Figure 20. Brachiopoda as marine reference taxa and its global fossil distribution mapped out by megasequence over the course of the whole flood. The data were generated by age delineated PBDB CSV files globally mapped using an in-house Python program. able early-Flood boundary ideas. Because some creation scientists have prematurely placed the post-Flood boundary at the end of the earlier Cretaceous System they have to explain the sudden appearance of whale fossils beyond this boundary. In so doing, they have claimed that these large marine mammals evolved rapidly from ancestors that walked out of the Ark (Wise 2009). But did whales really evolve from land-dwelling Ark ancestors? Whale evolution would have required numerous and exceptionally rapid changes in anatomy and physiology – all in only the space of about 200 years or less. A better explanation for the diversity of land mammals buried in the interior sediments of the continents during the Tejas, and the burial of marine creatures along with whales on the coastal margins, is that this action was part of the late Flood runoff. This can be documented by the discoveries of large, likely bloated, and buoyant carcasses of dead marine mammals like whales in Tejas bone beds globally. These would have been some of the last marine creatures to have been buried in the Flood. CONCLUSION Megasequences are defined on the basis of major erosional boundaries, often reflected by sudden changes in rock type and/or pre-Flood environment. Some of these changes correspond to rapid shifts in the fossil content as noted above and even apparent extinctions. The fossils deposited in each megasequence are dependent on the pre-Flood environment being inundated, tectonic forces at work, currents, waves and the height of relative sea level (Clarey 2020). We examined the fossil record in light of these megasequences, using these basic observations found globally: 1) sudden appearance of taxa, 2) stasis (similar taxa as living or later appearing taxa in the rock record), 3) marine mixing (a predominant feature throughout the rock record), and 4) burial by ecological zonation (sequential feature of the progressive Flood). Tracking some of the unique fossils within each megasequence has confirmed the model of a progressive Flood. As the water rose higher during the Flood year, it continually inundated different ecological zones. Apparent extinctions result when a complete ecosystem has been completely buried by the Flood waters and a new ecological zone with different types of fossils is then reached. This results in a systematic and global fossil and rock TOMKINS AND CLAREY Paleontology of the Global Flood 2023 ICC 585
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