The Wildlife of Eden

I said I would show some of the animals that lived in that deep basin.

I do this so that people won’t think that there is no way anything could have lived there. These are reconstructions from fossils, so exact coloration is not to be obtained but that doesn’t mean the animals were here. All of these were found in Messinian sediments. Some of those sediments have been uplifted above sealevel bringing their fossils with them so they could be found. There are some uplifted sediments in Cypus but most of the uplifted sediments are found in Sicily, and Italy.

First at the bottom of the food chain are ostracods, fish and mice. This is a chart of the fish that lived in the basin


Myotragus–a goat. The only way this goat could have made it to this island was to have walked across the dry basin and then by luck, was above sea level when the flood came. Now, they could have retreated up the mountain as the waters rose, numerical modeling says the waters rose in the basin around 7 m per day. This is a model and different assumptions would change that number, but it gives an idea of how herds could retreat up-slope day after day while the basin filled with water. While they only survived on Mallorca they would likely have been widespread during the Messinian Salinity Crisis–I will discuss him later.

Early elephant called Gomphotherium

A hyaena type of animal lived on that basin floor

A big cat called Machairodus and below is size compared to man

Hippos and elephants walked to many of the mountain tops during the dry messinian times in the Mediterranean and survived on what became islands after the flood. Both hippos and elephants became dwarf hippos and dwarf elephants over time. While some say the elephants swam to the islands, this is doubtful to me because the hippos had to walk to the islands. They can't swim at all. Hippos bounce off the bottom of the rivers and if the water is too deep, they will drown if they can't get to shallow water.

"And apparently, hippopotami made their way from the Nile to Cyprus. The migratory traffic might have been more frequent if the wanderers had not had to travel across a desert 2,000 to 3,000 meters below sea level." ~ Kenneth J. Hsu, The Mediterranean was a Desert, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 177.

"For all intents and purposes the hippo does not swim," said Douglas McCauley, an assistant professor in the department of ecology, evolution, and marine biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "It almost always maintains some contact with the bottom and walks or bounces off the bottom using these bottom contact points as a source of propulsion." Adrienne LaFrance, "Hippos Can't Swim--So How Do they Move Through Water?" The Atlantic, April 26, 2017, Hippos Can’t Swim—So How Do They Move Through Water?

Wiki says:

"The Cretan dwarf hippopotamus (Hippopotamus creutzburgi) is an extinct species of hippopotamus from the island of Crete. Hippopopotamus colonized Crete probably 800,000 years ago and lived there during the Middle Pleistocene.[3] Bones of H. creutzburgi were found by Dorothea Bate on the Katharo plateau, in eastern Crete, in the 1900s.[4] A similar species, the Cyprus dwarf hippopotamus (Phanourios minor) lived on the island of Cyprus until the Holocene. It was at least 20% smaller than either subspecies of Cretan hippo. Hippopotamus creutzburgi - Wikipedia

Cyprus dwarf hippopotamus
Maltese dwarf hippopotamus
Sicilian dwarf hippopotamus
Hippopotamus creutzburgi - Wikipedia

Wiki is wrong about when they colonized the island because 800,000 years ago, the Mediterranean was a deep sea and hippos couldn't swim. The only time they could have colonized these islands was when the Med was dry and they walked to these mountain tops and escaped drowning by the Zanclean flood. Dwarf hippo, dwarfed by island endemism, compared to the normal size hippo.

Below is the same for the dwarf elephants.

A strange deer with fangs called Micromeryx lived in that basin.

Pikas lived down there in that deep basin.

Believe it or not, this is a bovid.

Animals found in the Messinian basinal sedimens which I couldn't find a picture for are large and small giraffids. There were Mustelidae, which are related to weasels and otters

There were civet or gennet like animals:

“They pointed out strong affinities between the Baccinello V3 fossil, Viverra n. sp. “A” from Sahabi, Libya (Howell, 1987) and Viverrinae sp. indet from Lothagam, Kenya (Werdelin, 2003), thus erecting the species Viverra howelli. This species is characterized by a relatively small size and a lower carnassial with a short talonid. ” Raffaele SARDELLA,“Remarks on the Messinian carnivores (Mammalia) of Italy” Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana, 47 (2), 2008, 195-202. Modena, 11 luglio 2008, p. 196 http://paleoitalia.org/media/u/archives/195_Sardella.pdf

There were more hyanids than the one I showed:

“ The following hyaenid taxa have been collected from Italian Messinian localities: Plioviverrops faventinus Torre, 1989 (Brisighella; Fig. 2), Plioviverrops orbignyi (=Ictitherium orbignyi) (Gaudry & Lartet, 1856) (Gravitelli), Hyaenictitherium hyaenoides (Zdansky, 1924) (=Ictitherium hipparionum) (Gravitelli), Hyaenictitherium sp. (Verduno), Lycyaena chaeretis (Gaudry, 1861) (=Thalassyctis (Lycyaena) ex gr. chaeretis-macrostoma) (Brisighella), Hyaenidae indet. (coprolites) from Baccinello V3.” Raffaele SARDELLA,“Remarks on the Messinian carnivores (Mammalia) of Italy” Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana, 47 (2), 2008, 195-202. Modena, 11 luglio 2008, p. 197

That basin was full of life with ostracods in the waters, fish, etc. One drawing of it shows a great grassland. It would have to be like that in order for hippos to survive, because they eat grass.

The place I put Eden would have been a lush steppe/desert. One derivation of the word Eden means steppe or desert.

"The name Eden comes from either an Akkadian word meaning 'steppe' or 'desert,' edinu, or a West Semitic word that describes 'luxury,'-'delight,' and abundance, adan." Mangum, D., Custis, M., & Widder, W. (2012). Genesis 1:11 (Ge 2:4:25). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

But it was full of wildlife.

Finding the Curse in the Human Fossil Record

Finding the Curse in the Human Fossil Record

Glenn R. Morton March 24, 2020

What if we could find evidence of God's curse on Adam and Eve in the hominid fossil record?  Would that make a difference to your views of Genesis and the Scripture?  My bet is that most people won't change their views.  But I am going to present just that evidence for my claim above.  It is one reason I move Adam and Eve back to 5.3 myr ago.

Obviously this brings objections to my views is the antiquity of Adam and Eve. Both liberals and young-earthers claim they were Neolithic farmers. This can only be said if we ignore what Scripture says about the two curses God placed on Adam and Eve at the Fall. We must understand that pain in childbirth comes from the infant's head being almost too big to fit through the birth canal.  Indeed, my oldest granddaugher's head was too big and a c-section was required. All Homo sapiens females have experienced pain in childbirth for the past 200,000 years.  So, if Eve was a Neolithic woman, whose mother experienced childbirth, why on earth would God curse her with what she already had?

Similarly, Adam's curse of sweat of the brow relates to an enlarged brain. Our brains are energy hungry, using 20 percent of our body's energy.  If it overheats, it will be damaged, so our bodies evolved sweating mechanisms to cool both the body and the brain.   Chimps don't sweat.

"When hominids left the verdant Garden of Eden of the African forest refuges, they began to sweat. Sweating is one of the biggest differences that separates human physiology from that of chimps." ~ Noel Boaz, Eco Homo, (New York: Basic Books, 1997), p. 123

And Dean Falk points out that hominid brains show an increasing level of emissary veins in the foreheads. These veins cool the brain when it overheats.:

"It was beautiful. For the past two million years, the increase in frequencies of emissary foramina kept exact pace with the sharp increase in brain size in Homo. Clearly, the brain and the veins had evolved rapidly and together. I saw that Cabanac's letter was right and that I had unwittingly charted the evolution of a radiator for the brain in my earlier work on emissary foramina. As Anwander had said about my car, the engine can only be as big as the radiator can cool. Apparently, the same is true for heat-sensitive brains." Dean Falk, Braindance,(New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1992), p.159

Sweat of the brow already existed in Neolithic times.  Again, why would God curse a Neolithic Adam with what he already had?  If God were to curse me with weak legs, it would be no big deal. I already have legs that are weak due to damaged nerves. Because of this, we must look for Adam farther back in time. We have already seen Falk talk about the emissary veins increasing in the foreheads of hominids for the past 2 million years, implying that Adam's curse was already in effect.

So, when do we see Eve's curse?   Well, there are several issues we need to understand first. The evolution of upright posture, seems to have changed the shape of the female birth canal, so the baby has to undergo rotation and it seems to have changed the way we humans have sex.

"The assumption of upright posture and the forward shift of the female genital organs has made it possible for human beings to copulate ventrally, unlike most other animals. A survey in our society has shown that 70 percent of the people follow only this frontal approach in sexual relations, and a cross-cultural survey of nearly 200 societies in different parts of the world has shown that the dorsal approach is not the usual one in any of these societies. There has been some speculation to the effect that the development of the frontal approach has led to a more personal relationship between the sex partners, involving more courtship and sex play than among other primates. Also, uniquely among mammals, human females may experience intense pain during childbirth, another consequence of the assumption of upright posture." ~ Victor Barnouw, An Introduction to Anthropology: Physical Anthropology and Archaeology, 1, (Homewood, Ill: The Dorsey Press, 1982), p. 84

Humans also give birth to more infantile neonates.  Apes and australopithecines double their brain size after birth; humans triple our brains after birth.  Anthropologists say we humans  are born early so we can go through the birth canal, but grow our brains at prenatal rates for a while after our birth.   It is the large head and rotation of the infant in the birth canal which gives rise to pain in childbirth.  Below is a chart from DeSilva and Lesnik which shows that the earliest members of our genus already had the human pattern of  tripling our brain size after birth.

What is unique about humans is that we grow our brains at fetal brain growth rates for a year after birth!  Walker and Shipman write:

"The human evolutionary 'trick' of growing a brain at fetal rates after birth was obviously well in place by 1.6 million years ago. In fact, it seems likely that the change in the pattern of brain growth from apelike to human like must have accompanied the evolution of Homo habilis." ~ Alan Walker and Pat Shipman, The Wisdom of the Bones, (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1996), p. 228

Habilis appears in the fossil record 2.4 myr ago. So we have seen that there is physical, observable evidence of the curses being in existence as far back as 2.4 myr ago.  This means any theory that places Adam and Eve after 2.4 myr can't explain why earlier hominids show evidence of already having the curse. In other words, the curses mean nothing within their views of Scriptural history.

People will object that 2.4 myr is a long way from 5.3 myr year, and their mathematics would be correct, but consider this.  The first fossil of any creature is not the very first being of that kind  of being on earth.  Fossilization is very rare. Indeed, 97% of all species leave no record of their existence in the fossil record.  When a species is rare, it is very unlikely that they will leave a fossil.  Fossils only occur when a species is widespread and subject to many possible chances of one of their number being fossilized.  Because of this paleontological fact, it is a certitude that habilis lived much earlier than 2.4 myr ago.  How much earlier is something we can not say, but, if you look at the fossil records of other species and genera, we find some animals living on earth for millions of years between their fossilization events and leaving no trace of their existence in the interum. For instance, there is a 20 myr gap between the first fossilized loris and the second fossilized loris. There is a 60 myr gap between the first fossilized African turtle and the second, and an 8 myr gap between the first and second fossil elephant. These animals lived on earth for millions of years without leaving a single piece of fossil evidence that they were here.  Thus, to claim as some do that habilis  couldn't have lived earlier than 2.4 myr ago is nonsense.  He had to be widespread by 2.4 myr in order to overcome the odds against a member of his species being fossilized.  Habilis could easily have been on earth 5.3 myr ago

More detail can be found here.

The Strange Hydrology of Eden

The Strange Hydrology of Eden

Glenn R. Morton 2020

As a geophysicist of 47 years experience all around the world, I view some parts of the Bible differently than theologians who don't know much geology. As a geoscientist, I know that the hydrology described is highly unusual--mists, rivers splitting into four big rivers etc.  I have arrived at a professional conclusion, this kind of hydrology can only exist in a flat bottomed basin. Interestingly, there is a massive, US-sized dry basin right next to where the Nile, Euphrates, Pison and Tigris flowed five and a half million years ago. As you read, enlarge the pictures to see for yourselves what I am saying abou them.

For those who might not have heard that this basin was empty the information can be found here, and those who wonder about the Biblical rivers being together, can find that information here.

Many won't like how far back in time this is.  That is too bad because you will miss seeing things from the Bible match up with modern geologic knowledge.

I place Noah's flood in the dry Mediterranean basin because it is the only cataclysmic flood which matches the Biblical description. It filled up in about a year's time, the basin was up to 5 km deep, meaning any mountain less than 5 km high would be covered by this flood, and the fact that the rivers flow into this area at that time, makes this basin a prime geological candidate for being Noah's flood. 

Mists Galore

As I said, the hydrology described by Scripture only works in a flat bottomed deep basin.  Consider Genesis 2:6:

But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

Other than areas with hot geysers, I cannot think of anywhere that is watered by mists rising from the ground.  I once owned a ranch and had a small temporary spring.  Water which landed on the adjacent hill, (about 20-30 feet higher than the spring), would seep through the hill's rocks and bubble up in this low area.  It would last about 2 weeks after a rain.  While it didn't have the energy or pressure to spray into the air, water which drops several thousand feet in rocks very well could have had the pressure to form a mist when they spewed into the deep dry, Mediterranean basin. 

So how did that happen in Eden?  Below is a cross section of the geology of central Israel.  Note the geologic rocks are dipping to the west, towards the Mediterranean Sea.

If we extend those dipping sediments to the continental slope, where the continent meets the ocean basin, it would look like this, you can see where the water would be spewing out.:

This geometry of rocks is certain to yield artesian flow at the continental edge.  The situation would be a bit more complicated than what I have shown, but this simplification shows the basic idea.  Artesian wells occur only in valleys, never on top of the mountain.

Egypt's coast at the time is a bit more complicated but I will go step by step.  One thing to know about me is that I was geophysical manager of the Gulf of Mexico for 10 years for an oil company and the knowledge I learned there  about salt movement will come in handy here.  Below is what the coast of Egypt looks like today.

Everything above the orange Abu Madi formation and the purple salt, has been deposited after the Mediterranean flood.  We will restore the geology to approximately what it was like when the basin was dry.  The first thing is to know where the salt was originally.  As you move NE from the left of the cross section you will see the first set of faults (semi-vertical lines cutting through the rocks).  In this area, the faults are cause by salt movement and those faults show where the salt used to be.  See below:

Now we will remove all the post flood sediment and restore the salt to its original position:

The places I marked the possible artesian locations are channel cuts into the Abu Madi (first 3 from the left) and small thrust faults shown on the cross section in he middle of the section.  Given that the rain falls on Egypt, 5 km higher than this surface was at the time the Mediterranean was a desert, there would have been a lot of pressure to these artesian wells.

I know the Abu Madi formation is capable of artesian flow because it is made of sand and shale. The sands today are filled with natural gas produced by the Egyptian oil industry. a cross section from another place illustrates how faulting could be the source of some artesian flow.

I have shown that it is quite possible for what the Bible says to be true.  Mists would have arisen in this land regardless of whether one accepts this as Eden's location or not. 

The Right Rivers!

The second clue that this dry basin marks Eden comes from the fact that this is the only time in geologic history that the Nile, Euphrates, Pison and Tigris flowed into the same region. See the first map in this post or for more detail see here.  Today, the Euphrates, Tigris and the area drained by the Pison(it no longer exists), empty into the Indian Ocean.  The Nile still empties into the Mediterranean. If The Bible is true about these river, then this is the only time and place where one could make a case for a real Eden.  If this location is rejected, then Eden becomes a fantasy as many of our theologians and atheists, have claimed. 

"Skinner claimed: 'it is obvious that a real locality answering the description of Eden exists and has existed nowhere on the face of the earth...(T)he whole representation (is) outside the sphere of real geographic knowledge." John C. Munday, Jr., "Eden's Geography Erodes Flood Geology,"Westminster Theological Journal, 58(1996), pp. 123-154,p.128-130

All I can say to Skinner is that there was a time when a locality answering the description of Eden existed.  He just didn't have the requisite geological knowledge. 

This event comes at the same time as genetics says the oldest human genes originated. It is the only time genetically we could  have a primal pair of parents.  Isn't that an interesting coincidence? But one will object, only small brained hominids lived at that time.  That is true, but one Homo Sapiens, named Daniel Lyon, lived a full life in New York, having normal intelligence but  the brain size of a two million year old hominid, H. habilis. Daniel Lyon lived a normal life, showing brain size doesn't matter to one who bears the image of God. Furthermore the curses of Eden both involve the brains of Adam and Eve's descendants getting bigger. If they are Neolithic farmers as everyone claims, why curse them with something they already have, namely problems arising from having a big brain?

Rivers Splitting

Another  odd thing about Eden's hydrology concerns the splitting of rivers.  Scripture says (Genesis 2:10):

"And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads."

Rivers don't split right after the spring that starts them.  The only time rivers split into distributaries is when they are on flat land or at their delta, near sea level.  This hydrology is telling us that Eden was at a delta or on extremely flat land.  The bottom of the Mediterranean desert five and a half million years ago would  satisfy that requirement.  It requires a deep flat basin for this to happen.

Well, if we assume that Eden was near where the four rivers poured into the basin, and the Edenic river was sourced by an artesian well, as described above, then below is what I think Eden looked like in diagrammatical form:

In our world, one river doesn't source four others. So what could this word 'head' mean?  The Hebrew word means 'head', 'chief', or 'principal'.  Its definition says nothing about water, or headwaters.  But some interpret that verse as requiring that this Edenic river be the source of the other rivers.  Now, I had an interesting debate about the word 'heads', but the debate got me thinking and I figured a way to explain this if it does indeed mean headwaters.    Notice that I have one green river flowing out of Eden and its distributaries, empty into the four other rivers.  I am going to suggest that even if you require Eden's rivers to be 'headwaters', a requirement not imposed by the Hebrew but by one's bias, then there is a way to have these rivers as 'heads'.

If our continent had first been settled in Oregon, and people crossed the mountains and found the Missouri river and gave it a new name, let's say, the Toodles river, they would float all the way to Southern Louisiana on the same Toodles river.  They would give names to each of the tributaries they passed and in this scenario, we would consider the headwaters of the Toodles to be in Montana and Wyoming, not in Minnesota.  What I am saying is that what we call a river's headwaters, is an accident of history. It was Henry Rowe Schoolcraft in 1832 who named the source of the Mississippi river. He called the lake which he decided was the headwaters of the Mississippi, Veritas Caput. He could have named any of the thousands of heads as the headwaters of the Mississippi. Below are all the possible headwaters of the Mississippi river

Any one of the above headwaters could have been called the head waters of the Mississippi, in other words, they are all heads of the Mississippi river.

While most people will not like Adam being as far back as I place him and won't accept this theory for that reason alone, I have shown above that the strange hydrology of Eden can only fit a deep basin locale. This, along with the four rivers, the cataclysmic flood lasting about a year, and covering high mountains makes this the only real place in geologic history and geologic time that actually matches the details of both Eden and Noah's flood.  The geology is sound. The question is will you follow where the data leads?