DNA in Seafloor Mud

Some of us remember playing in the mud and having to get cleaned up before supper. Scientists are not playing in it, but rather, are using equipment to gather samples and study it. Doesn't sound like much fun. However, they may get some pleasure in the joy of discovery. But then again...

Seabed mud image credit: US Geological Survey, use of image does not imply endorsement of contents

DNA has been found in the mud that is supposedly over a million evolutionary years old. How do they know its age? Through the circular reasoning method of biostratigraphy. Now they're trying to circle the wagons and defend their long-age views with a passel of excuses and conjectures without evidence, since DNA cannot last nearly that long. If they'd drop their evolutionary assumptions, they'd realize that yet again, the evidence supports a recently-created Earth.

Scientists found DNA in two undersea sediment drill cores from the Bering Sea.1 The researchers thought the chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) must have come from near-surface light-gathering organisms like diatoms, and not mud-dwelling organisms like bacteria. Discovering cpDNA from dead diatoms near the top of the seafloor presents no challenge, but these researchers found it hundreds of meters down. Long-age believers insist that hundreds of meters of sediment require at least hundreds of thousands of years to deposit. Given that DNA degrades relatively quickly, the team faced the significant challenge of explaining how DNA could persist long enough to get buried beneath that much sediment.

In the journal Geology, the three scientists described the DNA samples that came from various depths. Other researchers gave each an assigned age of over a million years.1 DNA is not supposed to last that long. Not even close.

To read the rest, click on "Fossil DNA in Deep Seafloor Mud". For a bit more technical information, you may want to read "Fossil DNA Stuns Geologists".