The Great American Biotic Interchange Pushed Back Over 10 Million Years
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JOURNAL OF CREATION 30(3) 2016 || PERSPECTIVES and flightless birds. Secular scientists The Great claim this event occurred in the late Cenozoic or late Neogene (Pliocene), American Biotic ‘dated’ 3 Ma ago. The GABI includes the invasion of South America by Interchange horses, camels, and saber-toothed pushed back cats from North America. At the same time, armadillos, glyptodonts over 10 million (figure 1), and ground sloths spread northward into North America. Many years of these animals are extinct, but some are common in Ice Age deposits. Michael J. Oard Two absolute time tie points associated with the GABI are the beginning of the Ice Age cycle and volutionary scientists have the closing of the seaway through dated many events within their E Panama between the Atlantic and timescale. They have determined the Pacific Oceans that supposedly absolute dates for the extinction of initiated several paleoceanographic the dinosaurs, the crossing of many changes. Some climatologists believe animals both ways across the Bering that it was the closing of the seaway Land Bridge, and the mammal that initiated the Ice Age cycle, but migrations known as the Great other climatologists consider this to American Biotic Interchange (GABI).1 be unlikely.2 These dates are considered firm and There have always been exceptions commonly represent ‘tie points’ for to the giant exchange at 3 Ma ago, correlation with other data sets. For possibly because uniformitarian instance, Ice Age deposits are often fossil and radiometric dates were tied to what are considered well-dated encountered that were older than 3 events of the Pleistocene, such as the Ma. For instance, the gomphothere start of the Holocene about 10,000 proboscidean is one of those animals years ago and the start of the last Ice that supposedly migrated to South Age about 120,000 years ago within America during the GABI, but an the uniformitarian Ice Age scheme. earlier date was suggested because of the finding of a gomphothere in South The Great American America in the late Miocene, 9.5 Ma 3 Biotic Interchange ago: “It is generally believed that The GABI is an important they [gomphotheres] extended evolutionary event in that it their range into South America supposedly determines part of the during the late Pliocene and early order of fossils found in the Americas Pleistocene as part of the Great and whether a fossil animal either American Biotic Interchange migrated or evolved. Secular scientists (McKeena and Bell, 1997; Mothé believe the GABI happened when land et al., 2012), although there is some and freshwater fauna migrated from suggestion that they dispersed into North America via Central America South America during the late to South America and vice versa, as Miocene (Campbell et al., 2000).”4 the Isthmus of Panama rose to produce As suggested by the example of a land bridge. The land fauna that the gomphothere, several interchanges migrated included several different are believed to have occurred well large groups, including mammals, before 3 Ma ago, before there was a reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, supposed land bridge connection.5 14 PERSPECTIVES || JOURNAL OF CREATION 30(3) 2016 These exceptions have been called ‘heralds’, and this term seems to be an attempt to sweep away the difficulty with crossing an ocean between North and South America. Scientists theorize that the heralds must have moved across Central America by ‘island hopping’ or some other mechanism, and not by direct land bridges.6–8 Because of the complexity involved in uniformitarian dating methods, it was discovered that there was not one massive interchange at 3 Ma ago, but that there were periods of enhanced mammal migration at four different times younger than 3 Ma ago. Therefore, some scientists postulate four separate GABIs.6 There were also periods with little interchange, even Figure 1. An artist’s conception of a glyptodont, which weighed up to 2,000 kg when a land bridge was thought to be in existence, which seems paradoxical. Since a presumed ‘factual’ tie References All these GABIs and heralds are based point has been challenged, some 1. MacFadden, B.J., Morgan, G.S., Jones, D.S. on assumed ‘precise dates’, although and Rincon, A.F., Gomphothere proboscidean scientists dispute the new results. (Gomphotherium) from the late Neogene, J. the fossil record of South America is Some scientists suggest that the zircon Paleontology 89(2):360–365, 2015. 9 still not well understood. 2. Sumner, T., North met South sooner than later: crystals could have originated from crystals from Panama suggest continents linked somewhere other than Panama, or up early, Science News 187(9):10–11, 2015. that the connection was not complete 3. Mothé, D. and Avilla, L., Mythbusting evolutionary GABI now thought to have been issues on South American Gomphotheriidae between the Americas until 3 Ma (mammalia: Proboscidea), Quaternary Science 13–15 Ma ago Reviews 110:23–35, 2015. ago with a seaway farther north than 4. MacFadden et al., ref. 1, p. 360. The ‘firm date’ for the GABI 2 Panama. 5. Verzi, D.H. and Montalvo, C.I., The oldest South has recently been challenged. New American Cricetidae (Rodentia) and Mustelidae evidence claims that the GABI started (Carnivora): Late Miocene faunal turnover in central Argentina and the Great American Biotic 10,11 13–15 Ma ago, instead of 3 Ma ago. Creation science implications Interchange, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, The evidence comes from U-Pb dating Palaeoecology 267:284–291, 2008. The new results show how 6. Woodburne, M.O., The Great American Biotic of zircon crystals in basins and rivers some seemingly well-supported Interchange: dispersals, tectonics, climate, sea of the northern Andes and from level and holding pens, J. Mammal Evolution evolutionary events can be derailed 17:245–264, 2010. examining the location from where by new evidence. When the dates of tie 7. Campbell Jr., K.E., Prothero, D.R., Romero- the zircons could have originated. Pittman, L. et al., Amazonian magnetostratigraphy: points change, the chronology of other dating the first pulse of the Great American Faunal Some of these zircons are claimed to interchange, J. South American Earth Sciences data sets is also affected. It is hard to 29:619–626, 2010. be uniquely from Panama. This would know how the change in dates of the 8. Flynn, J.J., Kowallis, B.J., Nuñez, C. et al., suggest zircons were transported by GABI, if accepted, will shake up the Geochronology of Hemphillian-Blancan aged strata, Guanajuato, Mexico, and implications for a river connection across the Panama uniformitarian scenarios of evolution timing of the Great American Biotic Interchange, land bridge 13–15 Ma ago. These new and migration. The controversy over The J. Geology 113:287–307, 2005. 9. Woodburne, ref. 6, p. 248. results are also used to explain the this date is at least showing how 12 10. Montes, C., Cardona, A., Jaramillo, C. et al., Middle earlier herald migrations. Since the arbitrary this tie point is and how Miocene closure of the Central American seaway, main animal migrations did not start delicate is uniformitarian chronology. Science 348:226–229, 2015. 11. Stone, R., Battle for the Americas, Science 341:230– for another 10 Ma, at the start of the It is best that creation scientists 233, 2013. GABI, it raises the question of why not take these ‘events’ or ‘tie points’ 12. Hoorn, C. and Flantua, S., An early start for the the massive migrations did not happen seriously even in a relative timescale. Panama land bridge, Science 348:186–187, 2015. 13. Hoorn and Flantua, ref. 12, p. 187. sooner: “But why did many organisms It also illustrates the many excuses wait until migrating around 3 million given for exceptions, such as the claim years ago?”13 for ‘heralds’ or ‘multiple GABIs’. 15.