More Microfossils

Microfossils of algae found in the Canadian Yukon by Harvard earth scientists Francis Macdonal and Phoebe Cohen show convincing evidence of biomineralization. The study published in Geology does contain some fantastic photomicrographs. But do they really reveal the “origins of biomineralization,” considered by evolutionists to be the first evolutionary step toward shells and bones?

Biomineralization is “the ability to convert minerals into hard, physical structures” such as bones, teeth, and shells. Prior fossil evidence of biomineralization in the single-celled world has been shaky. Mineralization which occurs during fossilization can mimic biomineralization, producing “a fossil illusion” where “soft tissue turned to stone.” These researchers are convinced the three kinds of algae fossils they found are the genuine article, though, because there is no distortion of the structures.

The researchers believe the fossils are 750 million years old because “molecular clocks and genetic trees” used “to reverse-engineer evolutionary histories” say they should be that old. They believe these microorganisms had to accumulate the “store of innovations that sustained some through” the supposed late Precambrian ice age occurring at that time so they could evolve into more complex organisms later.

Without a stash of handy evolutionary advantages, the evolutionists cannot explain the apparent flowering of the evolutionary garden depicted in the Cambrian explosion. Thus, they must assume that bones and shells got their start when single-celled organisms figured out how to incorporate minerals. They further suggest that more complex life forms acquired the new genetic information by engulfing these innovative creatures. (This theory of endosymbiosis is fraught with difficulties since the organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts supposedly obtained this way depend on the “mother cell’s” native DNA for some of their parts.)

The scarcity of large fossils and the presence of microfossils in these Precambrian rocks are easily explainable by the Flood geology model.

Evolutionists assume microorganisms are the common ancestor of all life. They believe the presence of microfossils in Precambrian rocks proves microorganisms evolved before the creatures fossilized in the Cambrian rock layers. Convinced those rock layers were laid down over millions of years, they claim there was enough time to allow the Cambrian creatures to evolve. However, the scarcity of large fossils and the presence of microfossils in these Precambrian rocks are easily explainable by the Flood geology model. Most creationist geologists would agree that the Precambrian rock layers represent sedimentary rock which formed in the pre-Flood world. In such a quiescent environment, large creatures would not be buried quickly enough to fossilize, but some microorganisms would be. In the subsequent catastrophic upheavals of the Flood, Precambrian rocks would have been either eroded away or covered over with massive amounts of sediment, rapidly burying many larger organisms.

While the algae fossils are a beautiful example of God’s intricate designs, they are not the great-ancestors of large-scale biomineralization processes in complex multicellular creatures. God created each kind of creature fully functional.