The Fossil Record 67exactly what part of the Ordovician each layer came from by its characteristic fossils. You
could not ask for a better refutation of flood geology—yet the Answers in Genesis ministry
that built the museum is so ignorant of geology and paleontology that they never noticed
that the foundation of their own showcase building falsifies their ideas.
We could go on and on about the endless list of absurdities of flood geology (for a point-
by-point demolition of Whitcomb and Morris’s fantasy world, see McGowan 1984:58–67),
but I will sum it up with one more example. I did some of my graduate dissertation work in
the Big Badlands of South Dakota, one of the richest vertebrate-bearing fossil deposits in the
world (fig. 3.6). The sequence of fossils there is very well known, and we can now establish
the precise ranges of organisms through several hundred feet of sandstones and mudstones.
Indeed, establishing the biostratigraphic sequence of the mammal fossils was a major part of
FIGURE 3.6. The sequence of fossils in the White River Group in Badlands National Park shows that even
slow turtles are fossilized above supposedly smarter, faster mammals, so the “flood geology” model makes
absolutely no sense whatsoever. The fossils are as follows: A–C: mollusks from the Cretaceous interior seaway:
(A) the ammonite Hoploscaphites nicolleti; (B) the clam Tenuipteria fibrosa; (C) the ammonite Discoscaphites
cheyennensis; D–F: mammals from the upper Eocene Chadron Formation; (D) the piglike entelodont Archaeo-
therium mortoni; (E) the predatory creodont Hyaenodon horridus; (F) the giant titanothere Megacerops; G–L:
fossil vertebrates from the early Oligocene Scenic Member of the Bruel Formation; (G) the tortoise Stylemys
nebrascensis; (H) the squirrel-like rodent Ischyromys typus; (I) the larger oreodont Merycoidodon culbertsoni; (J)
the “false sabertooth” Hoplophoneus primaevus; (K) the three-toed horse Mesohippus bairdi; (L) the hippo-like
rhinoceros Metamynodon planifrons; M–P, middle Oligocene fossil mammals from the Poleslide Member
of the Brule Formation; (M) the rabbit Palaeolagus haydeni; (N) the tiny deerlike Leptomeryx evansi; (O) the
oreodont Leptauchenia decora; (P) the horned Protoceras celer. (Drawing by G. J. Retallack; reprinted with
permission of the author and the Geological Society of America)