and I suppose that since a fossil isn't actually the genuine
part of the animal but is only a shape that makes up what
the animal used to look like.
Paul, the part does not necessarily equal the whole.
What you say is true of some fossils, but certainly not all. For example, I have a collection of fossils from the East Anglian Red Crag. All of these are composed of the calcite or aragonite of which the various creatures would have formed their hard parts.
In the underlying (older) London Clay, fossilization is more mixed. Some fossils, such as sharks’ teeth, show little or no alteration; whereas wood fragments are almost always replaced by pyrite, often with beautifully preserved detail.
On the North Norfolk coast I have collected fossils at Hunstanton, where the Lower Chalk overlies the Red Chalk with a very clear break. There is a marked difference between the fossils in each formation, and an even more marked difference in the lithology. The underlying Carstone contains no fossils, and is a deposit that is typical of a completely different depositional environment. How easily can one equate these differences, taken only from relatively recent deposits, with the belief that fossilization came about as a result of a single, global flood?
