Whales in the Desert?

How did at least 75 fossilized whales end up in a Chilean desert? The whales have been found near the town of Caldera, which is in the Atacama Desert. Scientists also discovered an extinct fossilized dolphin, complete with tusks! This area is considered one of the driest places in the world, even though it is very close to the Pacific Ocean. The fossil graveyard is located on the top of a hill close to one half mile (a little less than a kilometer) from the ocean. “So far, the fossils have been found in a roadside strip the length of two football fields—about 262 yards long and 22 yards wide.”¹

Scientists are puzzled by this discovery, since there are so many well-preserved fossilized whales in a relatively small area. Twenty of the whales were found perfectly intact.² The scientists speculate that the whales must have died at the same time, but how did they die?

The Bible has an explanation. A catastrophe, such as the events during (see Genesis 6:13-8:22) or after a global Flood, would explain this fossil graveyard. “Once the data become available, post-Flood catastrophes and conditions prevailing in the wake of the Flood will likely provide a logical explanation for how this large cache of cetacean victims found themselves beached and buried in the desert. . . The global Flood and post-Flood catastrophes explain the majority of the fossil record and would have certainly remodeled the surface of the earth.”² Based on the Bible, we would expect these whales to have lived close to 4,300 years ago.

To learn more about how the global Flood affected the world, and about fossil formation, please read the following:

• Flood, Geology, and Fossils Q & A
• The Great Ice Age
• Ice Age Q & A
• Ice Age Video

¹Eva Vergara, Ian James, “Whale Fossil Bonanza in Desert Poses Mystery”, Science on msnbc.com, November 20, 2011, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45367885/ns/technology_and_science-science/.
²Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, News to Note, November 26, 2011, Answers in Genesis.