Amazing Fossils Found in Flood Deposits

Flood geology explains these unique fossils like slow-and-gradual geology cannot.

Hundreds of Flood-Deposited Pterosaur Eggs Found

It’s all over the news: several hundred well-preserved pterosaur eggs have been uncovered in China, buried by ‘storms’ (floods). Details and photos can be found here:

• Hundreds of Pterosaur Eggs Found in Record-Breaking Fossil Haul (National Geographic). “The eggs fossilized in lake sediments disturbed by fast-moving water, a sign that storms may have flooded a nesting site and sent the eggs bobbing into a large lake, where soupy mud entombed them.”
• Huge haul of rare pterosaur eggs excites palaeontologists (Nature News). “…they were probably washed together by a storm event…”
• Fossilized Pterosaur Eggs Hold Perfectly Preserved Embryos Inside (Live Science).
• Hundreds of fossilized eggs shed light on pterosaur development (Science Daily).
• Fossilised eggs shed light on reign of pterosaurs (BBC News). “Geological evidence suggests large numbers of the flying reptiles died in a storm in the Early Cretaceous period, about 120 million years ago.”
• Hundreds of pterosaur eggs help reveal the early life of flying reptiles (The Conversation). The lead photo shows the bone bed. Elizabeth Martin-Silverstone writes, “Researchers think this means it was a nesting site that was hit by high-energy storms that transported the pterosaurs and their eggs to a calm lake where they were then turned into fossils.”

The original paper in Science Magazine is titled, “Egg accumulation with 3D embryos provides insight into the life history of a pterosaur.” D. Charles Deeming provided an accompanying article, “How pterosaurs bred,” also in Science Magazine. The researchers are understandably interested in what this rare cache reveals about pterosaur development, but no less interesting is the taphonomy—how they were buried. They were not buried in situ, but were transported by flood waters in storms, probably bobbing in the water till covered quickly by sediments. The paper authors describe the geological setting,

This sedimentological data, associated with the exceptional quantity of eggs and bones, indicate that events of high energy such as storms have passed over a nesting site, causing the eggs to be moved inside the lake where they floated for a short period of time, becoming concentrated and eventually buried along with disarticulated skeletons. Our findings further demonstrate the exceptional conditions necessary for the preservation of such fragile material and can explain the notable paucity of pterosaur eggs and embryos in the paleontological record compared to other reptiles, because the preservation potential of soft-shelled specimens is regarded as very poor.

Multiple floods?  National Geographic speculates, “The eggs didn’t wash in all at once: They’re spread out among four distinct sediment layers, suggesting that multiple floods deposited them over time.” Flood geologists know, however, that multiple layers can form in a single event. Additionally, it would seem strange for a flood-damaged area to be used again and again by the creatures (remember the changing story of the Yellowstone fossil forests?).

Convergence again. In a sideshow to the discovery, some evolutionists are asserting that these pterosaurs were “even more like birds” than thought. That doesn’t help the Darwinian tale, however, because evolutionists do not believe birds evolved from pterosaurs. They would have to chalk similarities up to ‘convergent evolution.’ The original paper does, indeed, attribute the nesting similarities to “ecological convergence.” But an even less probable case of convergence arises from considering that both birds and pterosaurs independently “evolved” powered flight. Nature says, “The early life of pterosaurs — the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight — has been a mystery.” Flying insects, of course, “evolved” powered flight earlier—also independently. Adding flying mammals (bats) and birds, that makes four groups of animals that had to independently “converge” on this irreducibly complex capability.

No transitional forms exist to illustrate the emergence of pterosaurs from any other group of extinct reptiles.

Upside-Down Ankylosaur Analyzed

The armored dinosaur Borealopelta made the news again (see 8/31/17). This ankylosaur-type dinosaur, found in Alberta, sported larger armor plates than needed for defense, National Geographic speculates. They think the armor must have been used for sexual display instead. Not stated this time is the fact that most armored dinosaurs are found upside-down in the fossil record, indicating that they drowned in water (see our 8/31/17 report). The article does say, “About 110 million years ago, this plant-eating dinosaur died and wound up at the bottom of an ancient ocean.”

Only anti-creationist prejudice prevents scientists from seeing flood burials occurring in a single event. Whatever is found, it must be force-fitted into the evolutionary worldview. That’s not science; that’s ideology driving belief.