The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

matter (Shearer and Moore 1996). The lignite layer in the Red Hills Mine is approximately 1.22 m (4 ft.) thick. If we extrapolated the Shearer and Moore (1996) calculations to the Red Hills Mine, then the original wood peat would have been approximately 4.4 m (14.3 ft.) thick. Based on our field observations of the lignite layer’s texture and microscopy analysis, we observed compaction of wood and cell wall buckling in this material confirming the densification process. In order to have 4.4 m of wood peat, a huge forest would have existed in Mississippi in the past or the Genesis Flood brought a large mass of forest products to the region once the Flood waters drained off of the “then” USA. Evolutionary geologists (Blackwell and Marak 1989; Cushing et al. 1964; Dockery and Thompson 2016) claim that during the Late Paleocene and Early Eocene, a majority of Mississippi existed as an alluvial plain characterized by a low and marshy land with luxuriant plant growth. Thus, the lignite originated from ancient plants in the delta plains and swamps under tropical climate conditions. Alternatively, the Bible tells of a different geological history. Lush growth of plants that now became coal or fossilized was from pre-Flood period in 6000- 4500 years ago. During those days, the climate was optimized for plants to thrive and grow. During the worldwide Flood described in Genesis, a great volume of wood was rooted up and deposited by water most probably in a different location. In order to form silicified wood from trees, there should be silica- bearing water near buried trees for petrification to occur. The solubility of silica in water is very low at room temperature and environmental pressure. However, silica dissolves in water much more readily at a high pressure or a high temperature (Fournier and Rowe 1977). The preferable condition for petrification to occur would be in the vicinity of volcanos where volcanic ashes are located. These ashes lower the pH and provide silica. In the fluvial sediment of the Red Hill mine without volcanic activity, it is still unknown how silica dissolved into water and how petrification initiated. It is, however, apparent that silica-laden water permineralized one part of the wood pieces found in our study. The piece of wood shown in Figure 2b indicates that only a part of the wood stem contacted water while the other part did not. As the water receded after the wood was buried in fluvial sediments, the wood dehydrated while some silica bearing water was trapped between the wood layers. While a part of the wood experienced petrification, another region experienced mummification at the same time. One of the prominent paleobotany textbooks entitled ‘Paleobotany: the biology and evolution of fossil plants’ (Taylor et al. 2009) described mummification as: “When conditions of burial are rapid, and especially in very dry or cold environments, wood or other plant parts may survive for millions of years in a relatively unaltered condition. Such mummified remains have been described from Cenozoic deposits and represent a special preservation type in which the plant tissue was rapidly dehydrated and buried.” This theory fails to explain the origination of our samples in two aspects. First, contemporary paleobotanists assume that mummification occurred in a very dry or cold condition. However, our samples were found in a subtropical humid condition in Mississippi, where it is neither very dry nor cold. Cellulose and lignin, which are the main components of wood, are susceptible to microbial decay. A very dry and cold environment suppresses microbial activity so that wood would be preserved. However, in a humid environment like Mississippi, other conditions are required to protect wood from microbial activities. One possible condition is to deplete oxygen to rule out major decaying processes caused by aerobic microbial activity. To achieve this, the time between accumulation of the wood layers and the next sediment layer would be fairly short. Second, the sequence of burial and dehydration is not applicable to our samples. The theory (Taylor et al. 2009) assumes that plants dehydrated first and then buried. This fails to explain our samples in which petrified wood and mummified wood co-exist. Because petrification generally occurs in the mineral- rich water, the whole wood might be in a relatively wet condition Lee et al. ◀ Partially petrified wood ▶ 2018 ICC 242 Figure 5. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images of the fractured petrified wood (a) in a longitudinal orientation shows the silicon mineralized tracheid and (b) in a transverse direction shows distorted tracheid lumens filled with silicate mineral.