Creationist paleontologist misrepresents ichthyosaur fossil

This well-done study of a spectacular ichthyosaur from the Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone, Late Jurassic ichthyosaur specimens from the Solnhofen archipelago, was recently published and unfortunately misrepresented by Ken Ham’s Answers News.

Answers News, the biweekly YouTube show put on by Answers in Genesis (creators of the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter here in Kentucky), covered and misrepresented the find. This is par for the course for Answers in Genesis. Especially irritating are the misrepresentations of fossilization processes involved and the age of the specimen by Dr. Gabriela Haynes, an actual PhD employed by AiG. Dr. Haynes’s PhD was awarded by the Federal University of Ceará State in Brazil, in conjunction with the University of Kentucky.

How could she not know that rapid burial is not the only way remarkable fossilization can occur? *

She also claims, unsurprisingly, that the poor ichthyosaur died in Noah’s Flood about 4,500 years ago and discusses the effects of sin on ichthyosaurs. Their video can be found here. The inane part about the new ichthyosaur find starts about 3 min 45 s in.

* See, for example, the description here and in this well-known and widely available classic book: Barthel, K.W., Swinburne, N.H.M., and Conway Morris, S. 1994. Solnhofen: A Study in Mesozoic Palaeontology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Dan Phelps is a professional geologist. This article is derived with permission from an e-mail he circulated yesterday. Matt Young will be the principal moderator of this post.