Much of the plant life found buried in Permian strata overlaps with the Upper Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian system) strata, such as the swamp-like large plants that grew as tall as 30 meters called Lepidodendron and Sigillaria (Prothero and Dott 2009; Wicander and Monroe 2016). However, seed ferns and conifers also began to be buried in these Flood sediments since they were likely living slightly more inland from the coastal forests and swamps along the ocean shorelines. The land fossils found in the Permian strata also reflect the inundation of the lowland and coastal wetland environments that comprise this layer globally. These comprise a variety of Archosauria and insects (Figure 10). The various conifer plant groups were a diverse mix in the Permian rocks. These ecosystems also included large trees like ginkgos and cycads along with seed ferns. Not only are many types of cycads still with us today in rainforests and near coastal regions, but ginkgos too. Although ginkgos appeared suddenly in the fossil record in the Permian, they look exactly like ginkgo trees growing around the world today. Conifers found in Permian strata are very similar in appearance to current living counterparts and were as broadly adapted to diverse ecosystems as many conifers are today. In the global Flood model of progressively laying down global megasequences, the Permian level falls within the Lower Absaroka Megasequence. This makes perfect sense since the Absaroka also begins with the Upper Carboniferous sediments, which have extensive overlap with the Lower Permian in regard to the types of plants and animals that are entombed within it. Thus, we can clearly see the progressive burial of land-based ecosystems starting at the interior edge of the lycopod coastal forests and swamps found in Carboniferous strata and extending into the higher-elevation, near-coastal tropical rainforests found in Permian strata. As we look higher in the Permian strata, we see fossils representing progressively higher elevations and leading into layers where the Permian terminates the Paleozoic. F . Triassic – (Middle Absaroka Megasequence) fossils The Triassic system which is entirely composed of Absaroka sediments is problematic for evolutionists because it represents both a continuance of many life forms found buried in lower strata combined with unexplained sudden appearances and a claimed recovery from an unresolved mass extinction event. In addition, many unique land-based life forms make mysterious sudden appearances in the Triassic without any previous evolutionary ancestry. In addition, this massive enigmatic fossil assemblage was deposited at about the onset of the breakup of a once-existent mega-continent (Pangaea). In fact, the oldest ocean crust found today goes back to the Triassic, supporting this plate tectonic interpretation. However, the evolutionary confusion over this curious quandary of catastrophically buried fossils and tectonic events makes perfect sense when we apply a model of progressive burial by ecological zonation and rapid plate tectonics associated with the global Flood of Genesis. One of the chief enigmas that evolutionists have at the base of the Triassic is an apparent mass extinction event at the Permian-Triassic (P-Tr) boundary. The mystery lies in the fact that the timing, or the order of buried plants and animals, is very convoluted and drawn out in evolutionary deep-time thinking. Many Permian marine organisms were abundant right up to the P-Tr boundary, but land life showed several smaller extinction events leading up the P-Tr boundary. This is especially true with land plant fossils that allegedly exhibited a more tiered extinction, with many of their fossils extending well into the Triassic. In other words, why is there a more sudden and extensive marine creature extinction compared to a more staggered land extinction? And why is the timing different between land animals, land plants, and marine creatures regarding the overall event, which according to evolutionists took about 15 million years? Furthermore, why did this event occur in the middle of a global megasequence (Absaroka) and not at one of its boundaries? As the global Flood progressed, it involved increasingly more tectonic plate activity accompanied by the development of new seafloor. This increasing volume of new seafloor was concurrent with the escalating inundation of land with tsunami waves and marine sediments. As noted earlier, Permian strata leading up to the alleged mass extinction of marine life at the P-Tr actually represented the increasing accumulation and systematic burial of the many offshore ocean ecosystems. Land life later entombed in Triassic rocks represents the increasing water height and subsequent burial of tropical and semitropical forest biomes farther inward on the Pangaea mega-continent (Clarey 2020). This is why we see such a rich diversity of plant-eating animals that were living in these lush forests, along with a rich diversity of Archosauria that were well adapted to such environments. In the progressive global Flood model, higher water levels also caused the deposition of increasingly more extensive megasequences. And the Triassic represents the middle part of the deposition of the Absaroka Megasequence when the Flood waters really began to cover major parts of the continents (Clarey and Werner 2023). Recall, the Absaroka began in the Upper Carboniferous, continued through the Permian, and is responsible for the entire deposition of the Triassic. As mentioned above, Pangaea began its breakup in the Triassic. This is especially visible along the modern North America East Coast and the West Coast of Africa, where these two continents first separated from each other. Global maps of the oceanic crust show Triassic rocks along the continental margins of North America and Africa at the point of separation (Müller et al. 2008). While the prolonged and disorderly extinctions coupled with plant and animal life that never went extinct across the P-Tr boundary make little sense in light of evolution, they integrate seamlessly with a model of progressive burial over the year-long global Flood of Genesis. As sea level continued to rise due to massively extensive seafloor spreading, higher and higher waves crashed across the continents, burying entire ecosystems in their wake. This better explains the order of burial of the fossil plants and animals observed in the Triassic strata. To illustrate the continuing progression of the Flood onto land and the burial of terrestrial animals, the PBDB was queried using Archosauria, Insecta, and Mammalia as filters for the Triassic (Figure 11). It is possible the so-called P-Tr extinction is another example of a dramatic shift in environment as the water reached different ecological zones on land. However, marine extinctions at this level are more difficult to explain. Did larger tsunami-like waves bring in distinctly different marine fossils at the same level? Or were waves coming from different directions with different marine fossils? G. Jurassic (Uppermost Absaroka Megasequence– Lower Zuni Megasequence) fossils As described previously, one of the chief enigmas that evolutionists have at the beginning of the Triassic is an apparent mass extinction event at the base, known as the Permian-Triassic (P-Tr) boundary. However, these ongoing enigmatic and convoluted so-called extinction events continue to be a recurring problem that is difficult to explain from evolutionary assumptions. TOMKINS AND CLAREY Paleontology of the Global Flood 2023 ICC 573
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