Drag of an Ammonite Fossil

This some something that doesn't come up in cowboy parlance none too often: a new record for a fossil drag mark was found. (Say that during a poker game, you'll probably get told to make yourself scarce, pronto.) This particular one is exciting to paleontologists, though. And, believe it or not, of no small interest to biblical creationists.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Ghedoghedo (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The critter that got his unfortunate self fossilized is an ammonite, similar to the one pictured. Don't bakers make pastries something like that? Ammonite fossils are fairly common, but this one shows a substantial drag mark. Despite the protestations of many old-earth advocates, fossilization does not happen slowly, it happens rapidly. Especially when the drag mark would have been worn away by the conditions at the time. Rapid fossilization begins with rapid burial. The Genesis Flood presents the necessary conditions, but uniformitarian geologists don't cotton to that because it means the world is young, not billions of Darwin years old. That's a real drag for secularists.

A remarkable drag mark, 8.5 m (28 ft) long, has been located in the renowned Solnhofen Limestone deposit, Germany. The drag mark belongs to an ammonite, Subplanites rueppellianus, which was located embedded in the limestone at the end of this trace fossil. Ammonites are extinct squid-like creatures with a characteristic spiral chambered shell.

You can read the rest of this short article and see the illustrations therein by clicking on "Longest recorded fossil drag mark".
   



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