Module 5 Fossil Record

In this module, we will discuss various fossils and the fossil record.

Objectives
Students should understand how fossils are thought to have formed.
Students should be able to present the supporting and contradictory evidence for origins based on
fossil evidence.
Students should know what transitional fossils are and understand their implications and
importance for models of origins.
Students should be able to explain the difference between uniformitarianism and catastrophism.

Lesson 14 Fossil Formation is an introduction explaining what fossils are and how they are
believed to form. Creation and evolution predictions regarding fossils will be contrasted. We will
also explain how evolutionists use fossils to “dateâ€ﾝ strata. Sudden appearance of organisms
especially in the Cambrian explosion will be considered.

Background
The fossil record is one of the most significant areas in the creation/ evolution
controversy
Mistakes or vesteges of evolution
Tounels
Similarities- limbs, heads
Fossil record is different
Insist on the large scale changes
Fossiles are proof that organisims lived in the past
Types
Preserved body parts
Casts or molds
Imprints
Amber
Petrification
Formation of Fossils Requires
Rapid barrial
Rapid burial deposition of sediments
Rapid burial is required because organisms must escaple destruction and decomposition
Fossils are found in sedimentary rocks
Laid down under water
1. Erosion and deposition in Layers
2. Lithification: sediment changed into rock

Record Predictions for evolution

- gradual sequence from simple to complex organisms
- trasitional forms should be abundant
- living species signigicantly different than fossil ancestors
 - modern species should not be found in rocks older than rocks containing supposed
ancestors
Record Predictions for Creation
- sudden appearance of complex organisms with few transitional forms
- organism remain essentially the same to present or become extinct
- fossilized modern species could be found in rock containing extinct species
- different combinations of fossil species in different strata indicate exological zones
not evolutionary history

History of geology
Until mid to late 1700’s common belief was that sedimentary rocks and fossils were all
deposited in Noah’s flood

Catastrophism- rapid vilent major events could radically shape the planet very quickly
- Cuvier and other believes a series of catastrophes was supposedly responsible for
geoligica formation
- He thought God supernaturally repopulated the earth after each catastrophe
- Did not take a straightforward approach to scripture

Uniformitarianism- the present is the key to the past

- only processes observed today can be used to describe past events
- proposed by James Hutton popularized by Charles Lyell
- first theory to suggest that the earth was very old
- Viewed earth and universe as continuously changing with no beginning and no end
-
Unbiblical views were challenged by the Scriptural Geologist
- group who objected to both those views , come had compromised with day or gap age
- Theological jobjections
o Old earth Geologist ignored Gen 6-9
o Old earth postulates long ages of violence and death
- Geological objections
o Deposition of sediments was rapid
o Polystrate fossils
o Some fossil humans remains were found with extinct animals of supposed
earlier geological age
o Geology was really in its infancy
- some strata are very tightly folded

Difficulties with old earth geology

Polystrate Fossil
- some fossils exist through more than one strata
- fossilized or petrified tree
Other players
- Williams Smith: Biologic Succession
o Fossils increase in complexity with time and fossils could be used to identify
date strata around the globe
 o Chalres Darwin: Theory of natural selection
- Biological Succession
o Different types of prganisms are found in different types of strata
o Inceasing complexity occus more recently in geologic time
 Not really
- Fossil Predicitons
- Gradual or Sudden?
o Oldest rocks containing abundant fossils are from the Cambrian period
(5million years ago)
o Evolutions Big Bang
o Suddent appearance of a wide variety of living things with no apparent
ancestors
- Cambrian Fossil 543-510 Mya
o Marella Anomalocaris Eldonia Halucagenia horseshoe crabs
 Where are the ancestors?
o almost as if fossils were planted
-
Lesson 15 Fossil Record looks at the fossil record and the overall lack of expected transitional
intermediate fossils. In particular, we will focus on alleged evolution of whales
Fossil record and evolution
What is the evidence for evolution?
- often claimed as overwhelming
- only scienticfic evidence can be used
- three main lines of evidence
o microevolution
 Similarities
- fossil record
- vestiges and mistakes
Watch Gould evolution clip
Overwhelming evidence?
- Macroevolution: large changes
o Only observed in fossil record
 Mammals to reptiles
 Evolution of Whales
• Beautifully documented
Human evolution
Beautifully documented
Beginning with Australopithecines
What is the evidence?
- reptile to mammal
o no fossil amphibian seems clearly ancestoral to the lineage of fully terrestrial
vertebrates (retiles birds and mammals) by stephen Gould
 sinapsents appear at the same time, can not be evoled from them
o Anapsids and alleged evolutionary descendants (synapsids) appear at the same
time
 o Some specimens are known only by teeth and jaw fragments
- no fossil evidence for origin of mdern mammals: montresmes Marsupials placentals
Evolution of whales
- many alleged iuntermediates only appear as contemporaries
- some are based on very fragmentary evidence
- Pacacedus- part of lower jaw and part of skull- then drew conclusion of missing link-
by phil Gingerich
- Pakicetus 7 years later
o Clearly a terrestrial mammal
More Problems
Human Evolution
Bad chart
- History of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with
Gradualism
o Stasis – most species exhibit no directional change durning their tenure on
earth. They appear to stake the same
o Sudden appearance- on any local area a species does not arise gradually by the
steady transformation of its ancestors, it appears all at once
- livening fossils
o organisms remain the same
 crocdiles
 sharks
 coelocath
 ginko biloba
- Evolution of Verebrates
o Amohibians present in lower layers
o Transitional forms?
- Fish
o Placoderms- extinct armored fish
o Chondrichthys- sharks
o Osteichthys- bony fish, most modern fish
- Tetrapods – fourlimbed
o Amphibians are supposed to have evolved from fish
o What do the fossils show?
- archaeopteryc- between reptiles and birds
o supposed intermediate between dinosaurs and birds
o this is a bird
o many others have teeth and many modern birds have claws
o We see a mosaic – not a transition
- Record of Mammals
o Many different types of mammals throughout the rock record
o More modern groups first appear in ricks of cenozic age
o May represent post flood recolonization
Evolutionary history is missing
Are there transitional forms?
- An animal can be intermediate in form between two organisms without being a
genealogical transition between them – must be linked by ancestor
o Duck billed platypus (reptiles and mammals)
Are there any?
There are within each kind but not between
No transition between Dogs and cats
Most of their first appearance in the fossil record suddenly with no clear ancestral
group
The Trunk of the Trees are missing
Answer
Puncutated equilibrium
Long periods of stasis (no change) short periods of rapid change
Proposed by Gould and Eldridge

Lesson 16 Tale of the Trilobite (online video/DVD) This video was produced by the Geosciences
Research Institute. It presents a very balanced view of the fossil record weighing both the
strengths and weaknesses of the creation and evolution views.

Assigned readings:
Beginnings Chapter 8 Fossil Record