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Are Fossils Just Rocks
 Shaped like Bones?

Picture
Picture
      I picked up my first fossil from beneath a swing in Kansas when I was six years old. Fossils have fascinated me ever since. Soon after, our family visited a dinosaur museum. The nice lady there explained that dinosaur fossils are actually rocks in the shape of bones. After all, she said, the process of fossilization takes millions of years. Over that much time, minerals would fully replace all the original bone. That sounded fine, so I believed it.
      Decades later, I saw pictures that challenged all that. Published in the journal Science, color photographs showed blood red flesh with white, flexible connective tissue from inside a T. Rex leg bone. Wow, that's not rock. I was taught to think that water carried dissolved minerals through tiny holes deep into bones. The water went away and left the minerals behind in a process
called permineralization. It did happen that way for many fossils-but not all.
      Scientific evidence of soft, flexible, original biomaterial from this and scores of similar finds from around the world forced me to rethink the meaning of "fossil." It turns out that different fossils formed in different ways. Some fossils are mostly mineralized, but others look like dried-out carcasses.
      Some creatures got flattened and heated beneath tons of sediment. Later processes brought them back to Earth's surface in places like Canada's Burgess Shale. There, researchers peel apart thin mudstone sheets to reveal blackish residues-all that's left of
ancient sea creatures. The heat and pressure baked original biomaterials including proteins and sugars into the black, carbonized
material we find today.
      Other fossils show mineral outlines of original soft organs like brains or guts. As creatures decayed inside drying mud, bacteria clung to the outer surface of each organ. The bacteria made chemical waste products that attracted nearby sulfur, iron, or phosphorus. Today, we see organs outlined in yellows and reds from bacterial-influenced sulfurization, pyritization, or  phosphatization. In these cases and others, longer-lasting minerals replaced the original biomaterials.
      I felt new shock when I read a study of original biomaterial in Burgess Shale sea sponge fossils. Not rock, not mineral, not
phosphatized, not blackened, but sponges with original proteins and carbohydrates intact. Perhaps these sponges landed in a spot
that didn't get quite as hot. Secular scientists insist they were buried 505 million years ago, but nobody has shown any biomaterial with properties that would allow it to last much longer than a mere one million years. This means they could have lasted for the thousands of years since Noah's Flood buried them but not for the millions of years that so many people claim.
      So, what does fossilize mean? Different fossils show different origins. Some were replaced with mineral, like the nice lady at
the museum said. Others show mineral outlines of original organs or carbon films from baked bodies. But a growing number of
fossils look virtually unchanged, and these original biomaterial fossils confront evolution's long ages.

Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the
Institute for Creation Research and
earned his M.S. in biotechnology from
Stephen
F. Austin State University.
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  • Home
  • Creation Articles
    • Did God Use the Big Bang?
    • Was the Global Flood Too Extreme?
    • Infinite Time
    • Asteroid Impact
    • Useless Organs?
    • Resurrect Extinct Species?
    • Human-Chimp DNA
    • Time and Creation
    • Did God Make Monsters?
    • Born Gay?
    • Grace from the Ark & Flood
    • Balancing Church & State
    • Life's Hidden Marvels
    • Time and Creation
    • Testing The Teachers
    • Days before Sun?
    • Life on Mars at Last?
    • Is Evolution A Lie?
    • Is There Anything good about Pain?
    • The Created Placenta
    • So Many Skin Tones
    • Ice Age Scattering of Nations
    • Did The Euphrates Flow Before the Flood?
    • Sloppy Religion Sloppy Science
    • Recent Humans Upend Evolution
    • Are Fossils Just Rocks
    • Subduction Was Essential for the Ice Age
    • Multipurpose Plant Sensors Startle Scientists
    • Why Don't poison Dart Frogs poison Themselves?
    • When did Life Begin?
    • What happened to the dinosaurs after the flood?
    • Contend Earnestly
    • The Universe out of Nothing
    • The Genesis Flood and Evangelism
    • Was the Global Flood to Extreme?
    • The Dark Side of Nature
    • One of a Kind?
    • Science Requires Some Leaps, But No Faith; NOT!
    • Did Humans Evolve From Apes?
    • The Ever-Evolving Human Evolution Story
    • Evolutionism Poisons Christian Worship
    • Confronting a Clever Classroom Con
    • No “Gay” Gene? Do Genetics Determine Morality?
    • Deep Space Objects Are Young
    • Miniscule Erosion Points to Hawaii's Youth
    • What Can We Learn about God from Creation?
    • What is The Image of God?
    • Evolutionism Maligns Christian Education
    • There's Nothing Like an Eyewitness
    • Complex Creature Engineering Requires a Creator
    • The Syrinx Song
    • Do Carbon Ages Refute a Biblical Timeline?
    • Genesis and the Oceans
    • Six Biological Evidences for a Young Earth
    • Extraterrestrial Life More Common Than Previously Thought?
  • About
    • We Believe
    • Our Mission / Vision
  • Testimony
  • Bio
  • Spiritual Fruit
  • Contact