Recently I shared evidence of an ancient forest preserved in amazing detail by volcanic ash (An Ancient and Alien Forest Reconstructed: A challenge for young earth creationism). I posed a number of challenging questions that this spectacular fossil discovery raises for those that hold to a young-earth creationist' (YEC) understanding of earth's history.  Since then,... Continue Reading →
Fossils often provide us with only a fragmentary view of the distant past but sometimes collections of fossils record ancient and seemingly alien worlds in stunning clarity.  In the past decade several notable fossil discoveries have permitted the reconstruction of entire forest ecosystems that existed at various points in time and space in earth history.  Today,... Continue Reading →
A remarkable trace fossil has given us a glimpse into the environmental conditions of a Jurassic seafloor.   Ammonite fossils are common in Jurassic rocks but one particular ammonite is more unusual than most.  In the horizontal layer of rock where it was found a 28 foot-long line of shallow grooves was found leading right up to the... Continue Reading →
Thousands of footprints preserved in a windswept eroded rock surface deep in an isolated desert region of the Arabian peninsula tell the story of an ancient herd of elephants walking across an ancient muddy landscape.  These are possibly the longest continuous set of footprints in the world and have been described in an article in the journal,... Continue Reading →
Animal tracks preserved in stone are found in great abundance in many parts of the geological column.  You might be asking yourself, aren't the chances incredibly small that any individual track made in mud would be preserved over long periods of time? You would be right.  The vast majority of footprints won’t survive the ravages of... Continue Reading →
Billions of footprints are preserved in the rock record. While bones get all the attention, fossil footprints likely outnumber bones. How can we make sense of this observation?  Surely, preserving a bone must be far more likely than preserving a footprint? I have written about how paleontologists use information from footprints and bones to reconstruct... Continue Reading →
Are the existence of plant thorns and thistles proof that the world can only be a few thousand years old?  Yes! according to most young-earth creationists. I've written several times about thorns and creation (eg. The Prelapsarian Acacia and the Good Creation: On the Origin of Thorns) but a video available at creationtoday.org - a small fringe young-earth... Continue Reading →
Ken Ham would have us believe that the modern reincarnation of the young-earth creationist movement, which he claims began only 55 years ago, is the real deal this time.  Unlike previous attempts over the past 300 years to create a history of the Earth with a recent global flood as a centerpiece, this time his para-church apologetics... Continue Reading →
The Grand Canyon is one of the most iconic geological features on Earth.  Its immensity of the canyon regularly causes those that have peered into its depths to wonder about its origins. How could such an awe-inspiring canyon have formed? This fascination with the Grand Canyon has fueled a long a history of geological research.  As a result there is a wealth... Continue Reading →
Modern young-earth creationism has deep roots. The essential elements of flood geology were established in the 17th century though much of what passed as flood geology at that time might be difficult to recognize today. One thing that hasn't changed is the style of rhetoric frequently used to promote flood geology to the general public.... Continue Reading →
While reading literature by young earth creationists, I am frequently struck by how often authors seeking to resolve one problem are unaware of how many new problems their explanations create. I recently read an article by Dr. Snelling of Answers in Genesis in which he provides a young-earth hypothesis for the recent origin of oil and coal. He has... Continue Reading →
Diatoms are single-celled organisms that live in almost any moist environment. They are found by the millions in a cup of sea water or a puddle in your back yard. They play a critical role in the environment as oxygen producers. But they are best known for their visually stunning homes constructed of glass. I... Continue Reading →
For some time I had been planning to write about the use of Psalm 104 in creationists circles as evidence for a physical description for tectonic events following a world-wide flood. Specifically, versus six through nine of Psalm 104 have been suggested to be not a reflection on creation, as is the traditional reading, but... Continue Reading →
My WordPress tag reader led me to this video posted on Eric Hovind's "Creation Today" website. This site is what Dr Dino's website presence morphed into after the arrest and conviction of fringe creation scientists Kent Hovind.   What caught my eye was that today's video highlighted evidence of creation from thorns.  I have been thinking... Continue Reading →
Recent studies of multiple intact fossilized forests provide a very detailed account of the presence of an seemingly alien forest that was found multiple locations across the entire globe at some point in the past. A forest completely devoid of the presence of any flowering plants such as oaks, maples and beech trees or even... Continue Reading →
Naturalis Historia 