In the broadest definition, a fossil is the remains of
a living thing that lived long ago and that has survived
down to the present day by being preserved under natural
conditions. The fossils that come down to us are parts
of an organism, or remains left behind when the living
thing concerned was still alive (the latter are known
as trace fossils.) They are formed when dead animals or
plants are preserved before they completely decay and
eventually become part of the earth's sedimentary rock.
In order for fossilization to take place, the animal or
plant concerned must be buried in a fairly rapid manner—generally
by being covered in a layer of silt. This is generally
followed by a chemical process, during which preservation
is ensured by means of mineral changes that take place
in the original tissues.
(A
280-MILLION-YEAR-OLD FROG FOSSIL There exists no difference
between this frog, alive 280 million years ago, and those
of today. ) Fossils are the most important evidence of
the details of prehistoric life. From various regions
of the world, hundreds of millions of fossils have been
obtained, and they provide a window into the history and
structure of life on Earth. Millions of fossils indicate
that species appeared suddenly, fully-formed and with
their complex structures, and have undergone no changes
in the millions of years since. This is significant proof
that life was brought into existence out of nothing—in
other words that it was created. Not a single fossil suggests
that living things formed gradually, in other words that
they evolved. The fossil specimens that evolutionists
maintain as "intermediate fossils" are few in
number, and the invalidity of these has been scientifically
proven. At the same time, some of the specimens depicted
as intermediate fossils have actually been revealed as
fakes, demonstrating that Darwinists are in such a state
of despair as to resort to fraud.
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For the last 150 years or so, fossils from excavations
carried out all over the world prove that fish have always
been fish, insects have always been insects, birds have
always been birds and reptiles have always been reptiles.
Not one single fossil has pointed to any transition between
living species—in other words, from fish to amphibian
or from reptile to bird. In short, the fossil record has
definitively demolished the theory of evolution's basic
claim, that species descended from one another by undergoing
changes over long periods of time. |
(This
birch fossil from the Paleocene period (65.5 to 55 million
years ago) found in Montana is three-dimensional.) In
addition to the information that fossils provide concerning
life forms, they also supply significant data regarding
the history of the planet, such as how the movements of
continental plates have altered the surface of the Earth
and what kind of climatic changes took place in past eras.
Fossils have attracted the interest of researchers ever
since the days of ancient Greece, although their study
as a distinct branch of science began only in the middle
of the 17th century. This followed the works of the researcher
Robert Hooke (author of Micrographia, 1665, and Discourse
of Earthquakes, 1668) and Niels Stensen (better known
as Nicolai Steno). At the time when Hooke and Steno carried
out their investigations, most thinkers did not believe
that fossils were actually the remains of living things
that had existed in the past.
At the heart of the debate
over whether fossils were the actual remains of living
things lay the inability to explain where fossils were
discovered, in terms of geological data. Fossils were
frequently found in mountainous regions, although at the
time, it was impossible to account for how a fish, for
example, could have been fossilized in a stratum of rock
so high above sea level. Just as Leonardo da Vinci had
previously suggested, Steno maintained that sea levels
must have declined over the course of history. Hooke,
on the other hand, said that mountains have been formed
as the result of warming inside the Earth and earthquakes
in the oceanic plates.
Following
the accounts of Hooke and Steno, who explained that fossils were actually the remains of living things that had once
lived in the past, geology developed during the 18th and
19th centuries, and systematic fossil collecting and research
began turning into a branch of science. The principles
that Steno had laid out were followed in the classification
and interpretation of fossils. From the 18th century on,
the development of mining and increased railway construction
permitted greater, more detailed investigation of what
lay below the ground surface.
Modern geology revealed that the Earth's crust consisted
of enormous sections known as "plates," which
moved across the surface of the globe, carrying the continents
and forming the oceans. The greater the movement of the
plates, the more changes in the Earth's geography. Mountain
ranges were the result of the collisions between very
large plates. Changes and upthrusts in the Earth's geography
that took place over very long periods of time also showed
that strata that today form portions of mountains were
once under water.
1. Generally following the death of a living organism,
first the soft tissues become deformed and decay. Then
later, hard parts such as bones and teeth are preserved.
Burial should occur fairly rapidly to prevent deformation
of the bones.
2. After long periods of time, bones become buried under
the lower layers of sediment and there, the remains of
the living being become fossilized.
3. As the land above is slowly eroded away, the rock
layer in which the fossil formed starts to proceed towards
the surface.
4. The fossil approaching the surface either appears
by itself or is found by paleontologists during their
investigation.
This article is based on the works of Harun
Yahya
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INTRODUCTION
 Some
150 years ago, the British naturalist Charles Darwin
proposed a theory based on various observations
made during his travels, but which could not be
supported by any subsequent scientific findings.
In essence, his theory of evolution consisted of
various scenarios, ... MoreWHAT IS A FOSSIL?
 In
the broadest definition, a fossil is the remains
of a living thing that lived long ago and that has
survived down to the present day by being preserved
under natural conditions. The fossils that come
down to us are parts of an organism, or remains
left behind when the living thing concerned was
still alive ... More |
Fossil Specimens Discovered in The USA