Forget cremation, forget embalming–when I go, I want to go in style. For some time now, I’ve been wondering how to get my mortal remains fossilized. I know that soft tissue doesn’t normally fossilize, but there must be some exceptions: for example, the Petrified Forest in Arizona. What kind of conditions are necessary, and how long will it take? Our Creationist friends are of the opinion that fossils are remains of animals that existed before the Flood; does that mean a man can become a fossil in a couple thousand years? –Forever Young, San Pedro, California
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Oh, I dunno. In my experience, with the right fluids, you can get pretty fossilized in about two hours. Unfortunately for our purposes, the effect usually isn’t permanent. For long-lasting results you need more elaborate techniques. But first we’d better define our terms.
If what you really want is to get lithified (i.e., stoned in the literal sense), your best bet is to chuck this bourgeois attachment to skin and have your corpse buried in sediment percolated by groundwater containing calcium carbonate, silica, or the like. Your (ahem) “soft parts” will soon decay but with luck your bones will get caulked up with minerals in. . . oh, I’d check back in a century or two. If you absolutely must have soft tissue, you could conceivably have yourself mummified first and then… aw, who am I kidding? If you’re that desperate, get yourself bronzed. My advice: resign yourself to going the way of all flesh. People today are such wimps about these things.
