'Created a fossil in a year, proves young earth'

[Whisper]

Thought you guys may find this amusing/interesting.

johnmuise on deviantart posted a photograph he took of a fossil he created in a year. He describes his process thus:

Around where i live we have many underground springs, pulling up minerals from the ground i simply placed a leaf on a rock and buried it near one of these springs piles on top of it heavy clay and forgot about it for a year, i dug it up a few weeks ago.

He claims this proves fossils are young and thus the Earth is in turn young.

Click the above link to see his photograph and explanation, and the collection of comments/debates about it.

[Riddler]

Nothing new under the sun, chief. Certainly not new fossils, anyway.

That's been going on in Knaresborough as far back as any records can tell. The so-called 'petrifying well' was next to the simple home of an old dear whose retro-engineered 'prophesies' were terminally petrified under a massive pinch of salt when her apocalypse failed to occur in 1981.

The slightest investigation will reveal your man's 'young fossils' to be no more like the real thing than anything you can buy in the Mother Shipton souvenir shop.

Although I'd be interested to see if he can make a T Rex by that process.

[Whisper]

It's all very amusing though - I've been reading through some of his essays - he reveals quite clearly that he has no understanding of the scientific process, nor evolution.

Riddler wrote

Although I'd be interested to see if he can make a T Rex by that process.

Well, to be fair, I think he should be allowed to try it with, say, a cow. Although one fossilized cow is enough already.

[ProveIt]

Correct me if I'm wrong... but it's not like the process stops at fossilization. Fossils and the substance they are contained in are still dated by further testing. The fossil is just a record of what was present at the time the substance is dated to. Therefore, the clay/rock would date back only a year where the presence of the leaf was.

Depending on what date the depth of the fossil is found at the more relevant the fossil find. If you're only digging two feet for fossils you're probably not going to find much worth submitting to the science books (depending on environment of course). Similar to the rings of a tree - The deeper the ring, the older the tree. The deeper the object, the older the object potentially is.


I'm on board with the cow idea though...

HA, i finally figured out where i knew this scenario from, it's from fucking Bill Nye the science guy. From the episode "I got a bone to pick with you" if I'm not mistaken, it's a little kid science experiment.

"Students will make their own fossils.
1. Fill milk cartons with 2 cups of sand.
2. Mix 100 ml of salt with 250 ml of water and stir.
3. Bury "bone" sponges in sand.
4. Pour water mixture over sand.
5. Let set in window for 3-5 days.
6. Dig for the bone. (The salt crystals form in the holes of the sponge making it stiff and hard like a fossil.)"

[Barney]

And of course if he chops open the fossil he wont find organs completly unfossilised.
Sweetpityfulmercyholymarymotherofjesusandallthesai nts, this is ameobaesque intelligence. He must have mail ordered every stupid pill on the planet and overdosed in one session.