Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown.
Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other material.
129. Seashells on Mountaintops
Fossilized sea life lies atop every major mountain range on earth—far above sea level and usually far from the nearest body of water. Attempts to explain “seashells on mountaintops” have generated controversy for centuries.a
An early explanation was that a global flood covered these mountains, allowing clams and other sea life to “crawl” far and high. However, as Leonardo da Vinci wrote,b under the best conditions, clams move too slowly to reach such heights, even if the flood lasted hundreds of years. Also, the earth does not have enough water to cover these mountains, so others said that some sea bottoms sank, leaving adjacent sea floors (loaded with sea creatures) relatively high—what we today call mountains. How such large subterranean voids formed to allow this sinking was never satisfactorily explained. Still others proposed that sea bottoms rose to become mountains. The mechanisms, forces, and energy required to push up mountains were likewise never explained. Because elevations on earth change slowly, some wondered if sea bottoms could rise miles into the air, perhaps over millions of years. However, mountaintops, which experience destructive freezing and thawing cycles, erode relatively rapidly—and so should fossils slowly lifted by them. Also, mountaintops accumulate few sediments that might blanket and protect such fossils. Some early authorities, in frustration, said the animals and shells grew inside rocksc—or the rocks simply look like clams, corals, fish, and ammonites. Others denied the evidence even existed. Today, the evidence is usually ignored.d
The means by which mountains were pushed up in hours during a global flood will soon be presented. The mechanism is simple, the energy and forces are sufficient, and supporting evidence (pages 107–383) is voluminous—not just seashells on mountaintops.
Figure 39: Whales in the Desert. More than 80 fossilized whales have been discovered in a narrow 65-foot by 800-foot strip near the costal town of Caldera, Chile—in the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world.e The fossils include adult and juvenile baleen whales, an extinct sperm whale and porpoise, an extinct dolphin species with tusks, sharks, and a possible seal.
What concentrated such diverse large sea creatures, and how were they fossilized at the base of the Andes Mountains? A few species (sperm whales, killer whales, and dolphins) sometimes become disoriented and beach themselves, but not baleen whales, or the other powerful swimmers found in this mass graveyard. (SONAR often causes whales to beach themselves, but, of course, SONAR did not exist when these whales died.) Environmental factors might kill a variety of large sea animals, but that would not lift them so high,f concentrate them in an area the size of two football fields, and quickly bury them in enough sediments to provide excellent fossilization. Instead, the animals would decompose or be scavenged. If this happened over millions of years, what clustered so many, some even overlapping? Even if a whale became trapped in a lagoon, why would a shark—a sleek and powerful swimmer? Besides, what would drive so many different and large sea creatures into a lagoon?
Soon to be explained are the forces, energy, and mechanism that suddenly pushed land (including mountains and seashells) up above sea level toward the end of the flood. Evidence of that compression event can be seen in Figure 50 on page 113 and in thousands of similar places on earth. Not only did part of the seafloor rapidly raise to became the Andes Mountains, much of the overlying water rose as well. As it drained back into the sea, stranded sea creatures were swept down drainage channels and into ponds. The larger animals (whales, etc.) became lodged in the ponds, but many smaller animals (fish, etc.) were swept into and out of the ponds. Sediments eventually filled the ponds and fossilized these larger animals. Mystery solved.
In a few chapters, you will see that hours before the Andes suddenly rose, the earth’s crust on the Pacific side of the earth was pulled down and crumbled. The ring of fire surrounds the sunken Pacific crust; indeed, that is why the ring of fire is the most volcanically active and earthquake-prone region on earth. These large sea creatures lie on the thin coastline between the ring of fire and the Andes Mountains. Probably, all these animals were fleeing to the east, away from the deafening sounds and shock waves coming from the west. Then the seafloor beneath them rose as the compression event began.
PREDICTION 1: The 80 fossilized whales discovered so far in an area the size of two football fields is just the tip of the iceberg. Many similar graveyards will be found along the western base of the Andes Mountains.