I can't even imagine that to be correct. I think it's obvious that the fossil record is a record of catastrophes and that if we could map the extent of the geological layers, we would see that those catastrophes are on a fantastic scale.
I see the evidence in support of a global flood as truly marvelous, exquisite and compelling. Let's talk about the many enormous burial sites that consist of unimaginably large quantities of plant biomass residue and the graveyards of fantastically many, densely packed fossilized remains of assorted animals.
Fossil plant remains, such as coal, are almost 100 times more massive than living plant biomass (
Poldervaart 1955; Ricklefs 1993). That's a highly relevant calculation. It's easy to conceptualize a pre-flood Eden-like world with 100 times the living plant biomass that exists today. The truly insurmountable problem is in trying to imagine a gradual, non-catastrophic process today that is on its way toward producing vast quantities of oil, gas and coal in highly concentrated pockets of the earth's crust.
The distribution of fantastic amounts of plant biomass residue in widely separated pockets on a continually changing planet is very strange. The existence of immense animal graveyards seems to be a remarkably similar phenomenon and equally mysterious. Can you explain the enormous graveyards of fossilized animals where the bones are found tightly packed and jumbled together?
For one such burial site, consider the Morrison Formation (Late Jurassic) in the western United States.
There seems to be many unimaginably large animal graveyards that demonstrate that the rapid burial of large animal populations is widespread. How do theorists explain it? Robert Broom, the South African paleontologist, estimated there are eight hundred billion skeletons of vertebrate animals in the Karroo formation. --Adequacy of the Fossil Record, Norman D. Newall, Journal of Paleontology, vol. 33 (May 1959, p. 492).
Where in the present do you see fantastic oil and coal deposits being created that compare in any way to the unimaginably huge and ancient oil and coal deposits that now exist? Also, please tell me where animal graveyards of immense size are currently forming. If fantastic numbers of animals were ever mysteriously drawn to specific locations that became immense graveyards of fossilized skeletons and densely packed bones, please explain the mechanism.
