Evolution Encyclopedia Vol. 2
FOSSILS AND STRATA Part 2
According to Kier, above, 100 million fossils are housed in museums and other collections! Yes, enough information is now available that we can have certainty from the fossil record whether evolution ever did occur in our world! The present chapter will provide you with a brief summary of those facts.
"The reason for abrupt appearances and gaps can no longer be attributed to the imperfection of the fossil record as it was by Darwin when paleontology was a young science. With over 200,000,000 catalogued specimens of about 250,000 fossil species, many evolutionist paleontologist such as Stanley argue that the fossil record is sufficient." W.R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited (1954), p.48.
"In part, the role of paleontology in evolutionary research has been defined narrowly because of a false belief, tracing back to Darwin and his early followers, that the fossil record is woefully incomplete. Actually, the record is of sufficiently high quality to allow us to undertake certain kinds of analysis meaningfully at the level of the species." *S. Stanley, "Macroevolution" 1 (1979).
"Over ten thousand fossil species of insects have been identified, over thirty thousand species of spiders, and similar numbers for many sea-living creatures. Yet so far the evidence for step-by-step changes leading to major evolutionary transitions looks extremely thin. The supposed transition from wingless to winged insects still has to found, as has the transition between the two main types of winged insects, the paleoptera (mayflies, dragonflies) and the neoptera (ordinary flies, beetles, ants, bees)." *Fred Hoyle, "The Intelligent Universe: A New View of Creation and Evolution 43 (1983).
150 YEARS OF COLLECTED EVIDENCE *Heribert-Nilsson of Lund University in Sweden, after 40 years of study in paleontology and botany said this:
"It is not even possible to make a caricature [hazy sketch] of an evolution out of paleobiological facts. The fossil material is now so complete that . . the lack of transitional series cannot be explained as due to the scarcity of the material. The deficiencies are real; they will never be filled." *N. Heribert-Nilsson, Synthetische Artbildung (The Synthetic Origin of Species) (1953), p. 1212.
More than a century ago, enough evidence had been gathered from the study of fossils that it was already clear that the fossil gaps between Genesis kinds were unfillable. Even *Charles Darwin admitted the problem in his book.
". . intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic change, and this is perhaps the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory [of evolution]." *Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species, quoted in "David Raup, " Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology, " in Field Museum Bulletin, January 1979.
For over a century, scientific endeavor has witnessed the combined life work of hundreds of men, who have dedicated their lives in an attempt to find those missing links! If the transitional forms, connecting one species with another, are really there, they should have been found by now!
Here, in two brief paragraphs, is a clear description of the enormity of this missing link problem:
"The time required for one of these invertebrates to evolve into the vertebrates, or fishes, has bean estimated at about 100 million years, and it is believed that the evolution of the fish into an amphibian required about 30 million years. The essence of the new-Darwinian view is the slow gradual evolution of one plant a animal into another by the gradual accumulation of micromutations through natural selection of favored variants.
"If this view of evolution is true, the fossil record should produce an enormous number of transitional forms. Natural history museums should be overflowing with undoubted intermediate forms. About 250,000 fossil species have been collected and classified. These fossils have been collected at random from rocks that are supposed to represent all of the geological periods of earth's history. Applying evolution theory and the laws of probability, most of these 250,000 species should represent transitional forms. Thus, if evolution is true, there should be no doubt, question, or debate as to the fact of evolution." Duane T. Gish, "The Origin of Mammals" in Creation: the Cutting Edge (1982), p. 76.
The above quotation provides an excellent summary of the fossil gap problem. If it takes "100 million years" for an invertebrate to evolve through transitional fortes into a fish, the fossil strata, which purportedly contain a record of all the billions of years of life on earth, should show vast numbers of the in-between forms. But it never does!
It is the task of science to accept the facts and the conclusions they point to. The evidence supports the information given in the oldest extant book in the world: the book of Genesis.
2 - DATING THE STRATA AND FOSSILS
HOW ARE ROCKS DATED? There are vast quantities of fossils, scattered in various sedimentary strata throughout the world. Evolutionary scientists have sought to date the rocks from the fossils and then date the fossils from their theories about the rocks!
"We can hardly pick up a copy of a newspaper or magazine nowadays without being informed exactly how many million years ago some remarkable event in the history of the earth occurred." "Adolph Knopf, quoted in "Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations, p. 62 [Knopf was an American geologist].
Let us examine this dating process more closely;
REAL HISTORY Real history only goes beck about 4,500 years. The First Dynasty in Egypt has left us records that date back to about 2200 B.C. (corrected, Manetho's account reaches to 3500 B.C.). Moses began writing part of the Bible about 1480 B.C. He wrote of events going back to 4000 years B.C.
Yet evolutionists claim that they can date this rock or that rock--going back into the millions of years! The entire geologic column--from bottom to top, is supposed to have taken 2 billion years, with millions of years being assigned to each level of strata. On what basis do those presume to think they can assign such ancient dates to the origin of various rocks? With the exception of some recently-erupted volcanic lava, no one was present when any rocks were laid down. A man picks up a piece of rock from the distant past, and, although he himself may be only half a century old, he claims to be able to date that rock as being 110 billion years old!
NOT DATED BY APPEARANCE Rocks are not dated by their appearance, for rocks of all types (limestones, shales, gabbro, etc.) may be found in all evolutionary "ages." Rocks are not dated by their mineral, metallic, or petroleum content, for any type of mineral may be found in practically any "age."
NOT DATED BY LOCATION Rocks are not dated by the rocks they are near. The rocks above them in one sequence may be the rocks below them in the next. The "oldest rocks" may lie above so-called "younger rocks." Rocks are not dated by their structure, breaks, faults, or folds. None of this has any bearing on the dating that evolutionists apply to rocks. Textbooks, magazines, and museum displays give the impression that it is the location of the strata that decides the dating, but this is not true.
"It is, indeed, a well-established fact that the (physical/stratigraphical) rock units and their boundaries often transgress geologic time planes in most irregular fashion even within the shortest distances." *J.A. Jeletzsky, "Paleontology, Basis of Practical Geochronology, " in Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, April 1956, p. 685.
NOT DATED BY VERTICAL LOCATION Rocks are not dated by their height or depth in the strata, or which rocks are "at the top," which are "at the bottom," or which are "in the middle." Their vertical placement and sequence has little bearing on the matter. This would have to be so, since the arrangement of the strata shows little hint of uniformity anywhere in the world.
NOT DATED BY RADIOACTIVITY The rock strata are not dated by the radioactive minerals within them. The dating was all worked out decades before anyone heard of or thought of radioactive dating. In addition, we learned in the chapter on Dating Methods, that there are so many ways in which radiometric dating can be incorrect; that we dare not rely on uranium and similar minerals as reliable dating methods.
The fact is that rocks are not dated by any physical characteristic at all. What then ARE they dated by?
DATED BY FOSSILS? They are said to be dated by FOSSILS! Well, now we have arrived at something concrete. The strata are all mixed up, piled on top or under where they should go, or totally missing. But at least we can date by all their fossils.
But wait a minute! We cannot even use 99 percent of the fossils to date them by, since we can find the same type of fossils in one stratum as in many others! And in each stratum are millions of fossils, representing hundreds and even thousands of different species of plant and/or animal life. The result is a bewildering maze of mixed-up or missing strata, each with fossil prints from a wide variety of ancient plants and animals that we can find in still other rock strata.
Yet, amid all this confusion, evolutionists tell us that fossil dating is of extreme importance. That is very true, for without it the evolutionary scientist would have no way to try to theorize "earlier ages" on the earth. Fossil dating is crucial to their entire theoretical house of cards.
But if rocks cannot be dated by physical appearance, location, or even most of the fossils they contain, how are the rocks dated?
ROCKS ARE DATED BY INDEX FOSSILS They are dated by what the evolutionists call "index fossils." In each stratum there are a few fossils which are not observed quite as often as the other strata. As a pretext, these are the fossils which are used to "date" that stratum and all the other fossils within it!
It may sound ridiculous, but that is the way it is done. What are these magical fossils that have the power to tell men finding them the DATE so many millions of years ago--when they lived? These special "index" fossils are generally small marine invertebrates--backboneless sea animals that could not climb to higher ground when the Flood camel Their presence in a sedimentary stratum is supposed to provide absolutely certain proof that that stratum is just so many millions of years "younger" or millions of years "older" than other strata!
But then, just as oddly, the magic disappears when the index fossil is found alive:
"Most of the species of maidenhair are extinct; indeed they served as index fossils to their strata until one was found alive." "The youngest fossil coelacanth is about sixty million years old. Since one was rediscovered off Madagascar, they are no longer claimed as 'index fossils--fossils which tell you that all other fossils in that layer are the same ripe old age." Michael Pitman, Adam end Evolution (1984), pp. 186, 198.
In reality, within each stratum is to be found an utter confusion of thousands of different plants and/or animals. The evolutionists maintain that if just one of a certain type of creature (an "index fossil") is found anywhere in that stratum, it must automatically be given a certain name, and more: a certain date millions of years ago when all the creatures in that stratum are supposed to have lived. Yet, just by examining that particular index fossil, there is no way to tell that it lived just so many millions of years ago. It is all part of a marvelous theory, which is actually nothing more than a grand evolutionary hoax. Experienced scientists denounce it as untrue.
Any rock containing fossils of one type of trilobite (Paradoxides) is called a "Cambrian" rock, thus supposedly dating all the creatures in that rock to a time period 120 million years long and beginning 60 million years in the past. But rocks containing another type of trilobite (Bathyurus) are arbitrarily classified as "Ordovician," which is claimed to have spanned 45 million years and begun 480 million years ago. But how can anyone come up with such ancient dates simply by examining two different varieties of trilobite? The truth is that it cannot be done.
Add to this the problem of mixed-up index fossils--when "index fossils" from different levels are found together! That is a problem which paleontologists do not publicly discuss.
As we analyze one aspect after another of evolution (stellar, geologic, biologic, genetic, etc.), we find it all to be little more than a carefully contrived science fiction story book.
FOSSILS ARE DATED BY A THEORY But now comes the catch: How can evolutionary geologists know what dates to apply to those index fossils? The answer to this question is a theory! Darwinists theorize which animals came first and when they appeared on the scene, and then they date the rocks according to their theory, not according to the wide mixture of fossils creatures in it, but by assigning dates based on their theory, to certain "index" fossils.
"Fossils provide the only historical, documentary evidence that life has evolved from simpler to more and more complex fame." *Carl O. Dunbar, Historical Geology, 2nd edition (1960), p. 47.
INDEX FOSSILS
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The conclusions about which fossils came first are based on the assumptions of evolution. Rock
strata are studied, a few index fossils are located (when they can be found at all), and each stratum is then given a name. Since the strata are above, below, and in-between one another, with most of the strata missing in any one location, just how can the theorists possibly "date" each stratum? They do it by applying evolutionary speculation to what they imagine those dates should be.
This type of activity classifies as interesting fiction, but it surely should not be regarded as science. As is mentioned in the quotation below, it was the evolutionary theory that was used to date the fossils; it was not the strata and it was not "index fossils."
Vertebrate paleontologists have relied upon 'stage of evolution' as the criterion for determining the chronologic relationships of faunas. Before establishment of physical dates, evolutionary progression was the best method for dating fossiliferous strata." *J.F. Evernden, *D.E. Savage, *G. H. Curbs, and *G. T. James, "K/A Dates and the Cenozoic Mammalian Chronology of North America," in American Journal of Science, February 1964, p. 166.
("Fossiliferous strata" means fossil-bearing strata. Keep in mind that only the sedimentary rocks have fossils, for they were the sediments laid down at the time of the Flood, which hardened under pressure and dried into rock.)
The dating of each stratum and all the fossils in it--is supposedly based on index fossils, when it is actually based on evolutionary speculations, and nothing more.
"The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone." Randy Wysong, The Creation Evolution Controversy (1976), p. 31.
For additional information see the appendix topic, "5 - Index Fossils."
CIRCULAR REASONINGTowering far above nearly every other, is FOSSIL EVIDENCE as the basis for evolution. Yet when we examine it we find it to be based on circular reasoning.
Evolutionists (1) use their theory of rock strata to date the fossils, (2) and then use their theory of fossils to date the rock strata!
Big names and big numbers have been assigned to various strata, thus imparting an air of scientific authority to them. Common people, lacking expertise in the nomenclature of paleontology, when faced with these lists of big words tend to give up. It all looks too awesome to be understood, much less challenged. When, in reality, the big words and big numbers only cover over an empty theory which lacks substantial evidence to support it.
It is the theory about a few fossils which is paramount, because only index fossils are used to date all the strata. No one dates by the rocks or the strata, nor do they date by the minerals or the location of the strata. And they do not date by all, most, or even 10% of the fossils in each stratum, but only by a few "index fossils."
It is the theory which comes first. The "index fossils" are dated by the theory. Amid all the confusion of mixed up and missing strata, there would be no possible way to date rocks--or fossils--by the catastrophic conditions found in sedimentary strata. It all appears to be nearly utter confusion. But, ignoring 98 percent of the large numbers of fossil types, the paleontologist searches for just one or two "index" fossils. On that basis the whole thing is "dated."
The evolutionists apply a theory to the strata. They decided that certain water worms in one stratum are 80,000 years older than certain water worms in another stratum, and then they date all the other fossils in those same strata accordingly) (Which is a little foolish, is it not? How can you date a water worm to so many hundred million years ago?)
And what date do they apply? A date that they imaginatively arrive at, one based on their theory. But all this is speculation, not science! Genuine science does not build a house on mountains of speculations. But that is what the so-called "fossil evidence" for evolution is. Yet such crucially important conclusions are drawn from these speculative guesses.
Here is the statement of one prominent geologist who deplores the utter confusion found both in the rock strata and in the theories about fossil dating:
"Because of the sterility of its concepts, historical geology, which includes paleontology [the study of fossils] and stratigraphy [the study of rock strata], has become static and unreproductive. Current methods of delimiting intervals of time, which are the fundamental units of historical geology, and of establishing chronology are of dubious validity. Worse than that, the criteria of correlation, the attempt to equate in time, or synchronize, the geological history of one area with that of another, are logically vulnerable. The findings of historical geology are suspect because the principles upon which they are based are either inadequate, in which case they should be reformulated, or false, in which case they should be discarded. Most of us refuse to discard or reformulate, and the result is the present deplorable state of our discipline." *Robin S. Allen: "Geological Correlation and Paleoecology, " Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, January 1984, p.2.
The entire structure of fossil and strata classification and the long ages of dating that it both invents and proves in one clever stroke--is based on the idea that several tiny sea worms and similar creatures, called "index fossils," are the greatest proof of organic evolution!
A DOUBLE CIRCLE Circular reasoning lies at the bottom, not only of the fossil theory, but at the bottom of the whole theory of evolution! First, as we have already discovered, reasoning in a circle is the basis of the "evidence" that evolution has occurred in the past. (The fossils are dated by the theory of strata dating; the strata are then dated by the fossils). Second, as we shall learn later, reasoning in a circle is the basis of the "mechanism" by which evolution is supposed to occur (Natural Selection, chapter 13). (The fittest survive because they are fittest, and they are fittest because they survive, yet, according to that, all they do is survive! not evolve into something better!)
A number of scientists have commented on this problem of circularity. You will find these quotations at the back of this chapter, and also in chapter 13, Natural Selection.
"Contrary to what most scientists write, the fossil record does not support the Darwinian theory of evolution, because it is this theory (there are several) which we use to interpret the fossil record. By doing so, we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say the fossil record supports this theory." *Ronald R. West, "Paleontology and Uniformitarianism, " in Compass, May 1968, p. 218.
Throughout this set of books we shall find many other examples of strange logic on the part of the evolutionists: (1) Matter had to come from something, therefore it somehow came from nothing. (2) Living creatures had to come from something, therefore they somehow came from non-living chemicals.
(3) Limiting factors of chemical, biological, and physical law forbid either matter or living creatures from originating or evolving. Therefore evolution somehow occurs entirely separate from the laws of nature.
For additional information see quotation supplement, "6 - Circular Reasoning, " in the appendix.
FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS As we study the fossil record, we come upon a variety of very serious problems which undermine the strata/fossil theory. Three of the most important are these: (1) The Cambrian explosion of complex, multi-celled life at the bottom of the geologic column of fossil strata. (2) There are no transitional species throughout the column. This problem is also called fossil gaps or missing links. (3) Mixed-up and out-of-order strata are regularly found. Each of these factors is discussed in this chapter. Singly or together, they destroy the evolutionary argument from the rock strata. But there are many more. We will discuss a surprising number of them in this chapter.
3 - COMPLEXITY AT THE BEGINNING
One of the most common creatures found in the lowest--the Cambrian strata, are trilobites. These were small swimming creatures belonging to the same group as the insects (the arthropods). Yet careful study reveals that they had extremely complex eyes. The mathematics needed to work out the lens structure of these little creatures was not developed until the middle of the last century.
MACBETH SPEAKS Here is how an expert describes it. *Norman Macbeth, in a speech at Harvard University in 1983, said this:
"I have dealt with biologists over the last twenty years now. I have found that, in a way, they are hampered by having too much education. They have been steeped from their childhood in the Darwinian views, and, as a result, it has taken possession of their minds to such an extent that they are almost unable to see many facts that are not in harmony with Darwinism. These facts simply aren't there for them often, and other ones are sort of suppressed or distorted. I'll give you some examples.
"First, and perhaps most important, is the first appearance of fossils. This occurs at a time called the "Cambrian," 600 million years ago by the fossil reckoning. The fossils appear at that time in a pretty highly developed form. They don't start very low and evolve bit by bit over long periods of time. In the lowest fossil-bearing strata of all [the Cambrian], they are already there, and are pretty complicated in more-or-less modern form.
"One example of this is the little animal called the trilobite. There are a great many fossils of the trilobite right there at the beginning with no buildup to it [no evolution of life forms leading to it]. And, if you examine them closely, you will find that they are not simple animals. They are small, but they have an eye that has been discussed a great deal in recent years, an eye that is simply incredible.
"It is made up of dozens of little tubes which are all at slightly different angles so that it covers the entire field of vision, with a different tube pointing at each spot on the horizon. But these tubes are all more complicated than that, by far. They have a lens on them that is optically arranged in a very complicated way, and it is bound into another layer that has to be just exactly right for them to see anything . . But the more complicated it is, the less likely it is simply to have grown up out of nothing.
"And this situation has troubled everybody from the beginning--to have everything at the very opening of the drama. The curtain goes up [life forms first appear in the Cambrian strata] and you have the players on the stage already, entirely in modern costumes." *Norman Macbeth, Speech at Harvard University, September 24, 1983, quoted in L. D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma (1988), p. 150.
Extremely complicated creatures at the very beginning, with nothing leading up to them; that is the testimony of the strata. The rocks cry out; they have a message to give us.
THOSE MARVELOUS TRILOBITES There are enormous numbers of complex trilobites in the Cambrian strata, yet below the Cambrian there is hardly anything that resembles a fossil. As mentioned above, these little creatures had marvelously complicated eyes. But they also had other very advanced features: (1) Jointed legs and appendages, which indicate that they had a complex system of muscles. (2) Chitinous exoskeleton (horny substance as their outer covering), which indicates that they grew by periodic ecdysis, a very complicated process of molting. (3) Compound eyes and antennae, which indicate a complex nervous system. (4) Special respiratory organs, which indicate a blood circulation system. (5) Complex mouth parts, which indicate specialized food requirements.
(Another of the many types of creatures, found in great numbers in the Cambrian strata, are segmented marine worms. As with trilobites, we find that they also had a complex musculature, specialized food habits and requirements, blood circulatory system, and advanced nervous system.) The Cambrian rocks contain literally billions of the little trilobites, plus many, many other complex species. Yet below the Cambriancalled the "Precambrian," we find almost nothing in the way of life-forms. The message of the rock strata is "SUDDENLY abundant life; below that, NO LIFE!" Where this terrific explosion of abundance of life beginsin the Cambrianwe find complexity, not simplicity of life forms.
NOT SIMPLE TO COMPLEX The evolutionists maintain that the fossil record goes from the simple to the complex. In this chapter we show that the simple creatures were also complex. But there are actually few examples in the fossil record of anything like "from simple to complex" progression. This is partly due to the fact that the fossils suddenly appear in great numbers and variety, too much so for much simple-to-complex progression to be sorted out.
"The actual percentage of areas showing this progressive order from the simple to the complex is surprisingly small. Indeed formations with very complex forms of life are often found resting directly on the basic granites. Furthermore, I have in my own files a list of over 500 cases that attest to a reverse order, that is, simple forms of life resting on top of more advanced types." *Growing Doubts: Is Evolutionary Theory Valid? p. 4.
TRILOBITE
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Complex creatures are found all through the Cambrian level. (In chapter 16, Invertebrates, we will provide you with amazing examples of their complexity.) In the Cambrian we find sponges, corals, jellyfish, mollusks, trilobites, crustaceans, and, in fact, every one of the major invertebrate forms of life.
Included here are complex organs, such as intestines, stomachs, bristles and spines. Eyes and feelers show the presence of nervous systems. For example, consider the specialized sting-cells (nematocysts) in the bodies of jellyfish, with their coiled, thread-like harpoons which are explosively triggered. How could this evolve?
Let no one say that the Cambrian level only has "simple, primitive," or "half-formed" creatures.
4 - SUDDEN APPEARANCE Of LIFE
CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION The lowest strata that has fossils is the Cambrian. Below that is the Precambrian which has no fossils, other than an occasional algae. Paleontologists call that amazing situation the "Cambrian explosion"
Beginning with the very lowest of the fossil strata--the Cambrian--we find a wealth of fossil types. But each type--each species--of fossil in the Cambrian is different from the others. There is no blending between them! It requires evolving--blending across species--to produce evolution, but this never occurs today, and it never occurred earlier. Look at the fossils: in the ancient world there were only distinct species. Look at the world around you: in the modern world there are only distinct species.
There are vast numbers--billions--of fossils of thousands of different species of complex creatures in the Cambrian, and below it is next to nothing. The vast host of transitional species leading up to the complex Cambrian species are totally missing!
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EVERY MAJOR LIFE GROUP HAS BEEN FOUND IN THE CAMBRIAN In 1961, *Kai Peterson wrote:
"The invertebrate animal phyla are all represented in Cambrian deposits." *Kai Peterson, Prehistoric Life on Earth, p. 56.
That means that, in the Cambrian fossil strata, is to be found at least one species from every phyla of backboneless animal. Only one phylum had been missing: the vertebrates. At the time when Peterson wrote, it was believed that no vertebrates (animals with backbones) appeared until the Lower Ordovician (just above the Cambrian). But in 1977 that belief was shattered, when fully developed fish (heterostracan vertebrate fish fossils) were discovered in the Upper Cambrian strata of Wyoming. Reported in Science magazine for May 5, 1978, this discovery placed every major animal phylum group in the Cambrian rocks! Although never discussed in school textbooks, this news came as a distinct shock to the professional world. For evolutionists, the situation continues to get worse.
With the "Cambrian Explosion" suddenly appears every major type of living thing. This fact totally devastates the basis of evolutionary theory. Plants and every type of animal have been found in the Cambrian strata. Although evolutionists prefer not to discuss it, the truth is that at least one representative of EVERY PHYLUM has been found in the Cambrian!
"Until recently, the oldest fish fossils known were from the Middle Ordovician Herding Sandstone of Colorado. These were of 'primitive' heterostracan fishes (Class Agnatha) which are jawless. The Vertebrates were the only major animal group not found as fossils in Cambrian rocks.
"[The 1976 discovery of heterostracan fish fossils in Cambrian is discussed in detail] . . This discovery of fishes (vertebrates) in the Cambrian is without question the most significant fossil discovery in the period 195&1979. The evidence is now complete that all of the major categories of animal and plant life are found in the Cambrian." Marvin L. Lubenow, "Significant Fossil Discoveries Since 1958, " in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1980, p. 157.
Not only complex animal life, but complex plant life is represented in the Cambrian! Flowering plants are generally considered to be one of the most advanced forms of life in the plant kingdom. Spores from flowering plants have also been found in Cambrian strata.
"Spores attributed to terrestrial plants have been found in Precambrian and Cambrian rocks in the Baltic. Whether some of these are from bryophytes is uncertain." *Robert F. Scagel, et al., Plant Diversify: an Evolutionary Approach (1969), p. 25.
During the Genesis Flood, plants would tend to have washed into higher strata, but their pollen could easily have been carried into the earliest alluvial layers: the Cambrian and even the Precambrian.
"Just as fossils of most of the other land plants have been discovered in Cambrian deposits, so it is with the flowering plants. In 1947, Ghosh and Boss reported discovering angiosperm vessels with alternate pitting and libriform fibres of higher dicotyledons from the Salt Pseudomorph Beds and the Dandot overfold, Salt Range, Punjab, India. These are Cambrian deposits. They later confirmed that further investigation confirmed their original report, and the same results were obtained from the Cambrian Vindbyan System, and the Cambrian of Kashmirthese Kashmir beds also contained several types of trilobites. The review articles of Axelrod and Leclercq acknowledge these findings." Marvin L. Lubenow, "Significant Fossil Discoveries Since 1958," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1980, p. 154.
"Clifford Burdick reports finding angiosperm pollen grains in the Upper Precambrian Hakati Shale of the Grand Canyon in 1964 and 1965 while working with the University of Arizona." Ibid.
"Thus at least three workers have reported six separate discoveries of angiosperms in the Cambrian and Late Precambrian. In total, this paper has documented thirty-two individual localities where discoveries of land plant fossils have been made in the Cambrian or below. Writing in 1959, Axelrod stated that at that time approximately 60 Cambrian spore-genera have been reported. " Ibid.
So seeds from the most complex of plants have been found in the lowest strata.
5 - NO LIFE BELOW IT
PRECAMBRIAN In contrast, there is next to nothing answering to life forms beneath the Cambrian!
The Cambrian is the lowest fossil strata level. It is extremely rich in fossilized life forms. There are at least 1500 different invertebrate species in the Cambrian. All of them are small very slow-moving sea creatures. Ranked by gross quantity, 60 percent of the fossils in the Cambrian are the tiny, complex trilobites (each one of which has those astounding multiple eyesight tubes), while 30 percent are various types of brachiopods. (Brachiopods are bivalves: shelled sea creatures with a top and a bottom shell.)
One of the organisms found in the Cambrian is the two-foot long Anomalocaris, a two-foot long carnivorous creature, which *Gould says was a fierce marine animal (*S.J. Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (1989), p. 194.)
Below the Cambrian strata is the Precambrian, and here we find few or no fossils at all! In the fossil record, life suddenly appears in widely-varied profusion. Below the Cambrian there is barrenness!
Multicellular animals appear suddenly and in rich profusion in the Cambrian, and none are ever found beneath it (*Preston Cloud, "Pseudofossils: A Plea for Caution," in Geology, November 1973, pp. 123-127.)
It is true that there are a few disputed items in the Precambrian, which some suggest to be life forms. But a majority of scientists recognize that, at best, these are only algae. Blue-green algae, although small plants, are biochemically quite complex, for they utilize an elaborate solar-to-chemical energy transformation, or photosynthesis. Such organisms could have been growing on the ground when the waters of the Flood first inundated it.
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