Posted by Gremlin [12.255.181.7 - 12-255-181-7.client.attbi.com] on 13 July 2002 at 18.18.44 ZuluTime:

In Reply to: the flat earth and NASA posted by Morphia on 13 July 2002 at 12.59.06 ZuluTime:

NASA have got a couple of things on the whole urban legend thing. I know they've got a subsite disspelling the myth that they found evidence of a missing day in history, coinciding with the Earth standing still in the bible. I'll see if I can find that, at least; they may have something on the FlatEarth joke, too...although that's kinda premptively slaughtered by a few jpegs of the planet from orbit.

As for fossilisation: there's no real recipie for it. Except that things can fossilise in a number of different ways.
     In cases--rare ones--organic material can be preserved in fossilisation, like a Baked Alaska, of sorts. More commonly, organic material can be replaced by a fossil. And then, the replacing element can be a number of things.
     Here in Western America, fossils have been found which are made up of uranium. Back in the UK, an entire herd of iguanadonts was made up of...drat. I'll have to look that up too. Whatever it is, the fossils are this neat, glossy black. I don't think it was shale, but it looked like it from a distance.
     As for how long it takes for something to fossilise: I've never found any sort of timeframe. It depends a lot on the location and circumstances.
     As for the notorious 'fossilised boot' which creationists have decided is evidence of fossilisation taking a few minutes: I've never actually seen the thing, outside of jpegs. From what I've gathered, it's a ?fossilised tibia in a leather shoe. But I haven't heard anything from anyone qualified to determine whether it's fossilised, what animal it came from, or whether it originated inside this shoe; it's pretty dubious at the moment.