Rewriting the Last Dinosaur's Tombstone | The Institute for Creation Research

Rewriting the Last Dinosaur's Tombstone

“The last of the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago,”1 according to an unsupported claim by evolutionary researchers that has been popularized in books and movies such as Jurassic Park. This conclusion is so ubiquitous that most people don’t even question whether or not it’s true. But researcher James Fassett has discovered considerable evidence that may finally convince ardent believers to re-evaluate this assumption.

Fassett found hadrosaur fossils in the Ojo Alamo Sandstone of the western United States, and they appear to have come from dinosaurs that were alive during the era when the sandstone was deposited.2 The “problem” is that this sedimentary layer and the fossils it contains have independently been shown to be Paleocene rocks that supposedly range from 65 to 55 million years in age, just younger than the Cretaceous layers that are usually considered to be the resting place for earth’s last dinosaurs.

In his studies, Fassett took great pains to rule out all possibilities other than that his dinosaurs were alive after the time when current scholarship claims “the last…died out.” For example, he tested the concentrations of rare earth metals surrounding the rock, the fossils, and the lower Cretaceous deposits. The same combination of metals exists in the hadrosaur bones and in the Paleocene layers in which they were found, but Cretaceous rocks in the area had clear differences. This helped answer the objection that these hadrosaurs were originally deposited in Cretaceous rocks, then “reworked” into Paleocene sediments eons later. In addition, 43 skeletal elements were found together from one individual. If reworking was involved, then the fragments would have been scattered.

According to the creation model, the majority of fossils resulted from creatures killed during the global Flood described in Genesis. Many dinosaur remains are found in giant fossil assemblages where dinosaur-rich ecological zones of the pre-Flood era were inundated, and the debris sorted, transported, and deposited in a giant, broad depression.3 Creation science models, which take into consideration possible effects of the worldwide catastrophe recorded in Scripture, predict that some dinosaur remains would be found in non-Cretaceous rocks.

With Fassett’s research on Paleocene dinosaurs, honest evolutionists will have to change their mantra to “Most dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.” However, if they consider all of the relevant data, they would need to change it even further to “Most dinosaurs died out only a few thousand years ago.” But then they would be in agreement with the Bible.

References

  1. Wilford, J. N. Tissue Find Offers New Look Into Dinosaurs’ Lives. The New York Times. Posted on nytimes.com March 24, 2005, accessed April 30, 2009.
  2. Fassett, J. E. 2009. New Geochronolgic and Stratigraphic Evidence Confirms the Paleocene Age of the Dinosaur-Bearing Ojo Alamo Sandstone and Animas Formation in the San Juan Basin, New Mexico and Colorado. Palaeontologia Electronica. 12 (1): 3A. 
  3. Parker, G. 2006. Creation: Facts of Life. Green Forest, AK: Master Books, 196-198.

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on May 11, 2009.

The Latest
CREATION.LIVE PODCAST
Getting the Gospel into People's Hands | Creation.Live Podcast:...
Can God use an atheist airline pilot to reach other nations with the truth of the Gospel? The answer, obviously, is yes.   Host...

NEWS
Chimp Genome Only 75% Similar to Human?
An oft-repeated claim of evolutionary propaganda is that chimpanzee and human DNA are 98.5% identical. This high level of DNA similarity, which has...

NEWS
''73-Million-Year-Old'' Alaskan Salmon
Fish evolution remains an enigma. Evolutionists can only say fish first “appeared” over a half-billion years ago.1 Creationists...

NEWS
God's Memorial Day
“And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of...

NEWS
The Origin of Eukaryotes
Eukaryotes are multicellular organisms that contain diverse differentiated cell types. Within almost every cell there are subcellular compartments called...

CREATION PODCAST
Water vs. Wind: The Controversial Coconino | The Creation Podcast:...
Welcome to the sixth episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old...

NEWS
Fossil Fish Finally Filmed
The bizarre lobe-finned coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) “that flourished some 350 million years ago”1 continues to be a thorn...

NEWS
The Mosasaur: A Giant Sea Dragon
Mosasaurs (order Squamata) were massive marine lizards that were common in the pre-Flood oceans. Therefore, it is not surprising that their fossils...

DAYS OF PRAISE DEVOTIONALS
Summer 2025
...

NEWS
Was Life Detected on a Distant Planet?
There was celebration, albeit briefly, for the discovery of potential life on a planet called K2-18b, which is 124 lightyears away from Earth. The...