ARCHAEOLOGY: Clarkia Fossil Leaves

 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. Genesis 7:10

"In his winter 2021 newsletter, Malone tells his readers about a little-known fossil bed on private land 40 miles northeast of Moscow, Idaho. The Clarkia Fossil Bed was discovered by accident in 1972 when the landowner was clearing land for trails. 

 

How old would an unbiased observer say these leaves are? Evolutionists call them “Miocene” deposits, dating them at 16 million Darwin Years old. To show how that is preposterous, Malone helps readers think through the evidence in their search for the truth about the Clarkia fossils:

• The bed has leaves from over 120 different species.
• The tree species lived in different ecological zones.
• Some leaves stick up through multiple layers.
• As stated, the billions of leaves look as fresh last winter’s leaf piles.
• The original coloration and odor remains in the leaves.
• The leaves are exceptionally well preserved, with veins and edges clearly visible.
• The shale is friable and crumbles easily, revealing the leaves in the flat sheets of shale.
• Most important, the leaves retain some of their original DNA!

Evolutionists concoct a just-so story to explain these evidences. 

They say that the leaves fell onto an ancient lake and settled onto the lake bed slowly and gradually, 800 feet down. At the bottom there was low oxygen. This allowed the leaves to be preserved in perfect condition. But did nothing disturb these leaves for 16 million years?

Malone takes the evidence further. A colleague of his asked university researchers how much DNA remained in the leaves. They said about 1/400th to 1/500th of the original DNA remained. Taking the half-life of DNA to be about 500 years, Malone calculates the true age of the leaves to be around 4,500 years since they were buried. That would be around the time of Noah’s Flood. 

As for the mechanism of burial, he says that Flood waters would be expected to have carried large mats of vegetation and buried them rapidly under heavy sediment loads. Along with the DNA evidence and the fresh appearance of the leaves, Malone exclaims, “Finding these leaves is equivalent to finding ‘soft tissue’ within dinosaur fossils!

In its short article on the Clarkia Fossil Beds, Wikipedia agrees with the evidence.

Though a number of animal species have been found, the Clarkia fossil beds site is best known for its fossil leaves. Their preservation is exquisite; fresh leaves are unfossilized, and sometimes retain their fall colors before rapidly oxidizing in air.

But obviously, they cannot admit that DNA is still there.

It has been reported that scientists have managed to isolate small amounts of ancient DNA from fossil leaves from this site. However, other scientists are skeptical of the validity of this reported occurrence of Miocene DNA. They have interpreted the DNA that has been recovered from these leaf fossils as contamination, probably from bacterial sources.

That’s the same excuse critics gave for the dinosaur soft tissue and

DNA: bacterial contamination. That excuse has not held up well. It has largely been discarded for other excuses, like chemical bonds fortified with iron that might stabilize biomolecules for millions of years. Think of the faith that requires....This case illustrates how scientists can be so indoctrinated into their worldview, they can look at evidence right within their hands and still believe in long ages of evolution." CEH