Antarctic tree stump fossils reveal what earth looked like at creation

Antarctic Credit: Maxime/Flickr/Creative Commons

A recent discovery by researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have added another piece to the puzzle of what earth looked like at creation when they discovered several fossilized tree stumps in the Transarcitic Mountains found in the Antarctic.

They brought back fragments from 13 different trees that included deciduous, ginkgos (a nut bearing tree common to China) and evergreens.

Fossils were first discovered in the Antarctic during the 1910-12 Robert Falcon Scott expedition. Though Scott and his four-man team died during the trip, their remains were discovered and in their notes the group mentioned finding beech-tree like fossils, describing in great detail their different-sized leaves. Since none of the rock samples they collected contained any beech fossils, many evolutionary scientists quickly dismissed the reference because it didn’t fit their world view.

Since then, they have not only found tree stumps in the Antarctic, but coal beds and dinosaur bones.

Because Antarctic’s climate today is much too cold for trees, this suggests that at one time it was much more moderate.

What happened?

One suggestion put forth by Creation scientists is that there was a greenhouse effect going on that moderated the climate of the whole world. However, it was not caused by CO2, but a much more common and effective green house gas, water vapor.

They refer to Noah’s flood when the Bible says the flood gates of heaven opened up:

¹¹In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. (Genesis 7:11 NASV)

Because of the phrase floodgates, Creation scientists suspect there was a canopy of water vapor surrounding the earth creating a green house. It would have evenly distributed the heat in the world and allowed trees to grow in places where today none can exist.

The resulting Noah’s flood also tells us when this canopy was removed and the earth changed to its present state.

Though the Wisconsin-Milwaukee scientists say these fossil remains are 280 million years old, they made another unusual statement adding that these fossils reveal there was a dramatic die-off in the world’s ancient history. This mass extinction took place during the Permian Period and killed off over 90% of the earth’s animal life.

Though there are obvious disagreements on age, the Bible coincidentally also refers to a mass extinction, again Noah’s flood.

In addition, Dr. Tim Clary from the Institute of Creation Science challenges the age thrown out about the age of these fossilized trees. Clary who has a Ph.D. in Geology from Western Michigan University quotes what the researchers discovered while studying the Antarctic fossils:

“The plants are so well-preserved in rock that some of the amino acid building blocks that made up the trees’ proteins can still be extracted, said Gulbranson, who specializes in geochemistry techniques.^1″

Clary responded:

“How could proteins and original amino acids survive for millions of years? The secular science community has no viable answers to explain remarkable finds like these.”

Similarly how could we find blood and soft tissue in 80-million-year old dinosaur fossils.