Oard's Flood Follies (EvoWiki)

Michael J. Oard, a meteorologist, has written a number of papers concerning dinosaur extinction. EvoWiki published Oard's Flood Follies in response,with paticular attention to The Extinction of The Dinosaurs written for the August 1997 Journal of Creation''. This article replies to some of the more ridiculous - and at times serious - charges laid out by EvoWiki.

Mass Graves Were Caused by Gradual Accumulation
"Then, Oard gives about the flood lie and presents what he thinks is evidence of dinosaurs perishing in the Flood while ignoring certain things in the fossil record that tells us different. First, he gives out the lie about the Flood being responsible for the vast fossil beds that featured dinosaurs being buried in fluvial sediments that are actually caused by a gradual accumulation of bodies of dinosaurs after they were either drowned while trying to cross a river at flood stage like wildebeests or died during a severe drought, both taking place during separate events that spanned millions of years of time."

The questions about the cause of death of the dinosaurs lead to arguments over interpretations of data, not the data itself. Some sites might very well fit the picture an old earth geologist describes, but that doesn't mean it can't also fit a global Flood.

Many sites have volcanic ash, polystrate fossils, or high concentrations of fossils. Few show signs of gradual accumulation -- most show signs they were buried all at once.

EvoWiki sounds so sure of their interpretation, but cites no evidence for it. And proof by assertion is not logically sound.

Please read the following related articles for more information:
 * Fossils Questions and Answers - CMI
 * Hoesch, W. A. & Austin, S. A., 2004. Dinosaur National Monument: Jurassic park or Jurassic Jumble? Impact #370.

Dashanpu
"He also mentions the fossil beds that were found all over the world including the Iguanodon graveyards in Belgium, a Titanosaur graveyard in Niger, Africa and a graveyard in Dashanpu, China. Some mass graves were also the result of huge sandstorms engulfing the dinosaurs, burying them on the spot while the floodwaters would have swept them all away from where they were at, even when it comes to a 'giant watery sand wave' as imagined by Oard."

EvoWiki's explanation of Dashanpu formation is severely lacking in scholarly thought. At the Dashanpu formation, "cartilaginous and bony fishes, amphibians, turtles, crocodiles, marine reptiles, pterosaurs, therapsids, and many dinosaurs" were found. The fossils are too diverse to be explained by a "river at flood stage" and the presence of marine fossils also militates against EvoWiki's reasoning of "severe drought." In addition, there is a distinct lack of evidence presented that any of the graveyards represent "on the spot" burials, rather than the corpses having been transported a significant distance.

Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry
This site cannot be explained by EvoWiki. It contains plant fossils, which require rapid burial or it will simply turn into soil. All in all, over 12,000 individual bones and one dinosaur egg have been excavated from the quarry. EvoWiki's "drought" and "flood crossing" interpretation cannot account for the egg. Did the egg try to cross the river on its own?

They also claim that it was be due to a predator trap, in which were caught in some material and became prey to hunters looking for food. This would cause a massive slaughter and might be able to form graves, but a paper published in the journal PALAIOS points out that the predator/prey ratio is 3:1. The paper claims that this is completely incompatible with the predator trap theory and supports the drought theory. But the drought theory has already been shown inadequate.

Other factors also show the predator trap theory to be invalid. According to the present understanding of the data, dinosaurs feeding on living tissue would leave tooth marks on the bones and some of the teeth would come out in the flesh. However, very few shed teeth can be found, and no tooth marks are on the bones.

Lack of Infant Hadrosaurs
Mr. Oard explains in his article that when the Flood waters started rising, many dinosaurs would abandon their young and flee. He interprets a mass grave in Montana in this light. EvoWiki's reply to this is quite hard to follow.

"Oard went back to the hadrosaur (Maiasaura) graveyards again in Montana, when he mentions about paleontologists finding only one mass herd of adults and older juvenile dinosaurs of Maiasauras with no younger juveniles and babies found within them and speculates that the reason there were no babies in the herd is because the babies cannot keep up with adults as they were being herded together in one place as the flood waters quickly engulfs them later. Oard deliberately says this, while ignoring the fact that the babies' legs were not fully developed when scientists unearthed the baby fossils and studied them. So, the babies cannot get away even if they tried. Plus, they have very strong instinct to stay in their nest until they are old enough and their legs fully developed and strong enough to leave the nests permanently."

One must conclude that this actually adds to the case of dinosaurs leaving their young to die, albeit not in a global flood context. EvoWiki's proposed explanation that "the babies cannot get away even if they tried" owing to their underdeveloped legs does not mean that Mr. Oard is wrong in factoring in explanations based on a flood.

Meat-eating Dinosaurs Wouldn't Stop To Eat
Some dinosaur bones have teeth marks in them, so Oard concludes that for a brief period of time dinosaur corpses were exposed. During this period, surviving meat-eating dinosaur would stop by and scavange the dead.

EvoWiki says that this series of event is impossible (basing much of it on the false belief that the Flood lasted 40 days), but John Baumgardner and Daniel Barnett showed that Flood water would cause high-speed swirls. Patches of land would be in the middle, trapping all life in it for a period of time. During this event, meat eaters could have eaten the dead.(Baumgardner and Barnett p. 77-86)

The Flood Lasted 40 Days

 * Main Article: Global flood

"Next Oard discusses the many footprints of dinosaurs found throughout the world in the next section entitled, Dinosaurs fleeing the encroaching flood waters where he discusses foot trackways, in which he claimed was made during the first 150 days of the alleged Flood (which is blasphemous since it greatly contradicts the verses in Genesis 7:17-23 that says the rain and the Flood prevailed on Earth for only 40 days and “everything that breathed died.”), especially on certain sites containing mega trackways."

Stating that Mr. Oard's claim of the flood waters prevailing 150 days is "blasphemous since it greatly contradicts the verses in Genesis 7:17-23 that says the rain and the Flood prevailed on Earth for only 40 days and 'everything that breathed died'" is blatantly incorrect and extremely misleading.

The Bible does indeed say it rained for, "forty days and forty nights" before the water was high enough to lift up the ark and cover the mountains. Evowiki has quoted this integral part of scripture completely out of context. They omit verse 24 of the book of Genesis where it clearly states that the, "The water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days."

To avoid interpreting flood history incorrectly as EvoWiki has, the relevant passage and context of Genesis 7:11-24 will be shown.

Even after 150 days of the prevailing water there was a period of water recession and major tectonic movement. What can clearly be seen from an objective interpretation of the biblical record from these passages is that the global flood timeline detailed in Genesis chapter 7 and Genesis 8:13-16 lasted around a year. EvoWiki is using a tactic common among evolutionists who have to deal with the creationist position of a global flood, a position which merely sustains a standard exegesis, interpreting the Bible by the historical-grammatical method.

EvoWiki has since edited this part of their response. As of November 2007 it states; "Next Oard discusses the many footprints of dinosaurs found throughout the world in the next section entitled, 'Dinosaurs fleeing the encroaching flood waters' where he discusses foot trackways, in which he claimed was made during the first 150 days of the alleged Flood (which is blasphemous since it greatly contradicts the verses in Genesis 7:17-23 that says the rain lasted for only 40 days and during this period “everything that breathed died.” - therefore no dinosaurs could be making tracks after the first 40 days), especially on certain sites containing mega trackways."

Granted their case is clarified somewhat but yet again EvoWiki leaves out context which includes verse 24 as well as Genesis 7:11. If you read verse 21 and see that in verse 20 the water was only 15 cubits higher than the mountains, the ultimate rise in water to this level is what caused, "all that breathed" to die. It was 150 days that water lasted this long at 15 cubits higher than mountains, yet only 40 days and nights produced water "above the earth."

What is also being left out of this discussion is the second source of water, or the springs of the great deep. If verses 12-24 of Genesis are read carefully with Genesis 7:11 taken into consideration, it is possible that the 40 days and nights of rain rose the waters, "above the earth." Then through the water produced by the springs of the great deep further prevailed the initial rain water to, "fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered."

It can be implied through the immediate contextual inclusion that the initial 40 days and nights of rain produced a certain level of water merely higher than the earth. A second source solely took over and only after that, in verse 21, did everything die. Megatracks could be quite possible even after 40 days and nights that EvoWiki states as being the only cause of rain. Large animals quickly adapting to this environmental change retreat towards the peaks of high mountains, forced to go to ever higher ground in an attempt to avoid the increasing flood.

Desert Dinosaurs
Even though EvoWiki accuses Oard of quoting out of context, they themselves do it. They quote him as saying:

"It is indeed strange that one type of dinosaur lived in a large area of an alleged desert. What were they supposed to eat in a desert?"

Or course they point they could have survived on eating desert insects, lizards, mammals, and other dinosaurs that lived in the desert as well as carcasses of dinosaurs that have succumbed to the desert. But once you put it in context it makes sense.

"One megatracksite in south-east Utah is on the upper boundary of the Entrada Sandstone, a supposedly desert sandstone. All the tracks are from a fairly large, carnivorous theropod. It is indeed strange that one type of dinosaur lived in a large area of an alleged desert. What were they supposed to eat in a desert? The evidence could be better interpreted as a group of theropods embarking on a temporarily exposed sandy surface during the Flood."

So how can a large group of large carnivorous dinosaurs live in the desert?

Dinosaur Tracks Can't be Formed Quickly
Various models to produce dinosaur tracks in a Flood environment have been proposed. Two of them are the Tidal Bore Model and the High Speed Flood waters model. Some have also proposed that tracks might have been made during the ice age, when local mudslides and the soft soils would have made the perfect environment for preserving tracks. The old-earth model seems to be incapable of producing the tracks. Just go to the beach and see for yourself: How long does your foot print stay there?

Brand's research
Over the past few decades, much research has been done concluding that tracks can indeed be formed quickly. Leonard R. Brand did much research, with the help of Thu Tang, on the tracks in the Coconino Sandstone. He concluded that they were formed underwater and that rocks categorized as desert stones are actually caused by water(some have criticized this research. (Brand and Tang 1201-1204)

Brand, in the 70's, also did lab experiments in which the type and amount of tracks made by salamanders and other creatures going up a sandy slope were recorded and compared to those of the Coconino Sandstone. Underwater conditions were found to be best for producing toe marks and sole impressions and all the other types tested (dry sand, damp sand, and wet sand) wouldn't produce the pattern found.

Another result of the lab tests was that often the creatures would walk on the bottom and then start to swim to the top. This offer an explanation why some tracks found around the world seem to be walking instead of running. The chart below shows the percent of total locomotion time spent in walking and swimming

Finally, 40% of the the experimental trackways had tail marks, but the underwater tests produced very few of them. The Coconino fossil trackways also have very few tail marks.

Other evidence for rapid formation

 * Many dinosaurs do have their tracks preserved, but in lower layers then the actual dinosaur, thus making rapid formation the most logical reason for their existence. It as if they went through mud.


 * Mr. Oard's paper cited sources saying that tracks require rapid formation, including Lockley, M. and Hunt, A.P., Dinosaur Tracks and Other Fossil Footprints of the Western United States, Columbia University Press, New York, 1995.


 * Some dinosaur tracks are in coal, thus they had to have been made when forests were being buried. Coal is due the build up of organic material.


 * Researchers investigated footprints in the Coconino sandstone are consistent with hydrological sorting. The lower grains are very coarse, while the higher ones are quite fine.
 * Recent research has found dinosaur tracks in lacustrine sediments. They were interpreted as dinosaurs swimming across the bottom of a lake. It is doubtful this presents the normal habitat of the dinosaurs. (Ezquerra et al 507-510)

The Morrison Formation
EvoWiki listed a few pieces of "evidence" showing why the Morrison formation could not have formed quickly in a global flood. Let us examine each one. To quote EvoWiki:

"Oard claims that the sediments were formed by Noah's flood while ignoring the fossil burrows, the walking tracks, local paleosols (ancient soils), desiccation mud chips, burrows, root markings from plants, some polygonal desiccation cracks, casts of salt crystals, and clay pellet aggregates."

Polygonal desiccation cracks
Desiccation is the process of extreme drying, thus EvoWiki concludes that cracks due to drying are some how a problem for a global flood. However, this would be expected when the sediments started drying and the heat from accelerated nuclear decay would speed up the process.

Also, it is extremely hard to tell the difference between desiccation cracks and UNDERWATER synaeresis cracks. (Oard,p. 213–214)(Pratt, p. 1–10)To quote Pratt's entire Abstract:

Syneresis cracks, often confused with subaerial desiccation phenomena, are traditionally ascribed to subaqueous shrinkage whereby salinity changes caused deflocculation of clay. This and other previously proposed mechanisms fail to account for their occurrence in low-energy, typically non-evaporitic facies, stratigraphically sporadic distribution, intrastratal formation under shallow burial depths, variation in morphology, degree of contraction, generation of sedimentary dikelets as crack fills, and deformation of dikelets and enclosing layers. Instead, it is suggested that ground motion from strong synsedimentary earthquakes caused argillaceous sediments to dewater, interbedded sands and silts to be almost simultaneously liquefied and injected into the resulting fissures, and then these dikelets to be distorted. Comparative rarity of syneresis cracks in Phanerozoic versus Precambrian marine strata is considered to be primarily an evolutionary consequence of theological changes caused by increased organic binding of clay flocs in the water column, greater input of organic matter into the sediment, and the diversification of sediment-dwelling bacteria and meiofauna in Phanerozoic deposits.

Some cracks might also be clastic dikes due to tectonic activity.

Please read Mudcracks and the Flood by William A. Hoesch

Salt crystals and evaporites

 * Main Article: Evaporites could form without evaporation (Talk.Origins)

Clay pellet aggregates
It is hard to tell what EvoWiki means by this. Aggregates as defined by Wikipedia is a,

broad category of coarse particulate material used in construction, including sand, gravel, crushed stone, slag, and recycled concrete.

Maybe EvoWiki can cite a source so we can examine this and get a closer look at how this contradicts a global flood. Until this is done, this argument means nothing. Also, geology data from the state park makes no mention of clay pellet aggregates. 

Paleosols
The Morrison formation does appear to have paleosols (Demko, Currie, and Nicoll p. 7), but Tas Walker points out that many so-called paleosols are not actually what secular geologists label them. Many of the methods used to detect them are flawed and assume uniformitarianism. (In the addendum of the article Walker points out that Meert changed the image he used as an example to divert you away from some evidence.)

To quote Oard on the topic, "* Clays, Calcium carbonates, or red layers could simply have been deposited by the flood as normal sediment.
 * Modification of sediment or rock by ground water sometime after deposition.
 * The alteration of sediment by diagenesis, including compaction, cementation, oxidation, and reduction, without weathering or metamorphism.(Oard p.140)"

Root markings from plants
There is evidence of plants(Ash and Tidwell p. 321-340), but it's hard to verify root markings. However, this should be interpreted as evidence for rapid formation.


 * Plant roots imply that the soil was loose, or else the roots couldn't found to way into the ground and they don't grow into solid rocks. But then how were they fossilized? It is far better to conclude that they are the product of rapid formation of sediments and the dirt encased the root.

"What strikes me about the Morrison is that plants and animals faced a fairly harsh environment. The scarcity of water was the limiting environmental factor, like today. Natural events such as drought, drifting sand dunes, shifting riverbeds, floods, and volcanic ash falls could and did destroy parts of the ecosystem's communities, setting back plant succession and re-population by wildlife. After an ash fall and subsequent to rains, the rivers probably flowed like thick soup, choked with siliceous ash, suffocating and burying river residents."
 * To quote the National State Park Service:

This would serve as evidence that the plants are of a different origin then the Morrison Formation. The conditions would have been unbearable for them.

Burrows
Most creationist interpret burrows as animals trying to dig their way out of the freshly laid down sediments. It's unlikely that organisms will simply just sit there in the dirt, waiting to die.

The only piece of data that this author could find concerning burrows in the Morrison Formation is burrows created by crayfish, which can be explained by a flood easily. (Hasiotis, Kirkland, and Callison p. 481-492)

Evidence for a flood origin

 * The fact that it's a huge grave.


 * Volcanic ash has been found in the formation. This is a prediction of Flood geology and points towards a catastrophic event.(Christiansen, Kowallis, and Barton p. 73-94)


 * Aquatic organisms have been found in the Upper Jurassic there. This mixed environment points toward a flood event putting them together.(Hasiotis p. 33)


 * The Morrison Formation seems to be a incomplete ecosystem. Though some plants are preserved, it's not the expected amount. In general, there aren't that many plants and many consider this a wasteland. How on earth can this place sustain an Apatosaurus that would eat 3 and a half tons of plants daily? This is far more consistent with a Flood origin of this formation. The sediments were carried from a completely different region.


 * The Morrison Formation is 600,00 square miles. This huge size seems to be more consistent with a Flood origin, but is not totally contradictory to the standard model.


 * It has a unconformity, which represents a 15-20 million year gap in the fossil record. This is best explained by Flood, in which strata do not represent time.


 * Oard pointed out in his article that the Morrison formation in interpreted as being caused by widespread and constant water(he cites . This seems to smack in the face of the other pieces of data,like the lack of plants and the complete lack of channels in the region. It's quite flat.


 * William A. Hoesch and Steven A. Austin did an Impact article on the subject and gave 6 reasons why it is best understood as being formed by the Flood. Some of them are mentioned in this list, but this article goes into much farther detail

Dinosaur Eggs
EvoWiki claims that dinosaur eggs seem to contradict the flood and they show nothing out of the ordinary, but they seem unaware of Walter R. Barnhart 2004 paper detailing evidence that dinosaurs were under stress when the eggs were being laid and are best understood as the result of a watery event.

"By looking carefully at the eggs and their depositional environment, it is possible to determine some of the conditions under which the eggs were laid. In this article I have identified six indicators of dinosaur eggs routinely being laid under conditions of stress.


 * 1) Eggs of the same laying episode are positioned at different levels as though they arrived on top of the sediment as it was being built up actively.
 * 2) Eggs are positioned in the substrate as though their final positions were determined by the viscosity of wet sediments into which they were dropped.
 * 3) Eggs are found arranged in such a way as to suggest that they were allowed to drop in the most expedient manner and then allowed to lie where they landed.
 * 4) Eggs are found with their calcareous shells exploded by the absorption of water as though they were laid into water which was most likely hot.
 * 5) Eggs are found with pieces of hatching windows lying inside the lower portion of the shells, usually with the concave surface upward, indicating breakage by causes other than the hatching of young and also indicating negligent treatment of the eggs when they were laid.
 * 6) Eggs are found at multiple horizons having been laid under stressful conditions and indicating the desperate situation in which the gravid females found themselves."

Oard cites an article showing that baby dinosaurs may have worn their teeth before hatching, so some fossils interpreted as infant dinosaurs may actually be the result of the crushing of eggs.

Horner, J.R. and Currie, P.J., Embryonic and neonatal morphology and ontogeny of a new species of Hypacrosaurus (Ornithischia, Lambeosauridae) from Montana and Alberta. In: Dinosaur Eggs and Babies, K. Carpenter, K.F. Hirsch and J.R. Horner (eds), Cambridge University Press, London, pp. 312–336, 1994.

Eggs would have vanished without a trace
It is agreed the preservation of eggs is a rare phenomenon, but is it impossible? Since EvoWiki's argument is nothing more then speculation, we will reply with speculation. Maybe eggs are the result of dinosaurs laying eggs when the Flood water were rising. They could have been in an environment that offered "better" shelter. It has already been shown that the eggs were laid under stress and abnormal conditions.

There are several factors that point to the catastrophic origins of the eggs at Egg Mountain (the main geological site with eggs talked about in Oard article and EvoWiki's article) :


 * The eggs were partially buried in limestone. Limestone is caused by a pile up of fauna.


 * Oard points out that the pointed end of many eggs is facing downward. If this "nest" is the result of normal conditions, then why are they like this?


 * The eggs are Troödons, but the babies scattered around it are Orodromeus. Are such conditions natural? This is best understood as the result of the Flood waters putting them there.


 * Egg mountain has over 10,000 Maiasaura fossils which are believed to have died due to volcanism.

Scavengers can't account for the broken tops of eggs
First, this reads Oard out of context. This isn't the only option he put forward. Another is compaction of sediments on top of it.

Second, Oard cites fossil scavengers in the region.(i.e. mall mammals and varanid lizards)They are candidates to break the eggs.

Third, much of the objection is based on the false belief the Flood only lasted 40 days. If it were true, there have been a very short time for scavengers to eat the eggs. However, since the Flood didn't last only 40 days, there was more then enough time.

Fourth, Oard goes into detail on how they could have been exposed.

Sharks couldn't have eaten the floating carcasses because they are salt water based
First, there is no reason to assume that it must have taken place in fresh water. Maybe the water that ran over the area was salt water? I suggest you read two articles.

Aquatic organisms could have survived the Flood (Talk.Origins)

Animals' exacting needs could have evolved after the flood (Talk.Origins)

Another factor we must consider is if the teeth are found outside the corpses. If so, this might be the product of reworking, but that would just be speculation and nothing more.

Dinosaur Fossils in the Tertiary are Due to Reworking
Dinosaur fossils have been found in the Paleocene, but most just label it as reworking(without any evidence of there being reworking).(Rigby p.262.)However not all Paleocene dinosaur samples can be accounted for by reworking. In 2002, 34 pieces of a single hadrosaur at a single location were found. Also, geochemical studies comparing the uranium in Paleocene and the Cretaceous show a difference in amount(if you assume the secular time line of course). The bones showed the signs of Paleocene samples. Furthermore, the bones are quite large. One of the bones was a femur, weighing around 130 kg. These factors make reworking very unlikely.

According to a 1988 paper, in South America, dinosaur and ungulates fossils have been found together. Ungulates are from the Paleocene, which follows the Cretaceous. Thus dinosaurs survived or ungulates evolved before their time.(Van Valen p.79)

Old-earth consistently rely on excuses and alteration of data. Some creationists claim that strata are dated by the fossils found in them, but fossil are dated by the strata they are found in. Though this is not completely true (because of radiometric dating), it does happen in some cases. Please read Fossils are dated from strata; strata are dated from fossils (Talk.Origins) for a more detailed look.

Related References
Geology 117:1–10, 1998
 * Ash, S.R., and Tidwell, W.D., 1998, Plant megafossils from the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation near Montezuma Creek Trading Post, southeastern Utah: Modern Geology, v. 22, nos. 1-4, p. 321-340.
 * Austin and Hoesch, Dinosaur National Monument: Jurassic Park Or Jurassic Jumble?, Impact
 * Barnhart, Dinosaur Nests Reinterpreted, CRSQ Vol 41 No 2 September 2004
 * Baumgardner and Barnette, "Patterns of Ocean Circulation over the Continents During Noah's Flood," Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, Technical Symposium Sessions, R. E. Walsh, ed., Creation Science Fellowship, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, 77-86, 1994.
 * Brand, Leonard R., 1978. Footprints in the Grand Canyon. Origins 5(2):64-82
 * Brand and Florence, 1982. STRATIGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF VERTEBRATE FOSSIL FOOTPRINTS COMPARED WITH BODY FOSSILS Origins 9(2):67-74
 * Brand, Leonard R. and Thu Tang, 1991. Fossil vertebrate footprints in the Coconino Sandstone (Permian) of northern Arizona: Evidence for underwater origin. Geology 19(12): 1201-1204.
 * Ezquerra et al. 2007. Were non-avian theropod dinosaurs able to swim? Supportive evidence from an early Cretaceous trackway, Cameros Basin (La Rioja, Spain) Geology 35: 507-510
 * Gates The Late Jurassic Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry as a Drought-Induced Assemblage PALAIOS; August 2005; v. 20; no. 4; p. 363-375
 * Genesis 7:17-24
 * Hasiotis, S.T., 1995, Terrestrial and freshwater-aquatic trace fossils in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, Colorado Plateau: Invertebrates out-shine the dinosaurs: Third National Biological Service Biannual Conference of Research on the Colorado Plateau, Abstracts With Program, v. 3, p. 33.
 * Hasiotis, S.T., Kirkland, J.I., and Callison, G., 1998, Crayfish fossils and burrows from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of western Colorado: Modern Geology, v. 22, nos. 1-4, p. 481-492.
 * Horner, J.R. and Currie, P.J., Embryonic and neonatal morphology and ontogeny of a new species of Hypacrosaurus (Ornithischia, Lambeosauridae) from Montana and Alberta. In: Dinosaur Eggs and Babies, K. Carpenter, K.F. Hirsch and J.R. Horner (eds), Cambridge University Press, London, pp. 312–336, 1994.
 * Lockley, M. and Hunt, A.P., Dinosaur Tracks and Other Fossil Footprints of the Western United States, Columbia University Press, New York, 1995.
 * Oard Paleocene dinosaurs and the reinforcement syndrome TJ 17(3):5–8, December 2003
 * Oard, Michael J et al, Are Paleosols Really Ancient Soils? Creation Research Society Quarterly 12-2003, pg 140.
 * Oard, M.J., Underwater ‘mudcracks’, CRSQ 30:213–214, 1994.
 * Pratt, B.R., Syneresis cracks: subaqueous shrinkage in argillaceous sediments caused by earthquake-induced dewatering, Sedimentary
 * Rigby, J. K., Jr. 1985. Paleocene dinosaurs: the reworked sample question. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. V. 17, no. 4, p. 262.
 * Roth, INCOMPLETE ECOSYSTEMS Origins 21(1):51-56 (1994).
 * SANTUCCI, Vincent L. STRATIGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF TETRAPOD AND INVERTEBRATE ICHNOFOSSILS IN THE PERMIAN COCONINO SANDSTONE OF GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK AND ADJACENT AREAS, NORTHERN ARIZONA 2003 Seattle Annual Meeting (November 2–5, 2003) Paper No. 221-27
 * Walker Paleosols: digging deeper buries ‘challenge’ to Flood geology TJ 17(3):28–34 December 2003
 * Whitmore, AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE MUD CRACK ORIGIN FOR SAND-FILLED CRACKS AT THE BASE OF THE COCONINO SANDSTONE, GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA, 2004 Denver Annual Meeting (November 7–10, 2004), Paper No. 20-13
 * Van Valen, L. 1988. Paleocene dinosaurs or Cretaceous ungulates in South America? Evolutionary Monographs 10. 79 pp.

Flood Models

 * Canopy theory
 * Catastrophic Plate Tectonics
 * Hydroplate theory
 * Vertical Plate Tectonics