Djadokhta Formation

The Upper Cretaceous Djadokhta Formation of Mongolia Refutes the “Briefly Exposed Diluvial Sediments” (BEDS) Agenda of Oard (2011) and other Flood Geology Scenarios

Kevin R. Henke

December 15, 2016

Introduction

Dingus et al. (2008) describe sand deposits, dinosaur remains (bones, tracks and eggs) and other features in the Upper Cretaceous Djadokhta Formation of Mongolia. The evidence indicates that the formation largely formed under arid and semiarid terrestrial (desert or near desert) conditions, which are totally incompatible with the middle of Noah’s Flood. The formation consists of desert dunes, stream deposits, and sandslides (Dingus et al 2008). Although the sandslides were probably triggered by heavy rainstorms (Loope et al. 1999; Dingus et al. 2008, p. 28), sediment structures in the Djadokhta Formation indicate that other sand deposits were eolian (wind-blown) desert dunes (Dingus et al. 2008, pp. 4, 11; Fastovsky et al. 2011). On the basis of the multiple calcite layers and other features in the Djadokhta Formation, Dingus et al. (2008, pp. 13-14) argue that the depositional environment was drier at certain times than at others. Up to 24 calcite-cemented zones occur in some of the dunes (Dingus et al. 2008, p. 14). At least some of the calcite concretions started forming high on the slopes of bedforms and would have been high above the water table, and “high and dry” in the water unsaturated (vadose) zone (Dingus et al. 2008, p. 13). How could these multiple calcite-cemented layers and concretions develop during Noah’s Flood even under the Briefly Exposed Diluvial Sediments (BEDS) scenario promoted by Oard (2011)?

Calcite (calcium carbonate) in sands and bones is also very soluble in acids. Oard (2011, p. 125) suggests the presence of widespread acid emissions from erupting volcanoes during Noah’s Flood, which would produce acid rain. However, the presence of calcite and dinosaur bones (e.g., Loope et al. 1998, Figure 2, p. 28) at Cretaceous surfaces or near surfaces would rule out substantial acid rain for at least the Djadokhta Formation. Table 1 summarizes various features in the Djadokhta Formation and how consistent they are with actualism (modern uniformitarianism) and the BEDS Flood geology scheme in Oard (2011).

Table 1. The ability of the BEDS scenario (Oard 2011) and actualism to explain features in the Djadokhta Formation of Mongolia, which are discussed in Dingus et al. (2008) and Fastovsky et al. (2011). For further information, see Dingus et al. (2008) and Fastovsky et al. (2011).

Water- and Wind-deposited Sands in the Djadokhta Formation have Distinguishable Features

Of course, as a young-Earth creationist (YEC), Mr. Oard doesn’t want dinosaurs associated with wind-blown desert sands because deserts are totally incompatible with Noah’s Flood. For the Mongolian site, Oard (2011, p. 103) cites a brief news article, Monastersky (1998), and argues that the fossil-bearing sands do not resemble wind-blown deposits. For example, cobbles and other large particle (clast) sizes are present that are too large for wind transport. However, Oard (2011, p. 103) cherry picks and omits a lot of relevant information in Monastersky (1998) that refutes his Flood geology agenda. Although the fossil-bearing sands were deposited in water as Oard (2011, p 103) cites from Monastersky (1998), Oard (2011, p. 103) fails to mention that even in this brief news article, Monatersky (1998) indicates that wind-blown sands are also present at the Mongolian site. Unlike the desert dune sands, the water-lain sandslides lack sedimentary structures, but contain well-preserved fossils, clasts washed in from stream deposits, and nests with well-arranged eggs (Dingus et al. 2008, pp. 15-16). As further discussed below, Monastersky (1998) is yet another example of Oard (2011) selectively quoting small parts of an article and ignoring a lot of it because it totally undermines his make-believe world of Noah's Flood.

Could Dinosaurs have Lived in Deserts?

Oard (2011, pp. 39-40, 62) argues that oases in large deserts would not have provided enough food for large dinosaurs. However, known stream sediments occur in the Djadokhta Formation, at least at Bayn Dzak, Mongolia (Dingus et al. 2008, p. 15). Desert streams, if perennial, can provide abundant plants for herbivores, and where there’s abundant herbivores, carnivores can be present. Although actualism does not require modern analogs for past environments, modern examples are readily available to explain how large herbivores could easily survive in arid and semiarid environments. The Nile River, Colorado River and other rivers currently pass through deserts and support abundant vegetation and animal life.

Furthermore, when citing Monastersky (1998), Oard (2011, pp. 39-40, 62) ignores critical statements in this news article about research later summarized in Loope et al. (1998). According to Monastersky (1998), the depositional environment of the Mongolian fossils studied by Loope et al. (1998) resembled the modern Sand Hills of Nebraska. The climate of the Sand Hills is now wetter than it was when their dunes were actively forming and moving thousands of years ago. The Sand Hills currently have enough vegetation to support wildlife and cattle, and hinder wind transport. Similarly, the Cretaceous climate at the Mongolian sites was variable. When the Mongolian dinosaurs thrived at the sites studied by Loope et al. (1998), the climate was wetter than when the Cretaceous eolian sand dunes at the sites were active. In contrast, Monastersky (1998) also quotes David E. Fastovsky as stating that the analogy of the vegetated and dormant dunes of the Nebraska Sand Hills has limited applications at other Mongolian sites because he found evidence of dinosaurs suffocating in sandstorms (e.g., Fastovsky et al. 2011; also see discussions below). That is, other Mongolian sites studied by Fastovsky et al. had active dunes that killed dinosaurs. Both the information given by Loope et al. (1998) and Fastovsky et al. (2011) are totally incompatible with BEDS and Oard (2011) inappropriately neglects to mention and deal with this information when he cites Monatersky (1998).

While Oard (2011, p. 39, 62) scoffs at the idea of large dinosaurs having enough food to live in dry climates, Engelmann et al. (2004) and Turner and Peterson (2004) argue that the large dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation of the western USA were at least well adapted to a semiarid climate with wet and dry seasons. The larger dinosaurs were able to survive on poorer and less food relative to body size than smaller herbivore dinosaurs (Engelmann et al. 2004, p. 297). Larger dinosaurs could also travel more efficiently over longer distances without food to reach remote areas with food (Engelmann et al. 2004, pp. 300-304).

Tracks in Dry Sand

Dinosaur and other vertebrate tracks have been found in a number of sandstones with desert depositional environments. Not surprisingly, Oard (2011, pp. 39-40, 62) believes that desert sandstones actually had aqueous origins during Noah’s Flood. Oard (2011, p. 39) asks how dinosaur tracks could be preserved in loose and dry desert sand. Mr. Oard thinks that wind erosion would erase them. Later, Oard (2011, p. 88) cites Loope (2006) and again asks how tracks could be preserved in fragile sands and how could wind or water bury and preserve the tracks without erasing them. Yet, Loope (2006) provides answers to these questions, which Oard (2011, pp. 39, 88) chooses to ignore. Loope (2006) presents sedimentological, paleoclimatic, and stratigraphic evidence, as well as the results of field experiments, which demonstrate that tracks can be preserved and identified in dry desert sand. In direct response to the type of objections in Oard (2011, pp. 39, 88), Loope (2006, p. 132) describes the preservation of tracks in dry sand:

“Although scour by grain flows can remove shallow tracks, the loose packing (high porosity) of grainflows ensures that the feet of larger animals will penetrate well below the level of the next erosive surface. Although dry dune sand previously has been denigrated as a medium for track preservation, this example shows that dry eolian grainflows, due to their loose packing and their position in the zone of flow separation on the dune lee slope, can preserve abundant, clear tracks. A dry-sand origin of the tracks corroborates an earlier interpretation of the grainflows as December-February (dry season) deposits of cross-equatorial winds.”

So contrary to denials in Oard (2011, pp. 39, 88), loose sand can preserve clear tracks under dry conditions. The presence of dinosaur tracks in the Djadokhta Formation as discussed by Dingus et al. (2008, p. 11) is also consistent with desert sand. However, the observations of Loope (2006) and Dingus et al. (2008) are inconsistent with the Flood agenda in Oard (2011). In contrast to the detail studies of sand structures, paleontology, paleoclimates and stratigraphy in Loope (2006) and Dingus et al. (2008), Oard (2011) presents no evidence on how Noah’s Flood could duplicate the wind-blown sand structures in the Djadokhta Formation and how countless numbers of dinosaurs managed to swim and float through Flood waters without a single fossil, egg, footprint, or any other piece of evidence being found in any Precambrian and Paleozoic sedimentary rock around the globe.

A Dinosaur Nest in the Djadokhta Formation

Oard (2011, pp. 66, 124) recognizes that Noah’s Flood does not give dinosaurs enough time to build nests and care for growing young, even under his BEDS scenario. In response, Oard (2011, pp. 99-100, 106, 108) believes that dinosaur nests and hatchling dinosaurs have been largely misinterpreted and he attempts to demean the presence and importance of dinosaur nests in the geologic record. Yet, Fastovsky et al. (2011) describe in detail 15 juvenile Protoceratops andrewsi dinosaur skeletons that were likely in a nest. All of the animals were young and about the same size, which suggest that they were members of the same clutch (Fastovsky et al. 2011, pp. 1037-1038). Although eggshell fragments are found elsewhere at the site, no fragments were associated with the group, which suggests that the animals were juveniles and not freshly hatched (Fastovsky et al. 2011, p. 1038). The animals were about 60% larger than another young Protoceratops andrewsi specimen from the same location (Fastovsky et al. 2011, p. 1038), which also indicates some growth time after hatching; time that BEDS cannot offer.

At death, the bodies of the 15 juveniles were oriented subparallel to the west-southwest and their heads were pointing east-southeast (Fastovsky et al. 2011, pp. 1035, 1039). Based on structures in the associated sandstone, the prevailing wind direction was west-southwest (Fastovsky et al. 2011, p. 1035). The orientations of the limbs of the animals indicates that they were trying of avoid burial in loose sand (Fastovsky et al. 2011, p. 1040). Fastovsky et al. (2011, p. 1040) conclude that the animals died from rapidly moving dunes in a sandstorm. Although Dingus et al. (2008) and Loope et al. (1998) argue that water-induced sandslides were responsible for preserving their Djadokhta Formation dinosaur specimens, the structures in the sand around the remains of the 15 juveniles indicate that wind, and not water, was involved in their deaths and burial (Fastovsky et al. 2011, p. 1040). These 15 juvenile dinosaurs represent only a brief event in the geologic record of the area, yet this one scenario with its dry conditions, the ages of the juvenile dinosaurs, and their location in the geologic record by itself refutes BEDS and other Flood geology proposals.

“Poor-swimming” Ankylosaur Fossils in the Djadokhta Formation

Probably because of their heavy body structures, Oard (2011, pp. 93, 122) concludes that stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, and ceratopsian (e.g., Triceratops) dinosaurs must have been poor swimmers. Because the BEDS scenario requires dinosaurs to swim or float in open water or on something, BEDS predicts that stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, and ceratopsian tracks should be rare in the geologic record (Oard 2011, p. 122). Oard (2011, pp. 93, 122) is obviously suggesting that the absence of footprints indicates that ankylosaurs, ceratopsians, and stegosaurs drowned early in the Flood and were unable to leave large numbers of tracks on BEDS, yet somehow their bodies were only buried and preserved in sediments with other Mesozoic fossils, and not in the underlying Precambrian or Paleozoic rocks. How did these “poor swimming” dinosaurs avoid getting buried in the Precambrian or Paleozoic rocks that underlie their fossil remains?

Under the BEDS scenario, any fossils of these dinosaurs would probably be limited to carcasses that washed onto temporarily exposed land (BEDS) and then got buried, or perhaps the animals caught a ride on a mat of floating vegetation that was somehow capable of supporting their weight. After Oard (2011, p. 86) argues that dinosaur tracks are difficult to associate with particular types of dinosaurs, Oard (2011, p. 93) cites Lockley (1991) and claims that ankylosaurs and other “poor swimming” dinosaurs rarely left tracks in the geologic record. So, how does Oard (2011, p. 93) know that these poor swimming dinosaurs rarely left tracks in the geologic record when Oard (2011, p. 86) previously claimed that dinosaur tracks are difficult to associate with a particular type of dinosaur? In reality, paleontologists only know that the tracks of certain dinosaurs are rare because they have had some success in associating tracks with specific groups of dinosaurs. Otherwise, the tracks of ankylosaurs and other “poor-swimming” dinosaurs might be common in the geologic record, but unidentified.

Many intact ankylosaur fossils and possible tracks are present in the Djadokhta Formation (Dingus et al. 2008, p. 19; Loope et al. 1998, p. 28; Monastersky 1998). In other words, the animal carcasses had not been torn apart, scattered and washed onto the site by Noah’s Flood. How does BEDS or other Flood geology scenarios explain the presence of abundant poor-swimming ankylosaur remains in these Mongolian sandstones? Now, YECs might argue that these ankylosaur remains represent complete carcasses that washed onto BEDS during the Flood and that the tracks are actually from other better swimming dinosaurs. The question then becomes, will ankylosaur carcasses with their heavy armor float during a supposed Noah’s Flood? I don’t know. Even if ankylosaur carcasses could float during Noah’s Flood, the problems for BEDS do not end there. Ankylosaurs fossils are also found in North America and the United Kingdom (e.g., Carpenter et al. 2008; Sweetman and Insole 2010, p. 419). Because Oard (2011, pp. 93, 122) considers ankylosaurs to be poor swimmers, but assuming that dead ankylosaurs could float during Noah’s Flood, why is it that ankylosaur carcasses consistently washed ashore on BEDS in areas as widely separated as Mongolia, the United Kingdom and North America, but only with dinosaurs and other animals that geologists consider Cretaceous? Why didn’t any of the ankylosaurs wash ashore with the carcasses of elephants or people? Why didn’t any of the ankylosaurs wash onto the sands of the vast Ordovician St. Peters Sandstone that covers much of the eastern United States? How did Noah’s Flood manage to consistently keep the same groups of dinosaurs together and separated from all elephants, Pennsylvanian coal deposits, Permian reptiles and humans on various continents? If YECs want to claim that well-mixed fossil assemblages that defy the geologic column must actually exist somewhere, they have the burden of evidence to find them. As usual, actualism involving natural processes over an extended period of time can explain all of these features, but BEDS cannot (Table 1).

Conclusions

The evidence in Loope (2006), Dingus et al. (2008), and Fastovsky et al. (2011) by itself overwhelming demonstrates that the Djadokhta and other formations include desert sand deposits that are totally incompatible with BEDS and other Flood geology scenarios. It’s time for individuals to honestly accept the evidence and recognize that there is no justification to believe in a worldwide Flood as YEC interpretations of Genesis 6-9 demand.

References

Carpenter, K., J. Bartlett, J. Bird, and R. Barrick. 2008. “Ankylosaurs from the Price River Quarries, Cedar Mountain Formation (Lower Cretaceous), east-central Utah”, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, v. 28, n. 4, pp. 1089-1101.

Dingus, L., D.B. Loope, D. Dashzeveg, C.C. Swisher III, C. Minjin, M.J. Novacek, and M.A. Norell. 2008. “The Geology of Ukhaa Tolgod (Djadokhta Formation, Upper Cretaceous, Nemegt Basin, Mongolia)”, American Museum Novitates, n. 3616, 40pp.

Englemann, G.F., D.J. Chure, and A.R. Fiorillo. 2004. “The Implications of a Dry Climate for the Paleoecology of the Fauna of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation”, Sedimentary Geology, v. 147, pp. 297-308.

Fastovsky, D.E., D.B. Weishampel, M. Watabe, R. Barsbold, Kh. Tsogtbaatar, and P. Narmandakh. 2011. “A Nest of Protoceratops andrewsi (Dinosauria, Ornithischia)”, Journal of Paleontology, v. 85, n. 6, pp. 1035-1041.

Lockley, M.G. 1991. Tracking Dinosaurs – A New Look at an Ancient World, Cambridge University Press: New York.

Loope, D.B, L. Dingus, C.C. Swisher III, C. Minjin. 1998. “Life and Death in a Late Cretaceous Dune Field, Nemegt Basin, Mongolia”, Geology, v. 26, n. 1, pp. 27-30.

Loope, D.B., J.A. Mason, and L. Dingus. 1999. “Lethal Sands from Eolian Dunes”, The Journal of Geology, v. 107, n. 6, pp. 707-713.

Loope, D.B. 2006. “Dry-season Tracks in Dinosaur-triggered Grainflows”, Palaios, v.21, pp. 132-142.

Monastersky, R. 1998. “Mongolian Dinosaurs give up Sandy Secrets”, Science News, v. 153, p. 6.

Oard, M.J. 2011. Dinosaur Challenges and Mysteries: How the Genesis Flood makes Sense of Dinosaur Evidence including Tracks, Nests, Eggs, and Scavenged Bones, Creation Book Publishers: Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 175pp.

Sweetman, S.C. and A.N. Insole. 2010. “The Plant Debris Beds of the Early Cretaceous (Barremian) Wessex Formation of the Isle of Wright, Southern England: Their Genesis and Palaeontological Significance”, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 292, pp. 409-424.

Turner, C.E. and F. Peterson. 2004. “Reconstruction of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation Extinct Ecosystem – A Synthesis”, Sedimentary Geology, v. 167, pp. 309-355.