Whales in the desert: Fossil bonanza poses mystery

AP via Phys.org ^ | November 19, 2011 | EVA VERGARA and IAN JAMES

[Daffynition]

Maybe they became disoriented and beached themselves. Maybe they were trapped in a lagoon by a landslide or a storm. Maybe they died there over a period of a few millennia. But somehow, they ended up right next to one another, many just meters (yards) apart, entombed as the shallow sea floor was driven upward by geological forces and transformed into the driest place on the planet.

Today, they have emerged again atop a desert hill more than a kilometer (half a mile) from the surf, where researchers have begun to unearth one of the world's best-preserved graveyards of prehistoric whales.

[Winstons Julia]

I wonder if they found any land sharks. Those things are annoying.

[ColdOne]

Kool post!

[Pelham]

Dimwit whales should have stayed where the water is.

[onedoug]

Though if a whale died in a littoral setting, and the sedimentation were rapid enough followed eventually by uplift, there would be many fossil examples such as in California, where many are found in its coastal mountains.

[PastorJimCM]

I’m sorry - I have been gone from the computer most of the day. I will try to answer now one of the issues.
The oldest living trees that can be assuredly determined are the ones from which we can count the rings. The age of the tree in Norway is determined by carbon dating. Carbon dating is really only accurate to its 1/2 life of 5730 years. Those dates beyond that are unreliable and can come up with very different results each time they are tested.
I doubt the age of the Norway tree (actually root system.)

[Fred Nerks]

Distribution of fossil whales on Cerro Blanco, superimposed on an aerial photo. Red dots correspond to individual whales (N = 180). Black dots correspond to specimens that cannot be determined to be complete whales, usually because of post-exposure erosional damage (N = 166). It appears likely that most whales were essentially complete before the effects of modern erosion processes.

link

Baleen from Fernanda. Left - surface view of the baleen (~ 8 cm from top to bottom of photo). Upper right - cross section of baleen. The dark colored v-shaped structures are sheets of baleen. Lower right - microscopic enlargement of surface of a sheet of baleen. Notice the fine ridges preserved in the baleen. We found fossilized baleen in several other whales also, but the baleen was best preserved in this whale. This type of preservation requires rapid burial, before the baleen tissue decayed. Fernanda was also buried before the spinal cord decayed, as black mineral replacement of the spinal cord was present in its normal position within the vertebral column (but nowhere else).

[SunkenCiv]

LOL!

[The Theophilus]

No offense intended, but how about a little scientific documentation to back up your statements.

I love you miseotheists, the arrogance, insults, lies and hypocrisy that constitute your being always find a home in these CrEvo discussions.

FYI...Niagara Falls has been receding for millions of years;

Let see, your standards of conduct require others to document, whereas you can just spout off unsubstantiated lies and act like this is conclusive proof.

Rebuttal

FYI...The world's oldest tree is 9,550 years old (Norway);

Again you are a liar who bases this claim on the faith of Leif Kullman for ¹⁴C rates - who contradicted previous studies that somehow "proved" that the spruce wasn't even Norway two thousand years ago. So does the perceived infallibility of ¹⁴C rates trump the more reliable and accurate account of the trees' history? This claim doesn't even rely on something as simple as counting tree rings, but it relies on the religious faith of uniformitarian decay rates for ¹⁴C which have been proven many times to be bogus.

You latching on to this shoddy piece of work indicates the very low standards you have for scientific inquiry. Some might say that your standards are so low that they are non-existent. I submit that you will believe in the tooth fairy and Bigfoot if their existence could somehow be used to delegitimize Scripture.

FYI...THERE ARE NO DINOSAUR FOSSILS THAT DATE EARLIER THAN 65 MILLION YEARS AGO. (I know this because I have a Geology Degree);

So what? Obama claims to have a law degree and no sane person believes that he understands or cares about the law. Your internet claim is simply an unsubstantiated argumentum ad verecundiam fallacy because those with geology degrees can still be in error and can still lie about things they claim special expertise in. You offer no evidence - not even evidence of a degree in geology. You say you "know" but it is impossible to know unless you were there. Origin "science" isn't science its speculation made upon a broad spectrum of conjecture and assumptions. People who really have scientific degrees know this since true science is observable. Being that you uncritically accept Kullman's work, I wonder if your alleged "geology degree" was obtained from a Cracker Jack box.

FYI...Topsoil is always being deposited somewhere in the world;

So what? It doesn't prove anything. Thousands of people make topsoil everyday from compost heaps. Dittos with the insipid sediment and sea floor statement. Why don't you try to "prove" your silly faith system by also saying "FYI: A quarter is worth 25 cents"?

I'm glad you have faith in God, as do most of us do, but please stop proselytizing. Opinions are not scientific fact.

Your entire post is nothing but demonstrably false "opinions". Because you clearly are hostile to Scripture and refuse to subject yourself to the authority of Scripture, and you demand that a Christian disobey a fundamental command of our LORD - it is blatantly obvious that you don't have faith in God, and because you are in rebellion to the Word are actually an enemy to the faith.

An honorable person of character would apologize to PastorJimCM for the incivility.

[Altariel]

“FYI...THERE ARE NO DINOSAUR FOSSILS THAT DATE EARLIER THAN 65 MILLION YEARS AGO”

None that date earlier? My understanding is that the “newest” dinosaur fossils from the Cretaceous period date 65 million years ago, whereas Dinosaurs from the Jurassic and Triassic periods date earlier, but it’s possible that I’m not remembering correctly or my information is antiquated.

[Explorer89]

I thought Niagra Falls started to recede down the plateau around 14,000 years ago with the melt waters from the glaciers? I think I saw that on some National Geographic type of documentary about the Great Lakes. I could be wrong, but that is what I thought......

[PastorJimCM]

Topsoil: The estimate is that 1 inch of topsoil takes between 300 and 1000 years to accumulate (figuring for erosion.) I do believe that topsoil points to something drastic occurring actually 4k to 7k years ago on earth. “Topsoil is always being deposited somewhere in the world.” Seems to be a ‘hopeful monster’ to me. We guess that this fact accounts for the topsoil being only 8 inches after “millions of years” of decay.

Niagra Falls: On the American side it is eroding at a rate of 2 - 6 inches per year. On the Canadian side it is eroding about 4 1/2 feet a year. The amount of water going over the falls at those two points accounts for the difference. At an average of about 40 inches of erosion per year overall, this would place the falls beginning between 5k and 10k years ago. But, at the time the flood receded there would have been a greater rate of erosion. Here again I believe that it places the waterfalls beginning a few thousand years ago.

Mississippi Delta: The Mississippi River (and its tributaries) dump around 300 million cubic yards of mud into the Gulf of Mexice every year. For the amount of sediment dumping that occurs, the delta is not very large.
Charles Lyell declared the delta and river system to be 60k years old because the delta was 528 feet deep. But Congress appointed General Andrew Humphreys to survey the whole area. He showed that the actual depth of the delta was only 40 feet. Below the ‘mud’ was the blue clay of the Gulf, and below that marine fossils. Here again proving that the delta has been forming for under 8k years.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Thank you for your reply...I understand what you are saying. One has to be on a higher level and look down.

Interesting observation.

It sounds as if you have a wonderful view of the ocean and city.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Fred Nerks!

[wildbill]

Oh, I thought this was another CSI mystery story about rich old guys being murdered in Las Vegas.

Ya see there’s this very competitive market for ‘whales’ (rich players)between Las Vegas casinos and one is led by an ex-CIA hitman and a crew of impossibly beautiful girls and stud men, all of whom are completely amoral and might just ‘off’ a whale who leaves the Montecito for good as warning to the other whales and CSI gets on the case, finding free passes to the Hookers Spa in their pockets and...

[Cvengr]

That’s not a whale!,..That’s the skeleton of a giant SANDWORM!

[Daffynition]

[Daffynition]

[wildbill]

Those guys are definitely not whales.

[Daffynition]

F&L never quite distinguishes between what is real and what is only imagined; ** So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark —that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.**

[WoofDog123]

nah I just drive by it far too often on corredor sur. This is the only place the water level was already low enough to allow this growth to start, it seems.