WinAce

I'm looking for information on this phenomenon, as I plan to use it as a falsification of the global flood. Since raindrops rapidly lose momentum on impacting the water's surface, they can only form tiny craters on dry land like desert or solidifying mud. That means any geologic layer containing fossilized raindrop imprints can't be deposited in a flood.

TalkOrigins only has a passing mention of it in one of the FAQs, but I feel it's such a good piece of evidence against the flood that it deserves a FAQ of its own.

Specifically,

• How common are fossilized raindrops?
• Do they occur in all or almost all geologic layers?
• Since the flood is effectively falsified if these are raindrops, what ad hoc phenomenon would you postulate if you were a creationist to explain raindrop imprints? (I.e. bubbles from the surface, meteorite impact craters?)
• What are the falsifications for those ad hoc hypotheses, other than parsimony? Obviously, meteorite impact craters will look different than raindrop imprints because their impact lets loose magnitudes more kinetic energy. Bubbles are also different... how? The shape of the imprint as an embedded air pocket vs. tiny depression?
• Where can I obtain good pictures of fossil raindrop impressions? Books are fine, although I would prefer an online resource.

MrDarwin

I can't help, but fossilized mud cracks are probably more common, and even more damning to young earth creationism. How on earth does one get numerous layers of sediments to get wet, dry out, get buried, get wet, dry out, get buried, etc. during a flood?

MortalWombat

Is this what you're talking about? It lists several formations that could have only originated on the surface:

Rain drops. [Robb, 1992]
River channels. [Miall, 1996, especially chpt. 6]
Wind-blown dunes. [Kocurek & Dott, 1981; Clemmenson & Abrahamsen, 1983; Hubert & Mertz, 1984]
Beaches.
Glacial deposits. [Eyles & Miall, 1984]
Burrows. [Crimes & Droser, 1992; Thackray, 1994]
In-place trees. [Cristie & McMillan, 1991]
Soil. [Reinhardt & Sigleo, 1989; Wright, 1986, 1994]
Desiccation cracks. [Andrews, 1988; Robb, 1992]
Footprints. [Gore, 1993, has a photograph (p. 16-17) showing dinosaur footprints in one layer with water ripples in layers above and below it. Gilette & Lockley, 1989, have several more examples, including dinosaur footprints on top of a coal seam (p. 361-366).]
Meteorites and meteor craters. [Grieve, 1997; Schmitz et al, 1997]
Coral reefs. [Wilson, 1975]
Cave systems. [James & Choquette, 1988]

SULPHUR

I cannot find any evidence apart from Robbs work for the presence of fossil raindrops. Have you any recent work on this subject?

Valentine Pontifex

Search Google for "fossilized raindrops" (and include the quotes in the search).

Blankman

Fossilized raindrops are a fairly rare occurrence in the rock record since they obviously have to have just the right conditions to form in the first place and are easily destroyed by deposition on top of them. I would agree with MrDarwin that mud cracks would be a better example to use. They are much more common in the rock record. Evaporite deposits such as salt might be another example you might want to use. How can hundreds of feet of salt form without being isolated, concentrated, and periodically replenished in a basin? As you can imagine, evaporation is a very slow process. There are salt deposits in Kansas and Michigan which are 500 and 1500 feet thick respectively. You should be able to find somewhere how many feet of ocean water would be required to deposit this thickness of salt.

Paleosols (that is fossilized soil profiles) is another example that comes to mind which might be useful.

But honestly, don't waste too much of your time trying to debunk the "flood". Some people will still continue to believe in just about anything, "because the bible says so". And without some very basic geological knowledge, they can be persuaded to believe that the vast majority (99.9%) of scientists are wrong.

:banghead:

SULPHUR

I wasn't worried about debunking the flood. It is just the fact I haven't seen fossilsed raindrops.

NZAmoeba

I'm gonna have to do a devil's advocate here, even though i'd love to see that kind of proof.

According to the bible the flood lasted 40 days and 40 nights. Which as you know is a tiny prick of time when you consider how long it takes for sediment to build etc.

A period of just over a month is also WAY out of the accuracy of bedrock dating... which has margins of error at about a few hundred thousand years.

This is not the proof you are looking for....

SULPHUR

I have an honours degree in geology I just havn't seen any fossilised raindrops

ps418

Fossilized raindrop impressions are very rare, as one would expect given the special circumstances required for their preservation, but they exist. They have been described in the Coconino Sandstone, for instance (Beus and Morales, Grand Canyon Geology, p. 194).

Patrick