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How Does A Fossil Become A Fossil?

To become a fossil an animal, or its tracks, must be buried quickly, completely, and deeply. Animals today are dying in the wild in huge numbers. Yet we don't see them becoming fossils. Why? When an animal dies it is quickly eaten by other animals, as well as insects and bacteria. But... doesn't that still leave the bones? No. If you've ever had a pet dog you known they love to crunch up bones. It only takes a few days until the dead animal is gone, bones and all.

The global flood (Noah's flood) explains where the fossils came from. The flood was catastrophic, massive and violent. It tore up the land resulting in raging waters heavily laden with sediment. AS it roared onto toward land that sediment laden tsunami quickly buried all forms of life. First the life in the water, such as clams and fish, and then life on land, including huge sauropod dinosaurs. But exactly how did this happen? Michael Oard has developed a hypothesis that answers this question. It is called "Briefly Exposed Deluvial Sediments," also known as BEDS.

Briefly Exposed Deluvial Sediments (BEDS)

People often imagine the Biblical flood as water slowly rising, like it does when filling a bathtub. That's not the way it was. Most of the water came from the fountains of the deep (Genesis 7:11). Covering the earth required much more water than could come from rain. As water vapor condenses to raindrops it releases heat. If a significant part of the water for the flood came from rain, the resulting heat would have boiled our planet. Most of the water came from underground. As the fountains of the deep opened up, the earth split (to release the water) and there were earthquakes, volcanoes, and subduction (causing the continents to separate) on a scale we can't imagine today. The result would be a massive sloshing of tsunami building on top of tsunami. The chart shown here is from Michael Oard's book, "Dinosaur Challenges and Mysteries." It shows the likely variation in water levels caused by tsunamis, as well as the normal tides... all acting together.

The chart shows a seven day period during the middle part of the rising waters. The water level continually rose, but superimposed on the rising waters were major tsunamis. A close-up view of the peak of one of those tsunamis is shown in the white box. There you see smaller fluctuations superimposed on the larger tsunami.

The result would be massive tsunamis pouring onto the land, depositing huge layers of sediment (and entombing organisms, footprints and eggs that would be fossilized), then retreating and exposing the fresh sediment which would be in a flat layer. Animals (including dinosaurs) would then walk around on the wet sediment until the next tsunami came and deposited more sediment... and then the next tsunami... and the next... and the next.

As shown in this illustration, as the overall level of the water globally continually rose, locally the water level would rise and fall, inundating the land, and then falling to expose fresh sediment and "dry" land. It took about 150 days before the water level started to go down. That's roughly six months of rising water. In other words, the water did not completely cover the earth immediately. Animals, such as dinosaurs, continued to live, eat each other, lay eggs (and there was enough time for eggs to hatch), and walk around leaving billions of their tracks for us to find before they died in the flood.

While scripture does not give us a detailed description of the events during the global flood, the "Briefly Exposed Deluviual Sediments" hypothesis provides a reasonable explanation of what happened as the waters of the flood rose providing the necessary, and unique conditions for fossils to form.

More Information

Argentina Egg Site Supports BEDS Model (CIM)

How Did the Waters of Noah’s Flood Drain Off the Continents? (CMI)

How Long Did the Flood Last? (AIG)

Recommended Book

Dinosaur Challenges and Mysteries by Michael J. Oard

Images from "Dinosaur Challenges and Mysteries" used with permission.