One of the main contentions in the evolution vs. creation debate is time. Is it millions and billions of years, or thousands? Evolutionists, obviously, believe it takes millions of years for fossils to form, but creationists contend it can happen very rapidly under the right conditions. Thus, the following three articles on dinosaur footprints provide an opportunity to examine the evidence and draw some conclusions as to which worldview offers the best explanation.

The first article from the BBC describes a dinosaur footprint discovered on the Isle of Wight (south coast of England). The footprint belonged to an Iguanodon, is three feet across, and is said to be about 130-million-years-old.

The second article is reported by NBC News and describes a boulder from Queensland with 66 fossilized footprints belonging to 47 dinosaurs, and is said to be about 200-million-years-old. A second boulder was found with two footprints possibly belonging to a Pisanosaurus.

And the third article from NBC News reports on a ‘dinosaur highway’ from southern England about 166-million-years-old by sauropod dinosaurs called Cetiosaurus, and a Megalosaurus.

I’ve provided evidence against the dating techniques used to obtain these long ages here and here, so now I specifically want to explore what it takes for these tracks to fossilize, and whether it takes millions of years, or can happen rather quickly.

Fossilized footprints form when an animal leaves an imprint in soft ground, mud, clay, or sand, which is then rapidly covered by sediment, protecting the print. Then, as more layers cover the prints, and minerals seep into the ground, the surrounding imprints are hardened into rock over time. Some think this process takes millions of years. After all, we don’t observe this process happening today.

Interestingly, most of the fossilized footprints discovered are found in places where flooding occurred. The Iguanodon footprint found on the Isle of Wight was made on an ancient floodplain. The footprints from Queensland are said to have been formed underwater in flood-like conditions. Other tracks were laid on “water-sodden” layers of plant debris. And the ‘dinosaur highway’ tracks made by Sauropod and Megalosaurus from southern England were made in what was believed to be a muddy lagoon on the coast during a storm.

The big question is, how were the footprints mineralized? Today’s conditions don’t explain this, so evolutionists must allow time to be the hero. They claim that the minerals would eventually come along after millions of years, but this claim is untestable. We don’t have millions of years’ worth of experimentation, and scientists can’t go back in time to confirm these claims. So this must be believed by faith.

On the other hand, creationists contend that the right conditions will produce fossilization in a short time, and the global flood in Genesis, along with widespread volcanism, would have provided the necessary pressure and mineralization in a few thousand years.

Now the question is, can the creationist claims be tested? And the answer is- yes! It is possible to make our own fossils in a week with the correct processes. Creation scientist and engineer Gordon Craig does this in his lab, and the fossils appear genuine. Others have done this as well. So this is evidence that the right conditions can produce fossilized tracks, and millions of years aren’t needed.

Some scientists reject a world-wide flood for all the wrong reasons. But if the Bible is correct, then there was a global flood, and this explains why we have so many fossils around the world laid down in flood conditions as proposed by the very scientists skeptical of the Bibel’s claims. Therefore, these three examples provide excellent evidence for the biblical flood found in Genesis.

When reading articles about fossils, pay special attention to the conditions in which they were made. Nearly every instance will present evidence of a flood theme, and that’s exactly the kind of evidence we would expect if there really was a global flood.