Claim CC332.1:

The fossil trees at Specimen Creek in the Yellowstone Petrified Forest show common tree ring signatures, indicating that they all lived at the same time. This rules out the conventional interpretation that the trees in successive layers all grew in place and were covered by successive volcanic eruptions.

Source:

Arct, Michael J., 1991 (Dec.). Dendrochronology in the Fossil Forests of the Specimen Creek Area Yellowstone National Park. Ph.D. dissertation, Loma Linda University.
Morris, John D., 1995. The Yellowstone petrified forests. Impact 268 (Oct.). http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=397

Response:

  1. The signature series of tree rings which Arct used to establish commonality between trees is too short, spanning only five years. The actual tree ring widths given in his data show too little correlation between samples to support his conclusion (Arct 1991, 5,18,20).

  2. Arct attributed non-standard causes to his signatures: "[I]t appears that the Yellowstone signature is a result of a pronounced sensitivity to the intra-annual availability of water as recorded in young trees" (Arct 1991, 56). Instead of being signatures which occur over several rings growth, his are within one year's growth. This is not as good a signature set.

  3. Arct's data indicate that the trees did not all die in the same year (Arct 1991, 38), thus ruling out the possibility that they were uprooted and later deposited by a common event.

  4. There is other evidence, such as paleosols and in-place roots, that the trees fossilized in place (Fritz 1980; 1984; Yuretich 1984a; 1984b).

Links:

MacRae, Andrew, 1994. Yellowstone National Park (U.S.) fossil forests. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/yellowstone.html

References:

  1. Arct, Michael J., 1991 (Dec.) Dendrochronology in the Fossil Forests of the Specimen Creek Area Yellowstone National Park. Ph.D. dissertation, Loma Linda University.
  2. Fritz, W. J., 1980. Reinterpretation of the depositional environment of the Yellowstone "fossil forests". Geology 8: 309-313.
  3. Fritz, W. J., 1984. Comment and reply on "Yellowstone fossil forests: New evidence for burial in place." Geology 12, 638-639.
  4. Yuretich, R. F., 1984a. Yellowstone fossil forests: New evidence for burial in place. Geology 12: 159-162.
  5. Yuretich, R. F., 1984b. Comment and reply on "Yellowstone fossil forests: New evidence for burial in place." Geology 12: 639.
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created 2001-2-18