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Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2004
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Claim CC102:

Apparent human shoe prints were found in a slab with obvious trilobite fossils in 1968, by William J. Meister, at Antelope Springs, forty-three miles northwest of Delta, Utah. The heel of one print was worn just as shoe heels wear today.

Source:

Brown, Walt, 1995. In the beginning: Compelling evidence for creation and the Flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation, p. 25. http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/AstroPhysicalSciences34.html

Response:

  1. The trilobites are real (Elrathia kingii), but the "sandal print" is a spall pattern. The heel of the Meister print is not worn down but is caused by a long crack running across the rock. It lacks the diagnostic features that a real sandal print has. There are many other weathering features in the area identical in character to the so-called sandal prints but in a variety of shapes. They do not occur in a trail but as isolated prints (Conrad 1981).

  2. Geochemical processes, such as solution penetrations, spalling, and other weathering, have been well documented to produce such features on the shales of the Wheeler Formation, where the prints were found (Stokes 1986).

Links:

Kuban, Glen J., 1998. The "Meister Print": An alleged human sandal print from Utah. http://paleo.cc/paluxy/meister.htm or http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/meister.html

References:

  1. Conrad, Ernest C., 1981. Tripping over a trilobite: A study of the Meister Tracks. Creation/Evolution 6: 30-33.
  2. Stokes, William Lee, 1986. Alleged human footprint from Middle Cambrian strata, Milliard County, Utah. Journal of Geological Education 34: 187-190.

Further Reading:

Strahler, Arthur N., 1987. Chapter 48: Out-Of-Order Fossils. Science and Earth History--The Evolution/Creation Controversy. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, pp. 459-472.
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created 2001-2-18, modified 2003-4-27