[VadeRetro]

Why should a creek be considered as old as the bones buried in it, or vice versa?

Is this serious? A thing dies in the mud. As it happens, more mud covers it, and more sediment layers cover those. The thing gets fossilized as the mud layers turn to shale rock.

The age of the shale is the age since it was mud. How is the age of the fossil any different?

[VadeRetro]

The age of the shale is the age since it was mud.

I'm not claiming you can tell that directly, of course.