03/07/2026

 

Samuel Clifford

Some may not think that fossils support Young Earth Creationism and yet for over fifty years fossils containing biological material have been found. These discoveries have plagued scientists all over the world as fossils that are supposedly millions of years old should not contain biological material. Certain arguments may be made for the endurance of some types of biological material. However, the material discussed below and others referenced simply don't have a clear and evidential explanation from a uniformitarian viewpoint. Dr. Brian Thomas, Ph.D. paleobiochemistry, created a list of 116 fossils that contain biological material (Thomas, B. (n.d.). List of biomaterial fossil papers. Google Drive. Retrieved July 3, 2022, from https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1eXtKzjWP2B1FMDVrsJ_992ITFK8H3LXfPFNM1ll-Yiw/htmlview). It would seem redundant to list all 116 occurrences in which biological material was found in fossils. Therefore, only 6 of the 116 will be listed below:

 

Tyrannosaurus rex

 

In the 1990s, Mary Schweitzer claimed that an unfossilized piece of T. rex bone contained red blood cells. In fact, there was immunological and spectroscopic evidence of the presence of hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying protein that gives red blood cells their color (Wolfe, F.L., Microfilaments and microfilament-based cell motility, in Molecular and cellular biology, Arbogast, M. et al. (Eds.), Wadsworth publishing company, Florence, KY, pp. 451-490, 1993). Immunological tests use antibodies, proteins that bind only to very specific molecular shapes. If an antibody designed to bind hemoglobin attaches to a sample, it suggests that hemoglobin‑like proteins are present. Spectroscopy analyzes how a molecule interacts with light. Hemoglobin has a distinctive spectral fingerprint, especially because of its iron‑containing heme group. Furthermore, in 2005 Schweitzer discovered what appeared to be soft tissue in a different T. rex bone, still soft and stretchy. This discovery has plagued uniformitarian scientists as such fragile biological material should have dissipated in less than the conventional 65 million years given for the fossil. 

 

Triceratops horridus

 

As a part of the iDino project carried out by the Creation Research Society, they discovered layers of soft and stretchable tissue in the brow horn of a Triceratops (Anderson, Kevin., Echoes of the Jurassic, CRS Books, Chino Valley, p.21–26, 2016). When examined under a scanning microscope, bone osteocytes cells were seen together with extraordinary structural preservation of the cell. This included thin protein extensions from the cell membranes called filipodia. This, once again, contradicts the uniformitarian ideology, as soft tissue existing for 65 million years is highly problematic. 

 

Brachylophosaurus canadenis

 

Schweitzer and others also discovered the presence of the same fibrous matrix, transparent, flexible vessels, and preserved microstructures that she had found in the T. rex sample in a piece of a fossilized hadrosaur, Brachylophosaurus canadenis (Schweitzer, M.H. et al., “Biomolecular characterization and protein sequences of the Campanian hadrosaur B. canadensis,” Science 324(5927):626–631, 1 May 2009 | DOI: 10.1126/science.1165069,www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/324/5927/626?ijkey=47dc1272e069cf51caab0651d4462cbe5045f92c).

 

Titanosaur Eggshells

 

A recent discovery in 2021 shocked many when it was announced. A Titanosaur eggshell had been discovered with parts of proteins in the eggshell (Dhiman, Discovery of proteinaceous moieties in Late Cretaceous dinosaur eggshell, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pala.12565). Proteins should degrade within a few years. Therefore, the discovery of proteins in the Titanosaur eggshells are contradictory considering their proposed age. 

 

Scipionyx samniticus

 

The Scipionyx was a Maniraptorformes from the Lower Cretaceous. This fossil is unique because muscles are present in the chest area with scattered acicular fibers clearly visible under 50x magnification. Large muscular fibers are also preserved at the tail base (Dal Sasso, C. and Signore, M., 1998. Exceptional soft-tissue preservation in a theropod dinosaur from Italy. Nature, 392:383-387). Such biological material should not have survived for thousands of years, much less millions. 

 

Stenopterygius

 

A well preserved skin of a fossil ichthyosaur, Stenopterygius, has revealed original soft tissue and proteins (Lindgren, J. and 22 others, Soft-tissue evidence for homeothermy and crypsis in a Jurassic ichthyosaur, Nature, 564(7736): 359–365, 05 Dec 2018). This fossil is more than double the age of most of the prior fossils mentioned according to uniformitarian geologists. There were still remnants of the original skin, and the research team was able to distinguish different cellular layers within the skin and subcutaneous tissues, including a layer of fossilized blubber that contained original chemical traces. So, even if biological material could survive 65 million years, could it survive around 180 million years?

 

In conclusion, the discovery of biological material in fossils that are supposedly millions of years old is contradictory. Some scientists claim it is merely special circumstances or rare occurrences that caused this. However, biological material has been found in more than 116 fossils. Yet, uniformitarian scientists often turn a blind eye to this data, not considering it a problem for their Old Earth view.