[DB 1516 (87); OAB 71] Most so-called "polystrate fossils" are tree trunks that were buried as they grew by several layers of mud in relatively quick succession. That they were buried in place is attested to by the way in which their root systems often extend into the surrounding sediment. Far from supporting "Flood Geology," these buried forests (which often grew with many meters of supposedly Flood-deposited sediment below them) were recognized in the 19th century as strong evidence against it. Although some fossilized tree trunks may have been transported by water, rather than buried as they grew, this does not support "Flood Geology" either, since local floods could easily have accomplished the same task.

 

Another well-known reported "polystrate fossil" was a whale skeleton that was supposedly oriented vertically on its tail, cutting perpendicularly through hundreds of feet of strata. It turns out that this story was much distorted through re-telling, and that in fact the whale and the strata both dipped at the same angle of 50 degrees from the horizontal. So the "whale on its tail" was not even a "polystrate fossil" at all.