The mystery of the fossil fish.

in fish •  2 years ago 

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Many people have commented on this fossil to the effect of, "a fish, covered in sediment as it was right in the middle of eating a meal" or some such. It helps the "Noah's Flood" supporters by characterizing the fossil as having been created in a sudden catastrophe.

I think it's sufficient that the fish/fish bodies are both so well preserved. That shows the sedimentation DID happen quickly... although probably when the bigger fish was already dead. How do I know?

I've been fishing for more than fifty years. Several times I've seen this happen, with the result that two fish are floating, dead, on the surface. It happens because the bigger fish is operating on instinct, striking and gulping down the smaller fish without thinking. The smaller fish occasionally turns out to be, in the end, too big. Its own fins, and the teeth and mouth structure of the larger fish, mean that once it goes INTO the big one's mouth, it's never coming back out. The big one dies for lack of ability to respirate or eat, and the little one dies for the same reasons.

This fish accident, the big one eating a too-large little one, happens regularly, but in this case the two sank to the bottom and were almost instantly covered in sediment. It's the only way the fossil is preserved without the usual group of scavengers consuming and destroying it. Crabs, crayfish, or in fresh water, crawdads, along with very small fish and of course bacteria... they all work to destroy a fish carcass (or two) in a matter of days or weeks.

Because dead things float for awhile until the gases finally escape, often they never DO hit the bottom, let alone get covered in sediment, before nature picks them into very small pieces.

This tableau tells me... the big fish ate the wrong meal, and whether that is what killed it or the sudden catastrophe covered it in sediment and killed it, it was certainly covered QUICKLY. That is the unusual part. If it had not been covered within hours of its death, the natural destruction of the dead fish would have been well under way. Instead, you have almost a perfect fish fossil. That ONLY happens when sediment covers a dead fish in a matter of hours after its death.

What the fossil doesn't tell me is "the fish was caught by a catastrophe so sudden, he couldn't even finish his dinner". THAT fish is too big to have ever been dinner for the bigger fish.

But it COULD be the murder weapon.

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