Creation Science Rebuttals

Institute for Creation Research News Report

"What Is a Turtle Fossil Doing in the Arctic?"

First Published on the Old Earth Ministries Website

The Institute for Creation Research's website recently reported on a find of a fossil turtle discovered on Axel Heiberg Island, which is located high in the Canadian Arctic region.¹ The author, Brian Thomas, states that this find is an enigma to uniformitarianists, otherwise known as people who believe the earth is billions of years old.

Thomas begins by saying that this site is less than 700 miles from the North Pole, and the average temperature there is -20°C. He continues by saying that "all indications are that these fossilized plants and animals lived in a warm, tropical climate." Noting that the fossils were found in Cretaceous rocks of about 100 million years old, he states that since this is so far up in the higher latitudes, with short days and long nights, it would be practically impossible for this region to be tropical.

His solution for this problem is the flood of Noah. He claims that during the Flood, the landmass was fragmented, and continents rapidly migrated to their present day positions. Thomas mentions two possible models. First, the continents migrated to their positions while carrying their fossil-laden sedimentary layers along for the ride. In the other model, giant root masses, whole forests, are transported during the flood, trapping the creatures, and then they were buried on the continents.

He concludes by slamming old earth theories: "a plausible interpretation of the data is nearly impossible under uniformitarian constraints." However, he is not telling his readers the full story. As is typical of young earth scientists, they omit information that is damaging to their theories. They would rather deal in half-truths, than face the whole truth.

Here is the rest of the story, which is easily found in multiple locations on the internet.² During the Middle Cretaceous, the climate at the polar regions was much warmer. There were no polar ice caps. Today, our tropical ocean water temperature averages 76°F. Around 100 million years ago, this temperature peaked around 107°F! That is a 31 degree difference. What caused this rise in temperature? Geologists are not 100% certain, but we do know that CO₂ levels were higher due to a much higher rate of volcanic activity. However, CO₂ is not the complete answer. More research needs to be done on this issue. Bottom line...given the high temperatures, if I were a turtle 100 million years ago, I would be headed towards the Arctic too.

Contrary to what Mr. Thomas states, us "uniformitarianists" have a very good understanding of why a turtle and other tropical animals and plants would be found high up in the Arctic. He just doesn't want his young earth readers to know this.

Notes:

¹ http://www.icr.org/article/4570/

² Multiple Links:

Huber, Brian T., Tropical Paradise at the Cretaceous Poles?, Science, Dec 8, 1998, pp. 2199-2200.
Warmer than a Hot Tub: Atlantic Ocean Temperatures Much Higher in the Past - From 100 to 84 million years ago, the Atlantic Ocean average tropical water temperature was as high as 107°F, or roughly 31 degrees higher than today.
Cretaceous Climate (Wikipedia)
Greenhouse Earth 100 mya (million years ago), University of Hawaii Lecture

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