The Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Creationism (2023)

post-Flood boundary. However, non-zero NLSSS values are possible for marine organisms that established themselves before the end of the Flood. For our analysis to be a definitive argument against a middle or upper Cenozoic Flood/post-Flood boundary, it should be repeated on entirely terrestrial organisms. An interesting peculiarity of earth history suggests yet another criterion for identifying the Flood/post-Flood boundary. As is almost universally accepted by creationists, continental glaciation occurred entirely after the Flood. When continental glaciation was at its maximum, enough water was trapped in continental glaciers to drop global sea level about 130 meters from post-Flood, pre-glacial times. Although subsequent melting of these glaciers has raised sea level substantially, sea level is still about 80 meters below pre-glacial levels. As a result of this, the lowest 80 meters of super-tidal sediments on continental margins (and higher sediments that have been tectonically raised since deposition) are marine shelf sediments from postFlood, pre-glacial times. Being above sea level as they are, these coastal plain sediments are easily scoured for fossils, so the PBDB has thousands of records of fossils from post-Flood marine sediments that would otherwise be largely unknown to us if they were still below sea level. Because these are places where marine taxa could have established themselves before the end of the Flood, NLSSS values could be high in coastal plain sediments around the world. Thus, the NLSSS values for terrestrial taxa should be high everywhere below the Flood/post-Flood boundary, zero at the boundary, and high on the continents interior to their coastal plain sediments and zero elsewhere. At the same time, NLSSS values for marine taxa below the Flood/post-Flood boundary will be high everywhere, and above the Flood/post-Flood boundary should be high in coastal plain sediments and zero on the continents interior to their coastal plain sediments. When we examined the boundary-straddling species of the Cenozoic zone, terrestrial taxa were almost exclusively restricted to continental localities interior to coastal plain locations. The few exceptions could be explained by terrestrial organisms washed out to sea. For the same boundaries, marine taxa are restricted to coastal plain localities in all areas of the world except one large region—the mountain chain stretching from central Europe through the Middle East and across the top of India. Woodmorappe (1983: map 34) mapped the very same distribution of Cenozoic index fossils. Clarey (2017, 2020; Clarey and Werner 2019) noted marine sediments in the Cenozoic of central Europe, Turkey, and the Middle East—i.e., along the same chain of Eurasian mountains. We suspect that a close examination of the mountain fold-belt stretching from Europe through China will reveal that the Cenozoic marine sediments were all deposited along continental margins just above current sea level, and were subsequently uplifted to modern elevations by late Cenozoic plate collisions. If this hypothesis proves true, all marine boundary-straddling species worldwide are restricted to coastal plain sediments throughout the Cenozoic and all terrestrial boundary-straddling taxa are restricted to the continents interior to the coastal plain sediments (except those washed out to sea). We would consider this extremely strong evidence that all or nearly all the Cenozoic is post-Flood. Definitive arguments for the location of the world’s Flood/post-Flood boundary must await NLSSS reanalysis of terrestrial vs. marine organisms and a geologic study of the Eurasian mountains. However, we did examine the terrestrial vs. marine boundary-straddling species of North America for the location of the Flood/post-Flood boundary in North America. Starting with the uppermost stage-stage boundary (boundary 114), marine boundary-straddling species are restricted to coastal plain sediments in boundaries 114 through 112, absent altogether in boundary 111, and restricted to coastal plain sediments, again, in boundaries 110 through 94. In contrast, terrestrial boundary-straddling taxa are found at continental locations interior to coastal plain sediments at boundary 93 down (e.g., at 56 of the 57 continental interior locations at boundary 93, 5 of the 12 at boundary 92, 2 of the 3 at boundary 91, and 22 of the 23 at boundary 90). This strongly argues that the Flood/post-Flood boundary is located just below boundary 94—i.e., just below the Danian/Selandian boundary (the first biostratigraphic boundary above the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary). The fact that this boundary (and the one following it) represent a substantial worldwide dip in boundary-straddling species provides further justification for this being the Flood/post-Flood boundary in North America. 2. Biostratigraphic pulses in the Cenozoic zone In the Cenozoic zone there are 6 NLSSS peaks (boundaries 98, 101, 104, 106, 109, 113) and 5 NLSSS valleys between (boundaries 100, 102, 105, 108, 111). This alone suggests a periodicity of peaks every 3-4 boundaries or so. Our periodicity test did offer mild support to NLSSS periodicity (see Table 2). Every 4th boundary starting with the first boundary, every 5th boundary starting with the third and fourth boundaries, and every 6th boundary starting with the fifth boundary, all sum to values 1½ times the expected value if there was no periodicity. Thus the peaks at boundaries 98, 101, 104, 106, 109, 113, closely correspond to every 4th beginning with the 1st (94, 98, 102, 106, 110, 114), every 5th beginning with the 3rd (96, 101, 106, 111) or 4th (97, 102, 107, 112), and every 6th starting with the 5th (98, 104, 110). As in the case of the Precambrian-Cambrian zone, however, demonstration of periodicity in Cenozoic NLSSS is not automatically a demonstration of periodicity in time. If the Flood runs from somewhere between boundaries 8 and 25 to about boundary 94, then somewhere between 479 and 1738 million radiometric years elapsed during the year-long Flood, and only 61.6 million radiometric years elapsed in the last four and a half thousand years or so. And, if Lubenow (1992) is correct about Homo erectus being human, then the Old-World-wide distribution of the oldest H. erectus suggests that all of both the Pleistocene and Holocene are post-Babel. That would suggest that 479-1738 million radiometric years elapsed in 1 Flood year, then about 52.8 million radiometric years elapsed in a few centuries between the Flood and the Babel dispersion, and 1.8 million radiometric years elapsed in the four and half or so thousand years since Babel. As in the case of the Precambrian-Cambrian zone, then, it is not yet clear what the relationship is between radiometric and chronological time. Thus, it may be difficult demonstrating that periodicity in NLSSS data is actually periodicity in time. Even if the NLSSS peaks in the Cenozoic zone cannot be demonstrated to be periodic, they do seem rather dramatic. Eight boundaries show NLSSS increases of 50% or more over the previous boundary, and half of those more than doubled (column D, Table 1). Seven boundaries show %NLSSS increases of 50% or more over the previous boundary, and four of those more than doubled (column WISE and RICHARDSON Biostratigraphic continuity and earth history 2023 ICC 620

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