Zed,
In the book Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study4, creationist researcher John Woodmorappe suggests that, at most, 16,000 animals were all that were needed to preserve the created kinds that God brought into the Ark.
The Ark did not need to carry every kind of animal—nor did God command it. It carried only air-breathing, land-dwelling animals, creeping things, and winged animals such as birds. Aquatic life (fish, whales, etc.) and many amphibious creatures could have survived in sufficient numbers outside the Ark. This cuts down significantly the total number of animals that needed to be on board.
Another factor which greatly reduces the space requirements is the fact that the tremendous variety in species we see today did not exist in the days of Noah. Only the parent “kinds” of these species were required to be on board in order to repopulate the earth.5 For example, only two dogs were needed to give rise to all the dog species that exist today.
Creationist estimates for the maximum number of animals that would have been necessary to come on board the Ark have ranged from a few thousand to 35,000, but they may be as few as two thousand if the biblical kind is approximately the same as the modern family classification.
As stated before, Noah wouldn’t have taken the largest animals onto the Ark; it is more likely he took juveniles aboard the Ark to repopulate the earth after the Flood was over. These younger animals also require less space, less food, and have less waste.
Using a short cubit of 18 inches (46 cm) for the Ark to be conservative, Woodmorappe’s conclusion is that “less than half of the cumulative area of the Ark’s three decks need to have been occupied by the animals and their enclosures.”6 This meant there was plenty of room for fresh food, water, and even many other people.
-http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/really-a-flood-and-ark
And to address the polystrate trees,
Alternating beds of sandstone, siltstone, and shale are exposed along the banks of the Bay of Fundy, known for its extreme tidal range. Here the difference between the water's elevation of high tide and low tide is over 50 feet!2 This leads to continual erosion of the cliff and continual exposure of new fossils. The strata sequence, dipping to the south at about 25 degrees, is approximately 14,000 feet thick, measured perpendicularly to the originally horizontal bedding. The individual beds are interspersed with scores of layers of coal. Lyell's partner, Sir William Dawson, recorded some 85 coal horizons, ranging in thickness from just a few inches to thick enough to be mined by underground mining methods. As one walks northerly along the banks of the Bay, one encounters beds deposited ever earlier in time, since the lower beds must have been deposited first. In standard thinking, this thick sequence of beds was laid down over a 10-million-year period of time, from 310 to 300 million years ago.
Two schools of thought exist within uniformitarian geologists, who variously interpret these beds as: (1) a flood plain in which a river occasionally overflowed its banks, burying the surrounding marsh in mud; and as (2) a coastal plain occasionally inundated by rising oceans. In both cases, sediments are assumed to have been building up as the underlying basin subsided, with deposition keeping up with sinking.3 The coal beds are thought to record a recurring swampy bog, where organic materials collected for hundreds of years, only to be buried either by river flooding or sea level rises. Over time thick layers of mud and sand would collect, later to be uplifted and returned to a swamp condition. However, the exacting conditions necessary for peat bog formation strain the credibility of 85 swamps forming in exactly the same location over 10 million years, with long hiatuses in between. Local channel infillings can be seen, as can fossil trackways, ripple marks, raindrop pits, and cross bedding. The ever-present nature of these features hardened in the rocks, argues against a normal swamp, for the extensive bioturbation in a swamp would annihilate them in just a few years. Rapid burial and preservation seems to be required.
Fossils
A variety of fossils can be found here, from fish to clams to snails to ferns. They are considered to be primarily freshwater and terrestrial, but the tubeworm, Spirorbis, almost certainly marine or brackish, points to a mixing of environments.4
The most impressive fossils are the upright lycopod trees. They bear little resemblance to their modern vine-like counterparts, for the stems of these fossil "vines" are thick tree trunks, up to one meter in diameter. The two most common types found are Lepidodendron and Sigilaria, which grew to over 30 feet in height. These trees had overlapping scalelike bark with a pithy inner pulp. The fossils themselves have lost their pulp and all that remains is a cylinder of coalified bark filled with sediments often different from the surrounding material. The fossils remain only as upright stumps usually from 2-10 feet tall—sometimes much taller.
Inside the once hollow, now sediment-filled stumps are sometimes found the bodies of lizard-like amphibians and reptiles. Horizontal logs are rare, but are usually flattened, crushed by overlying sediment. The roots or rootlets of the trees, called Stigmaria, are often seen separated from the main trunks.
Uniformitarian geology, the mainstream view ever since Lyell, holds that these trees grew in the place where they are now found. It is supposed that surrounding the base of the trees, a layer of forest litter collected, which if thick enough, could become peat. The trees eventually died when sediments buried their roots and lower sections. Finally, the tops broke off, and the insides were hollowed. Animals living in the swamp were trapped inside the hollow trees and were entombed. Temporary flooding buried the sequence under several feet of mud. In time, the peat turned to coal while the surface mud supported another forest and the cycle repeated. Some of the partially buried dead stumps remained intact and penetrated through the overlying shale, sandstone, and accumulating layers of forest litter, existing today as polystrate (i.e., "many strata") fossils. Surely there is a more satisfying explanation.
Arguments for Rapid Sedimentation
Dr. Harold Coffin has listed several reasons (summarized and extended below) to consider that the trees have been moved to this location, washed in during a time of extensive and massive sedimentation.5
A distinctive soil level is missing. Only a few of the trees arise from the organic coal layers. Often the trees rest on top of a coal seam, but roots seldom penetrate into it as they would if the tree grew in a peat bog. Those stumps arising from non-organic layers have no possible soil present.
The vertical stumps often penetrate two or more strata, including thin seams of coal. Often they overlap other trees, arising from overlying layers. A dead, hollow, and submerged stump could not persist for the long period of time necessitated for a second forest to grow and collect as peat.
Segments of roots are often found inside the once-hollow trunks, while other fossil roots are normally detached and buried in the surrounding soil. This seems to be a very unlikely scenario for any growth in situ hypothesis.
Leaves seldom remain on a forest or swamp floor for long periods without decay, yet well preserved fossil leaves are abundant, thus indicating rapid burial.
Some of the fossilized trees are inclined, not directly in vertical growth positions. A few are found upside down. None of the tree root systems are complete; all have been truncated.
The marine tubeworm, Spirorbis, frequently found in fossilized association with the fossil trees, implies that all were exposed to seawater.
The surrounding sandstones are crossbedded, implying rapidly moving water.
The hollow vertical trees are typically filled with different sediments than the surrounding matrix. The internal sediments are themselves crossbedded.
The long axis of both the partial roots and the rootlets have a preferred orientation as would result from movement, not growth in place. The direction parallels current direction as discerned from ripple marks and crossbedding.
-http://www.icr.org/article/445/
Its a lot of information Zed, but consider it a compliment.
