Does the K/T boundary show the exact moment Dinosaurs went extinct millions of years ago?
The following excerpt shows how the K/T boundary is very subjective and there are numerous examples of anomalies – including some anomalies that appear to have dinosaurs above where they should be (according to Evolutionary history) in the fossil record. The article in full, gives good arguments from the evidence that the fossils are more likely a result of a Flood. See the full article here: https://creation.com/the-extinction-of-the-dinosaurs
Here is the excerpt:
“The K/T boundary was first defined as changes in fossil marine biota in rocks of northern Europe.268 Nowadays, the fossil dating method is so refined that each microorganism, whether a diatom, foraminifer, coccolith or radiolarian, has its own boundary-defining criterion. Some have claimed the definition of the K/T boundary based on these microfossils is rather subjective,269,270 and when the particular fossil is absent, a hiatus is presumed.271
Even the classical marine K/T section with a large Ir spike at Gubbio, Italy, is not without controversy. One geologist, after careful research, concluded that the section was a reworked Miocene turbidite.272 This idea was published after the section had been touted as a K/T impact horizon. Nevertheless, Alvarez and Lowrie273 jumped all over this result and prevailed. It seems that reworking is mainly invoked to support the prevailing paradigm. The K/T boundary at Gubbio is of reversed palaeomagnetism, so the K/T boundary in other areas also has to be reversely magnetised. However, at least one ocean core at the supposed K/T boundary was found to be normally magnetised.274 These two K/T boundaries are thus probably not synchronous.
For presumed terrestrial sediments, the boundary had been universally defined as the last appearance of the dinosaurs:
“Critics charged that Rigby and his colleagues didn’t know exactly where the end of the Cretaceous was in the sediments that they were studying; after all—it was pointed out—the end of the Cretaceous was commonly recognised as the place where the last (youngest) dinosaur was preserved.”275
However, defining the K/T boundary on the basis of the ‘youngest’ dinosaur fossil in a vertical section is a poor criterion, when only about 20 dinosaur localities from around the world are close to this boundary.276
Defining the K/T boundary based on the last dinosaur is also a circular definition, since scientists claim that the dinosaurs only lived in the Mesozoic when the presence of a dinosaur automatically defines the strata as Mesozoic. For instance, dinosaur remains from France and India were discovered in what were considered ‘Tertiary’ strata. The strata were subsequently redefined as ‘Cretaceous’!277,278
In eastern Montana, there is a controversy over whether dinosaurs lived into the Tertiary. The K/T boundary in this area is defined by a floral change, but it is also associated with a weak iridium anomaly (an original report of a significant Ir anomaly turned out to be contamination from a platinum ring worn by a technician preparing the samples for analysis279). Dinosaurs have been found above the defined K/T boundary from at least six sites, while ungulates, normally considered ‘Tertiary’, have been found below the boundary.280,281,282 Dinosaurs are also said to have survived well into the Palaeocene in other areas, such as the tropics of India, the Pyrenees, Peru and New Mexico.283 Of course, the data from Montana have been strongly contested with the suggestion that reworking had mixed the fossils.284 Reworking is a common mechanism for accounting for fossils in the wrong strata,285,286 preserving a semblance of order in the slow evolution of organisms with time. In spite of claims of reworking, Keith Rigby and his colleagues are sticking to their claim of Tertiary dinosaurs.287 Despite the merits of the various arguments, the circular reasoning is evident.
Another K/T defining criterion for a presumed terrestrial environment is a change in certain pollen or spores. In eastern Montana, the K/T boundary is also defined as the base of the Z coal layer. But some geologists believe this coal bed is diachronous, which would mean this definition of the K/T boundary is subjective.288 The problem for defining the K/T boundary in eastern Montana is compounded due to the many coal beds and the scattered nature of the outcrops.
All the many definitions of the K/T boundary are difficult to reconcile with each other into a worldwide synchronous time horizon within the uniformitarian paradigm:
“Even given the entire fund of techniques, methods, and principles of correlation extant, there was still, in the past decade, widespread uncertainty about correlating marine rocks of K/T boundary age with their continental contemporaries, even where both sections were richly fossiliferous, because the two sections were almost always mutually exclusive in time-diagnostic fossils.”289
That the K/T boundary from various areas is asynchronous is also admitted by Olsson and Liu:
“Examination of recently reported K/P [K/T] boundary sections indicates that the placement of the K/P boundary is based on equivocal criteria and that the boundary as placed is not synchronous. The conclusion that the K/P boundary in several U.S. Gulf Coast sections is complete and within a condensed section is simply the artifact of delineating the K/P boundary on disparate paleontologic datum planes and preservational bias of the microfossil assemblages.”290
And in correlation of widely scattered outcrops, there is the common problem of lateral facies and fossil changes that can cause uncertainty even in local and regional correlations.
Defining the K/T boundary as the last appearance of a particular fossil, a common procedure, is a dangerous exercise. This is because fossils have a habit of disappearing vertically at one location and reappearing at a ‘higher level’ at another location. This has been labelled the ‘Lazarus Effect’.291,292
Even though the various fossil definitions of the K/T boundary are asynchronous, could an Ir anomaly be used to define a synchronous K/T boundary, whether in a uniformitarian or a diluvial paradigm? The problem here is that there are many Ir anomalies in the strata, and many of the spikes at the ‘K/T boundary’ are weak or non-existent. In regard to dinosaur extinction, few dinosaur localities are even close to the defined K/T boundary, and even fewer are close to a significant Ir anomaly. There is also the problem that the K/T boundary is sometimes ‘defined’ by the Ir spike,293,294,295 introducing an element of circular reasoning.
Although palaeontologists believe most of the age differences between various defining fossils are minor, it underscores the subjective nature of the process and some of the problems in choosing the ‘K/T boundary’. The various K/T boundary defining criteria, as viewed by uniformitarian scientists, are probably asynchronous. Therefore, creationists should not assume the ‘K/T boundary’ and the extinction of the dinosaurs is a synchronous event within the Flood.”
