens. As usual, God insured that His will came to pass and He confused their languages. Since humans could no longer work together, they (finally!) spread across the earth. Just like the animals, humans adapted and diversified to cope with the different environments they faced. This is why we have different people groups throughout the world today.
Even though God told Noah and his descendants to spread across the earth, humans remained in one place and attempted to construct a large tower that reached to the heavens, later to be called the Tower of Babel.
Some varieties of human beings existed during the Ice Age and became extinct. Neanderthals are a wonderful example of how mankind can adapt to thrive in a difficult environment. In order to adapt to the cold, neanderthals developed tough, heavily-built bodies and large noses (this helped warm the air before breathing it into the lungs so that their lungs didn't freeze). As the Ice Age progressed, they relearned how to make tools for bringing down large animals; this knowledge was lost in the Flood.
Even though they had several differences from us, neanderthals were 100% human, capable of speech, art and a concept of the after life.
Alas, the Ice Age was not to last forever. Finally the oceans cooled and the summers got warmer and the winters colder (too cold for snow to frequently build up). The glaciers receded north and forests began to recolonize much of the earth. Woolly mammoths, saber-toothed cats, woolly rhinoceros and many other Ice Age creatures eventually died off at the end of the iciest period on earth, around 2,000 years ago. This was about the time of Abraham. With the earth's more predictable weather patterns returning, humans could build civilizations and animals pushed south by the cold could move back north. Finally, the world we know today had arrived!
The Ice Age ended as glaciers receded north and the climate changed. Animals like the woolly mammoth became extinct.
Over the course of this series, we traveled into the Cambrian seas, explored the Carboniferous forests, climbed out onto dry land on the Permian coasts, learned about the incredible dinosaurs, witnessed how the pre-Flood world was destroyed by the Genesis Flood, checked out some of the weird creatures that lived in earth's unpredictable climate after the Flood and journeyed through the world during the Ice Age. Using the Bible as the “history book of the universe”, there is so much we've learned, and are still continuing to learn, about our planet's exciting past!
Using the Bible as our guide, fossils provide us an excellent window into the exciting history of our planet's past!
Disclaimer: Many (or in some cases all) of the photographs and images above are not mine. If you own one or more of them and would like them to be removed, politely let me know via my email address.
Well, hope everyone had a great Mother's Day! We're less than a month out from the release of Jurassic World! I can't wait! To celebrate, I've got lots of dinosaur-related articles coming up, including today's article! Let's get started with...
Days till:
It is: 10 days till Memorial Day
It is: 27 days till Jurassic World's release!
It is: 34 days till Inside Out's release
In the Spotlight: Universal Studios literally dumped us with Jurassic World TV spots this past week! And I mean DUMPED! Check them out below:
There's so much in each of these TV spots that I really don't where to start! Personally though, I think one of my favorites are the seventh and the eighth ones. I love that shot where the kid hugs the baby Apatosaurus' neck in our first look at the park's Gentle Giants Petting Zoo and those gyrosphere scenes where the gyrosphere balls ride past herds of Apatosaurus, Triceratops, Parasaurolophus and Stegosaurus are stunning.
That's not all, folks! Also released this week was this clip from the Masrani viral website featuring Dr. Henry Wu as he and other InGen employees talk about the latest technological updates at InGen:
And last but not least, we've also got this cool new trailer for the LegoJurassic World game featuring shots and dinosaurs (and a few pterosaurs and a Mosasaurus!) from all four movies:
Topic of the Week by Christian Ryan
Tyrannosaurus rex is one of the most famous extinct animals of all time.
The geologic column, consists of many rock layers – some rock layers are thick, some are thin. Evolutionists claim that these rock layers represent the entire history of life the earth in time periods, which started 3.5 billion years ago. Now there are several problems with interpreting the geologic column, and the fossil record itself – as the entire history of life on earth over a period of millions of years. Radiometric dating and other commonly used dating methods are flawed due to several unverifiable assumptions. In addition to these problems, there are several reasons to suggest that the earth's fossils aren't nearly as old as evolutionists believe them to be (e.g. soft dinosaur tissue and bent rock layers). Is there another way to interpret the fossil record? In fact, there is. The Bible is the inspired Word of God Himself, the only individual who was there before the beginning of time. Since He cannot lie (Numbers 23:19), we can use His word to develop a worldview – a Biblical, or creation, worldview to look at the evidence we see in the rock layers. This three-part series will take a look at the fossil record through a creation worldview and showcase just how amazing the geological history of our earth was!
In part 1 of this series, we used the Bible as our “worldview glasses” to learn that most layers of the fossil record represent ancient ecosystems that were spread widely across the pre-Flood supercontinent called Rodinia. But something changed; some event caused the world to become like the one we know today. What happened? First, let's look at how evolutionists view the fossil record and how the animals in it died, buried and were fossilized. Standard evolutionists believe in uniformitarianism; this is the belief that present day processes are responsible for killing and burying billions of organisms in rock. In other words, evolutionists believe the present is the key to the past. Typically, the story goes that a now-dead creature – we'll use a dinosaur in this example – just so happened to die near a water source. Then before scavengers could consume it and before it could rot, the water rose and gently covered its body with silt. While evolutionists allow for an occasional catastrophe to account for some fossils, this is typically not the case.
When most animals die, like the Baryonyxabove, they don't simply lie around waiting to fossilize. They must be buried quickly, or they will be eaten by scavengers or rot away.
There are several problems with uniformitarianism. If present day processes are responsible for the fossil record, then why don't we see animals often being buried and fossilized today? Millions of bison once roamed the American plains. Do we find millions of bison fossils, or even bones? Nope. Typically, animals (especially aquatic ones, which actually make up most of the fossil record) will rot, become eaten by scavengers or will be destroyed by other means in the environment. They do not usually become buried and fossilized. So how do we account for what we see in the fossil record?
This horse carcass will definitely not become a fossil!
Well, as usual, using the Bible can help us interpret the evidence from the past. Now in the book of Genesis (the first book in the Bible), it records a catastrophic event known as the Genesis Flood. Now this Flood was sent upon the earth by God because the planet had become full of wicked sin. But there was one God-fearing family left: Noah's. Because Noah still honored God, God told him to construct a giant ark to survive the coming Flood. The ark was to be about 510 feet long, 45 feet wide and 75 feet high (quite unlike the bathtub-like Noah's ark often seen in children's books). Also taken on board the ark were two of every kind of terrestrial, air-breathing “unclean” animal and seven or seven pairs of “clean” animals. Only those animals (probably only around 2,000 in all), Noah's family of eight, several insects and their eggs (likely unaccounted for on the ark), and several aquatic creatures survived the Flood. Everything else outside that ark perished. What happened during the Flood is something you'll be unlikely to hear from your typical Bible-story book.
The REAL Noah's ark didn't look anything like this bathtub-like, cute, tiny, poor-excuse-for-an-ark boat! The real ark was HUGE, about 510 feet long!
It was a usual day in the pre-Flood world, 4,350 years ago, 1,650 years after Creation – Noah, his family and the animals were safely in the ark, dinosaurs, gorgonopsids and Lystrosaurus (among other creatures) roamed the earth while pterosaurs soared through the skies; strange and monstrous reptiles ruled the sea. Had you been around, what sights would you have seen as the Flood began? Let's look at the geologic column. Some creation geologists believe that the Flood might have been triggered by one or more massive meteor impacts. Many meteors hit the earth during the Flood. One of the meteors that might have been responsible is located in South Australia. Called the Acraman impact crater, it is 56 miles wide and was caused by a 2.5-mile-wide asteroid that struck the earth. How could this have triggered the Flood? Allow me to explain further.
Asteroid impacts, such as the one that made the Acraman crater, might have triggered the Flood.
We don't know if asteroids caused the Genesis Flood, but they definitely hit the earth around this time. What happened next was even more catastrophic. Genesis records several of the things that were occurring at this time:
“In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.” Genesis 7:11.
Creation geologists believe that the “springs of the great deep” mentioned in the verse above resulted from the breakup of the earth's crust. These catastrophic movements caused great multitudes of hot water from underneath the earth's crust (some of these subterranean bodies of water seem to still exist today) spewed out into the ocean, along with molten rock. Much of the hot water turned to steam and was ejected high into the earth's pre-Flood atmosphere. The steam rose where it collected into rain clouds and...yes, you guessed it, it rained a lot! See, contrary to popular belief, most of the water from's Noah's Flood likely did not come from rain clouds initially, but from underneath the earth's crust. The waters continued to rise, causing massive destruction and chaos over the entire planet.
Imagine what it would have been like to see a 2.5-mile-wide asteroid heading toward the earth!
The Genesis Flood was the most catastrophic event in the history of life on earth. It destroyed the face of the earth as people of the time knew it. Even the continents themselves were realigned. The supercontinent, Rodinia, broke up early in the Flood. Later during the Flood, the continents realigned into the supercontinent of Pangaea before finally breaking apart again into the seven continents we know today. Such massive geological movements would have stirred much volcanic activity and giant tsunamis across the globe (all this in addition to meteor impacts during the Flood!). While the continuous rain only lasted 40 days, the water continued to rise (fed by water sources underneath the earth's crust) for a total of 150 days. By the end of that time, the entire globe was covered.
The supercontinent of Rodinia broke up during the Flood, reformed into the continent of Pangaea before again breaking apart to form the seven continents we know today.
So how is the fossil record explained by the Flood? Rather than portraying the billion-years-long history of life on earth, most of the fossil record can easily be seen as an order of burial during the great Flood. As the watery carnage continued to progress higher and higher, ecosystem after ecosystem was destroyed and buried in rock layers (Cambrian-Cretaceous). Now, let's take a closer look at what was happening during this chaotic time, as if we were eyewitnesses to this event.
Cambrian Seas (Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian)
Countless numbers of trilobites and other Cambrian animals perished in the floodwaters.
4,350 years ago, the chaos of the Flood began in the water itself. As the earth's crust split apart, there would have no doubt been great earthquakes. These earthquakes caused the edges of the continental plates to collapse, and with them, organisms existing in the Cambrian seas, especially those along the sea floor. They would be deposited rapidly in the sediment. This would account for the necessary rapid burial of loads of sea creatures, such as trilobites, Anomalocaris and even soft-bodied creatures, such as jellyfish.
Lacking bones, jellyfish must be buried extremely quickly in order to fossilize, yet we find many jellyfish fossils in the fossil record.
This would also explain why we find footprints of trilobites before we find trilobite fossils. As the edge of the continental shelf collapsed, trilobites and other animals would try desperately to scuttle away to safety, in vain. As they tired, they were deposited in the Cambrian sediments. Many trilobites have also been discovered curled up into tight balls, as if they had tried to protect themselves from the carnage. Habitat after habitat was carried out to sea and buried. But the Flood's destruction didn't stop here.
Trilobite have been found curled up; they had tried to protect themselves before becoming catastrophically buried.
Meganeura and other Carboniferous plants and animals have been discovered.
As the Flood progressed, the Carboniferous Floating Forests felt a watery wrath. Tidal waves would have ripped apart the vegetation mats that supported these great Carboniferous forests. Smaller plants along the edges were buried before the larger trees. This explains why there is a progression in the fossil record from smaller plants to larger plants. The animals in these forests also met their demise as the vegetation mats broke apart.
As they floated in the water, trees in the Carboniferous ex-Floating Forest lost their outer bark, became waterlogged and eventually sank vertically toward the ocean floor. This is why we have polystrate fossils of these trees in the fossil record – that is, tree trunks going through several different rock layers. Vegetation from these forests is responsible for providing our fossil fuels today.
The home of the 6-10-foot long Arthropleura is used as fossil fuels today!
Permian Sandy Coasts (Permian, Triassic?)
Lystrosaurus fossils show they were once widespread on the planet.
The Permian and Triassic coastline was next to be affected by the Flood. Waves of destruction laid waste to these habitats. Animals such as Lystrosaurus and Dimetrodon were dragged out toward the sea and deposited in thick layers of sandstone. The Flood preserved many creatures rather exquisitely; small gopher-like reptiles called Diictodon – one of the most common Permian reptiles – have been discovered in the burrows they lived in before the Flood. The animals probably retreated into these burrows, hoping to escape the Flood. Instead, they only sealed their own fate; these creatures were killed as water flowed into their burrows, drowning them.
This pair of Diictodon died in their burrow some 4,350 years ago.
Diictodon seemed to have lived in pairs that shared a single burrow.
Inland Environments (Jurassic, Cretaceous) and BEDS Hypothesis
This characteristic death pose is common in many dinosaur skeletons.
Now we have reached the inland ecosystems, where dinosaurs and other Mesozoic creatures roam. As the waters rose, one environment after another was destroyed and buried. The waters of the flood moved very quickly at times, allowing for exquisite preservation of many fossil creatures. One such find is of a small herbivore called Protoceratops and the turkey-sized predator called Velociraptor. One fossil discovery made in the 1970's is of these two animals locked in a deadly fight for 4,350 years. The animals must have been rapidly buried, otherwise, I'm quite sure they would have fled the danger. Another fascinating find is of an Oviraptor brooding her nest of eggs. She was crouched over them, attempting to protect them from the flood waters before she and her nest were buried.
This Oviraptor died atop her nest; she spread her arms over her eggs in a vain attempt to protect them.
The rising flood waters is also a wonderful explanation for the existence of marine organisms high upland. Fossils of sea shells, for example, have been discovered high in places like the Himalayas. It is also an explanation for massive fossil graveyards, such as herds of animals that died and were buried together.
Huge herds of Centrosaurus have been found, evidence for a devastating Flood.
Some dinosaurs managed to survive for sometime during the Flood. After the 40-day mark, the rain stopped pouring continuously and, though it was still on the rise, the water was affected by the tides. As the water level temporarily went down in some areas, large plots of land, covered in freshly-lain sediments, were uncovered. Dinosaurs that have managed to stay afloat in the water by swimming made their way to these sandbanks. Here is where dinosaurs would have quenched their hunger (even killing other dinosaurs or scavenging for food), laid their eggs and made footprints. Then, as the tides moved in, eggs and nests, dinosaur carcasses and footprints were covered with sediment for fossilization.
Dinosaurs like Velociraptor likely survived part of the Flood via sandbanks that were made available as the tide temporarily dropped.
Once again, we can look to the book of Genesis to see what occurred next:
“The waters receded steadily from the earth...” Genesis 8:3a.
The entire earth was covered by water by the 150th day. No more sandbanks would have been available for swimming dinosaurs, so they too would eventually drowned. As the Apostle Peter states in 2 Peter 3:5-6: “...the world that then existed perished, being flooded by water.” However, God protected Noah and the ark's other occupants through the entire event so that they could once again live in the world after the flood waters receded to a sufficient level. Soon after the waters began to go down, we know plant life already had begun to recolonize the earth (remember the dove Noah sent out of the ark brought back a freshly-picked olive leaf in Genesis 8:11).
Olive trees were growing even before the Flood ended, as the water began to recede.
Finally, after being cooped up in the ark for over a year, God allowed Noah, his family and the animals to go forth into a new world. But this earth was not the same one they had left – the climate, the terrain and even the face of the earth itself had been changed by the Flood. Before the Flood, the Rocky Mountains, the Himalayas, the Grant Canyon and other incredible geologic structures did not exist; they were formed during the catastrophic Flood.
It is thanks to the Flood that we have places like the Grand Canyon.
We've explored what the pre-Flood world was like, and how this world was catastrophically destroyed by the Genesis Flood, the most devastating event in the history of the planet. But is this where our adventure ends? Not by a long shot! The world after the Flood was still quite different from the world we now know. In fact, we have evidence of massive volcanic eruptions, bizarre variations of different kinds of animals, colossal floods and even an Ice Age, all after the Flood.
Dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus would have had great difficulty finding enough food in the post-Flood world, leading up to the extinction of them and the other dinosaurs.
In the final part of this series, we will explore the amazing world after the Flood – the post-Flood world!
Disclaimer: Many (or in some cases all) of the photographs and images above are not mine. If you own one or more of them and would like them to be removed, politely let me know via my email address.
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