Resurrected Sauropods

Resurrected Sauropods?

Kevin R. Henke, Ph.D.

December 15, 2016

Oard (2011) again misquotes the literature in an attempt to ridicule biological evolution.

Introduction

As a way of disparaging biological evolution and the geologic time scale, Oard (2011, p. 12) cites DeCourten (1998, p. 249) and states:

“It is interesting that the giant sauropods were denizens of the Jurassic…[reference to figure omitted], then they disappeared in the Cretaceous, before re-appearing in the late Cretaceous …[reference number to DeCourten 1998, p. 249]. At present, we are left to conclude that sauropods evolved, went extinct, and then evolved once more!”

Of course, no one is claiming that biological evolution is capable of regenerating an extinct group of dinosaurs in only a few tens of millions of years. Oard (2011, p. 12) is so desperate to discredit dinosaur evolution that he has concocted a strawperson fallacy to falsely ridicule biological evolution and geology. This is another example of Mr. Oard grossly misrepresenting the literature just as he has done numerous times in Oard (1997; 2009a; 2009b).

In reality, DeCourten (1998, pp. 246-250) only refers to the temporary disappearance of sauropods from North America. He was not referring to a global extinction of sauropods and a mysterious reappearance from extinction that contradicts Darwinism as Oard (2011, p. 12) mocks. Even the dinosaur evolution diagram in Figure 2.1 of Oard (2011, p. 33) shows that sauropoda were abundant on a global scale throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous.

During the Early Cretaceous, only the sauropod genus Pleuroceolus was common in North America (DeCourten 1998, p. 246). Although sauropods became rare or entirely disappeared from North America by about 95 million years ago at the beginning of the Late Cretaceous, they were still abundant in South America (DeCourten 1998, pp. 246, 249). According to DeCourten (1998, p. 246), sauropods would not reenter North America for about another 30 million years. DeCourten (1998, p. 246) argues that towards the very end of the Cretaceous, the sauropod Alamosaurus migrated into North America as far north as Wyoming. The 30 million year absence of sauropods from the geologic records of North America is called the “sauropod hiatus.” The hiatus also occurs in Europe, but not in Africa (Mannion and Upchurch 2011).

Recent sauropod discoveries in North America and Europe have considerably shortened the sauropod hiatuses of these continents (Mannion and Upchurch 2011, p. 533). The hiatus is now viewed to have lasted from the Turonian to early Campanian in Europe and Cenomanian to Campanian in North America (Figure 1b in Mannion and Upchurch 2011, p. 531).

So, why is the Cretaceous record of sauropod fossils sporadic in North America? There are couple of possible explanations. Despite later invalid protests in Oard (2011, p. 32), plate tectonics provides one answer (McCarthy 2005; Iturralde-Vinent 2006). At least until the very end of the Late Cretaceous, North and South America were separated by a sea. However, if the continents united through plate movements along with lowering sea levels at the end of the Cretaceous, South American sauropods would have been able to migrate into North America (DeCourten 1998, pp. 246, 249).

Mannion and Upchurch (2011, p. 537) are skeptical about a Late Cretaceous land bridge between North and South America. Unlike YEC Briefly Exposed Diluvial Sediments (BEDS) scenario in Oard (2011), Mannion and Upchurch (2011, p. 537) do not accept the idea of dinosaurs swimming or floating from island to island to get from South to North America. Instead, they provide an alternative explanation for the sauropod hiatuses in North America and Europe. Mannion and Upchurch (2011) argue that sauropods preferred to live in inland rather than in coastal marine environments. During the hiatuses, sea levels were high, inland terrestrial depositional environments were less plentiful, and the probability of sauropods being preserved in the geologic records of North America and Europe were reduced. Once the seas largely withdrew from North America and Europe towards the end of the Cretaceous, inland terrestrial environments became more plentiful and conditions were more favorable for the preservation of sauropod remains. This is the “sampling artefact” hypothesis. Although Mannion and Upchurch (2011, p. 538) admit that the migration of sauropods into North America and Europe at the very end of the Cretaceous is possible, they did not find evidence that the North American Alamosaurus descended from South American sauropods. The ancestors of Alamosaurus may have come from Asia (Mannion and Upchurch 2011, pp. 529, 537).

Both the migration and the sampling artefact hypotheses are plausible explanations for the sauropod hiatuses of North America and Europe. Rather than ridiculing and misrepresenting DeCourten (1998) and others that provide reasonable explanations for the sauropod hiatus, Oard (2011, p. 12) should explain where giant sauropods were hiding during the early part of the Flood when hundreds to thousands of meters of Precambrian and Paleozoic sediments were deposited over much of the globe. How did they avoid death and burial? Also, how good were sauropods at swimming or floating through Flood waters? How big would vegetation mats need to be to periodically carry even one of these heavy behemoths to western North America from their mysterious hideouts perhaps hundreds or thousands of kilometers away? When BEDS is seriously investigated, plate movements and sampling artefacts have the evidence and become far more reasonable. Either of the hypotheses in DeCourten (1998) and Mannion and Upchurch (2011) are plausible and there is no reason for Oard (2011, p. 12) to mislead his readers in an effort to ridicule geology and biological evolution.

References

DeCourten, F. 1998. Dinosaurs of Utah, The University of Utah Press: Salt Lake City, UT, USA.

Iturralde-Vinent, M.A. 2006. “Meso-Cenozoic Caribbean Paleogeography: Implications for the Historical Biogeography of the Region”, International Geology Review, v. 48, pp. 791-827.

Mannion, P.D. and P. Upchurch. 2011. “A Re-evaluation of the ‘mid-Cretaceous Sauropod Hiatus’ and the Impact of Uneven Sampling of the Fossil Record on Pattern of Regional Dinosaur Extinction”, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 299, pp. 529-540.

McCarthy, D. 2005. “Biogeographical and Geological Evidence for a Smaller, Completely-enclosed Pacific Basin in the Late Cretaceous”, Journal of Biogeography, v. 32, pp. 2161-2177.

Oard, M.J. 1997. Ancient Ice Ages or Gigantic Submarine Landsides? Creation Research Society, Monograph No. 5, Chino Valley, AZ.

Oard, M.J. 2009a. Landslides Win in a Landslide over Ancient 'Ice Ages', chapter 7 in M.J. Oard and J.K. Reed (editors). 2009. Rock Solid Answers: The Biblical Truth Behind 14 Geological Questions, Master Books: Green Forest, AR, pp. 111-123.

Oard, M.J. 2009b. Do Varves Contradict Biblical History?, chapter 8 in M.J. Oard and J.K. Reed (editors). 2009. Rock Solid Answers: The Biblical Truth Behind 14 Geological Questions, Master Books: Green Forest, AR, pp. 125-148.

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, 174pp.