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Dinosaur Footprints - Evidence There Was a Global Flood?

The following is a summary of chapter 12 in the book A Beginner's Guide to Tracking Dinosaurs" written by the science pastor.

For dinosaur footprints to be preserved, the following is required:

1. A dinosaur steps in mud or wet sand, leaving an impression.
2. The impression is buried quickly, deeply AND gently. An energetic burial or wave action would erode the footprint. The footprint must be buried quickly and deeply to protect it from being destroyed by rain, weather, trampling by other animals, drying and crumbling, or other environmental conditions.
3. The sediment must become stone, while retaining the impression. Some theorize this happens before burial, as a result of the sun baking the mud. However, if that was the case the footprint would show some debris collection and damage due to weathering, if it even lasted long enough to harden in the sun. Hardening in the sun takes time, which would result in vegetation sprouting in or near the footprint. Vegetation is not seen growing in sediment with dinosaur tracks.

Real World Track Evidence - Connecticut River Valley

Note: the tracks in our museum come from the Connecticut River Valley

• Tracks are found on flat bedding planes with no signs of vegetation growing.
• Dinosaur tracks are found in rippled sediment, indicating the dinosaur was walking in shallow moving water that created ripples. Tracks made by swimming dinosaurs, whose feet were just barely touching the bottom, are seen at Dinosaur State Park in Connecticut (about 50 miles south of the Nash Quarry).
• There essentially no herbivore tracks. Nearly all theropod dinosaurs (carnivores). What did they eat? There usually needs to be a ratio of at least 10 to 15 herbivores for every carnivore. We do not see that.
• Our tracks come from the Nash's Dinosaur Track Quarry. They have dug up tracks from about six vertical feet and thousands of fine, thin layers of sediment. Throughout all of the multiple layers of sediment the same type of tracks are found, layer after layer after layer. The same type of dinosaur was walking here while at least six feet of sediment built up. We don't see anything like that happening today.
• The fossil tracks are in nearly every layer, frequently overlapping the tracks above and below. If tracks were buried by annual floods, we would see a layer of tracks, then layers with no tracks (the sediment from the annual flood), then another layer of tracks made by dinosaurs walking around on the top of the new layers of sediment. Then the pattern would repeat. But, that is not what is observed. What is observed appears to be the result of a continuous sedimentation with dinosaurs walking on it as the layers built up.
• In general, tracks show walking dinosaurs with no preferential direction. In other words, the dinosaurs don't seem to have any place to go. They are not going toward a lake to drink. The are not hunting. The are walking in random directions. Basically milling about. Tracks are found throughout a 50 mile stretch of the valley, with the same behavior observed everywhere.

None of this is normal. None of this is what we see happening today.

Evidence From Around the World

• Tracks are found on flat bedding plains with no vegetation.
• Trackways typically go in straight lines, and in most cases they do not have a preferred direction.
• Many track sites are dominated by carnivores, with few tracks made by herbivores.
• Some dinosaur tracks are found in sediment containing marine fossils and in sediments that only form underwater.
Some dinosaur tracks are found in coal, which supposedly forms at the bottoms of swamps. Not a place a dinosaur could walk and leave footprints.
• While large numbers of bones are found, very few fossil tracks were made by dinosaurs with a body plan indicating they were poor swimmers. Fossilized tracks are made by dinosaurs that have a body plan indicating they had some ability to swim.

The Evidence Points to a Global Flood

We do not see anything happening anywhere that could produce the physical evidence we see. The evidence points to a global flood that quickly deposited massive amounts of sediment on a nearly continuous basis. That would explain, for example, the flat bedding plains that go on for miles with no vegetation. It explains the aimless wandering. It explains the tracks in coal and marine sediments. It explains the preponderance of carnivores. As groups of dinosaurs became trapped by the rising waters, the carnivores would eat all of the herbivores.

The Bible has the right answer.

More Information

A stampede of Swimming Dinosaurs (CMI)

Thousands of Dinosaur Footprints Found in China (CIM)

Tracking Those Incredible Dinosaurs (ICR)

Video Image Credits (CC License):
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dinosaur_footprints_in_ToroToro_Bolivia.jpg - Credit: Havardtl
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dinosaur_footprints_(Dakota_Sandstone,_Lower_Cretaceous;_Dinosaur_Ridge,_Colorado,_USA)_11_(21589104073).jpg - James St. John