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

immediately after burial. Then, there would be a successive process to decrease water content in the wood. According to the theory, mummification cannot occur at flooding since it requires dehydration before burial. Yet, our Mississippi samples supports the Flood scenario that dehydration might occur after the burial. In order to dehydrate the wood, in Mississippi, salinization may have played a role. The Mississippi Embayment contains multiple layers of lignite coal with interburdens of silts and clays from both marine and freshwater inundations (Dockery and Thompson, 2016). The Red Hills Mine located in the Nanafalia formation is composed of marginal marine sediment that purportedly originated from USA gulf coast (Harrington 2008). Mummified wood forests reported in Ireland and Florida in the USA might be preserved through salt-water intrusion (Lewis et al. 2003). There is also a report of a mummified forest underwater off the coast of Alabama that was exposed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 (Holley 2017). However, our chemical analysis does not detect typical salt compound (sodium chloride) from the mummified sample. In summary, we hypothesize that the wood stem that appears to be mummified on one side and fully petrified on the other (Figure 1) had its provenience lot in the sediment with the horizon boundary facing toward the flow of water as it became petrified. The mummified portion had reduced moisture or xeric conditions within a very short time frame. Similar to the conditions found in the Egyptian dessert where bodies were buried and became naturally mummified (Smithsonian; Royal Ontario Museum). The earliest mummies found in Egypt from prehistoric times probably were accidental, because by chance there was dry sand and air that preserved some bodies buried in shallow pits dug into the sand (Smithsonian Institute). This has also been found in China with bodies dating from the Ming Dynasty (Reese 2014). During the following Ice Age after the Flood, drier conditions would bring about desiccated wood. It would not be as dry as a desert, but the humidity would certainly decrease. Conditions during the Flood would have saturated the marshes and bogs containing conifers and other vegetation and these findings suggest that post-Flood conditions might be rapidly xeric. Work done by Dr. Lang et al. (2008) at the Red Hills Lignite Mine found layers of floodplain strata to the H seam in an alluvial floodplain where it was relatively dry below the I seam (Figure 1), even though the surface agricultural soil from Mississippi’s subtropical humid climate was saturated with water to the depth of 2 meters from 1500 cm of precipitation. Current climatic conditions stimulate rapid decay of all contemporary wood within a few short years. Therefore, it is highly unusual and very noteworthy that pristine mummified wood has been found in Mississippi at 33⁰N latitude. This is documented by noted paleontologist/paleobotanist Mustoe (2017). He examined wood pieces similar to the ones shown in this document collected from Mississippi by one of this paper’s coauthors Dr. David Lang. Dr. Mustoe was astounded that permineralized and pristine wood was found coexisting on the same specimen that he identified as a conifer. Before our finding, nowhere else worldwide was such woods reported except north of the Arctic Circle on Ellesmere Island at 82 ⁰N latitude (Jahren 2007). Still, this sample having petrified wood and mummified wood on the same piece remains a mystery. CONCLUSIONS Several conclusions can be inferred from this research study: 1. Several pieces of a conifer wood found in the Red Hills Lignite Mine, Mississippi contained pieces of wood that had both petrified and mummified regions in the same piece. Multiple materials characterization methods illustrated stark differences with internally consistent data that confirmed one piece of wood contained both petrified and mummified regions 2. The preservation of the different kinds of wood adjacent to each other along with single pieces of wood that were found in a warm climate at 33º N latitude in Eocene strata in Mississippi contain both petrified and mummified regions casts strong doubt that this Eocene wood is 50 million years old. 3. We can deduce rapid changes in the environment due to petrification and mummification occurring on the same piece of the wood. Petrification requires substantial quantities of a mineral- rich fluid available before decay takes place. At the same time, mummification occurred when wood was dehydrated before decay. We would suggest a causative scenario that there was a heavy flood that buried wood that was then covered by sediment resulting in anoxic conditions within a short time. Water from heavy rain receded to make xeric conditions while some remained thus causing petrification. FUTURE WORK 1. Where and how did silica dissolve in water for silicification? 2. Coalification, petrification, and mummification occurred to the same source of wood in one place. What brought about the slight differences to these different chemical reactions resulting in lignite, petrified wood, and mummified wood? 3. Thorough chemical analysis on mummified wood. REFERENCES Akahane, H., T. Furuno, H. Miyajima, T. Yoshikawa, and S. Yamamoto. Lee et al. ◀ Partially petrified wood ▶ 2018 ICC 245 Figure 8. A schematic of the pipe buckling. Employing a pipe buckling formula, the critical pressure (P cr ) causing a buckling in the tracheid of the mummified wood is calculated as 539 MPa.