First published: Creation 17(3):52 June 1995 Browse this issue Subscribe to Creation magazine

‘Fossil’ hat

This miner's hat is rock hard. It was found in a mine in Tasmania where it had been covered with water for more than 50 years.

Over that time the chemicals in the water precipitated within the open structure of the felt material of the soft hat, thus turning the soft hat into stone by a process called calcification, which means that solid calcium carbonate has impregnated the original felt material of the hat.

The hat is now on display in a mining museum on Tasmania's west coast.

This quick-forming 'stone' hat adds weight to the claims that creation scientists are correct when they say that thousands or millions of years are not needed to form rocks and fossilize animals and plants.