[gandalftb]

Yup, it's shale, no doubt. Wood cannot petrify in 7,000 years and would not do so on an exposed mountain side. It take a lot of external pressure to drive minerals into wood and can only happen by being buried.

Nice try. Send it to Art Bell.

[MineralMan]

What is sad is that so many folks are so easily duped. Anyone with any background whatever in geology would see those photos and recognize a shale outcropping. If I saw it, I'd be interested to know what fossils might be found in that shale, and whether there were small crystals of pyrite in it.

Yet, let some YEC website publish a photo of something that looks vaguely like wood, and so many people are so eager to accept that. It's amazing.

We're apparently failing, in our primary and secondary schools, to teach even the basics of geology.