CPT Q. 065: How can fossils be employed to correlate strata, if such a procedure assumes evolution?

Q. 65. You state that the ocean drilling programs: “…have provided a wealth of data relating to the history of the world’s ocean basins. These data make it possible to correlate fossils in the deep ocean sediments with the marine microfossil record on the continental shelves and hence with the overall fossil record”. However, the only way fossils can provide an age for any rock unit is by the prior assumption of a singular evolutionary sequence. How can this assumption be squared with creationism?

Response: I would maintain that the claim that a given sequence of distinct fossil types in the rock record is an evolutionary sequence is not the same as the claim that a sequence of distinct fossil types in the rock record actually exists. Most creationists acknowledge a genuine sequence of fossil types, at least at some level, indeed does exist in the rock record. For example, trilobites are common in the bottom portion of the fossil-bearing part of the rock record but absent in the upper part. Similarly, mammals are common in the uppermost part but absent in the bottom part. The same is also true of flowering plants. We creationists have long attributed this general pattern to what we refer to as ‘ecological zonation’ which occurred during the Flood as the Flood waters reached to higher and higher elevations and progressively destroyed habitats distinctive to these elevations. In no sense do we attribute the pattern of fossil types we observe in the rock record to evolution. If one understands the fossil-bearing rock record as the record of the progressive destruction of life in different habitats during a global Flood, then it is not surprising that there would be distinctive trends in the way the different types of organisms are distributed across that record.

Further, creationists who have examined the patterns that exist in the distribution of microfossils such as foraminifera and diatoms have concluded that most of the sequences and correlations discovered by non-creationist researchers are indeed genuine. These sequences and correlations have proved to be extremely useful in a number of practical, economically significant applications such as in the oil and mining industries. Let me quote from an article on microfossils from a U.C. Berkeley website:

Microfossils are perhaps the most important group of all fossils — they are extremely useful in age-dating, correlation and paleoenvironmental reconstruction, all important in the oil, mining, engineering, and environmental industries, as well as in general geology. Billions of dollars have been made on the basis of microfossil studies. Because they usually occur in huge numbers in all kinds of sedimentary rocks, they are the most abundant and most easily accessible fossils. Indeed, some very thick rock layers are made entirely of microfossils. The pyramids of Egypt are made of sedimentary rocks, for example, that consist of the shells of foraminifera, a major microfossil group.

How does a creationist account for the observed spectacular and rapid changes in the microfossil types as one moves upward through the record? The most obvious way is to recognize that, during the Flood, the waters were extremely rich in nutrients and that microfossils can multiply extremely rapidly, even explosively. Diatoms which are photosynthetic algae with a siliceous skeleton and found in almost every aquatic environment, for example, can reproduce as often as every three hours. They multiply rapidly in explosive ‘blooms’ when nutrients are abundant. In the warm, nutrient-rich waters of the Flood it not only would have been possible, but almost certain that massive blooms were occurring almost continuously. Furthermore, as conditions changed, it should be expected that the dominant species would also change. The result would be a distinctive sequence of diatom types appearing and disappearing in the sediment sequence as the Flood progressed. The actual species that appeared and disappeared in the resulting record almost certainly had nothing to do with mutations or genetic changes. Instead the changing dominant species simply reflected the rapid change in environmental conditions. All the different species found across the record almost certainly were present when the Flood began.