Louisiana's Floating Marshes Echo Pre-Flood Ecosystem | The Institute for Creation Research

Louisiana's Floating Marshes Echo Pre-Flood Ecosystem

Certain rock layers hold fossils of unique and extinct plants that had hollow tube-like structures, which probably made them lightweight and able to float on peat mats before they were buried and fossilized.1

A recent video from the United States Geological Survey featured scientists studying a giant modern floating marsh field in Louisiana.2 This unusual ecosystem can give a glimpse into the world as it might have been before Noah's Flood and can help explain a peculiar feature of the plant fossil record.

In the video, USGS researcher Chris Swarzenski noted that if the Louisiana fields were not regularly burned, trees would begin to grow and form a floating forest: "Over time, the marsh mat may thicken, becoming strong enough to support woody plants such as wax myrtle."2 But to account for the vast numbers of apparently floating plants now known from fossils, floating forests must have been as large as continents.

Truett-McConnell College paleontologist Kurt Wise proposed just such a model, having drawn inspiration from a visit to a quaking bog in Michigan. Other researchers have also written about the possibility of vast antediluvian floating forests extending into shallow seas from the margins of solid continents.3 Dr. Wise suggests that this explains the vertical order of plant fossils, with smaller, more fragile plant fossils found in layers below larger, woody plant fossils. Dr. Wise described the basics of his model in a 2008 issue of Answers magazine:

If a floating forest once existed, how did the plants get buried in the right order? I suspected that the destructive waves of the Flood ripped apart the floating forest from the outside in—first burying the weak water plants, then the small bushes, then the tall bushes, and finally the tall trees [in higher rock layers].4

Piecing together clues to reconstruct the past is an intriguing and ongoing endeavor. And the fact that vast floating fields exist today is another clue that pre-Flood floating forests were feasible.

References

  1. Kuntze, O. 1884. Phytogeogenesis: Die Vorweltliche Entwickelung der Erdkruste und der Pflanzen in Grundzugen. Leipzig, Germany: P. Frohberg. In Woolley, J. F. 2010. The origin of the Carboniferous coal measures—part 1: Lessons from history. Journal of Creation. 24 (3): 76-81.
  2. McKee, K. L. The Floating Marshes of Louisiana: A Unique Ecosystem. United States Geological Survey. Online video posted on usgs.gov, accessed February 1, 2012.
  3. Scheven, J. 1996. The Carboniferous floating forest—an extinct pre-Flood ecosystem. Journal of Creation (formerly Technical Journal). 10 (1): 70-81.
  4. Wise, K. P. 2008. Sinking a Floating Forest. Answers. 3 (4): 40-45.

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on February 22, 2012.

The Latest
NEWS
Creation's Easter Message
While many Christians still consider the creation doctrine a fringe issue, a proper understanding of the Christian message finds creation at its core...

NEWS
ICR Veteran Don Barber Retires
Don Barber   After 34 years with the Institute for Creation Research, Director of Enterprise Technology Don Barber will retire...

CREATION.LIVE PODCAST
The Sanctity of Life | Creation.Live Podcast: Episode 23
Abortion is a big issue culturally and in the church. How can believers love our neighbors and act as the hands and feet of Christ when it comes...

NEWS
Plant Receptors Are Designed to Control Immunity and Development
God has designed plants to continuously track their environment.1 They do so with specially designed detectors (also called receptors) on...

CREATION PODCAST
Homo Naledi: The Lies Behind Evolution's Rising Star | The Creation...
Homo naledi, once evolution's 'rising star,' was considered to be a prime example of human evolution. But is it really proof? Or...

NEWS
A Subsurface Ocean on Mimas?
Scientists have analyzed data obtained from the Cassini spacecraft and concluded that irregularities in the orbit of Saturn’s moon Mimas indicate...

NEWS
In Theaters March 20 & 21: The Ark and the Darkness
Is Genesis true? What about Noah’s Flood? How did Noah fit the animals on the ark? Wasn’t it a local flood? Have you asked these questions? Though...

NEWS
Enigmatic Fossil Plants
The pre-Flood world thousands of years ago was unlike the world of today.1 Unfamiliar animals and plants were common, and there were a lot...

NEWS
Surprisingly Colorful Fossil Snail Shells
Finding organic compounds such as flexible dinosaur collagen and complete bone cells1,2 is becoming common, much to the shock and consternation...

NEWS
March 2024 ICR Wallpaper
"He is not here; for He is risen, as He said." (Matthew 28:6 NKJV) ICR March 2024 wallpaper is now available for mobile, tablet,...