Alligators, Sink Holes, and Fossils

Come visit Florida! Home to alligators, sink holes, and fossils! Somehow I don't think that is the slogan that the Visit Florida organization uses for it marketing campaigns. But for those interested in studying the effects of and evidences for the global flood described in the Bible, this is exactly what drew my attention to Florida. So, when asked if I would like to wade into a central Florida river known to have alligators, I jumped at the opportunity. As I somewhat jokingly told friends and family, I was either going to come back with some cool specimens or a missing limb.

Fortunately the only alligators I saw on this trip were at the Florida Aquarium.

I had to admit that I never thought of Florida as being a place likely to find fossils - sunburns, mosquitos, and Disney souvenirs maybe, but not fossils. But I was assured that there are many areas in the Sunshine State where fossils can be found. As it turns out, Florida has fossils for the very same reason it has sink holes. You may have heard of the Florida man and his house that was swallowed whole in 2013 by a giant sink hole that opend up under his home while he was asleep in his bed.

Christian geologist Dr. Andrew A. Snelling states that "under most of Florida’s relatively thin veneer of soils, surface sands, and clays are numerous stacked limestone beds, the total thickness of which is up to 3,000 feet. ... In the biblical framework of earth history these fossil-bearing limestone layers were only deposited after the Flood waters had finished draining off the rest of North America. Their accumulation continued for a few decades into the post-Flood era, prior to the onset of the Ice Age."1 He goes on to explain that the limestone beds are a blessing for the people of Florida because it acts as a huge underground aquifer which supplies fresh water for residents and agriculture. Because limestone is alkaline and rain water that comes into contact with organic matter produces humic acid causing the infiltrating water to become slightly acidic, over the course of time, the underground limestones can dissolve and leave large subterranean voids. When a void becomes too large to support the above soils and structures, it collapses and becomes a sink hole.

Source: South West Florida Water Management District

The watershed for Florida's Peace River is located within the fossil bearing limestone formations and, not surprisingly, is in the center of the sink hole activity.

But how did fossils including teeth and bones from horses, mammoths, mastodons, camels, llamas, saber-tooth cats, jaguars, giant armadillos, giant sloths, bears, tapirs, sting rays, sharks, and many other creatures end up in Florida's Peace River? A secular world view states that it was deposition of sediments from many different oceans over many millions of years. But a Biblical world view looks at the opposite of sedimentation and sees that it was erosion that brought the fossils and limestone to Florida. The first erosional event was from water running off of the uplifted North American continental plate during and immediately after the Genesis flood. The flood runoff resulted in the deposition of the limestone layers covering much of the Florida north and mid-peninsula. The second erosional event is still happening today. Rivers naturally erode banks and are constantly changing. The banks of the Peace River, especially in the upper watershed, are limestone. As the limestone erodes, fossil fragments are washed downstream and are deposited with the river bed sediments.

Searching river bottom sediments for fossils.

How old are the fossils that we found? Well, that is a matter of opinion based on what authoritative source you rely on for dating them. A secular viewpoint would date the fossils found along the Peace River back to millions of years, stretching from the Miocene time period (about 23 million years ago) through to the Pleistocene (Ice Age) time period (2.5 million to 11,700 years ago). But the timeline presented in the Bible indicates that the flood occurred approximately 4,500 years ago. That is a big difference in time! So, which dating convention is correct? One physical evidence that seems to corroborate the Biblical narrative are the Florida sink holes. Remember what is forming the sink holes? Acidic storm water infiltration dissolves the limestone. Why are sink holes so prevalent in the 20th and 21st centuries? If this area is many millions of years old, would not most of the sink holes have already formed and whatever was going to dissolve would have already dissolved. The acidic storm water is not from more recent industrial sources but rather from natural processes that would have been occurring as long as there was organic plant material present. The fact that we see sink holes forming today, is good evidence for the timeline presented in the Bible.

Marykate and John brave potential alligator habitat to find evidences of the Genesis global flood.

You don't need to wade in alligator infested water to know that the Bible is true. The life-changing gospel message and a personal testimony of how it changed your life is the best evidence of the truth of God's Word. Without Christ we have a hole in our hearts bigger than any sink hole. The weight and cares of this world will cause our lives to cave in and result in great personal destruction unless we have the Lord Jesus Christ as our sure foundation. Why don't you ask Him today to come into your life and fill those voids?

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Whoever comes to Me [Jesus], and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great. Luke 6:47-49

Our findings included teeth from several species of sharks, sting ray mandibles, sea urchin spines, bone fragments from unknown animals, turtle shell fragments, gastropod (snail) and bivalve (oyster) fossilized shells, and a horse tooth fragment.

1 The Florida Sinkhole Tragedy, Why Did It Happen, and Could It Happen Again?, by Dr. Andrew A. Snelling on March 5, 2013