The alternative to the Geologic Column and Unformitarian Geology is called Flood Geology. According to Flood Geology, most geological formations were the result of a catastrophic global Flood. This event is described in detail in the Bible. It is also referred to in other ancient writings from around the world.
One difficulty for Flood Geology is explaining fossil distribution. The main difficulty is that this requires knowing how fossils are actually distributed. This is difficult because the use of Geologic Column to classify fossils is so dominant that other information such as physical depth are considered irrelevant. The dismissal of out of place fossils renders the frequency of their occurrence unknown. These factors make knowing the real distribution of fossils practically impossible. We do know that most fossils are of marine invertebrates.
There are Flood Geology mechanisms for producing fossil patterns.
This is essentially the fact that organisms living in the same habitat would tend to get buried in similar rock at similar depths. Those in the same area and habitat would tend to be found in the same rock, while those near by in a different habitat would tend to be found in different rock. Also organisms living on the bottom of a body of water would tend to be found lower than those living on hills on land, with shore dwellers being in the middle.
This is the fact that the remains of animals; particularly invertebrates; would tend to get shorted like any other form sediment in moving water. Such factors as buoyancy , size and shape would all be factors. Buoyancy is one factor than can not be determined from fossils.
This is the fact that more mobile and faster organisms would tend to seek higher ground. This separates organisms based on motility and at least in part intelligence. This would tend to separate men from trilobites, amphibians, and dinosaurs.
This is simply the fact that animals that lived in the same area would tend to be found together. Those from other parts of the world would not be found with them. For example if a global flood occurred to day one would not expect to find elephants and opossums buried together.
By it self tectonic activity would not affect fossil order any but it could have pushed some over others before the sediment hardened. There is evidence of this at the Ghadames Basin.
Criticism of these usually takes the above mechanisms only one at a time, while assuming the geologic column perfectly reflect fossil distribution. When the above phenomenon are combined they could produce the general trend claimed by evolutionists. There would be fossils found outside the usual pattern. The problem is that the geologic column so dominates the classification of fossils that it distorts the picture of global fossil distribution, so we don't know the real fossil trend that needs to be explained.
Hydrological sorting in flowing water is results in stratification moving horizontally as seen above rather than vertically. I have watched this process happen as layers are laid down simultaneously. A typical cross sectional of such deposits is the same as is seen in the strata seen in rocks. It also turns out that observed bed forms in sand stone; often attributed to desert conditions; result from a combination of water depth and velocity. The sedimentary deposits from Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico are consistent with formation beneath advancing floodwaters.
In liquefaction the strength and stiffness of a soil is reduced by earthquakes or other rapid loading. It occurs in saturated soil or other particulate mater, were the space between particles is filled with water. The water pressure on the particles influences how tightly they are pressed together. When the pressure gets to a certain point, the particles can readily move relative to each other.
Examples of liquefaction:
It turns out that concrete provides a good model for the Green river Formation. Some time ago I was around a construction site when a concrete spill occurred. Several layers of concrete formed in this one spill, that resemble the layers observed in slabs from Green river Formation.
I obtained numerous chips of concrete with visible layers, it is evident in the above picture by edge chipping.
The above fossil fish is in a slab from the Green river Formation, like the concrete is has visible multiple layers. The biomater often has more than one layer between them nor does it cover the entire layer they are in. Furthermore the fish has been flattened indicating that it was exposed to significant pressure, before it was fossilized. This is most likely to occur in a catastrophic burial. Such a case would gave a large amount of material suddenly dumped on top of it. It defiantly indicates rapid burial since at a rate of one layer per year, the fish would fossilize before being buried deep enough to crush it.
The Same type of edge chipping can be seen in the slab as in the concrete. This strongly suggests that the green river formation resulted from liquefied material resembling concrete, such as massive mud slides. This may have been a post Flood lake that had large mud slides dumped into it, rather than the annual deposits claimed by evolutionists. The mud slides could have been from the break up of other large post Flood lakes.
Desiccation Cracks are usually formed by drying mud, since such cracks usually form in mud only at the surface, subsurface desiccation cracks have been used as a claim against Flood Geology. However at the construction site mentioned above as the concrete spill dried desiccation cracks form in concrete.
Interestingly subsurface cracks formed in drying concrete as shown above. This shows that liquefaction can explain desiccation cracks.
Click on image to see similar cracks in a natural rock.
This is an example of fossil "mud" cracks in concrete, the cracks formed in the lower layer without it being on the surface.
It turns out that fossil burrows are not dwellings but attempted escape routs of buried organisms. If a burrowing organism is suddenly buried it won't just sit there and think " Well it's time to die." It will try to dig its way out.Fossil burrows are consistent with this.
CRSQ Notes - Surface and Subsurface Errors in Anti-Creationist Geology
As far as I know there are five possible explanations for fossil animal tracks. It needs to be noted that none of these are mutually exclusive and none explain all fossil tracks, but together they seem to do a good job of explaining them all.
Click on image to see similar features in a natural rock.
This is an example of fossil " rain drops " in concrete, they were formed from air bubbles in the layer below it. It was never on the surface.
geological dating principles questioned / strata experiments
Assessing Creationist Stratigraphy with Evidence from the Gulf of Mexico
TRACE FOSSILS AND SEDIMENTARY STRUCTURE