Polystrate is a simple word and comes from the Greek polys meaning many plus the Latin stratum meaning layer. Thus a polystrate fossil is a fossil that extends vertically through many layers of rock. A polystrate fossil is unusual but not rare, and polystrate fossils are a great embarrassment to evolutionary geologists who have been taught that the earth is millions and billions of years old. A good example of a polystrate fossil is a petrified log extending vertically through several layers of rock.

To produce a fossil, a plant or animal must be buried deeply and quickly in mud so that it will not rot. Then, in this presence of water, minerals, heat and pressure, the organic matter is changed into coal or oil or has its structure replaced by minerals and becomes rock just as cement will harden. Scientists have made coal from wood and oil from garbage in the laboratory in less than a month of time and the products cannot be distinguished from the natural substances.

There are layers of rock on this earth in some places miles deep e.g. the Grand Canyon, and containing billions and billions of fossils. How could this have happened from slow annual silting over millions of years when under slow annual silting all of those fossilized things would have rotted?

How can the tremendous coal fields on this earth be explained except by a massive burial all at one time? How can the tremendous oil fields on this earth be explained except by a massive burial all at one time? Could Noah's flood some 4400 years ago (the Bible tells us how many generations ago) be the answer? Christian creation geologists think so and find no insurmountable scientific problems associated with the idea. Do we want to believe the Bible, or do we look for ways to doubt God's word?

Perhaps polystrate fossils are rocks crying out!

Remember the purpose of creation science is to strengthen your faith, and to remove evolutionary thinking from the church.

Prepared by Sidney C. Phillips M.D.
from creation science literature 1996