Geological Claims to Retire

Creation Evidence Museum of Texas.  “The London Artifact.”  Creation Evidence Museum.  2013.  The museum's own exhibit page for the hammer.  It gives the find as a loose rock in 1934, describes density scans and a file cut, and lists open questions, including the chlorine and the age of the nearby Cretaceous sand.

1. 1a.

   “In June of 1934, Max Hahn discovered a rock, sitting loose on a rock ledge beside a waterfall outside London, Texas. Noticing that this weathered rock had wood protruding from it, he and family members cracked it open with a hammer and chisel”. ↩ ↩ ↩

2. 1b.

   “The London Artifact was found near London, Texas in Kimble County. The site is part of a large geographical zone called the Edwards Plateau. It primarily consists of Cretaceous rock.” ↩

3. 1c.

   Section Remaining Questions:  “Is the chlorine content in the iron alloy found throughout the hammerhead or only at the surface? … If the artifact is relatively recent, that means that the Cretaceous Hensell Sand formation from which it came is relatively young. Some may argue that the original rock and fossil were eroded and reworked, but reworked fossils show evidence of wear. The fossils in the concretion retain fine detail, indicating that they were not reworked, but part of the original formation.” ↩ ↩

Kuban, Glen J.  “The London Hammer:  An Alleged Out-of-Place Artifact.”  Paluxy Dinosaur/"Man Track" Controversy (paleo.cc).  2008.  The fullest review of the hammer, by an independent researcher best known for his field work on the Paluxy tracks, who examined and photographed the object in 1986 and 2006.  It collects the creationist accounts from 1983 on, compares their dates and rock ages, and reports what is and is not known about the laboratory and radiocarbon claims.

1. 2a.

   Section Background:  “Around 1983 the hammer was acquired by creationist Carl E. Baugh”. ↩

2. 2b.

   Section Background:  “Mackay (1985) explicitly states "The rock was sitting loose on a ledge and was not part of the surrounding ledge."”  Mackay was writing in Creation Ex Nihilo, the magazine of the Australian Creation Science Foundation. ↩

3. 2c.

   Section Background:  “Evidently no photos or other reliable documentation exists to confirm the exact circumstances of the original discovery.” ↩

4. 2d.

   Section Background:  “According to Helfinstine and Roth (1994), Max Hahn's son George broke open the rock nodule in 1946 or 1947, revealing the rest of the hammer, including a metal hammer head.” ↩

5. 2e.

   Section Analysis, near the end:  “"Both the wooden handle and metal shaft were completely encased in the sandstone, indicating that man was not around to make the artefact [sic] before the sandstone encased it."(Baugh, 1987).”  Kuban quoting Baugh's 1987 book. ↩

6. 2f.

   Section Background:  “For years Baugh claimed that it came from an Ordovician formation (Baugh, 1983, 1986, 1987), whereas Walter Lang (1983) and Bartz (1984) reported that the hammer was found in Silurian rock. A report in Creation Ex Nihilo (Mackay, 1983) stated the hammer was "in limestone dated at 300 million years old" … (Mackay, 1984) stated that the hammer was in "Ordovician rock, supposedly some 400 million years old" … (Mackay, 1985) stated, "the rocks associated with the hammer are supposedly some 400-500 million years old"”.  Kuban adds that Wilson and Baugh still called the rock Ordovician in 1996. ↩ ↩ ↩

7. 2g.

   Section Background:  “evidently the rock strata at the site are indeed Hensel Sand Member of the Travis Formation (Lower Cretaceous, upper Aptian stage), considered approximately 110-115 million years old by conventional geologists.” ↩

8. 2h.

   Section Analysis:  “No formal report of the Batelle analysis was ever produced (Helfinstine and Roth, 1994). Moreover, all assertions about Batelle work on the hammer appear to be suspect in view of a leaflet inserted into the February 1985 issue of Creation Ex Nihilo, which stated that all hammer research discussed in their article was privately done, and "all references to inferences that research or reports on the Hammer were done or prepared by Batelle Laboratories are in error."(Mackay 1985)”. ↩ ↩ ↩

9. 2i.

   Section Analysis:  “Such limy concretions can sometimes form in decades or less, and have been found around modern objects such as World War II artifacts (McKusick and Shinn, 1980).” ↩

10. 2j.

    Section Analysis:  “From the brief examinations I made of the object in 1986 and 2006, my impression was that the large clam shell was probably a recent species.” ↩

11. 2k.

    Section Analysis:  “Finally, in the late 1990's Baugh supporter David Lines reported on a web site (Lines, 1997, 1999) that carbon 14 dating had "recently" been done on a specimen from the inside of the handle, and that the results "showed inconclusive dates ranging from the present to 700 years ago." No information was given by Lines about when or where the dating was done, nor was any formal report referenced.” ↩ ↩

12. 2l.

    Section Background:  “although Baugh has strongly promoted the hammer as a dramatic "pre-Flood" artifact, as have a few individuals writing for the Bible-Science Association and the Creation Science Foundation, other creationists organizations, including ICR and CRSQ, have said little or nothing about it in their literature”. ↩

Thickett, David.  “Post Excavation Changes and Preventive Conservation of Archaeological Iron.”  PhD thesis, Birkbeck College, University of London.  English Heritage.  2012.  A doctoral study by an English Heritage conservation scientist of why excavated iron keeps corroding after it is dug up.  It measures the chloride held in the rust of excavated objects, which is the main cause.

1. 3a.

   Page 149:  “The chloride content of archaeological iron is highly variable and can also vary greatly within an object. The analyses reported in Chapter 3 found chloride concentrations of akaganeites to range between 6 and 12%.” ↩ ↩ ↩

Rusch, Wilbert H.  “Human Footprints in Rocks.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 7(4):201–213.  Mar 1971.  A survey of claimed human footprints in old rock by a creationist biology professor, which opens with a caution against "misplaced enthusiasm" and prints the earliest known account of the Oklahoma iron pot, with the affidavit and the letters that came with its photograph.

1. 4a.

   Page 201:  “Sulphur Springs, Arkansas Nov. 27, 1948 While I was working in the Municipal Electric Plant in Thomas, Okla. in 1912, I came upon a solid chunk of coal which was too large to use. I broke it with a sledge hammer. This iron pot fell from the center, leaving the impression or mould of the pot in the piece of coal. … I traced the source of the coal, and found that it came from the Wilburton, Oklahoma, Mines. Frank J. Kenwood (?)” ↩ ↩

2. 4b.

   Pages 201–202:  “He threw the two pieces of coal into the fire, but passed on to others the pot, which ultimately wound up in the private collection of an individual in Missouri. … He personally saw the pot, and examination of it indicated nothing that would contradict the story. Since then, the owner died and the pot has been lost.”  “I learned that this "friend" of Nordling's had died and his little museum was scattered. Nordling knew nothing of the whereabouts of the iron cup.”  The second quotation is from Frank Marsh's letter to Rusch of 3 February 1966. ↩ ↩

Morris, John D.  “An Amazing Anomalous Fossil.”  Acts & Facts 39(2):16.  Institute for Creation Research.  Feb 1, 2010.  A one-page article by the then president of the Institute for Creation Research, who had the bell analysed at the University of Oklahoma in the 1970s.  It presents the bell as intriguing and calls the other coal artifacts unusable.

1. 5a.

   “Diligence completely removed all coal from the bell … Nuclear Activation Analysis determined it to be primarily of bronze with a curious admixture of zinc. A micro probe showed no residual traces of coal.” ↩

2. 5b.

   “A convention of bell experts did not know its place of origin, although some felt there was a similarity to semi-ancient bells made in India. Their suggestion was that some early American dropped a foreign bell down a well, to be incorporated into the coal.” ↩ ↩

3. 5c.

   “There have been several artifacts like this one found, but all are poorly documented and therefore unusable. I would never use questionable evidence for creation and the Flood without a disclaimer. I present this one here because the possibility is so intriguing.” ↩

Thomas, Brian.  “Possible Human Artifact Found in Coal.”  Institute for Creation Research.  Feb 20, 2013.  A news commentary by an Institute for Creation Research science writer on Russian press reports of an aluminium object in coal, presenting it and two older coal finds as possibly pre-Flood.  Its sources are three news reports, not a laboratory paper.

1. 6a.

   “The Pennsylvanian coal came from the Chernogorodskiy mines from the Khakasis region north of Mongolia. According to international Russian news source Komsomolskaya Pravda, biologist Valery Brier helped analyze the odd-shaped object. X-ray diffraction revealed that it was mostly aluminum with about two to four percent magnesium. This unique alloy is not generally produced today.” ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩

2. 6b.

   “A similar anecdote alleged that the late Frank Kanard, who had his written testimony notarized, extracted an iron cup with opposing pour spouts from a large lump of Pennsylvanian coal in 1918 while fueling his furnace in Oklahoma.” ↩ ↩

The Aluminum Association.  International Alloy Designations and Chemical Composition Limits for Wrought Aluminum and Wrought Aluminum Alloys.  The Aluminum Association.  Aug 2018.  The industry's register of wrought aluminium alloys, giving each alloy's composition limits and the year it was registered.  It is the standard reference for what an aluminium-magnesium analysis corresponds to.

1. 7a.

   Pages 9–10:  Alloy 5052, registered 1954 in the USA, magnesium 2.2–2.8 percent;  alloy 5754, registered 1970, magnesium 2.6–3.6 percent;  alloy 5086, registered 1954, magnesium 3.5–4.5 percent. ↩ ↩

Frair, Wayne.  “Freiberg Human Skull Composed of Coal.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 30(1):36–39.  Jun 1993.  A review of the history of the Freiberg coal "skull" by the then president of the Creation Research Society, who examined it in Freiberg in 1979.  It draws on German studies of the object and concludes that it is a moulded artefact of no value as evidence.

1. 8a.

   Page 36:  “There is no evidence that this artifact contains fossil bone. The skull is not a fossilized human head; nor is it a carving. It was molded by somebody using particles of brown coal and other materials probably prior to the summer of 1813. Therefore it has little or no significance in creation/evolution considerations.” ↩ ↩

Stromberg, Pierre, and Paul V. Heinrich.  “The Coso Artifact:  Mystery from the Depths of Time?”  Reports of the National Center for Science Education 24(2):26–30.  2004.  An investigation of the Coso artifact by a skeptic and a Louisiana Geological Survey geologist.  The owner refused access, so they worked from the published X-rays and photographs, traced the story to its first printings, and had spark-plug collectors identify the object.  They also corresponded with the young-earth author who promoted it and print his replies.  Mirror:  Ncse.ngo

1. 9a.

   Section Introduction:  “On February 13, 1961, Wallace Lane, Virginia Maxey, and Mike Mikesell were seeking interesting mineral specimens, particularly geodes, for their LM&V Rockhounds Gem and Gift Shop in Olancha, California.” ↩

2. 9b.

   Section The Initial Investigations:  “According to Maxey, a geologist she consulted who examined the fossil shells encrusting the specimen said that the nodule had taken at least 500 000 years to attain its present form. However, the identity of the first geologist is still a mystery, and his findings were never published.” ↩

3. 9c.

   Section The Initial Investigations:  “Calais is the only other individual known to have physically inspected the artifact”.  Section The Creationists and the Artifact:  “Calais, who was involved with the Coso Artifact since its initial discovery, is an active contributor to creationist literature”. ↩

4. 9d.

   Section Reaction from the Paranormal Community:  “Even if the exact location were discovered, the artifact was an oxide nodule freely lying on the surface, so the stratum where the item was discovered is irrelevant”. ↩

5. 9e.

   Section The Geologic Evidence:  Is the Coso Artifact Encased in a Geode?:  “Analysis of the surface material using the standard Mohs scale suggests a hardness of Mohs 3, which is much softer than chalcedony.” ↩

6. 9f.

   Section Comparisons and Analysis:  “There is no doubt that this is merely an old spark plug. Most probably, it is a Champion spark plug, similar to the two enclosed.”  Section The Artifact Itself:  What Is It?:  “To date, there has been no dissent among the spark plug collectors as to the identity of the Coso Artifact.”  The first quotation is from Chad Windham's letter of 14 September 1999. ↩ ↩

7. 9g.

   Section Reaction from the Paranormal Community:  “Actual petrifaction of such objects proceeds normally quite rapidly, as is illustrated by several other similar formations. See for instance, the note about the petrified miner's hat on the back cover of Creation Ex Nihilo (Vol 17, Nr 3) for June-August, 1995. See also an article about another "fossil" spark plug in Creation Ex Nihilo (Vol 21, Nr 4) for September- November, 1999 on page 6. You asked what I thought about its age. My best guess is that it is probably early post-Flood.”  Donald Chittick's letter of 29 September 1999.  In a second letter he wrote: It has not been my privilege to personally examine the Coso Artifact or location and strata where it was found. ↩

8. 9h.

   Section The Initial Investigations:  “The last individual known to possess the Coso Artifact was one of the original discoverers, Wallace Lane. Lane had the object on display in his home, but he adamantly refused to allow anyone to examine it (Willis 1969).” ↩

9. 9i.

   Section Reaction from the Paranormal Community:  “Chittick never responded, and the second edition of The Puzzle of Ancient Man promotes the Artifact with no disclaimer, but Chittick seems to have stopped mentioning the artifact in his public lectures.” ↩

Heinrich, Paul V.  “The Mysterious "Spheres" of Ottosdal, South Africa.”  Reports of the National Center for Science Education 28(1).  2008.  A study by a Louisiana geologist of the "Klerksdorp spheres."  He traces the claims to their first printings and examines five specimens:  three sawn open, one thin-sectioned, two identified by X-ray diffraction.  The sample is small, and the conclusion that the hematite spheres replaced pyrite concretions rests on their internal structure.

1. 10a.

   Section Introduction:  “The "Ottosdal objects" are spherical and subspherical objects that were found in 3.0 to 3.1 billion-year-old (Precambrian) pyrophyllite deposits in South Africa”. ↩

2. 10b.

   Section Introduction:  “The oldest known article that advocates an artificial origin for the Ottosdal objects is Barritt (1979). This article appears in the October 2, 1979, issue of the National Enquirer as a short version of Barritt (1982) … Barritt (1982) also quoted Marx as allegedly stating that a specimen of the Ottosdal objects slowly rotated on its axis while locked in a "vibration-free" Klerksdorp Museum display case.” ↩

3. 10c.

   Section Power of Rotation:  “In correspondence sent to Bruce Cairncross (1988) and me, Marx stated that a reporter had falsely quoted what he had said about the rotation of the objects. According to him, it was true that the Ottosdal objects had rotated in their museum cases. However, he unequivocally stated that the claim by Barritt (1979, 1982) that the Klerksdorp Museum display cases were free of outside vibrations is completely false. According to his correspondence, Marx clearly told the reporter that vibrations from underground blasting in local gold mines regularly vibrated the museum's display cases and caused the Ottosdal objects to rotate.” ↩

4. 10d.

   Section Hardness:  “An examination of the five Ottosdal objects collected for this study found none of them to be harder than 4.0–5.0 on the Mohs scale (a rating of 7–8 is typical of hardened steel).”  Section Discussion:  “The internal structure of the hematite Ottosdal objects indicates that they are natural concretions that are pseudomorphs after original pyrite concretions.”  The X-ray results, run by M. A. Holmes at the University of Nebraska, identified one specimen as hematite and another as wollastonite with minor hematite and goethite. ↩ ↩

5. 10e.

   Section Discussion:  “Trained geologists, Nel and others (1937) and Cairncross (1988), concluded that the Ottosdal objects are composed of pyrite within the pyrophyllite deposits.” ↩

6. 10f.

   Section Introduction:  “Later, Jochmans (1995), a young-earth creationist, included the Ottosdal objects in his list of "top ten outof- place artifacts" … Hindu creationists Cremo and Thompson (1993, 1999) published a short description of the Ottosdal objects after corresponding with Marx.” ↩

Oard, Michael J.  “Precambrian impacts and the Genesis Flood.”  Journal of Creation 28(3):99–105.  Dec 2014.  A young-earth geologist's paper on where impact craters in Precambrian rock fit in Flood geology.  It is cited here only for its statement of where young-earth geologists place the Precambrian.

1. 11a.

   Section opening section:  “So, the Precambrian is believed to be mostly a record of Creation Week.”  The sentence before it reads: If the Precambrian is pre-Flood, where does it fit into biblical Earth history? ↩ ↩

Barker, Harold et al.  “British Museum natural radiocarbon measurements VII.”  Radiocarbon 13(2):157–188.  1971.  A date list from the British Museum's radiocarbon laboratory, giving each sample, its laboratory number, its age and a comment from the submitter.

1. 12a.

   Page 183:  “958 ± 116 BM-496. Castenedolo skeleton A.D. 992 Collagen separated from vertebrae and costae of human skeleton (ref. Castenedolo I) found at Castenedolo, Brescia, Italy … Comment (K.P.O.): comparison of nitrogen content of Castenedolo bones with range of nitrogen values of bones from Italian sites indicated that these skeletons were intrusive burials in Pliocene marls”. ↩ ↩

Taylor, R. E.  “Six decades of radiocarbon dating in New World archaeology.”  Radiocarbon 51(1):173–212.  2009.  A review of radiocarbon dating in American archaeology by the head of the laboratory that dated the Calaveras material in 1992.  It mentions the Calaveras result in passing and gives the wrong year, 1854, for the skull's discovery.

1. 13a.

   Page 183:  “a 14C determination of 740 ± 210 BP (UCR-2161B/AA-1879) on an organic fraction of the Calaveras Skull was, in a sense, anticlimactic (Taylor et al. 1992). However, this measurement put an absolute fini to a much too long debated subject.” ↩ ↩

Aardsma, Gerald A.  “Myths Regarding Radiocarbon Dating.”  Acts & Facts 18(3).  Institute for Creation Research.  Mar 1989.  A short article by a physicist then working for the Institute for Creation Research, correcting popular creationist misunderstandings of radiocarbon dating.  It accepts conventional radiocarbon ages for the last three thousand years and questions them only before that.

1. 14a.

   Section closing paragraph:  “At the present time it appears that the conventional radiocarbon dating technique is on relatively firm ground for dates which fall within the past 3,000 years.” ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩

Ross, Clyde P., and Richard Rezak.  “The Rocks and Fossils of Glacier National Park:  The Story of Their Origin and History.”  U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 294-K:401–439.  1959.  A Geological Survey guide to the park's rocks for general readers, by two of its geologists.  It is the source Whitcomb and Morris quoted for the flatness of the Belt strata.

1. 15a.

   Page 420:  “Most visitors, especially those who stay on the roads, get the impression that the Belt strata are undisturbed and lie almost as flat today as they did when deposited in the sea that vanished so many million years ago. Actually they are folded, and in certain zones they are intensely so.” ↩ ↩

Whitcomb, John C., and Henry M. Morris.  The Genesis Flood:  The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications.  Presbyterian and Reformed.  1961.  The book that launched the modern young-earth movement, by a theologian and a hydraulic engineer.  Its section on overthrusts argues that the Lewis and Heart Mountain thrusts never happened and that the rocks above them were deposited in place.

1. 16a.

   Page 190:  “Careful study of the various locations showed no evidence of any grinding or sliding action or slicken-sides such as one would expect to find on the hypothesis of a vast overthrust.”  Page 191:  “In the light of such physical evidence as cited above, how is it possible to defend any longer the grand fiction of the "Lewis overthrust"? There ought to be no reasonable doubt that the limestones were actually deposited after the shales on which they lie and, therefore, that they are younger in geologic age!”  The first quotation is from Walter Lammerts's report, which the authors quote. ↩ ↩

2. 16b.

   Page 198:  “Thus, we feel warranted in rejecting the whole concept of over-thrusting, at least when applied on the scale of the so-called Lewis and Heart Mountain Thrusts and the many others of similar size and kind, such as the famous Matterhorn (Fig. 20) and Mythen Peaks in the Alps. We do this for two perfectly sound scientific reasons: in the first place, there are many places where there are no field evidences of a physical nature that any such movements ever took place”. ↩

3. 16c.

   Page 187:  “Ross and Rezak say: "Most visitors, especially those who stay on the roads, get the impression that the Belt strata are undisturbed and lie almost as flat today as they did when deposited in the sea which vanished so many years ago" (op. cit., p. 420).” ↩

4. 16d.

   Page 176:  “In the coal collection in the Mining Academy in Freiberg [Stutzer was Professor of Geology and Mineralogy in the School of Mines at Freiberg, in Saxony], there is a puzzling human skull composed of brown coal and manganiferous and phosphatic limonite, but its source is not known. This skull was described by Karsten and Dechen in 1842.”  Whitcomb and Morris quoting Otto Stutzer's Geology of Coal. ↩

Wise, Kurt P.  “The Way Geologists Date!”  Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism 1:135–138.  1986.  A short paper by a young-earth paleontologist telling fellow creationists that their usual attacks on geological dating are wrong, with the Lewis Overthrust as a worked example.

1. 17a.

   Page 136:  “The most popular inverted section cited by creationists is the Lewis Overthrust in Northern Montana and Southern Alberta. … A close examination of the contact between the Cretaceous and Precambrian rocks leaves no doubt that the contact is a fault contact. Highly sheared rubble is found between the units in many places. … In addition, slickensides are found in the Precambrian sediments.” ↩ ↩ ↩

Clarey, Timothy L.  “South Fork and Heart Mountain Faults:  Examples of Catastrophic, Gravity-Driven "Overthrusts," Northwest Wyoming, USA.”  Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Creationism.  2013.  A conference paper by a young-earth geologist, formerly an oil-industry exploration geologist, on two detachment faults in Wyoming.  It accepts that large thrusts are real and proposes that they slid catastrophically on overpressured layers during the Flood.

1. 18a.

   Section Introduction:  “Creationists in the past have been right to criticize secular explanations for overthrusts (Whitcomb and Morris 1961; Lammerts, 1966, 1972; Burdick, 1969, 1974, 1977). Today, however, creationists must accept the results of 100s of drill-hole penetrations and 1000s of kilometers of seismic reflection data, collected since the 1970s, proving the existence of many overthrust faults … Authors who are critical of the geologic column should no longer use the denial of overthrusts as part of their argument.” ↩ ↩ ↩

2. 18b.

   Section Introduction:  “The mechanical difficulty of moving large, coherent sheets of rock great distances down fairly flat slopes has never been fully explained in the geologic literature (Briegel 2001).” ↩

Answers in Genesis.  “Arguments we think creationists should NOT use.”  Answers in Genesis.  Dec 15, 2001.  The earliest surviving copy of the young-earth movement's list of arguments to drop, published by Answers in Genesis before the ministry split that left the list with Creation Ministries International.  Its geological entries are the same as today's.

1. 19a.

   “Gold chains have been found in coal. Several artefacts, including gold objects, have been documented as having been found within coal, but in each case the coal is no longer associated with the artefact. The evidence is therefore strictly anecdotal”. ↩ ↩

Creation Evidence Museum of Texas.  “Displays.”  Creation Evidence Museum.  2013.  The museum's index of its exhibits, with a one-line description of each.

1. 20a.

   “This artifact is a metal hammer in Cretaceous rock.” ↩ ↩

Gentet, Robert E.  “The Case for the Calaveras Skull.”  CreationHistory.com.  Jun 20, 2022.  A web repost, by one of its two authors, of the 1997 Creation Research Society Quarterly defence of the Calaveras skull, unchanged in its argument.  Its page metadata records a revision in June 2026.

1. 21a.

   The page's metadata gives a publication date of 20 June 2022 and a modification date of 26 June 2026.  Its text repeats:  “We realize that others firmly believe the Calaveras Skull to be a hoax.” ↩ ↩

CreationWiki.  “Young earth evidence.”  CreationWiki.  n.d.  Retrieved Mar 1, 2026.  A young-earth wiki's list of evidences for a young earth, one of which is the supposed absence of meteorites in sedimentary rock.  Mirror:  Archive.org

1. 22a.

   Section Meteorites:  “No meteorites have ever been found in the geologic column.” ↩ ↩

Parker, Gary.  “Origin of Mankind.”  Impact.  Institute for Creation Research.  Nov 1, 1981.  A popular article by a young-earth biologist introducing the human-origins displays in the Institute's museum.  It is still served on the Institute's site with a later editor's note that corrects one claim about Piltdown and no other.

1. 23a.

   “Secondly, we have evidence that people walked upright before Lucy was fossilized—the Kanapoi hominid, Castenedolo Man, perhaps even the Laetoli footprints discovered by Mary Leakey, and most especially the man-like tracks preserved with those of dinosaurs in the rocky bottom of the Paluxy River in Texas.”  “The statement in this article that over 500 doctoral dissertations were done on Piltdown Man was taken from Malcolm Muggeridge and has since been determined to be an error.”  The second quotation is the editor's note. ↩ ↩

Creation Ministries International.  “'Fossil' hat.”  Creation 17(3):52.  Jun 1995 (edition of 2006).  A one-paragraph magazine note about a miner's felt hat turned to stone in a flooded Tasmanian mine, offered as evidence that rock can form fast.  It matters here because the same reasoning dissolves the case for any manufactured object found in a concretion.

1. 24a.

   “This miner's hat is rock hard. It was found in a mine in Tasmania where it had been covered with water for more than 50 years. … This quick-forming 'stone' hat adds weight to the claims that creation scientists are correct when they say that thousands or millions of years are not needed to form rocks and fossilize animals and plants.” ↩ ↩

Answers in Genesis.  “Sparking Interest in Rapid Rocks.”  Creation 21(4):6.  Sep 1, 1999.  A one-page magazine note on a modern spark plug found cemented into rock on a California beach, offered as evidence that rock forms fast.  It treats the plug as modern, which is the right reading and the one that also explains the Coso object.

1. 25a.

   “There is really nothing surprising about this specimen.”  A footnote in the same article adds: A dropped spark plug from someone working on a marine engine at sea is the most likely scenario. ↩ ↩

Thomas, Brian.  “Pre-Flood Human Fossils Revisited.”  Institute for Creation Research.  Oct 30, 2015.  A web article by an Institute for Creation Research science writer listing young-earth answers to the absence of human remains in Flood rock.  It mentions three coal artifacts as possible pre-Flood objects and says they need testing for fraud, which makes it both a promoter of the coal finds and a caution against them.

1. 26a.

   Section Fossilization, Runoff, and Pennsylvanian Coal:  “Although we know of no undisputed human skeletal remains in Flood rocks, a few unique artifacts may have come from pre-Flood humans.”  The same paragraph names the iron cup, the brass bell and the aluminium gear, and ends: we need more thorough investigations that test against fraud before building a case on them. ↩

2. 26b.

   Section Fossilization, Runoff, and Pennsylvanian Coal:  “Although these artifacts are intriguing, we need more thorough investigations that test against fraud before building a case on them.” ↩ ↩

Young-earth geologists place the end of the Flood anywhere from the Carboniferous to the mid-Pleistocene, a spread covering about a third of the sedimentary record.  The positions and their evidence are set out in The Flood/Post-Flood Boundary.  The spread matters here because a human object in Cenozoic rock is a problem for a model that ends the Flood at the top of the Cretaceous, and no problem at all for one that ends it in the Pleistocene. ↩

Snelling, Andrew A.  “Where are all the human fossils?”  Creation 14(1):28–33.  Dec 1991.  A magazine article by a young-earth geologist explaining why so few human remains are found in Flood rock.  It sets out what a valid find would need, rejects the gold chain in coal and the Freiberg coal skull for want of documentation, and warns that rock around an implement does not prove it is pre-Flood.  Mirror:  Creation.com

1. 28a.

   Section Reported artefacts and skeletons:  “Often lay scientists claiming to have found human artefacts or fossils have not recorded specific location details … ALSO, lay scientists have in the past not kept some of the rock which encloses the fossil or artefact as proof of its in situ occurrence. These two oversights have often made it well nigh impossible to reconstruct and/or prove where fossils or artefacts came from, thus rendering such finds virtually useless.” ↩

2. 28b.

   Section Reported artefacts and skeletons:  “Fossilized hammers and supposed human footprints in ancient geological strata, regarded by evolutionists as deposited millions of years before man evolved, but regarded by creationists as Flood deposits, are extremely difficult to document scientifically above reproach and/or with any conclusive finality. (Merely finding rock around an implement does not prove it is pre-Flood.)” ↩

3. 28c.

   Section Reported artefacts and skeletons:  “For example, it has been claimed that a gold chain was found in black coal. However, the artefact evidently was exhibited as a clean gold chain with no coal clinging to it, so we see no evidence that the chain was actually found in the coal, just the claim that it was.” ↩

Baugh, Carl E.  “Ancient Human Cultures Appear in Sophisticated Form.”  Creation Evidence Museum (chapter of Baugh's doctoral dissertation).  1989.  A chapter of the dissertation of the founder of the Creation Evidence Museum, posted on the museum's site.  It presents the London hammer, the Coso artifact and other objects as evidence of an advanced pre-Flood culture, and is the clearest statement of the hammer claim at full strength.

1. 29a.

   “In the possession of the Creation Evidence Museum at Glen Rose, Texas is another rare and ancient artifact. This artifact consists of a metal hammer, imbedded in Ordovician rock, with a portion of the handle still in place. This assemblage was discovered in June of 1936 near London, Texas by Frank and Emma Hahn. At the time of the discovery the Ordovician rock encased the entire metal hammer. … Battelle Laboratories analyzed the artifact and found that the metal hammer head was 96.6% iron, 0.74% sulphur, and 2.6% chlorine. No metallurgist today can alloy metallic iron with chlorine.” ↩ ↩ ↩

2. 29b.

   “Rene Noorbergen relates that on February 13, 1961 in the Coso Mountains six miles northeast of Olancha, California three rock hunters found a stone”. ↩

3. 29c.

   “In Scientific American (June 1951, Vol. 7, p. 298) a report was given concerning a metallic vase that had been dynamited out of solid rock on Meeting Horse Hill in Dorchester, Massachusetts.” ↩

Genesis Park.  “Cretaceous Hammer.”  Genesis Park.  2026.  An exhibit page on a young-earth museum site that still presents the hammer as a possible pre-Flood tool.  It gives the strongest form of the case that the concretion is old, from the shells and sand in it.

1. 30a.

   “Many scientists have expressed skepticism since the artifact was not found in situ by a professional. But the composition (chlorine fabricated with metallic iron) remains a puzzling enigma. We know that iron was a metal that was in production in the pre-Flood economy (Genesis 4:22).” ↩

2. 30b.

   “There are none of the riverbed gravels embedded in the concretion. Instead the sandy composition matches the Cretaceous source rock upstream.” ↩

Cole, John R.  “If I Had a Hammer.”  Creation/Evolution 5(1).  1985.  An essay in the National Center for Science Education's journal reviewing Carl Baugh's claims at Glen Rose.  It was the first published reply to the hammer claim.

1. 31a.

   Paragraph The stone concretion is real:  “The answer is that the concretion itself is not Ordovician. Minerals in solution can harden around an intrusive object dropped in a crack or simply left on the ground if the source rock (in this case, reportedly Ordovician) is chemically soluble.” ↩

2. 31b.

   Paragraph Except for the odd note about volcanic pressures:  “Why was there no attempt to date the hammer stylistically (it is of recent American historical style) or to subject the metal and/or wood to radiocarbon analysis”. ↩

Yoshida, Hidekazu et al.  “Generalized conditions of spherical carbonate concretion formation around decaying organic matter in early diagenesis.”  Scientific Reports 8:6308.  2018.  A geochemical study of carbonate concretions from several Japanese sites, using the width of the reaction front at each concretion's edge to estimate how fast it grew.  It finds them far faster than older estimates, which matters here because a concretion's hardness says nothing about its age.

1. 32a.

   Page 1:  “All analytical data imply that the spherical concretions formed very rapidly, at least three to four orders of magnitude faster than previously estimated timescales.” ↩ ↩ ↩

Sarfati, Jonathan.  “Arguments we think creationists should NOT use.”  Creation Ministries International.  Feb 7, 2006 (edition of 2026).  Retrieved Oct 15, 2026.  Creation Ministries International's standing list of arguments it asks young-earth creationists to stop using, first posted in 2006 and updated since, sorted into "definitely not" and "doubtful."  Its geological entries include the Castenedolo and Calaveras remains, gold chains in coal, Carl Baugh's evidences and the Ron Wyatt Ark site.

1. 33a.

   Section Which arguments should definitely not be used?:  “Many of Carl Baugh's creation 'evidences'. Sorry to say, we think that he's well meaning but that he unfortunately uses a lot of material that is not sound scientifically. So we advise against relying on any 'evidence' he provides, unless supported by creationist organisations with reputations for Biblical and scientific rigour.” ↩

2. 33b.

   Section What arguments are doubtful, hence inadvisable to use?:  “Several artefacts, including gold objects, have been documented as having been found within coal, but in each case the coal is no longer associated with the artefact. The evidence is therefore strictly anecdotal (e.g. 'This object was left behind in the fireplace after a lump of coal was burned').” ↩

3. 33c.

   Section Which arguments should definitely not be used?:  “These are not sound examples—the Castenedolo skeletal material shows evidence of being an intrusive burial, i.e. a recent burial into older strata, since all the fossils apart from the human ones had time to be impregnated with salt. The Calaveras skull was probably a hoax planted into a mine by miners.”  The 2001 Answers in Genesis copy of the list has the same words. ↩ ↩

4. 33d.

   Section Which arguments should definitely not be used?:  “It's most likely that they perished toward the end of the Ice Age, possibly in catastrophic dust storms.” ↩

5. 33e.

   Section closing note of the list:  “It is notable that some skeptics criticise creationists when they retract doubtful arguments, but these are also the same people who accuse creationists of being unwilling to change their minds!” ↩

Cremo, Michael A., and Richard L. Thompson.  Forbidden Archeology:  The Hidden History of the Human Race.  Bhaktivedanta Institute.  1993.  A 900-page compilation by two researchers of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, a Hindu organisation, arguing that anatomically modern humans have existed for many millions of years and that the evidence has been suppressed.  It is the main modern source for the nineteenth-century reports of artifacts and bones in old rock, and it reprints the original newspaper and journal texts at length.

1. 34a.

   Page 805, section A2.9:  “On June 11, 1891, The Morrisonville Times reported: "A curious find was brought to light by Mrs. S. W Culp last Tuesday morning. As she was breaking a lump of coal preparatory to putting it in the scuttle, she discovered, as the lump fell apart, embedded in a circular shape a small gold chain about ten inches in length of antique and quaint workmanship. … as the lump separated, the middle of the chain became loosened while each end remained fastened to the coal. … The lump of coal from which this chain was taken is supposed to come from the Taylorville or Pana mines”. ↩

2. 34b.

   Page 805, section A2.9:  “In a letter to Ron Calais, Mrs. Vernon W. Lauer, the present publisher of the Morrisonville Times, stated: "Mr. Culp was editor and publisher of the Times in 1891. Mrs. Culp, who made the discovery, moved to Taylorville after his death — remarried and her death occurred on February 3, 1959." Calais told our research assistant (Stephen Bernath) that he had information the chain was given to one of Mrs. Culp's relatives after her death, but Calais could not trace the chain further.” ↩

3. 34c.

   Page 432, section 6.2.2:  “A carbon 14 test yielded an age of 958 years for some of the Castenedolo bones. But, as in the case of Galley Hill, the methods employed are now considered unreliable and the bones themselves were very likely contaminated with recent carbon, causing the test to yield a falsely young age.”  “The Castenedolo bones also had an unexpected high concentration of uranium, consistent with great age.” ↩

4. 34d.

   Page 400:  “it is highly probable that the Galley Hill bones, kept in a museum for 80 years, were contaminated with recent carbon, causing the test to give a falsely young date.” ↩

5. 34e.

   Pages 431–432:  “In fact, Issel did not even mention the word salt, referring instead to marine incrustations — which were, as above mentioned, present on the bones found in 1860 and 1880.” ↩

6. 34f.

   Pages 797–798:  “In 1844, Sir David Brewster reported that a nail had been discovered firmly embedded in a block of sandstone from the Kingoodie (Mylnfield) Quarry in North Britain. Dr. A. W. Medd of the British Geological Survey wrote to us in 1985 that this sandstone is of "Lower Old Red Sandstone age" (Devonian, between 360 and 408 million years old). … On June 22, 1844, this curious report appeared in the London Times (p. 8): "A few days ago, as some workmen were employed in quarrying a rock close to the Tweed about a quarter of a mile below Rutherford-mill, a gold thread was discovered embedded in the stone at a depth of eight feet." Dr. A. W. Medd of the British Geological Survey wrote to us in 1985 that this stone is of Early Carboniferous age (between 320 and 360 million years old).” ↩

Genesis Park.  “The Bell Found in Coal.”  Genesis Park.  2026.  The exhibit page of the young-earth museum that owns the bell.  It tells the finding, reports a laboratory analysis and a polygraph test of the finder, and presents the bell as a pre-Flood artifact.

1. 35a.

   “In 1944, as a ten year old boy, Newton Anderson was fueling the coal furnace in his parent's home. He dropped a lump of coal onto the basement floor and it broke in half, revealing that it contained this bell inside.”  “is now part of the Genesis Park collection”. ↩

Creation Ministries International.  “Maintaining Creationist Integrity:  A response to Kent Hovind.”  Creation Ministries International.  Oct 11, 2002 (edition of 2006).  The ministry's point-by-point reply to Kent Hovind's 2002 defence of the arguments on its don't-use list, printing his words and its answers in turn.  A 2009 note says Hovind's ministry has since dropped a number of those arguments.

1. 36a.

   “[KENT H]: … as well as an iron pot [found in coal in 1912 at the Municipal Electric Plant in Thomas, OK. Now in Creation Evidence Museum, www.creationevidence.org ] … [CMI]: Again, there is an iron pot (minus coal) in a museum, but no evidence apart from anecdotal that the coal contained the pot. I.e. a pot with a story about it.” ↩ ↩

2. 36b.

   “KENT H: Moot point. The geologic column has been invalidated many ways. The entire geologic column is a house of cards. Human remains and artifacts have been found in most layers of the earth.” ↩

Genesis Park.  “The Iron Pot Found in Coal.”  Genesis Park.  2026.  An exhibit page on a young-earth museum site that prints a transcription of the 1948 affidavit and presents the pot as evidence of pre-Flood people.

1. 37a.

   “The artifact is now archived at Creation Evidence Museum.” ↩

2. 37b.

   “Frank J. Kennord”. ↩

Genesis Park.  “Update on the Mysterious Bell Found in Coal.”  Creation Matters 18(6).  2013.  An essay first printed in the Creation Research Society's newsletter and reposted by Genesis Park.  It gives the fullest history of the bell, answers a critic who proposed an Indian origin, and reports a search of property records for the mine.

1. 38a.

   “Newton set aside the piece with the curious object and placed the remainder into the furnace. … Unfortunately he scoured all the coal off the intriguing artifact!” ↩

2. 38b.

   “This particular mine location tapped into coal from the Redstone Coal Seam, which is clearly composed of bituminous coal (USGS, n.d.). It is often found underground at depths of 100 feet.” ↩

3. 38c.

   “Garuda (a beaked, flying god) is sometimes depicted on top of bells, as is the Egyptian winged goddess Isis. … The wings and kneeling posture of the bell figurine are typical of the Garuda.” ↩

Speigel, Lee.  “300-Million-Year-Old Tooth Wheel Found In Russian Coal:  Scientists.”  Huffington Post.  Jan 23, 2013.  A news report relaying the Russian press stories about the Vladivostok object, with a sceptical geologist's comment.  It is the main English-language source for the find.

1. 39a.

   “The piece of coal in question originated from the Chernogorodskiy mines of the Khakasis region.”  The report adds, from the Voice of Russia, that since the region's coal deposits "can be dated to 300 million years ago, experts are suggesting that the odd piece of metal found in the coal must be that old as well." ↩

2. 39b.

   “[It] was found to be composed of 98 percent aluminum and 2 percent magnesium”. ↩

Austin, Steven A. et al.  “Catastrophic Plate Tectonics:  A Global Flood Model of Earth History.”  Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, 609–621.  1994.  The founding paper of the leading young-earth Flood model, by six young-earth scientists.  It sets out where the authors place pre-Flood, Flood and post-Flood rock.

1. 40a.

   Section Pre-Flood sediments:  “Archean (probable pre-Flood) and Proterozoic sediments contain substantial quantities of all types of sediments”. ↩

Terra Mirabilis.  “Piesa de aluminiu "de la Aiud".  Dosarul unei ciudățenii.”  Terra Mirabilis.  n.d.  A Romanian web dossier on the Aiud object, written from a sympathetic but critical position, which transcribes the earlier Romanian press accounts, interviews and laboratory claims.  It is a secondary compilation;  none of the laboratory reports it cites has been published.

1. 41a.

   “rezultă că metalul din care fusese uzinată piesa era de fapt un aliaj complex, format din 12 elemente diverse, dozate în diferite procente. Elementul principal – marea surpriză! – era aluminiul (89%)! Restul elementelor componente au fost găsite ca fiind următoarele (în ordinea mărimii procentelor determinate): cupru (6,20%), siliciu (2,84%), zinc (1,81%)”.  "The metal from which the piece was made was in fact a complex alloy of 12 different elements ... The main element, the great surprise, was aluminium (89%).  The rest were found to be copper (6.20%), silicon (2.84%), zinc (1.81%)," followed by smaller amounts of lead, tin and other metals.  The page attributes the figures to a bulletin of the ICPMMN research centre at Măgurele and gives no date. ↩

2. 41b.

   “Un răspuns foarte clar a venit din Germania și obiectul a fost identificat drept o piesă din trenul de aterizare al unui avion Messerschmitt ME 262.”  "A very clear answer came from Germany, and the object was identified as part of the landing gear of a Messerschmitt ME 262 aircraft."  The page is quoting a television report about the historian Mihai Wittenberger's inquiry. ↩

3. 41c.

   “în cartea dlui ing. Florin Gheorghiţă se lansează ideea că oasele fosile găsite alături de obiect, în acelaşi strat geologic, ar fi oase de mastodonţi. Dl director general Gheorghe Lazarovici a făcut, în acest sens, o serie de specificări extrem de importante. Conform declaraţiilor sale, oasele găsite aparţin unei specii de riconer [rinocer – n.n.] păros.”  "Engineer Florin Gheorghiță's book puts forward the idea that the fossil bones found with the object, in the same layer, are mastodon bones.  The director general, Gheorghe Lazarovici, ... stated that the bones belong to a species of woolly rhinoceros."  This passage is the page's transcription of a 1995 magazine article;  elsewhere the page calls the rhinoceros theory "hazardată și provenită dintr-o confuzie," "rash and arising from a confusion." ↩

Oard, Michael J.  “The Ice Age and the Genesis Flood.”  Impact.  Institute for Creation Research.  Jun 1, 1987.  A short summary by a meteorologist of his young-earth model of a single Ice Age caused by the aftermath of the Flood.

1. 42a.

   “The climate change following the Genesis Flood provides a likely catastrophic mechanism for an ice age.” ↩

Holmes, William Henry.  “Review of the evidence relating to auriferous gravel man in California.”  Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1899, 419–472.  Government Printing Office.  1901.  A field review by the Smithsonian archaeologist who visited Calaveras County in 1899, collected the local testimony about the skull, examined it in Cambridge, and compared the gravel implements with recent Native Californian tools.  It sets out the case for antiquity fairly before rejecting it, and says plainly that the question was not closed.

1. 43a.

   Page 456:  “According to Whitney's account the skull was taken from the shaft of Mattison & Co's, mine in February, 1866. Mr. Mattison, with his own hands, took the skull from near the bottom of a bed of gravel 130 feet from the surface and within a few feet of the bed rock”. ↩

2. 43b.

   Page 463:  “but it was a trick sprung on the spur of the moment, in a spirit of humorous hilarity, by Matthews, Scribner's partner in business. But the Doctor, being the victim, did not see the point." This story is interesting as emanating from Mr. Scribner”.  Holmes quoting the account Dr. A. S. Hudson collected locally. ↩

3. 43c.

   Pages 468–469:  “I find myself confirmed in the conclusions forced upon me by a consideration of the evidence already presented, namely, that the skull was never carried and broken in a Tertiary torrent, that it never came from the old gravels in the Mattison mine, and that it does not in any way represent a Tertiary race of men. … Notwithstanding the above decided averments I must allow that with respect to the question of Tertiary man in California no final conclusion can as yet be drawn.” ↩

4. 43d.

   Page 424:  “Of the fifteen or twenty varieties reported from the gravels by Whitney and others, all appear to be of recent types. They are practically identical with the stone implements used by the native tribes of California to-day or in the recent past.” ↩

5. 43e.

   Pages 469–470:  “The reported finding of an implement in place in the late Tertiary strata of Table Mountain by Mr. Clarence King is especially important and gives countenance to the reports of inexpert observers.”  Item 5 in Holmes's summary of the evidence for antiquity. ↩

6. 43f.

   Page 472:  “Nothing short of abundant expert testimony will convince the critical mind that a Tertiary race of men using symmetrically shaped and beautiful implements, wearing necklaces of wampum and polished beads of marble or travertine bored accurately”. ↩

Lain, Edward C., and Robert E. Gentet.  “The Case for the Calaveras Skull.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 33(4):248–256.  Mar 1997.  The young-earth defence of the Calaveras skull, from the historical record of its finding.  It argues that the first-hand witnesses agree it came from the gravel, that the hoax stories concern a later joke, and that the 1992 radiocarbon date rests on a mistaken cave assumption;  it reports no new measurement.

1. 44a.

   Page 248:  “The Calaveras Skull was discovered in 1866 in a gold-bearing gravel dated by conventional geology as tens of millions of years older than man's supposed origin.” ↩

2. 44b.

   Page 248:  “The authors believe the Calaveras Skull and hundreds of associated human artifacts have withstood the test of time and constitute remarkable evidences of ancient Man existing in America before the commencement of the Post-Flood Ice Age.”  Pages 249–250:  “What emerges from all these conflicting accounts is that a joke—not a hoax—was played on someone (certainly not Whitney) at a later date. The joke involved a different skull from the famous Calaveras Skull found by Mattison.” ↩

3. 44c.

   Page 253:  “The 14C age exhibited by an organic fraction of the Calaveras human metatarsal bone (UCR-2151B) indicates an age of less than 1,000 years. The AARdeduced age … for the Calaveras human metatarsal bone indicates a somewhat older age-about 4,000 years. In light of the problems with the AAR method for bone, we suggest that, in this case, the 14C-based data probably more accurately reflect the age of the bone. We interpret the overall weight of the dating evidence to indicate that the age of the bone tested, and by extension, the Peabody Museum Calaveras skull, to be late Holocene in age-probably younger than 1,000 years”.  Lain and Gentet quoting Taylor, Payen and Slota 1992, pp. 271–273.  Their quotation gives the laboratory number as UCR-2151B here and as UCR-2161 B/AA-1879 a paragraph earlier, where they give the organic fraction as 740 ± 210 and the bone carbonate as 1,260 ± 210 radiocarbon years, and the carbonate crust as an apparent 2,170 ± 60. ↩ ↩

4. 44d.

   Page 253:  “Since the calculations were based upon the fundamental assumptions of an original cave burial, we believe even the calculated dates obtained for the bone associated with the Calaveras Skull are most likely invalid.” ↩

5. 44e.

   Page 252:  “It should first be kept in mind that the Calaveras Skull itself could not be dated by C-14 directly because it lacked sufficient organic material. The actual human bone dated by Carbon-14 was said to be one of several fragments found in association with the Calaveras Skull. It is not known whether this associated bone is from the same individual as the Skull”. ↩

6. 44f.

   Page 253:  “This future paper will assign a post-Flood deposition and erosion time frame for the Cenozoic here, mainly in a catastrophic setting.” ↩

Brown, Walter T.  In the Beginning:  Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood.  Center for Scientific Creation.  8th edition.  2008.  The book of the hydroplate theory's author, a former engineer, and one of the most widely read young-earth compilations.  It still lists Castenedolo and defends the Calaveras skull.

1. 45a.

   Page 14:  “Bones of modern-looking humans have been found deep in undisturbed rocks that, according to evolution, were formed long before man began to evolve. Examples include the Castenedolo skeletons, Reck's skeleton, and possibly others.” ↩

2. 45b.

   Page 74:  “Cousins and Whitney state that the Calaveras skull was fossilized. This does not mean that it was preflood. Fossilization depends on chemistry much more than time. For many years, a story circulated that the Calaveras skull, buried 130 feet below ground, was a practical joke. This tidy explanation conveniently overlooks hundreds of human bones and artifacts”. ↩

The arithmetic, on young-earth terms.  Ussher's chronology, which Answers in Genesis prints, puts the Flood in 2348 BC (see Egypt and the Flood Date).  A radiocarbon age of 740 ± 210 years before 1950 is, at two standard deviations, between about 320 and 1,160 radiocarbon years, roughly AD 790 to AD 1630 before calibration.  Gravels laid down in the first centuries after 2348 BC would hold no bone that young unless it was buried into them later.  If the gravels were in place by 2000 BC, the gap is at least about 2,800 years, and calibration would have to shift the date by that much to close it.  That is the verdict Taylor's team reached by a different route:  intrusive burial.  The amino-acid estimate of about 4,000 years, which Taylor's team judged less reliable for bone, would by itself put the bone near 2000 BC, inside the young-earth post-Flood window.¹⁴⁴⁴ ↩

Keith, Arthur.  The Antiquity of Man.  Williams and Norgate.  new edition, volume 1.  1925.  A survey of the fossil evidence for human antiquity by a leading British anatomist of the day, who treats the Castenedolo finds sympathetically before rejecting them.  It is the classic statement of the intrusive-burial verdict, made before any chemical test.

1. 47a.

   Pages 336–337:  “Ragazzoni examined the overlying strata—one of yellow sand, another of grey sand—above the clay, and could see no trace of a disturbance at their lines of junction. … He went with Ragazzoni to the pit, made a fresh section of the strata, and was convinced that all was as Ragazzoni claimed, namely, that he had discovered human remains in undisturbed beds of a Pliocene age.” ↩

2. 47b.

   Page 340:  “the unfossilised condition of the remains and other circumstances make us certain we are here dealing with intruded burials. Yet one cannot say that the existence of man of the modern type in the Pliocene period is outside the range of possibilities.” ↩

Oakley, Kenneth P.  “Relative dating of the fossil hominids of Europe.”  Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Geology Series 34(1):1–63.  1980.  A gazetteer of fluorine, nitrogen and uranium tests on European human fossils by the British Museum scientist who developed fluorine dating and used it to expose Piltdown.  For each site it gives the measurements, any radiocarbon date, and what they imply about the bones' age relative to the deposit.

1. 48a.

   Page 40:  “From this evidence it was inferred that Castenedolo 1-3 were intrusive burials into the Astian clays. In 1969 the British Museum Research Laboratory undertook radiocarbon dating of bones of Castenedolo 1, which proved to be 958 ± 116 years bp (BM-496) on the basis of 14C dating of residual collagen in its vertebrae and costae.” ↩

2. 48b.

   Pages 41–42:  “The most likely explanation of the radioactivity of the bones is that the local ground-water is rich in uranyl ions. … As this is an unusually high proportion of uranium for ground-water, it probably accounts for accumulation of this element in the bones to the levels recorded after an exposure of less than 1000 years.” ↩

3. 48c.

   Page 17:  “Application of the fluorine-dating method to Galley Hill 1 in 1948 indicated that it was an intrusive burial in the Acheulian gravels and dated from end-Pleistocene or early Holocene times. … By reference to the bristlecone pine calibration curve (Clark 1975) this gives a calendar date of c. 3600 BP (c. 1650 BC), suggesting burial in late Neolithic or early Bronze Age times.” ↩

Creation Ministries International's reason, that "all the fossils apart from the human ones had time to be impregnated with salt," has no source on the list.  Cremo and Thompson trace the salt wording to Marcellin Boule and Henri Vallois's account of Arturo Issel's 1889 report, and reply that Issel "did not even mention the word salt, referring instead to marine incrustations," and that his report concerned only a skeleton found in 1889, not those of 1860 and 1880.³⁴  Kenneth Oakley's review records Issel's 1889 judgement that those bones were recent burials, and does not mention salt.  Issel's report was not obtained for this article, so the dispute over his wording is open.  The verdict on Castenedolo does not depend on it. ↩

Price, George McCready.  The Fundamentals of Geology and Their Bearings on the Doctrine of a Literal Creation.  Pacific Press.  1913.  The book in which a Seventh-day Adventist teacher with no geological training laid out the case that the fossil order is not real, the direct ancestor of modern Flood geology.  Its chapter on strata "turned upside down" is the source of the overthrust argument.

1. 50a.

   Pages 86–89:  “acts exactly like the line of contact of two nearly horizontal formations”.  Price quoting R. G. McConnell's 1886 report of the Canadian Geological Survey on a thrust contact east of Banff, to argue that such contacts are ordinary bedding. ↩

Burdick, Clifford L.  “The Lewis Overthrust.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 6(2):96–103.  Sep 1969.  A field report by a young-earth consulting geologist on the contacts at the base of the Lewis thrust, visited in the summer of 1968.  It is the source of the claim that the contacts show no sign of movement.

1. 51a.

   Page 102:  “The relatively flat-lying Altyn limestone was lying atop the Cretaceous with not the slightest evidence of movement. … There was no gouge, mylonite, tectonic breccia, nor slickensides. … Beyond all shadow of doubt, this contact was a sedimentary contact. Evidently identification of this contact as a thrust plane was made solely on the basis of fossil evidence with total disregard of physical evidence.” ↩

2. 51b.

   Page 97:  “Parts of some of the great overthrusts in the Alps are so devoid of slickensides, gouge, breccia, and mylonite that they passed unnoticed and were for a time mapped as sedimentary contacts.”  Burdick quoting Marland Billings's textbook Structural Geology. ↩ ↩

Burdick, Clifford L.  “Additional Notes Concerning the Lewis Thrust-Fault.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 11(1).  Jun 1974.  A follow-up note by the same author after another geologist reported slickensides near the thrust.  It concedes broken and brecciated shale at one contact and argues that the damage came before the limestone was laid down.

1. 52a.

   Page 56:  “Fargher reported the existence of slickensides and other physical criteria in the vicinity of the thrust contact, thus perhaps causing a re-evaluation of previous conclusions regarding the Lewis Overthrust.” ↩

2. 52b.

   Page 58:  “But at Cut Bank the situation was reversed-the underlying Cretaceous shale had been severely broken and brecciated. Had this been caused by overthrusting, both surfaces should have been brecciated, with slickensides and gouge.” ↩

Burdick, Clifford L.  “Heart Mountain Revisited.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 13(4).  Mar 1977.  A short paper by the same author denying that Heart Mountain in Wyoming is a thrust, while granting that real overthrusts exist.

1. 53a.

   Page 208:  “It is not denied that some actual overthrusts have all the physical criteria of thrusts—such structures do exist.” ↩

Howe, George F.  “Overthrust Evidence as Observed at Faults Caused by the San Fernando Earthquake.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 8(4).  Mar 1972.  A young-earth biologist's field report on small thrust faults that formed in the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, used to state the criteria creationists should apply to large ones.

1. 54a.

   Page 256:  “This evidence supports the creation geologists in rejecting the overthrust hypothesis wherever physical evidence is lacking, despite the fact that large rock sequences are indeed out of order with the geologic column.” ↩

Clarey, Tim.  “Glacier National Park:  Flood Sediments, Slides, and Ice Age Sculptures.”  Acts & Facts 55(4):10–13.  Institute for Creation Research.  Jun 30, 2026.  A magazine article by the Institute for Creation Research's director of research presenting the park's geology as Flood deposits.  It accepts the Lewis Thrust as a real thrust and argues that it moved by gravity sliding in the Flood.

1. 55a.

   Section The Dramatic Conventional Tale:  “Instead, it is part of a two-mile-thick section of Belt rocks that were torn loose along a 300-mile suture and transported east nearly 100 miles. This is referred to as the Lewis Thrust. Amazingly, it moved along a nearly horizontal fault surface, parallel to bedding, placing Belt rocks on top of much younger rocks.”  A photograph caption in the same article reads: Close-up of the near-knife-blade surface of the Lewis Thrust. ↩

2. 55b.

   Section 1. Only Gravity Can Move Massive Sheets of Rock:  “Instead, rapid thrusting, involving downslope movement of unlithified sediments by gravity, is a better mechanism for the development of large thrust sheets like the Lewis Thrust.” ↩

Snelling, Andrew A.  “The whale fossil in diatomite, Lompoc, California.”  Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 9(2):244–258.  1995.  A field investigation by a young-earth geologist of the large baleen whale found in a California diatomite quarry in 1976.  It corrects the creationist story that the whale was buried upright, and argues that the burial was still rapid.

1. 56a.

   Page 245:  “in 1986 the 'story' became entrenched amongst creationists due to wide circulation of a popular book by Ackerman, citing this whale fossil 'on its tail' as astounding evidence for rapid deposition of diatomite and therefore a clearly demonstrable error in the uniformitarian timescale.” ↩

2. 56b.

   Page 244:  “An on-site investigation at Lompoc, California, has established that the fossilised baleen whale found there in diatomite was not buried while 'standing on its tail', but is tilted because the enclosing diatomite unit is tilted.”  Page 257:  “the whale having been buried in the diatomite while both were in the horizontal position, and subsequent earth movements having tilted both.” ↩

Steveson, Peter A.  “Meteoritic Evidence for a Young Earth.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 12(1):23–24.  Jun 1975.  A two-page note offering meteorites as evidence for a young earth, the original source of the "no meteorites in old rock" argument.  Its author allowed that meteorites buried by the Flood might yet be found.

1. 57a.

   Page 24:  “On the basis of authenticated meteorites, none have been found in "older" rock strata. This can be used to argue strongly that the earth is young … It should be noted that the author does not insist that meteorites will never be found in "older" strata. … meteorites may yet be found which fell during that time period, and which were buried by cataclysmic actions of the Flood.” ↩

Ackerman, Paul D.  It's a Young World After All:  Exciting Evidences for Recent Creation.  Baker Book House.  1986.  A popular book by a psychology professor collecting young-earth arguments, still hosted in full on a creationist site.  It carried both the meteorite argument and the upright Lompoc whale to a wide audience.

1. 58a.

   Chapter 2:  “What do the data show? A clear result in favor of a recent creation. One survey of the literature a few years ago failed to turn up a single case of a meteorite being found in the geologic column.” ↩

Schmitz, Birger et al.  “A new type of solar-system material recovered from Ordovician marine limestone.”  Nature Communications 7:11851.  Jun 14, 2016.  A laboratory study of an unusual meteorite found among the fossil meteorites of a Swedish limestone quarry, with oxygen and chromium isotope measurements.  Its introduction summarises the fossil-meteorite record of those beds.

1. 59a.

   Page 2:  “The prime evidence is the more than 100 fossil L chondrites recovered during the industrial quarrying of Ordovician limestone in southern Sweden.” ↩

Snelling, Andrew A.  “Did Meteors Trigger Noah's Flood?”  Answers.  Jan 1, 2012.  A magazine article by a young-earth geologist proposing that asteroid impacts helped start the Flood.  It accepts the Swedish fossil meteorites as real and reads them as an early-Flood meteorite shower.

1. 60a.

   Section Fossil Meteorites in Sweden:  “Not surprisingly, fossil meteorites have been discovered in various layers of the Flood's geologic record. One of the most meteorite-dense areas in the world known to date is found in Ordovician limestone beds in central and southern Sweden. These deposits are among the earliest laid down by the Flood.” ↩

Faulkner, Danny R.  “An Evaluation of Astronomical Young-Age Determination Methods 1:  The Solar System.”  Answers Research Journal 12:255–274.  2019.  The first of two papers in which a young-earth astronomer grades the movement's astronomical arguments for a young age, recommending which to keep and which to drop.  Its entry on meteorites in the rock record is the movement's own retirement of that argument.

1. 61a.

   Pages 258–259, section Lack of Meteorites in Geologic Strata:  “Creationists have argued that meteorites are so rare in sedimentary rocks as to be non-existent (Ackerman 1986, 27–28; Armstrong 1978; Rybka, 1993, 46–47; Steveson 1975), conforming to the expectation of recent creation and a catastrophic flood. But is this good evidence of recent origin? … creationists may expect that there be some meteorites in the geologic column, as within the evolutionary model. The question is, given the introduction and destruction rates, what density of meteorites would one expect within either model? This is poorly known on both counts. Therefore, until creationists further develop this, it is not a good indicator of recent origin.” ↩

Creation Ministries International.  “The Earth's magnetic field.”  Creation Ministries International.  Jan 27, 2006.  A 1979 article on the decay of the earth's magnetic field, kept online with an editor's note that parts of it are outdated.  Its closing list of young-age indicators includes the absence of meteorites from the rock record.

1. 62a.

   “Some sections on this 1979 articles are outdated; this article is included for historical records.”  “They include: population growth, natural gas and oil pressures, lack of meteorites in the geologic column salt concentrations in the oceans”. ↩

Scientific American.  “A Relic of a By-Gone Age.”  Scientific American 7(38):298.  Jun 5, 1852.  A short news item reprinted from the Boston Transcript about a decorated metal vessel thrown out by blasting at Dorchester, Massachusetts, followed by the editor's mocking comment.  It is the earliest printed source for the Dorchester vessel.

1. 63a.

   “Among them was picked up a metallic vessel in two parts, rent assunder by the explosion. … This curious and unknown vessel was blown out of the solid pudding stone, fifteen feet below the surface. It is now in the possession of Mr. John Kettell.” ↩

Noorbergen, Rene.  Secrets of the Lost Races:  New Discoveries of Advanced Technology in Ancient Civilizations.  Bobbs-Merrill.  1977.  A popular book on supposed lost advanced civilisations, one of the main channels by which nineteenth-century artifact reports reached later writers, including Carl Baugh.

1. 64a.

   “In the June 1851 issue of Scientific American (Vol. 7, p. 298) a report concerning a metallic vase that had been dynamited out of solid rock … On June 22 of that year, workmen blasting granite out of the pit suddenly came upon a gold thread eight feet below the surface, embedded in rock judged by geologists to be 60 million years old. … A nail obviously of human manufacture had been found half-embedded in a granite block excavated from the Kingoodie Quarry in northern Britain. … Once again, the granite was determined to be at least 60 million years old.” ↩

Steiger, Brad.  Mysteries of Time and Space.  Prentice-Hall.  1974.  A popular collection of mysteries and anomalies by a prolific writer on the paranormal, one of the books that carried the coal finds to a wide audience.

1. 65a.

   Page 31:  “quoted a letter a colleague had received from a Frank J. Kenwood, who said that he had been a fireman in the Municipal Electric Plant in Thomas, Oklahoma, in 1912, when he split a large piece of coal and discovered an iron pot encased within.”  Rusch had printed an affidavit, not a letter, and it was Frank Marsh's separate account that described a fireman. ↩

The census was run on 15 October 2026 with this site's search tool, which queries 329 young-earth websites through the Brave search engine.  Each claim was searched with two or three wordings.  Every relevant page was downloaded and its date read from the page:  a byline date, a "Published" or "Updated" line, a copyright line, or the page's embedded publication metadata.  CreationWiki refused connections during the census, so its pages were read from Internet Archive captures, whose capture dates are given.  The method copies the census in Astronomy Arguments to Retire.  A search of this kind finds pages that search engines index well;  it can miss videos, books and pages behind logins, so a claim reported as "not found" may still circulate there. ↩

Oard, Michael J.  “Creation in-depth:  The geologic column, a global sequence?”  Journal of Creation 24(1):56–64.  Mar 2010 (edition of 2014).  A young-earth geologist's critique of the global geologic column, first printed in 2010 and kept on Creation Ministries International's site, last revised in November 2025.  It treats the Lewis Overthrust as unproven.

1. 67a.

   “There is a 900 Ma out-of-order time gap at the Lewis "overthrust", and this time gap was first based on out-of-order fossils. … The Lewis Overthrust may or may not be a true overthrust, but the determination should be made by geological and geophysical methods and not by fossils.” ↩

CreationWiki.  “A petrified hammer was found in Cretaceous rocks (Talk.Origins).”  CreationWiki.  n.d.  Retrieved Oct 10, 2025.  A young-earth wiki's reply to the TalkOrigins entry on the London hammer.  It grants that most creationists have dropped the hammer and argues that it might still be pre-Flood.  Mirror:  Archive.org

1. 68a.

   “While this has fallen out of favor with most creation scientists there is one aspect of this hammer that suggest that this could still be Pre-Flood.” ↩

CreationWiki.  “Out-of-place artifact.”  CreationWiki.  n.d.  Retrieved Dec 6, 2025.  A young-earth wiki's list of claimed out-of-place artifacts, given as a reference list without assessment.  Mirror:  Archive.org

1. 69a.

   “The Wonderstone Spheroids, now numbering 200 or more, found in a silver mine in South Africa. They are of a nickel-steel alloy that cannot have occurred outside a laboratory or a steel mill.”  “A brass bell with an iron clapper, found in a lump of coal.”  “An iron pot found within a lump of coal in Thomas, Oklahoma.” ↩

CreationWiki.  “Castenedolo, Olmo, and Calaveras skulls were found in Pliocene strata (Talk.Origins).”  CreationWiki.  n.d.  Retrieved Feb 27, 2026.  A young-earth wiki's reply to the TalkOrigins entry on these finds, which concedes both.  Mirror:  Archive.org

1. 70a.

   “They are a recent burial in Pliocene sediments, evidenced by the fact that other fossils but not the human bones were impregnated with salt.”  “The Calaveras skull was a deliberate hoax and was immediately recognized as such by scientists (Conrad 1982).” ↩

CreationWiki.  “A fossil whale was found vertically through several strata (Talk.Origins).”  CreationWiki.  n.d.  Retrieved Aug 9, 2025.  A young-earth wiki's reply to the TalkOrigins entry on the Lompoc whale, conceding the point.  Mirror:  Archive.org

1. 71a.

   “All in all, this is not the best example of vertical whale burial.” ↩