Alberta creationist Edgar Nernberg uncovers what experts say is the most important fossil finds in decades

Experts believe fossils found in Canada are 60m years old

Five fish were found in a block of sandstone in the Paskapoo Formation

(University of Calgary)

Quite frankly, there is no better way of saying this than in the words used by a columnist from the Alberta Sun.

And so, as Michael Platt pointed out, if God works in mysterious ways, he or she also has a mischievous sense of irony.

This week, it emerged that what is being touted as Canada’s most important discovery of fossils was made by a man who is one of the country's leading proponent of Creationism and who rejects evolution.

Reports said the fossils were found in a neighbourhood of Evanston, Alberta, during some building work carried out by Edgar Nernberg.

When Mr Nernberg is not operating a mechanical digger, he sits on the board of the Big Valley Creationist Museum, a organisation that promotes the view that evolution is wrong and that the world was created by God, as described in the bible.

Reports said that the five fossilised fish were found in a block of sandstone. The formation from which the sandstone come is estimated to be 60 million years old. Complete fossils from this time period are said to be extremely rare.

“It’s really uncommon, and these are complete fossil fish - and it’s not very often we come across complete fossils in the Calgary area,” said Darla Zelenitsky, a palaeontologist and professor of geoscience at the University of Calgary.

“I only know of a couple of occurrences in the past few decades.”