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Mesosaurs
are fossils of extinct reptiles. So far they have been found
only in West Africa (Namibia), and Eastern South America (Brazil,
Uraguay and Paraguay). Most commercial specimens come from
the Irati formation, Sao Mateus del Sol, in Brazil. Three
Mesosaurs are part of our Creation Research collection. They
are extremely well preserved and two of them are entwined
in death.
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| 1.
They range in size from about
40cm to a maximum 2m long, but very few small or juvenile Mesosaur
fossils are known. |
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| 2.
Their
skeletons are usually enclosed in fine grained, thin layered
(or varved) sediments such as shales.
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| 3.
No
stomach contents have been detected to date, but well preserved
needle sharp teeth are interpreted as meaning either they used
their teeth to sieve their food or fed on fish.
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4.
The skeletons of Mesosaurs are
found in great abundance and mostly in an excellent state of
preservation, which means many individuals were rapidly buried
together in catastrophic event/s. The small number of juvenile
Mesosaur fossils is usually interpreted to mean either a vicious
current has sorted creatures by size, or the viciousness of
the catastrophic event has totally disintegrated juveniles.
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5.
The fully articulated skeletons indicate
very rapid burial in anaerobic conditions where even bloating
of the skeleton can't occur, due to both the rapid and deep
burial as well as the resulting inability decomposing bacteria
to function.
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6.
Most skeletons are tummy down, but a few
are upside down with rarely skull and neck on its side. The
absence or orientation is consistent with massive turbidity
currents. |
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7.
Several causes of sudden mass death have
been suggested ranging from toxic volcanic emissions combined
with catastrophic storm/s or continental size earthquakes causing
huge underwater landslides and turbidity flow over
vast regions .
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8.
The skeletons at Rio Grandosul however
are orientated in the same direction as fossilized pine trunks
found in the bed -in a general north south direction.
Therefore both the Mesosaur skeletons and tree trunks were transported
together with a huge volume of sedimentary material in the direction
of massive current produced by great storm/s activity. |
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9.
A few skeletons show some breakage and
bone scattering, but no evidence of erosional wear. If the skeleton
bloated and floated to the surface then it would shed bones
from the one animal over quite a distance. |
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| 10.
The 2 Mesosaurs in this block
are fossilised one around the other. |
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| 11.
The fossil head shows no sign
of bone disintegration or separation from the neck vertebrae-
a sure sign of rapid burial and preservation.
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12.
Note the second head just visible under
the top skeleton.
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| 13.
Some Mesosaur skeletons are in parts
but show no sign of wear and tear by erosion, so it has been
suggested this has been caused by their being gentle distorted
by the increasing pressure of the accumalating still soft
and moving sediment.
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14.
Look at the edge of the slab and note the alternate dark and
light layers. These are called varves.
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15.
Varves are usually interpreted as each
pair representing a year passing. Light layer for winter (little
plant matter) dark for summer (much plant growth)
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16.
This
cannot be true in this case as even the Mesosaur limb goes through
many layers. The Mesosaur took many years to be buried, it's
limb bones would have fallen apart. The varves can only represent
alternate current deposites.
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17.
Mesosaurs have played an interesting role in the theory of Continental
Drift. In 1915 Wegener used their fossils to try and tie the
continents
together. Wegner claimed that since Mesosaur fossils are found
only in eastern South America and western Africa, they are evidence
of a once common continent, rather than the previous explanation
of a vast land bridge between Africa and South America that
had sunk out of sight.
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18.
Mesosaur fossils appear suddenly in the fossil record, and disappear
equally suddenly, and their fossils show no sign of evolution
during their
existence. They certainly occur in layers that were rapidly
formed under such catastrophic conditions that pine logs had
been violently removed from
the land by water, then dumped and buried along with the Mesosaurs
by a vast moving flood current full of mud. Therefore the evidence
from Mesosaurs
cannot be used to prop up the theory of vast amounts of time
being preserved in rock layers. Mesosaur deposits are another
good example of there being plenty of theories and opinions
about evolution which disagree with the Biblical picture of
creation and Noahs flood - when the facts don't disagree with
the Bibles record at all.
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