Arise from the dead, topic.

Does anyone have any idea how many coprolites have been found?

Today @ 02:04 AM post located here
AdvocatDiaboli:

Does anyone have any idea how many coprolites have been found?

From my reading, I think most fossil coprolites found thus far are from fish.

One of the problems a terrestrial (ahem) pile of it might have is dung beetles, particulary the stool of plant-eaters. There are many species of these beetles around the world today, and I see no reason to think that the situation was much different far in the past. Different species, of course. The average stool seldom lasts long enough to get the chance to become a fossil.

And, of course, someone could have stepped in it and ruined for fossilizing (is that a word?).

An exception to this is the human coprolites found in ancient Indian villages in the desert southwest. These are simply dessicated feces, not fossils, but hundreds of years old. They quickly liquify when introduced into water or alcohol, and I'm told that the smell returns as well (I warned you about having lunch with the zoo-keepers). Given sudden burial under conditions that minerals could eventually replace the organics, they too, could become fossils.

Exactly how many? I don't know. I'm not sure anyone does. But there are enough of them that they are common and cheap at fossil sales.

doov

Carnivor feces (scat) are largely bone, hair, scales, feathers and lots of mucus. In addition to bettles, moth larva eat the hair, and rodents are commonly noted as coprophagic. In fact, harvest mice are recorded to have stored fox feces rich in insect remains in large numbers in caves. This preserves some, and can introduce them into the archaeological record.

1998 "Rockshelter Deposition of Insect Remains By Fox and Mouse" Matt Ritter, Gary Hurd. Society for Californian Archaeology

Rarely, do desicated remains ever become mineralized. That we find coprolites which show evidence of having been once desicated suggest that they were first isolated from the surface somehow. Feces depositied in turbid, anoxic water stand a farily good chance of becoming mineralized.

Today @ 04:42 AM post located here
Dr.GH:

Carnivor feces (scat) are largely bone, hair, scales, feathers and lots of mucus. In addition to bettles, moth larva eat the hair, and rodents are commonly noted as coprophagic. In fact, harvest mice are recorded to have stored fox feces rich in insect remains in large numbers in caves. This preserves some, and can introduce them into the archaeological record.

1998 "Rockshelter Deposition of Insect Remains By Fox and Mouse" Matt Ritter, Gary Hurd. Society for Californian Archaeology

Rarely, do desicated remains ever become mineralized. That we find coprolites which show evidence of having been once desicated suggest that they were first isolated from the surface somehow. Feces depositied in turbid, anoxic water stand a farily good chance of becoming mineralized.

Thanks, Doc.

Of particular interest is the Sloth Moth (don't have the Latin handy. Sorry). This insect lives, in large numbers, in the algae-ridden fur of the Sloths of the Amazon rain forests. When the mostly aborial Sloth decends to defecate, the moths hurry out, like a mini-plague of, well, moths, to lay their eggs in the fresh dung, which is soon consumed by the larvae.

Few if any coprolites here.

doov

When this thread was first started Winace asserted that poop takes time to crack. So, I decided to do a "scientific study" proving that this is not the case.

Below you will find a photo of freshly pooped poop (courtesy of my dog).

Note that cracks are present even though the "pile" is fresh.

I will be posting, after other posters comment (be nice! ), some pictures showing the progression of dog poop over a period of only two weeks (in a climate of about 50-65 degrees fahrenheit, with little rainfall over the two week timespan).

LOL, interesting application of Microsoft Paint skills. No one around saw you snapping this picture, I hope?

Today @ 09:39 PM post located here
TheFiveSolas:

When this thread was first started Winace asserted that poop takes time to crack. So, I decided to do a "scientific study" proving that this is not the case.

Below you will find a photo of freshly pooped poop I've kind of ignored the cracks in a stool(courtesy of my dog).

Note that cracks are present even though the "pile" is fresh.

I will be posting, after other posters comment (be nice! ), some pictures showing the progression of dog poop over a period of only two weeks (in a climate of about 50-65 degrees fahrenheit, with little rainfall over the two week timespan).

I've pretty much ignored the cracks question, as I don't see what difference it makes. Whether or not feces is cracked depends entirely upon it's consistancy when expelled. Firm and a little dry, as in the picture, will show cracks and even segments. A moister, looser stool might only be a puddle; cow dung, for example. Under the right conditions, either could become a coprolite.

I have a couple of interesting snakes currently in residence. Both Bitis genera, both healthy adults. They defecate at intervals of from one to three months. Needless to say, It's quite a load. Unlike the scat of many reptiles, their feces is not entirely different in consistancy from your dog's, except for the white uriates.

What a fascinating coprolite this would make! snakes shed their fangs regularly and these pass through with the meal that they came out in. I don't bother with it anymore, but I've collected fangs by drying the feces and breakinbg it up.

So, dry and hard, or loose and runny, dung is dung. All but a minute percentage goes the way of the dung beetle, the garden worm, of the sole of the oxford shoe. But what's left can tell pretty amazing story.

doov

James,
Actually, there were about three to four people around who saw me taking the pictures!

Since Duv corroborated my critique regarding "cracks in poop" not requiring drying, I'll simply post a picture of two-three week old dog poop.

Note how it is almost completely broken down.

If there exists such ENORMOUS quantities of fossilized dung throughout the Earth's sedimentary layers as posited by Winace (and others) AND (per Dr.GH above) dung needs to be submersed in turbid water in order to become a coprolite I herewith assert that "Coprolites support a YEC hypothesis."

Hey, great work, TheFiveSolas! This is real science, totally splattering the claim by Glenn Moron and his parrot that cracks in dung prove long periods of drying. And TFS shows once again how supposed evidence against the Creation/Fall/Flood model actually turns out to make far more sense when interpreted in this paradigm.

illuminating and odiferous

Today @ 08:46 AM post located here
TheFiveSolas:
I'll simply post a picture of two-three week old dog poop.

Note how it is almost completely broken down.

Hmm, in this country such scientific research is hindered by the £500 fine imposed on those who do not clear up after their dogs.

However, great thread guys, and no moderation either. A pleasure to read.

Today @ 08:46 AM post located here
TheFiveSolas:

James,
Actually, there were about three to four people around who saw me taking the pictures!

Since Duv corroborated my critique regarding "cracks in poop" not requiring drying, I'll simply post a picture of two-three week old dog poop.

Note how it is almost completely broken down.

If there exists such ENORMOUS quantities of fossilized dung throughout the Earth's sedimentary layers as posited by Winace (and others) AND (per Dr.GH above) dung needs to be submersed in turbid water in order to become a coprolite I herewith assert that "Coprolites support a YEC hypothesis."

I really must differ. It takes a very long time to turn organics into stone, even under the best of conditions. Feces is especally difficult to fossilize due to it's delicatcy. The main reason that coprolites are so common is that, well, everybody leaves a lot of the raw material behind them in a life time, and some fraction of it gets the right conditions. given the huge number of species that came and went (this number will never be known, sadly), it would be amazing if there were fewer coprolites.

And again, fish coprolites along with the fossilized remains of the fish have been found in strata sandwiched between other strata showing land.

doov

doov

Today @ 11:11 AM post located here
Duvenoy:

I really must differ. It takes a very long time to turn organics into stone, even under the best of conditions. Feces is especally difficult to fossilize due to it's delicatcy. The main reason that coprolites are so common is that, well, everybody leaves a lot of the raw material behind them in a life time, and some fraction of it gets the right conditions. given the huge number of species that came and went (this number will never be known, sadly), it would be amazing if there were fewer coprolites.

We know that minerals dissolved in water enter the remains of plants and animals buried in sediment and start the fossilization process. Fossilization does not have to take a long time. It depends on the physical and chemical conditions and is nearly independent of time. If the pH, temperature, mineral content, and other conditions are right, fossilization will occur rapidly. One cannot say with any certainty what conditions were present when a particular fossil formed. We read in Rick Balough's Crossfire article (Aug 93) the Scientific American report that mineral-laden waters at Mother Shipton's Cave in Yorkshire, England fossilized animals within a few years. [Sci Am, 1889] One reader suggested that this was not true fossilization. This is a moot point. Fossilization is fossilization regardless of whether silicates, carbonates, or other minerals are involved.
By Jon A. Covey, B.A., MT(ASCP)
Edited by Anita Millen, M.D., M.P.H., M.A.

Creation in the Crossfire

discuss.

Today @ 11:21 AM post located here
Solly:




Creation in the Crossfire

discuss.

True enough, as far as it goes. In the highly mineralized waters found in a limestone cave, a fossil might form rapidly.

However, those conditions are not all that common. Most fossils are formed under much less ideal conditions.

Hypothetical example: Let us say that a bit of feces (gotta stay on topic) from, say, a theropod, was dropped in the sand just before a dust storm. The storm came and buried it under several feet of dry sand. It dessicated quickly, then just laid there; no bugs, vermiforms, nor shoes to disturb it for centuries (This has been shown with ancient, human coprolites in the American SW), concievably even milinia. Meanwhile, the sand has become pretty solid around it, preserving it's form. Then conditions change and a river enters the land, forming a lake; or the sea encroaches yet again. Suddenly, our coprolite begins to have it's home invaded by water seepage and the minerals it carries. As these minreals are in nothing like the concentrates found in a limestone cavern, it takes a very long time.

So, there is no hard and fast rule as to the time it takes a fossil to form. Nor is it important. If the species that depsoited the coprolite can be IDd, or the strata dated, the age of it will be known.

doov

Today @ 10:59 AM post located here
Woman:

illuminating and odiferous

Warned ya 'bout them zookeepers! (chuckle)

doov