How do you make sense of the completely different kinds of rock that make up the layers? Why should a time period be marked by a kind of rock that's different from the rocks above and below? And how could they be so parallel and horizontal (expect where they've been subjected to stresses of course). The ordering of the fossils is a puzzling peculiarity, for sure, but the layers are even more puzzling it seems to me on any old-earth scheme. Where did all that sediment come from for one thing? Why isn't it more mixed, why are the layers so discreet, a limestone here, another kind of limestone there, a sandstone, a shale and so on. Water separates sediments like that, in one action. Nothing else does that I know of. A worldwide Flood would first of all pulverize everything and then redistribute it.
But I think there is also a problem with the fossils too. Yes the ordering is very peculiar, but really too peculiar. Why isn't there more mixing? Why isn't there just as much of the same kinds of life found in the lower layers mixed in the upper layers since they didn't simply disappear? Shouldn't fish be in every layer above the first one where they appear, in roughly equal numbers, if we're talking about time periods? Shouldn't every type of life continue to appear in similar numbers after its first appearance in the strata, or maybe greater numbers? But they don't, do they? Ferns didn't die out, they're still all over the earth, but they don't appear in all the layers do they? Why not? Shouldn't they if we're talking about time periods? Etc.
How do you make sense of the completely different kinds of rock that make up the layers? Why should a time period be marked by a kind of rock that's different from the rocks above and below? And how could they be so parallel and horizontal (expect where they've been subjected to stresses of course). The ordering of the fossils is a puzzling peculiarity, for sure, but the layers are even more puzzling it seems to me on any old-earth scheme. Where did all that sediment come from for one thing? Why isn't it more mixed, why are the layers so discreet, a limestone here, another kind of limestone there, a sandstone, a shale and so on. Water separates sediments like that, in one action. Nothing else does that I know of. A worldwide Flood would first of all pulverize everything and then redistribute it.
But I think there is also a problem with the fossils too. Yes the ordering is very peculiar, but really too peculiar. Why isn't there more mixing? Why isn't there just as much of the same kinds of life found in the lower layers mixed in the upper layers since they didn't simply disappear? Shouldn't fish be in every layer above the first one where they appear, in roughly equal numbers, if we're talking about time periods? Shouldn't every type of life continue to appear in similar numbers after its first appearance in the strata, or maybe greater numbers? But they don't, do they? Ferns didn't die out, they're still all over the earth, but they don't appear in all the layers do they? Why not? Shouldn't they if we're talking about time periods? Etc.
Faith