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Author Topic:   Make your own fossils in 10 years!
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 6 of 20 (158707)
11-12-2004 11:34 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by techristian
11-12-2004 11:20 AM


techristian writes:
Yes, but I have also proved that it doesn't need to take "millions of years"
When scientists date fossils, they're trying to determine how old they are, not how long they took to fossilize. Consider the example of a dinosaur killed and buried in a volcano eruption. We'll assume local conditions allowed rapid fossilization, say within a hundred years. So now, just a hundred years after the eruption, the dinosaur bones are completely fossilized.
Sometime later scientists dig up these dinosaur fossils. Since they're found in volcanic layers they'll be very easy to date. Scientists will date the layers and arrive at an age of at least 65 million years. That's the age of the fossils, not the time it took them to fossilize.
All fossils begin as organic remains of a once alive organism. Fossilization is a gradual process of replacing the organic materials with minerals. Depending upon local conditions, that replacement process may range from very incomplete to totally complete. In other words, some fossils, particularly young ones, may still have significant organic content. In the case of frozen woolly mammoths, no fossilization has taken place at all, and the remains are still completely organic. In the case of most dinosaur fossils, the replacement process is complete and these is no organic content left.
When the fossil still has some organic content, then if it is younger than 50,000 years it can be radiocarbon dated. In many such cases there is no 14C left at all, indicating the fossils must be at least 50,000 years old.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by techristian, posted 11-12-2004 11:20 AM techristian has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by zol, posted 12-01-2004 4:25 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 20 of 20 (164336)
12-01-2004 11:11 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by zol
12-01-2004 4:25 AM


Re: Fossilosophy
Hi Zol,
I have pretty much the same reaction as everyone else. What are you reading that is giving you such a cockeyed impression of scientific thinking about geological ages?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by zol, posted 12-01-2004 4:25 AM zol has not replied

  
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