Polystrate Ichthyosaur was just a Kamikaze?

In 1999, geologists unearthed a beautifully preserved fossilized head of the extinct reptile ichthyosaur. It took months to carefully extract it from the strata layers.

One interesting thing about this head is that it is still in three dimensions. Usually, the pressure of the sedimentary layers flattens fossils into a single, 2-D sheet. However, in this case, this had not happened. Why? The head was buried in a vertical, 90-degree nose-down position, preventing the flattening process (see image at right).

What is more interesting about this fossil is that it spans three different strata layers that were allegedly laid down over a period of 1 million years!

This is called a “polystrate” fossil, meaning that it was found spanning multiple strata layers (”poly” for many, and “strate” for strata . . . obviously!). Such a discovery presents a huge puzzle for evolutionists. According to uniformitarian geology, strata layers are laid down slowly, one after another, over millions of years. But no one would posit that this ichthyosaur hung nose-down for a million years while it was slowly buried in sediments!

As may be expected, the long-agers have an explanation . . . albeit a somewhat unsatisfactory one. Dr. Achim Reisdorf, a German geologist, explains that right after this huge marine reptile died, it started to sink. Increasing water pressure caused the lungs and inner organs to collapse, moving the center of gravity right behind the head. This caused the ichthyosaur to tilt onto its nose, making it sink faster and faster toward the ocean floor in a “kamikaze” plunge.

When it reached the bottom, the head and neck thrust into sedimentary layers that had remained perfectly soft over nearly a million years. But before bacteria could decompose the sunken head, all three sedimentary layers suddenly hardened, fossilizing the buried portion of the body. The rest quickly rotted and was swept away, preserving the fossil we find today.

Alright. Sure, that makes sense to me! To start with, dead marine reptiles do not sink. They float. In fact, they do quite a bit of floating. A whale that died off the southern coast of Australian a few years ago refused to sink even after having enough TNT put in it by the police bomb squad to “blow a hole in a concrete wall” (see the AiG story here).

Also, marine carcasses are quickly scavenged by sharks and other fish. The ichthyosaur wouldn’t have had time to even start the trip down, much less stay intact!

Even if this reptile had made the “kamikaze plunge” into the sediment, it seems like a mighty big coincidence that the layers had stayed soft for a million years without being disturbed, and then hardened “just in time”. How convenient, don’t you think?

When scientists hold the preconcieved notion that the earth is billions of years old, look what kind of mental gymnastics they must undergo to keep their theory afloat (or, in this case, make it sink). Think how much easier it would be to allow the thought that maybe, just maybe, this reptile was buried at the same time as the sediments around it. See how much easier life is made when we accept the possibility that Genesis is true?

Story taken from AnswersInGenesis.org.

In Him,

D3

Postedin Uncategorized at 1:13 am on 08.30.05 by David S. MacMillan III