The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

the outer edges of the pre-Flood land masses, possibly in lagoons and/or in shallow waters, fringing the coast of areas like the proposed ‘dinosaur peninsula’ (figure 3). The lycopod trees may have been simply torn loose and deposited en masse within the lower sedimentary strata of the Absaroka Megasequence as the floodwaters continued to rise…. All geologic data support a ‘grounded’ lycopod forest that was growing attached to the pre-Flood land surface. (p. 55). Furthermore, Clarey and Tomkins (2016) consider tree-lycopsid rhizomorphs and trunks to have been filled with aerenchyma (parenchyma with limited wall-to-wall contact and cell-sized or larger air spaces between cells, thus a spongy tissue) not hollow air chambers and, therefore, not candidates for a floating lifestyle since the cells, though widely spaced allowing air flow, would still have been filled with water. They describe it: Another line of reasoning put forth in support of the floating-forest hypothesis is that the arborescent lycopod trees were allegedly hollow in both their main aerial trunks and in their stigmarian roots—a contention based primarily on superficial speculation and not soundly supported by the scientific literature (Clarey and Tomkins 2016, p. 118). Therefore, given the pervasive acceptance of the autochthonous origin of coal in coastal mires or swamps among conventional scientists and the objections within the creationist community, we need to examine the biology of the dominant coal plants in the post-1940 conventional paleobotanical literature to provide sound support by the scientific literature for a floating lifestyle. We survey the paleobotanical literature in a separate paper (Sanders and Austin, 2018). CONCLUSION Three hundred years ago, French botanist Antoine de Jussieu (1718) made important observations leading to the series of critical geological studies on the origin of Carboniferous coal that continue to the present. Autochthonous and allochthonous explanations in the early Nineteenth Century showed how scientific methodology becomes involved in coal interpretation. Autochthonous modelers used the paleobotany-strata-petrology-environment method, while allochthonous modelers used the petrology-strata-paleobotany- environment method. The two methodologies are best displayed at the end of the Nineteenth Century in the consensus autochthonists versus the French School allochthonists. Are coals terrestrial or subaqueous? Three explanations have been offered for the origin of coal: (1) peat swamp model, (2) drift model, and (3) floating mat model. Many paleobotany questions about lycopods and tree ferns had not been solved at the end of the Nineteenth Century, but the “floating mat model” offered a very robust path to direct research. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the Twentieth Century when the uniformitarian paradigm prevailed, the floating mat model was intentionally suppressed. We are here telling the three-hundred- year story for the first time. Although a strong sedimentary case can be made for the floating mat model for prominent Carboniferous coal beds, many geologists resist this way of thinking because (1) the scale of mat sedimentation is colossal and associated with marine flooding, and (2) the coal- forming plants are supposed to have been adapted uniquely to the terrestrial swamp environment. This second supposition is now challenged by an improved paleoecology of tree lycopsids and the dominant coal-forest tree-fern Psaronius (Sanders and Austin, 2018). REFERENCES Anonymous. 1900. The origin of coal. Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 58(2):430-432. Arber, E.A.N. 1912. The Natural History of Coal. Cambridge University Press. Austin, S.A. 1979. Depositional Environment of the Kentucky No. 12 Coal Bed (Middle Pennsylvanian) of Western Kentucky, with Special Reference to the Origin of Coal Lithotypes [Ph.D. dissertation]. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University. Austin, S.A. 1980. Depositional environment of mummified bark sheets in the Kentucky No. 12 coal bed. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program 12, no. 7:380. Austin, S.A. 1991. Floating logs and log deposits of Spirit Lake, Mount St. Helens Volcano National Monument, Washington. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program 23, no. 5:85. Azza, N., P. Denny, J. Van der Koppel, and F. Kansiime. 2006. Floating mats: Their occurrence and influence on shoreline distribution of emergent vegetation. Freshwater Biology 51:1286-1297. Breton, L. 1885. Etude sur le Mode de Formation de la Houille du Bassin Franco-Belge . F. Savey: Paris. Bruce, W. 2002. The salinity of a floating forest. Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 16:96-98. Clarey, T.L. 2015. Examining the floating forest hypothesis: A geological perspective. Journal of Creation 29, no. 3:50-55. Clarey, T.L., and J.P. Tomkins. 2016. Investigation into an in situ lycopod forest site and structural anatomy invalidates the floating-forest hypothesis. Creation Research Society Quarterly 53:110-122. Coffin, H.G. 1969. Research on the classic Joggins petrified trees. Creation Research Society Quarterly 6, no. 1: 35-44. Coffin, H.G. 1987. Sonar and scuba survey of a submerged allochthonous “forest” in Spirit Lake, Washington. Palaios 2:178-180. Cohen , A.D. 1970. An allochthonous peat deposit from Southern Florida. Geological Society of America Bulletin 81:2477-2482. Dawson, J.W. 1854. On the coal-measures of the South Joggins, Nova Scotia. 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