How do evolutionary scientists obtain an age of a fossil?

Sedimentary rock, the kind that often contains fossils, cannot be "dated" with radio-isotope methods. Radiometric dating is performed on igneous rocks, like lava rocks and granite. Carbon dating is performed on once-living, but non-fossilized specimens. A sedimentary rock taken from a site also cannot be "dated" unless there is an index fossil in it, or if it is known what strata the rock came from and an index fossil can be found in that strata.

Index fossils:
An index fossil is usually a fossilized animal or plant species that is now extinct. Geologic ages are assigned to index fossils based upon the oft accepted Geologic Column. This assigned dating of fossils was done over 100 years before radiometric "dating" techniques were developed. Today many evolution-believing scientists hold the geologic column ages as more reliable than radiometric dating! [To read about the flawed assumptions used in current radiometric dating, click here]

Geologic Column:
Charles Lyell [1797-1875] is credited as the author of the Geologic Column. The Geologic Column is a 10 or 11 layered column that supposedly was formed over millions to billions of years by accumulation of star dust, and the death of animals and plants. Charles Darwin picked up Lyell's ideas and popularized them.

Problems with the Geologic Column as it is often described:
1) Circular Reasoning:

" The fossil is dated by the rock layer it is in. The rock layer is dated by the fossil that is in it."
"Evolution was assumed when the column was built. Now the column supports evolution!"

This is probably the most serious problem with the geologic column, as described by evolution-believing scientists. There is no firm, objective timescale to calculate the age of a rock or a fossil. Both specimen's ages are dependent upon the other. The only stable instrument used by these scientists to calculate an age of a sedimentary rock is a picture of the geologic column with its corresponding ages. This picture is not based upon observable data, or historical records, but solely upon a belief that the earth is very very old.

2) The Geologic column, as it is pictured, is rarely seen.
Approximately 1% of all sites excavated contain 10 or 11 identifiable layers as pictured. The rest contain only a few of the 10 or 11 layers. This makes the existence of a reliable column, as is pictured, very questionable.

3) Evidence of human activity is found throughout the entire column.
This fact is a death blow to the standard evolutionary teaching on the geologic column.

Click here to see the evidence of human
activity throughout the geologic column

4) Polystrate fossils.
Polystrate fossils are fossils, such as trees, that extend through several rock strata. If the rock strata were laid down by millions of years, then how did the tree stay intact the entire time?

Polystrate fossils are a problem for ANY evolutionary explanation of the geologic column.
The Great Flood is the only reasonable explanation.

What the Bible says about the Flood[130 KB]
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5) Upside down geologic columns!
All over the world are found mountains where fossils that should be at the bottom of the column are found and the top of the mountain, and those that should be at the top are found at the bottom!

The Matterhorn mountains are a clear example of upside down geologic columns. The fossils are all in the wrong order, with supposedly very old fossils at the top of the mountain, and supposedly recent ones at the bottom. No satisfactory explanation exists for this phenomenon, which is not rare, but actually quite common!
Other examples include: The Mythen Peak in the alps, The Lewis "overthrust" of Montana

6) The very existence of numerous fossils, including fossilized animal tracts, rain drops and ripple marks
A plant or animal left to sit in the elements can be expected to rot fairly quickly. So how is it that millions and millions of fossilized marine animals and plant life are found? How could millions of years pass by, and yet the fish becomes fossilized intact, often with foliage or other food in its mouth?

Fossilized ripple marks...how do those happen?

7) Lack of what should be innumerable transitional forms
A "transitional form" is a hypothetical animal species that is the bridge between more commonly observed species in the evolutionary chain of events. Even avid believers in transitional forms would admit that relatively few transitional forms have been found. If evolution is constantly occurring, then why is the ratio of transitional forms to commonly observed species so low? We should be finding them all the time! In actuality, all "transitional" forms have been shown objectively to belong to commonly observed species.

Read this short paper by John D. Morris, president of the Institute for Creation Research, on transitional forms

8) Other evolutionary explanations of the geologic column are not consistent with the evidence
Because of the difficulty with a Uniformitarian explanation of the geologic column [i.e. that millions of non-catastrophic years laid down the geologic column], other explanations have been forwarded.

Punctuated Equilibrium:
This theory states that millions of years passed with little happening in the world, and occasional "punctuations" of rapid evolution happened. The evolution would have occurred in between the layers of the geologic column and no fossils would be made to record the transitional form!
This is a case of building a theory not upon observable evidence, but upon a pre-existing belief

Neo-Catastrophism:
This theory recognizes that fossils can only be made by rapid, catastrophic forces that would be seen in simultaneous flooding and volcano activity. Neo-catastrophic thinking ascribes the entire geologic column to catastrophic forces, but again places evolution in minute, non-visible layers interspersed between the layers laid down by catastrophes.
This theory recognizes two facts:
1) Fossils are formed by catastrophe, not slow accumulation of dust
2) Star dust does not account for the vast majority of the earth's crust.
However, this theory is flawed in that:
1) No evidence is available for the assumption that evolution occurred in minute, non-visible layers
2) Fossils are found world-wide at all layers of the geologic column. If the world were millions of years old
then there have been innumerable fossil-creating catastrophes in every part of the world throughout all time. The geologic column best fits one worldwide catastrophe, such as that of the Great Flood!

The Geologic column is mos consistent with a worldwide flood with worldwide simultaneous volcanic activity. This event is recorded for us in the Bible in Genesis chapters 6 to 9. The Bible is our source of historical dating that we need to accurately date the earth and the rocks and fossils found in it.

For a chronology of the age of the earth, go to:

Biblical timeline of history

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