Polystrate fossil

Polystrate fossils are fossils which occupy or span through more than one strata of rock. They are usually trees, and whole polystrate fossil forests have been found in various places. Rarely, they are fossilized bones. They are used by young Earth creationists as evidence against the uniformitarian timescale.

Implications for uniformitarianism

Uniformitarianism claims that the many strata of rock in the geologic column have been formed slowly and at a generally uniform rate over thousands and millions of years. However, since polystrate fossils occupy more than one strata, this suggests that the strata were formed rapidly, as they would have been in the Great Flood (rather than the strata growing up around the fossils). See also catastrophism, the rival theory to uniformitarianism.