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| Courtesy of Creation Ministries International |
A SNAPSHOT IN TIME;
SCHOOLING FISH
Good afternoon everyone!
How is everyone today? I am holding steady in my recovery of lung issues, which is much better than getting worse, ha ha! I thank all of you who have prayed for me and this little ministry. And so here in the United States of America, it is that time of year where the children head back to school after a two to three month break. Originally it was put into place so the children could help their family with the summer chores of tending animals and crops.but in today’s world it is a time of play and summer jobs.
Speaking of school, I ran across a fascinating article about a different type of school. Fish schools! I would say that most of us have seen pictures of fish schooling or videos or film footage. It is a wondrous sight! This type of fish
behavior is an incredible type of group self-organization that is instinctive. Swimming together in the same direction in one fluid motion of turns and ups and downs and different speeds requires following the routes of attraction and repulsion in relation to the other fish around them. This allows them to avoid bumping into each other as opposed to shoaling (when fish swim in the same general area but in different directions or individually in the same direction). Scientists believe this behavior protects against ambush predators by reducing the frontal area, where predators tend to attack. It is also thought that by the whole body of fish moving like one unit, they may be mistaken for a much larger organism.
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| Commons, courtesy of Wikipedia |
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So what is so fascinating about this? Well, “A limestone shale slab from the Green River Formation, USA, has incredibly ‘captured’ a mass of 257 fish swimming together in a school. The fish, each just under 1 in (2.5 cm) long, belong to an extinct species, Erismatopterus levatus. Just before being fossilized they were swimming in the same direction. Swimming together in a school is a dynamic process and this slab amazingly preserves, in ‘freeze frame’ as it were, this coordinated collective motion. Such discoveries are rare. As pointed out in the New York Times, ‘It’s difficult, for instance, to find evidence of schooling fish in the fossil record. You need just the right circumstances to fossilize something like a school of fish in place within a rock. Then, that rock has to survive intact long enough for a paleontologist to discover it and study it.’”1
The only right circumstances that could produce such
amazing fossils would have been created in a catastrophic flood. Although some creation scientists argue this could be a post-Flood fossilization, the overwhelming physical evidence of being in a formation with many other animals and plants begs the difference: “The Green River Formation is best known among paleontologists for its superbly preserved fossil fish. Some slabs of the Green River Formation contain hundreds of individual fish and likely represent an instantaneous die-off. Dozens of fish species have been identified.”2
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| wikipedia, commons |
“The Green River Formation is the site at which the fossil of
the oldest known flying mammal was found. This organism, a bat, Icaronycteris index, was preserved with its skeleton, membranes and cartilage intact.”3
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| Courtesy of National Park Service |
“The Green River Formation, the topmost layer of rock, contains the most extensive record of fossilized freshwater fish in North America. Remarkably intact fossils of more than 20 species of fish, 100 varieties of insects, a vast number of plants, and many examples of other Eocene animals such as crocodilians. 4
What could cause such a special set of circumstances? the global Flood of four thousand years ago. that is one reason
the biologic life forms are so well preserved. it hasn’t been millions of years. The oblong shape of the school also matches extant (living today) fish schools and, ‘is thought to protect against ambush predators by reducing the frontal area, where these predators tend to attack’. It is the capturing of this motion, a snapshot in time, that means the fossil was formed quickly, and thus by implication, the rock also.”5
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| Courtesy of Creation Ministries International |
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| courtesy of Nation Park Service |
Ahhh, the blessing of seeing the Truth in our beautiful planet. When I first glanced at the picture of the school of fish, I actually thought is was a picture of fish in water, ha ha! Thank you Jesus for letting me see clearly.
God bless, and take care!
Until next time,
Willow Dressel
References:
4https://www.britannica.com/place/Green-River-Formation
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