Tetrapods are older than we thought!

Wow. Wow, wow, wow.

Given the extinction record I can't help wondering if this was a dead end or actually led to a tetrapod line.

I like the car analogy. Some started early and the line is unbroken, some started late and disappeared.

Doesn't this put the emergence of land tetrapods surprisingly close to the emergence of boney fish?

The sedimentary structure would have been destroyed within weeks or months due to bioturbation, before hardening to rock. The footprints were preserved because they were rapidly buried in the global flood. This is similar to the Pterodactyl landing tracks recently found in France, footprints found in New Zealand, even a footprint in the Grand Canyon.

Why did it have to be a global flood? How come it could not have been a local flood? The pterodactyl landing tracks are from the Mesozoic. How could such flying reptiles have landed successfully in such a tempestuous storm?

Get stuffed, creationist twit. Find some other site to babble on, because I'm putting the hammer down on you here.

harold said: Doesn't this put the emergence of land tetrapods surprisingly close to the emergence of boney fish?

Stanton -

That appears to be correct (*I am not even close to being either a paleontologist or an ichthyologist*).

However, I probably should have said "boney fish advanced enough to be temporally close ancestors to tetrapods with fully developed walking and capacity for respiration on land".

Of course, I'm talking about tens of millions of years as "close" here.

However, it’s a little more complicated than that, because the mix of existing fossils tells us that there were viable, long-lasting niches for a diversity of fish, fishapods, and tetrapods that temporally coexisted for a long period of time; the evolution of these animals was not about a constant linear churn, replacing the old model with the new model every year. Comparing them to cars, it’s like there was a prolonged window of time in which horse-drawn buggies, Stanley Steamers, Model Ts, Studebakers, Ford Mustangs, and the Honda Civic were all being manufactured simultaneously and were all competitive with each other in specific markets…and that window lasted for 50 million years. Paleontologists are simply sampling bits and pieces of the model line-up and trying to sort out the relationships and timing of their origin.

henry said: The footprints were preserved because they were rapidly buried in the global flood...

This is similar to the Pterodactyl landing tracks recently found in France, footprints found in New Zealand, even a footprint in the Grand Canyon.

No PZ, don't do it! I want to hear more about how the turbidity/viscosity of mud drying in air is so much higher than the turbidity of mud in a huge flood.

More rope, more rope!

Michael Buratovich said: Why did it have to be a global flood? How come it could not have been a local flood? The pterodactyl landing tracks are from the Mesozoic. How could such flying reptiles have landed successfully in such a tempestuous storm?

Henry, you are a goddamned lying moron.

PZ Myers said: Get stuffed, creationist twit. Find some other site to babble on, because I'm putting the hammer down on you here.

henry, please take Prof. Myers' advice.

The only person you succeed in impressing with your copy and pasted quotemines and inane lies from Answers in Genesis is yourself.

Too bad your God given gifts aren’t used for His glory

Three feet of rope awarded to Henry for his three posts. Two bonus feet awarded: one for citing ICR, another for telling us what God thinks of our efforts. (Remember Henry, you're suppossed to be pretending that there's nothing religious about ID.)

henry said: You are obviously a brilliant man. Too bad your God given gifts aren't used for His glory, rather than for evolution or Darwin.

A local flood could not have accomplished what only a global flood could do.

— henry

Henry, I recommend you take a look at Talk Origins, particularly http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-visit/bartelt4.html, which outlines some of the basic flaws in your arguments.

Shebardigan said: Isn't a deity who craves "glory" from a being on a minor rock circling a mediocre star in an obscure corner of a slightly-above-average galaxy a bit rancid, when compared to the deity who created the nifty stuff we see in the starry heavens, and who has glory to spare in his own right?

Ben W said: Henry, I recommend you take a look at Talk Origins, particularly http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-visit/bartelt4.html, which outlines some of the basic flaws in your arguments.

I hate to tell you this, Ben, but, people have showed henry that particular link, repeatedly. henry apparently glorifies God by flaunting his willful stupidity and gross dishonesty.

eric said: Three feet of rope awarded to Henry for his three posts. Two bonus feet awarded: one for citing ICR, another for telling us what God thinks of our efforts. (Remember Henry, you're suppossed to be pretending that there's nothing religious about ID.)

This may be pure babble, but follow me here.

The date of first tetrapods would probably have to be pushed back even further.

I would suspect that this is a predator.
1) There were only simple land plants (at best) during this time period. A two meter animal like this would have a hard time surviving on hornworts.
2) It probably couldn't swim well enough to catch larger fish (because of those large, stupid limbs sticking out from the side).
3) So it was probably a predator of other (smaller) tetrapods that couldn't move as quickly because of size. (At this point, pretty much the only way to go faster was to be bigger, there wasn't enough variation in limbs structure to produce sprinters and runners, etc)
4) So this ate tetrapods smaller than itself, so there must have been a pretty large population of those guys running around too. Which probably did eat the plants of the time.

... or did speculation go too far.

Having followed geology and biology for more than 60 years, I have been impressed by a general trend for evidence to surface that things had occurred earlier than we currently thought.

henry said: 1. Gingras, M. K. et al. 2008. How fast do marine invertebrates burrow? Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 270 (3-4): 280-286.

Jim Thomerson said: Having followed geology and biology for more than 60 years, I have been impressed by a general trend for evidence to surface that things had occurred earlier than we currently thought.

OgreMkV -

Related, it occurred to me - and this is really, really obvious; I'm sure I've seen it but it never quite hit me before - that all accurately dated fossil finds give the minimum age of a lineage.

It has to be at least that old if we found and accurately dated the fossil, but there could be older ones out there that we haven't found yet. Not too much older, obviously, but older.

As long as we're conjecturing things, I was wondering if walking or walking-like behaviors may have been evolving from an earlier time than expected in some fish lineages. There are modern fish that "walk" on the bottom.

OgreMkV said: This may be pure babble, but follow me here. The date of first tetrapods would probably have to be pushed back even further. I would suspect that this is a predator. 1) There were only simple land plants (at best) during this time period. A two meter animal like this would have a hard time surviving on hornworts. 2) It probably couldn't swim well enough to catch larger fish (because of those large, stupid limbs sticking out from the side). 3) So it was probably a predator of other (smaller) tetrapods that couldn't move as quickly because of size. (At this point, pretty much the only way to go faster was to be bigger, there wasn't enough variation in limbs structure to produce sprinters and runners, etc) 4) So this ate tetrapods smaller than itself, so there must have been a pretty large population of those guys running around too. Which probably did eat the plants of the time. ... or did speculation go too far.

Henry -

Just FYI, I don't personally follow a formal religion, but I have no problem with religion.

I do have a problem with creationist denials and distortions of science.

Glorifying God, finding Jesus, etc - as far as I'm concerned, that's your own business.

Stanton -

There may have been insects, though, or other terrestrial invertebrates.

In the case of Tiktaalik, its habitat was much closer to the equator and a much warmer habitat 375 million years ago.

I assume that was also the case for these mudflats 395 million years ago.

Henry wrote:

"A local flood could not have accomplished what only a global flood could do. This article from ICR describes how a recent study demonstrates that the current processes prohibit footprints from being fossils.

Sedimentary Structure Shows a Young Earth Share this Article by John D. Morris, Ph.D. *

1. Gingras, M. K. et al. 2008. How fast do marine invertebrates burrow? Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 270 (3-4): 280-286.

Cite this article: Morris, J. 2009. Sedimentary Structure Shows a Young Earth. Acts & Facts. 38 (7): 15."

Henry,

Please quote the exact words from the Gingras article that claim that a local flood could not wipe out footprints but a global flood could. Exactly what does this have to do with the burrowing speed of marine invertebrates? Please also provide scientific evidence for this supposed magical global flood. Until you do, we will all just assume that you are lying once again. Jesus is not amused.

Oh and by the way, the footprints prove that there was no global flood, at least not for millions of years after the footprints were made. How exactly do you explain these footprints Henry?

I don't know whether to be more impressed by Myer's through and insightful debunking of Henry's claims, or his quick and rich wit. Any creationist seeing his replies would surely be deeply impressed.

Helena Constantine wrote:

"I don’t know whether to be more impressed by Myer’s through and insightful debunking of Henry’s claims, or his quick and rich wit. Any creationist seeing his replies would surely be deeply impressed."

I am sure PZ is well past the point of trying to impress any creationists. As has already been pointed out in this thread, Henry has been pointed to the information neccesary to correct his misinformation, and has ignored it. If he won't take the initiative to learn, he deserves any derision he gets.

Get stuffed, creationist twit. Find some other site to babble on, because I’m putting the hammer down on you here.

Henry:

I suggest you read "the bible ,rocks,and time: geological evidence for the age of the Earth" by Davis A.Young:

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=828762

Jim Thomerson said: Having followed geology and biology for more than 60 years, I have been impressed by a general trend for evidence to surface that things had occurred earlier than we currently thought.

This is a discussion on an important fossil find.

When Tiktaalik was reported in 2006, the media went Darwin-happy over the discovery of an alleged transitional fossil. BBC News announced, "Fossil animals found in Arctic Canada provide a snapshot of fish evolving into land animals." At MSNBC, Tiktaalik co-discoverer Ted Daeschler was quoted boasting that, "If one considers adaptation as a process of collecting tools to live in a new environment, the new finding offers 'a snapshot of the toolkit at this particular point in this evolutionary transition.” The article even postured Tiktaalik as an actual ancestor of tetrapods, stating: "Scientists have caught a fossil fish in the act of adapting toward a life on land, a discovery that sheds new light on one of the greatest transformations in the history of animals."

"The fish–tetrapod transition was thus seemingly quite well documented. There was a consensus that the divergence between some elpistostegalians (such as Tiktaalik or Panderichthys) and tetrapods might have occurred during the Givetian, 391–385 Myr ago. Coeval with the earliest fossil tetrapods, trackways dating to the Late Devonian were evidence for their ability to walk or crawl on shores. Now, however, Niedźwiedzki et al. lob a grenade into that picture...." ---Philippe Janvier & Gaël Clément, "Muddy tetrapod origins," Nature Vol. 463:40-41 (January 7, 2010).

No. You don't understand the science, and neither does Casey Luskin (no surprise there).

If you'd actually read my article up there, you'd realize that there is no simple linear path to tetrapods in the fossil record. It's a branching tree with many diverse forms, and there was no claim on the part of anyone that Tiktaalik had to be a direct ancestor of modern tetrapods. What there was was an understanding of the relationships in the rocks of the various fossil forms, and none of that has been invalidated by the discovery of a ghost lineage with a specific explanation for why it existed.

So, FL, tell us again why we should consider the Discovery Institute's opinion on this matter to be important, given as how all of its members have all demonstrated to be incapable of understanding even basic biology?

PZ Myers said: No. You don't understand the science...

henry said: A local flood could not have accomplished what only a global flood could do.

Is there somewhere people are discussing the coolness of the new fossil, as opposed to engaging in hijinks with rodeo clowns? YECkers and apologists ignored, I proceed:

The guy who mentioned mammals/fish/reptiles co-existing as being comparable to the car analogy - It's a good point, but someone arguing against it could say the mammals/fish/reptiles of today are in different enough niches that it's not comparable. Your quibblers would be the kind of people who would describe one species as "basal/primitive" and another as "highly derived."

Then you can come back with the reasonable assertion that every species alive could be regarded as transitional, ever-changing, etc. IE, australopithecus was a basal hominid and a highly derived fish at the same time.

I think it's just hella fun to imagine the lost worlds of the past. Anybody name the ichnogenus yet? Do we have any characters at all to guess at distant relations?
Can I use more words I barely understand with my Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art? Hell yes.

FL said: So, the OP question "What's it all mean?" contains more than one possible answer. Sure, there's "implicatons" and "suggestions" that can be offered regarding this new story, and they're being offered even right now. ... It means that media consumers (and that's all of us) should be be VERY careful (and should help promote state science standards that allow teaching public school science students to be VERY careful), about buying into various media-trumpeted, and/or evolutionist-trumpeted, claims and discoveries.

CS Shelton said: I think it's just hella fun to imagine the lost worlds of the past. Anybody name the ichnogenus yet? Do we have any characters at all to guess at distant relations? Can I use more words I barely understand with my Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art? Hell yes.

stanton- I accessed the external lobe of my brain known (in layman's terms) as the "Google," and found out Lockhovian etchings have something to do with Ostracods, then consulted my Wikipedial lobe to find out what those guys are. Brilliant! Sign me up.

CS Shelton said: stanton- I accessed the external lobe of my brain known (in layman's terms) as the "Google," and found out Lockhovian etchings have something to do with Ostracods, then consulted my Wikipedial lobe to find out what those guys are. Brilliant! Sign me up.

Stanton - I really want to get involved in the paleo-art scene, but have my hands full with comic book projects (collaborative so deadlines mean something)... Also, I'm a lazy bastid. But do link.

Oh, OK... Just checked out your stuff. I see you list Amano and Giger as influences. You ever try to apply their styles to your fish? Might be cool to see...

Sorry to clutter with three posts in a row- how did I read Giger there? NM that. But I think an Amano-style Devonian reef sounds hella dope.

FL said: It means that media consumers (and that's all of us) should be be VERY careful (and should help promote state science standards that allow teaching public school science students to be VERY careful), about buying into various media-trumpeted, and/or evolutionist-trumpeted, claims and discoveries.

FL, I, being a non-scientist like you, have no never had and still don't have any problem understanding that Tiktaalik doesn't necessarily have to be the earliest of it's kind, nor does it have to be a direct ancestor of anything alive on the planet today. It just shows how and approximately when the transition from sea to land began.

Besides, using Casey Luskin as a source reflects unfavourably on your own ability to think critically

FL said: Looks like the new fossil find gets in the way of all that hype, does it not?

There was a consensus that the divergence between some elpistostegalians (such as Tiktaalik or Panderichthys) and tetrapods might have occurred during the Givetian, 391–385 Myr ago. Coeval with the earliest fossil tetrapods, trackways dating to the Late Devonian were evidence for their ability to walk or crawl on shores. Now, however, Niedźwiedzki et al. lob a grenade into that picture...."

So, the OP question "What's it all mean?"

But there's something else that "it all means" as well. Something important. It means that media consumers (and that's all of us) should be be VERY careful (and should help promote state science standards that allow teaching public school science students to be VERY careful), about buying into various media-trumpeted, and/or evolutionist-trumpeted, claims and discoveries.

harold said: OgreMkV - Related, it occurred to me - and this is really, really obvious; I'm sure I've seen it but it never quite hit me before - that all accurately dated fossil finds give the minimum age of a lineage. It has to be at least that old if we found and accurately dated the fossil, but there could be older ones out there that we haven't found yet. Not too much older, obviously, but older. As long as we're conjecturing things, I was wondering if walking or walking-like behaviors may have been evolving from an earlier time than expected in some fish lineages. There are modern fish that "walk" on the bottom.

The guy who mentioned mammals/fish/reptiles co-existing as being comparable to the car analogy - It’s a good point, but someone arguing against it could say the mammals/fish/reptiles of today are in different enough niches that it’s not comparable.

Your quibblers would be the kind of people who would describe one species as “basal/primitive” and another as “highly derived.”

Then you can come back with the reasonable assertion that every species alive could be regarded as transitional, ever-changing, etc. IE, australopithecus was a basal hominid and a highly derived fish at the same time.

OgreMkV -

Yes, funnily enough, someone once had to point out to me that dinosaurs have legs that go straight up and down, whereas alligators, lizards, and so on have characteristic "splayed" legs. Another one of those really obvious things.

Didn't the first reconstructions of triceratops et al have their legs splayed wide like lizards? Then someone pointed out that the hip/femur and shoulder/humerus joints just wouldn't line up properly like that?

fnxtr said: Didn't the first reconstructions of triceratops et al have their legs splayed wide like lizards? Then someone pointed out that the hip/femur and shoulder/humerus joints just wouldn't line up properly like that?

The Polish animal has left us no direct fossil remains; ....

stevaroni said:

henry said: A local flood could not have accomplished what only a global flood could do.

Hmm... Fascinating. Personally, I don't see what difference the size of hte flood makes, so long as it's bigger than the actual footprint, but do go on. I had no idea that creationists had different categories for the physical properties of floods. Microflooding versus macroflooding, as it were, or maybe flood baramins.

Shouldn’t we tell the school kids about this falsification?

RDK said: Oh and Floyd, was your galactic-level spanking over at AtBC not enough for you? You're just embarrassing yourself at this point.

Pete Dunkelberg said:

The Polish animal has left us no direct fossil remains; ....

Actually, the search is just starting and they already have something, not yet published.

RDK said:

stevaroni said:

henry said: A local flood could not have accomplished what only a global flood could do.

Hmm... Fascinating. Personally, I don't see what difference the size of hte flood makes, so long as it's bigger than the actual footprint, but do go on. I had no idea that creationists had different categories for the physical properties of floods. Microflooding versus macroflooding, as it were, or maybe flood baramins.

I'd like to hear henry expound on this also. Tell us, henry! I'm confused; macroflooding seems to knock up against common sense. Surely an accumulation of microflooding could never produce macroflooding; a flood is a flood is a flood, is it not?

henry, you are a blind moron on top of a stupid troll.

Please take Prof. Myers' advice and get stuffed.

Preferably into a wall, then covered over in drywall.

henry said:

RDK said:

stevaroni said:

henry said: A local flood could not have accomplished what only a global flood could do.

Hmm... Fascinating. Personally, I don't see what difference the size of hte flood makes, so long as it's bigger than the actual footprint, but do go on. I had no idea that creationists had different categories for the physical properties of floods. Microflooding versus macroflooding, as it were, or maybe flood baramins.

I'd like to hear henry expound on this also. Tell us, henry! I'm confused; macroflooding seems to knock up against common sense. Surely an accumulation of microflooding could never produce macroflooding; a flood is a flood is a flood, is it not?

The floods that we see today are local floods, not global ones. There was only one global flood, which occurred 1556 years after creation. This flood covered the entire earth for 150 days, after it rained 40 days and nights. Bioturbation would have destroyed any sedimentary structure before the sediments hardened to rock. Yet footprints, ripples, etc. are found in rocks supposedly millions of years old. What process prevented bioturbation from occurring and preserved the sedimentary structure? We do not see any process today which prevents bioturbation from occurring.

Tiktaalik was found because they predicted which age rocks a creature like Tiktaalik might be found (e.g. they looked in rocks younger than fish fossils but older than tetrapod fossils).

Since they seem to have found older tetrapods, does this mean Dr. Shubin's prediction and subsequent find of Tiktaalik in those age rocks was a lucky fluke? That is, perhaps if a thorough search was done of even older rocks, they might find a Tiktaalik-like creature there as well?

Am I even making sense here (it's 1:30 a.m. and I need to go to bed, but this is rattling in my brain)? Same thing as above, stated slightly differently...

...A big deal was made about how evolutionary theory predicted where to find Tiktaalik, and when they looked, they found it (e.g. Dr. Coynes' book Why Evolution is True, starting p. 35).

But now it seems they could have searched in even older rocks and still found it, which rather weakens (invalidates?) the specific prediction, doesn't it?

I'm looking for clarification because last semester I used this example in biology class, and I'd like to update the class this semester. Also show science in action, changing its views, re-evaluating evidence and NOT suppressing 'inconvenient' finds that contradict previous knowledge (as some groups think scientists do).

henry said: The floods that we see today are local floods, not global ones. There was only one global flood, which occurred 1556 years after creation. This flood covered the entire earth for 150 days, after it rained 40 days and nights. Bioturbation would have destroyed any sedimentary structure before the sediments hardened to rock. Yet footprints, ripples, etc. are found in rocks supposedly millions of years old. What process prevented bioturbation from occurring and preserved the sedimentary structure? We do not see any process today which prevents bioturbation from occurring.

FL

Wht y hv hrd f Th Myth f th Flt rth by Jffry Brtn Rssll ?

Dale Husband said:

henry said: Th flds tht w s tdy r lcl flds, nt glbl ns. Thr ws nly n glbl fld, whch ccrrd 1556 yrs ftr crtn. Ths fld cvrd th ntr rth fr 150 dys, ftr t rnd 40 dys nd nghts. Btrbtn wld hv dstryd ny sdmntry strctr bfr th sdmnts hrdnd t rck. Yt ftprnts, rppls, tc. r fnd n rcks sppsdly mllns f yrs ld. Wht prcss prvntd btrbtn frm ccrrng nd prsrvd th sdmntry strctr? W d nt s ny prcss tdy whch prvnts btrbtn frm ccrrng.

What is bioturbation? Is this something you just made up? If the entire fossil evidence resulted from a single global flood, there would be no order to it at all and we would expect to see dinosaurs, trilobites, and modern mammals all jumbled together randomly in the rock layers. The fact that we don't shows that there was never a single flood and that instead there were many, many local floods. There is NO evidence to show otherwise, and claims to the contrary are lies.

stevaroni said:

henry said: Th ftprnts wr prsrvd bcs thy wr rpdly brd n th glbl fld...

The global flood happened 375 million years ago?

Ths s smlr t th Ptrdctyl lndng trcks rcntly fnd n Frnc, ftprnts fnd n Nw Zlnd, vn ftprnt n th Grnd Cnyn.

And yet none of these animals made it onto Noah's big boat? How was that, Henry? Did God not command Noah to take 2 of every animal? Did Noah just disobey? (that could go badly, look at what happened to Onan) Did Noah manage go gather two of every know agricultural pest but somehow overlook the tetrapods, pterodactyls and other big lizards that were apparently out and about leaving footprints around weeks before the flood?

henry said:

RDK said:

stevaroni said:

henry said: A local flood could not have accomplished what only a global flood could do.

Hmm... Fascinating. Personally, I don't see what difference the size of hte flood makes, so long as it's bigger than the actual footprint, but do go on. I had no idea that creationists had different categories for the physical properties of floods. Microflooding versus macroflooding, as it were, or maybe flood baramins.

I'd like to hear henry expound on this also. Tell us, henry! I'm confused; macroflooding seems to knock up against common sense. Surely an accumulation of microflooding could never produce macroflooding; a flood is a flood is a flood, is it not?

The floods that we see today are local floods, not global ones. There was only one global flood, which occurred 1556 years after creation. This flood covered the entire earth for 150 days, after it rained 40 days and nights. Bioturbation would have destroyed any sedimentary structure before the sediments hardened to rock. Yet footprints, ripples, etc. are found in rocks supposedly millions of years old. What process prevented bioturbation from occurring and preserved the sedimentary structure? We do not see any process today which prevents bioturbation from occurring.

No, henry didn't make "bioturbation" up. He hasn't got that much imagination. He's just blatting out a word that sounds good. It means the disturbance of strata by biological activity, usually benthic - that means "at the deepest part of the seabed", henry. Burrowing, root systems, scouring sand grains, that sort of thing. Bioturbation is a relatively small effect, generally, and can be pretty easily identified.

So to believe that "bioturbation would have destroyed any sedimentary structure", henry has to believe that all sediments were completely made over - he says "destroyed", but that's manifestly impossible - by animal and plant activity. But although some sedimentary strata show some evidence of bioturbation, some strongly, many others show little or no disturbance. Bioturbation happens, but it doesn't destroy rocks, nor in most cases disturbs them much.

Henry therefore has to believe in an obvious falsehood. But for henry, this is not a stretch at all.

I am not to instruct scientists on the effect of new knowledge on theory. Nevertheless, it appears to me that this was the sequence of events:

The best available estimate for the date of the fish-tetrapod transition put it at about 370-380 mya. Paleontologists therefore looked in sedimentary rocks of that age that were likely to contain fossils, and which had been at the time sediments on rivermouths, the most likely environment. They found several fossils of clearly transitional forms, with Tiktaalik the most spectacular, and everyone went "Aha! QED!", or words to that effect.

Now we have a set of footprints reliably dated to 30 my earlier, about 400 mya. What fun.

Does it mean that Tiktaalik is not a transitional? No, of course it doesn't mean that. It means that Tiktaalik was one of the transitionals. Others were earlier. Now the hunt to find those earlier transitionals is up, and I will lay good money that it'll hit pay dirt sometime in the next few years.

But while we're at it, have a look at what's happening. A scientific consensus was reached, everything looked perfectly straightforward, and then some guy waltzes up and says, "Nuh-uh".

But the guy who waltzes up does it packing evidence. So the scientists, that hide-bound bunch of high priests that can't stand contradiction, they look at the evidence, test it, accept it, pick their jaws up off the floor, wipe the egg off their faces, and go back to work. They change their minds because the evidence says different.

If you don't think that there's something beautiful in that, and some hope for humanity as well, brother or sister, I'm sorry for you.

As some posters said here the tracks were preserved only because of a preserving process. Its difficult to do this. Since its common to find fossil casts in sedimentary rock then its the first conclusion that a general movement of sediment was laid and the agent laying it also instantly or so squeezed it into rock formations.
Its useless to guess about biological sequences here when the origin of the geological formation and life fossil casts are not settled.
If YEC is right and these rock formations were laid suddenly then these prints are not from ancient times but only a few thousands of years ago and just showing a picture of life in a corner of a corner of the planet.

Darwin based much of his work on the presumption of geology conclusions of long ages. So before biology evolution is discussed the geology issue must be settled.

Henry wrote:

"Bioturbation can be found in Wikipedia or the ICR website."

So what? Try again Henry.

Robert wrote:

"Darwin based much of his work on the presumption of geology conclusions of long ages. So before biology evolution is discussed the geology issue must be settled."

Wrong again genius. Doesn't it get boring being wrong every single time.

FIrst, Darwin had no idea how old the earth was. In order for this theory to be correct, the earth had to be very ancient, now we know that it is. The "geology issue" was settled over one hundred years ago. Do try to keep up Robert. You can ignore all of the findings of the last two hundred years, but that doesn't mean that anyone else has to.

All right. Enough is enough.

STOP ENGAGING THIS GODDAMN MORON HENRY.

You are only encouraging the addled twerp. If I have to, I will start sending all of his comments, AND ALL COMMENTS THAT REPLY TO HIM, to the bathroom wall. And that will piss me off.

PZ Myers said: All right. Enough is enough. STOP ENGAGING THIS GODDAMN MORON HENRY. You are only encouraging the addled twerp. If I have to, I will start sending all of his comments, AND ALL COMMENTS THAT REPLY TO HIM, to the bathroom wall. And that will piss me off.

As some posters said here the tracks were preserved only because of a preserving process.

Dale Husband said: What is bioturbation?

PZ Myers said: All right. Enough is enough. STOP ENGAGING THIS GODDAMN MORON HENRY. You are only encouraging the addled twerp. If I have to, I will start sending all of his comments, AND ALL COMMENTS THAT REPLY TO HIM, to the bathroom wall. And that will piss me off.

It’s the action of sediment being disturbed by living organisms, almost invariably as animals burrowing. Creationists don’t realize, though, that a 40 day, 40 night long global flood would kill any and all burrowers.

Since they seem to have found older tetrapods, does this mean Dr. Shubin’s prediction and subsequent find of Tiktaalik in those age rocks was a lucky fluke? That is, perhaps if a thorough search was done of even older rocks, they might find a Tiktaalik-like creature there as well?

stunning fossil trackways have been discovered in Poland. The remarkable thing about them is that they’re very old, about 395 million years old, and they are clearly the tracks of tetrapods. Just to put that in perspective, Tiktaalik, probably the most famous specimen illustrating an early stage of the transition to land, is younger at 375 million years, but is more primitive in having less developed, more fin-like limbs.

Varve - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia... and old ones reassessed. At present, the Swedish varve chronology is based on thousands of sites, and covers 13200 varve years. ... The classic varve archetype is a light / dark coloured couplet deposited in a glacial lake. ...

So basically, the kinds of transitional features that allowed fishes to become land animals (features typified across a number of fossil specimens not directly related to each other) persisted in species for millions of years longer than we originally thought.

Creationists say this means evolution is totally wrong, even though this discovery makes their version of events even more wrong than it already was while fitting nicely into an evolutionary framework. The only analogy I can think of is if a Flat Earther read about Sputnik and decided that, somehow, it proved the Earth to be flat instead of round.

raven said: We have yearly chronologies of lake sediments that are over twice the age of the universe.

Just Bob said:

raven said: We have yearly chronologies of lake sediments that are over twice the age of the universe.

Surely you're referring to the 6,000 years old "age of the universe," right? ;)

(I'm waiting for raven to object to having been called Surely... )

DS said: Robert wrote: "Darwin based much of his work on the presumption of geology conclusions of long ages. So before biology evolution is discussed the geology issue must be settled." Wrong again genius. Doesn't it get boring being wrong every single time. FIrst, Darwin had no idea how old the earth was. In order for this theory to be correct, the earth had to be very ancient, now we know that it is. The "geology issue" was settled over one hundred years ago. Do try to keep up Robert. You can ignore all of the findings of the last two hundred years, but that doesn't mean that anyone else has to.

To Darwin in 1859 "incomprehensibly vast... periods of time" meant tens of millions of years, which was the scale Lyell was working on. That worried Darwin, because it didn't seem to be enough time for evolution, and he was right to worry, because it wasn't. But the period wasn't tens of millions of years. That rough estimate is under by two orders of magnitude, but Darwin didn't know that. It wasn't until after his lifetime that an accurate estimate could be made.

So Darwin was right, even though he had no idea of how old the Earth is.

Robert,

Do you have any point to make here at all? Your only point seems to be that evolution cannot be accepted without geology? So what?

Once again, Darwin dod not know how old the earth was. His theory required a very ancient earth. The earth has indeed been determined to be very ancient. Darwin has been proven to be correct. Deal with it already.

Robert Byers said: I have a quote from Darwin in 1859 A.D. " He who can read Sir Charles Lyell's grand work and yet does not admit how incomprehensibly vast have been the past periods of time may at once close this volume" I suppose in reference to one of Darwins books but i can't quote. Well I would say to Charles that biology founded on a separate subjects ideas should close its claims to being a true study of biology. If one must accept other concepts before his biological concepts then one can say Darwin is being influenced by ideas beyond biological observations. He is admitting that his conclusions don't work if other conclusions are not already accepted. Indeed without geology timeframes evolution conclusions are just plain wrong. He also seems to be saying to the reader you will not be persuaded by his ideas without prior persuasion of long ages concepts. AMEN. The creationist is already rightly suspicious. Biology that can not stand on its own merits should stand aside.

Biology that can not stand on its own merits should stand aside.

and thus religion...?

Ichthyic said: Biology that can not stand on its own merits should stand aside. and thus religion...?