Adventures with Alaskan Dinosaur Bones
by Margaret Helder, Creation Science Dialog, Vol. 21 No. 3
via Sentry Magazine, Vol. 22 No. 1, March 1996
Sponsored by Creation Research Science Education Foundation, five men went to Alaska in July 1994 to collect unfossilized dinosaur bones. They included John Whitmore (Associate Professor of Geology at Cedarville College, Ohio); Mike Liston (outdoor and rescue specialist); Buddy Davis (dinosaur sculptor and exhibitor); George Detwiler (high school science teacher); and Dan Specht (dentist). Permission to collect dinosaur bones had previously been obtained from the United States Department of the Interior.
As described in World by Design (P. O. Box 292, Columbus, Ohio 43216-0292 Vol. 2, #4 pp. 1-3), the men began their journey at Umiat, a ghost town 130 km south of the Arctic Ocean. It took them from July 12 to July 17, proceeding down the Colville River, to reach the vicinity of the dinosaur bed. On the way, they coped with incredibly hungry mosquitoes, leaks in their inflatable rafts, 30 cm high waves pushing them back upstream, and quicksand on the shore. En route, they discovered a fossilized duck-bill dinosaur jaw (Lambeosaurus) as well as limb bones. This is probably an unreported dinosaur locality. On Monday, July 18, they hiked two hours from their Liscomb bone bed, site of the most important and amazing dinosaur remains in Alaska. Fossilized and unfossilized bones were found in abundance, and about 60 kg were collected for further analysis. Some will be sent to a laboratory in Moscow for possible dating.
The story of the unfossilized dinosaur bones in Alaska began in 1961 when geologist R. L. Libscomb, working for Shell Oil Co., discovered the bone bed. As the bones were not fossilized, he assumed they were recent bison bones. In 1985, principal investigator William A. Clemens from the University of California at Berkeley reported the presence of abundant dinosaur bones at the site (abstract #78919, Geological Society of America abstract programs, vol. 17, p. 548). In 1987, one of Clemens' associates, Kyle L Davies, described the condition of the duck-bill dinosaur bones: "The quality of preservation is remarkable. The bones are stained a dark red brown but otherwise display little premineralization, crushing or distortion." (Paleontology, 61 # 1 p. 198). The bones are said to be about 70 million years old, although they are unfossilized and resemble recent bones (at most the last several thousand years).
Although news of the dinosaur bone bed in Alaska has been published a number of times in the media, the amazing condition of the bones is generally not reported. For example, the cover story article on dinosaurs in National Geographic, January 1992 said: "...a team led by Bill Clemens of the University of California at Berkeley and Carole Allison of the University of Alaska reported finding large numbers of Cretaceous dinosaur bones on Alaska's North Slope. That was astonishing..." (p. 36).
Apparently the even more remarkable condition of the bones (unfossilized after a supposed passage of 70 million years) was not considered newsworthy enough to mention. Might they have felt a little embarrassed at the unfossilized state of the bones? Might this condition have caused some among the public to question the supposed antiquity of these artifacts?
It is hoped by the Alaskan bone collectors that perhaps some collagen (protein) still remains in the unfossilized bones. If so, then carbon fourteen dating can be attempted. In addition, a new technique recently developed in Russia involves a comparison of the ratio of stable isotopes of carbon twelve and carbon thirteen in the fossil specimen with similar ratios in fossils of Cro Magnon man. The theory is that similar values can indicate a common biological environment, suggesting with a high probability that they lived at the same time. The Russian group has already carried out such studies on dinosaur bones from Northwest Siberia and Cro Magnon fossils from East Kazakhstan. (A. A. Ivanov, D. A. Kousnetsov, and H. R. Miller. 1992. Theory of Biofractionation of stable isotopes in paleochronology. Proceedings of the Fifth European Creationist Congress, pp. 35-41. For more info, write H. R. Miller, The Paleochronology Group, P. O. Box 2635, Columbus, Ohio 43216).
[My thanks to Steve Willis for posting this article on Markslist, a religious bulletin board. Steve believes that the unfossilized condition of the bones could be due to:
- Not as old as previously thought;
- the fossilization process not being correctly understood; or,
- the cold climate preserved the bones in an unfossilized condition.
Kenny Chumbley]
