There would have been 2 parts to that trackway, the layer below it would have had the mirror opposite of the tracks that I assume got destroyed somehow.

There is a layer of coal here that is 1200? feet down, in addition to the layers at 300 and closer to surface. Interesting that this area is 1100 feet roughly above current sea level.

There are natural gas producing shale layers at 1400ft and 4000ft, plus several more on down to I believe 10 or 12,000ft.

In the overall timeline of the planet, human existence is a tiny sliver of time. The era of organized religions is a much smaller sliver.

Guess only, but would say glaciers or a great flood.[/quote]

That 400 feet of overburden was already there by the time the glaciers came through.

tracks were in a coal mine, where coal was mined out from underneath them. Everything below tracks for maybe four to six or eight feet, was either coal or slate or shale. And was chewed out by the mining. Coal layers were formed by compressed plant matter.

That 400 feet of overburden was already there by the time the glaciers came through.[/quote]

Well I guess that narrowed it down.

The most cover I ever worked under here in Pa was 750 feet. But I know down in Alabama they mine with over a 1000 feet of overburden. Mines that deep typically have a lot of methane gas.

Well I guess that narrowed it down.[/quote]
Yea Im thinking flood too but how big did it have to be to deposit 400-1000 feet of sediment? It is hard for me to wrap my head around it.

There's the pittsburgh seam at 300ft, but there's another one at either 1000 or 1200. They had considered mining that here, but i don't think they really did much about it.

I don't mean to derail this thread onto the topic of how old the earth is. But, many coal deposit zones are several hundred feet thick and were deposited over a long period of time with long intervals of dry periods between each layer. So you have a layered cake effect; layer of coal from accumulated vegetation, and layers of sediments (usually shales or sandstones). Terrestrial animal tracks are found in these layers.

Young Earth creationists say that these coal deposits and thick sediments were a result of one major cataclysm; the great flood. The evidence left between these coal layers would pretty much prove that these layers of coal and sediments were a result of a long periods of time with much different conditions existing between various layers.

In other words there is no way that all these layers of sediments were deposited in a short period of time, or one catastrophic event.

BTW, I believe in the Great Flood, but also believe the physical evidence (not radio isotope dating, etc.) points to a very old earth.

Actually I've thought about along that same line, not so much about a lost text, but a inspired text. It says that Eve was made from Adams rib. A rib will regenerate itself as well as the liver. Now I can't believe that the writer in Genesis would have known the rib would regenerate itself, but rather was inspired by the Spirit to write that. Why else would he have wrote a rib as the source. Oh, by the way men and women have the same number of ribs.

On another note Adam had a nagging woman that talked him into eating from that tree and I'm guessing he was complaining about her. But he only gave a rib for her, just think what a woman he would have got if he had given an arm and a leg for her !

As far as time is concerned just think how much older the Appalachian Mountains are than the Rocky Mountains. It would have taken along time to wear them off that much.
Which brings up another thing. Some think the mountains was pushed up when the flood came and that all the weight on the earths surface pushed down enough to cause enough down pressure to shove up the mountains. The only problem with that would be two different mountain ranges formed in a different time range not to mention other mountains around the world including on the bottom of oceans. So would that reasoning insinuate more than one flood? Of course many islands and mountains are formed by hot lava pressure from heat on the inside of earth, all emissions approved by the EPA of course, lol.

Or that the continents floated apart.

It would be a mistake to believe that the forces that created the rocks of the mountain are the same forces that put the mountain in place

There are a lot of goofy ideas thrown out there by people who have no idea of geological and mountain building processes. Most of these uninformed ideas come about from these folks desire to explain a young earth. I've read their books and sat through their lectures. Most of them laughable, but kind of sad to see that they pontificate about things they know very little of, all the while making money off of unsuspecting followers.

Here is what I find most interesting. Look at all of the living creatures, plant and animal, and all of the intricacies involved in life, growth, reproduction, respiration, digestion, etc, etc. Yet, folks try to dispel divine creation because inanimate fossils, rocks, mountains or silt layers couldn't be created?

I believe in Divine creation, but I don't believe that God created fossils inside sedimentary rocks at the creation of the world; that's just silly talk. I heard that idea once from a "young earther". I asked him why God would do such a thing; his reply was "to confuse the foolish". My reply to him was, "God is not a God of confusion..." 1 Corinthians 14:33.

The folks who put forward these kinds of ideas call themselves "Creation Scientists". However, once they start this kind of talk they really need to remove any mention of science from their discussion.

How was Noah able to wrangle up two Bigfoots for the Arc? We can’t even find one.

So, in your mind, when he created the first trees, did they have annual growth rings or where they made up of clear grainfree lumber? Did he create birds or a bunch of eggs that eventually turned into birds? What was the starting point for anything?

^^^^
The Bible doesn't tell us that. However, if you want to go down that track I suppose if he created full grown trees they would have had perfectly clear ring-free wood. I've seen tree rings in fast growing trees that are over an inch wide, or maybe He created all trees as new seedlings. Arguing about these things is no different than arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin; pointless, and it has nothing to do with the Gospel. In fact it is counterproductive to that endeavor.

The reason I'm a little persnickety about the subject is because I have studied both sides of the issue, and I find that it is the young earth authors and circuit riders (seminar speakers) who are being divisive and creating conflict between science and divine creation where there should be none. I think the divisiveness is good for selling books and home school curriculum to their audiences.

I heard, in person, in public, Kenneth Ham say that he would question a person's salvation if that person believed the earth was over 10,000 years old; rubbish.

Taking the position that God created fossils in the earth can in no way be justified by using scripture, and it just makes believers look foolish.

Waggler,
I'm not arguing about anything, and you're right, nothing I said is in the gospel but very few details about creation are, leaving a lot to think about and speculate. Myself, I can't imagine going to all the trouble of creating life and dropping it on a perfectly round planet where no geologic features had yet been formed. Life requires ecosystems capable of supporting it.

My point is, if you could create a full grown tree, there is no reason you couldn't create one with the appropriate amount of rings for it's size. If you could create a mountain there's no reason you couldn't create one with fossels or sediment layers. Not saying the gospel says that's what happened.