EPISODE 270 WHY ARE THERE FOSSILS ON TOP OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS? SKEOCH FAMILY CLIMBED TO DISCOVER WHY
alan skeoch
march 2021
IN 1981 WE CLIMBED THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS…AND FOUND A MYSTERY
In the year of our Lord, 1981, Marjorie and I packed up a second hand pop up trailer and drove west so that our
boys would get to know the magnificent country in which they lived. The previous summer we drove east to Newfoundland.
In those two summer trips the boys got to know Canada. Sometimes they asked bewildering questions.
“Dad, why are these fossils up here on top of the Rocky Mountains?”
“Seems strange…did someone carry them up here for us to find?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Easier to believe that than to believe the other story.”
“What ‘other story’?
“The tectonic plates story…idea that we are floating on huge plates of
rock sitting on top of a molten mass of stuff called magma.. And that millions of years ago
two of the big plates collided with each other…hit so hard and for
such a long time that the edges were pushed up to form the Rocky Mountains. like a big
accident when two transport trucks hit dead on ”
“Now who in their right mind would believe that floating rock idea…pure poppycock.”
“Yes, must be nonsense.”
“That Plate Tectonics thesis even goes further to offer proof…uses the
fossils as evidence. The collsioins of plates of rock theory says that the fossils are proof
of the collision.””
“Get away with you. More nonsense.”
“Right. Imagine saying that these fossils were once the bottom of a great
shallow sea that was full of life some 500 million years ago…and that the collision
of the Tectonic plates pushed that sea thousands of feet into the air.”
“Nonsense I still say.”
“Even worse. The stupid idea of the tectonic plates came from T. Tuzo Wilson, a Canadian
geophysicist. Idea has been accepted by scientists around the world.”
“Just goes to show you about scientists…they are guessers…and your guess is
as good as mine. I prefer authorities.”
“Authorities? What authority?”
“Well, for a start I would like to know what Donald Trump thinks about the Tectonic Plate
theory.”
“Now there’s a well informed man…a deep reader….a thinker even though some call him
a stinker and worse.”
“He knows something about the collision of fact and fiction and how that can stir up
humanity. Maybe he understands the collision of huge plates of rock floating on
a sea of molten magma.”
“Not sure he’s thought that deeply.
“How would he explain the presence of these fossils on top of the Rocky Mountains?”
“I think he would prefer the idea that someone carried them up here just to
make fools of scientists…and make fools of us.”
QUESTION: Does anyone reading this dialogue know what these fossils may have
been 500 million years ago.? Crinoids? Not sure. I really do not know. As for
the conversation you have just read, I think the collision theory is better than
the “I carried the fossils up the Rocky Mountains just to fool the Skeoch family” theory.
Where do you stand?
HONEST QUESTION: What living things were these fossils?
“Daddy, can you explain how fossils at the bottom of the sea became the tops of the Rocky Mountains?”
“Yes, I can boys. Two ideas. First idea is that two gigantic floating continents on a sea of molten lava
collided so hard that they pushed the bottom of the sea to the top of the Rockies.”
“Sounds a little far fetched , Dad, what’s the other idea?”
“Far simpeler. Somebody carried the fossils up here.”
“Why would someone do that?”
“There are lots of strange people in the world boys. I do not know what motivates them all.”
Here we are in the summer of 1981, climbing the Rocky Mountains.
All kinds of loose rock…
Then we eventually reached the line where snow and rock meet. Great to slide down a mountain clad in snow
that never melts.
Among the high altitude flowers and the snow were great chunks of ancient fossils.
With a false step we could slide down the mountain along with these chunks of sedimentary rock
heading down to the valley below.
“Dad, tell me that stupid story again about the big dinner plates colliding and making the rocky Mountains.”
alan skeoch
March 2021