Qul hajar o hadeeda!

Yep. Everything fossilizes and deteriorates into iron compounds eventually. And yes, the Quran says so.

"Qul hajar o hadeeda" means literally: Become stones or iron. It was stated in the Sura known as Israel and in reference to the fact that Allah will resurrect folks no matter how long they've been in the ground i.e. even if they are merely fossilized carbon atoms or those which have finally turned into iron compounds.

A great article about the role of iron in carbon dating:

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM...Cook-0305.html

The present paper deals with an issue of great interest to materials scientists and archeologists—the dating of iron-based materials that contain carbon. The phrase “iron-based materials” is used to cover the three common groups of irons and steels: wrought irons, which are typically low carbon (e.g., less than about 0.05% carbon), steels (up to 2.1% carbon), and cast irons (over 2.1% carbon). In addition, however, the corrosion products or rust from these materials is included since they can also be used for dating in some cases. For the case of iron-based materials, the time span of interest is from the start of the Iron Age in the regions of interest (about 2000 B.C. or earlier) to several hundred years ago. The most appropriate method for this time span and group of materials is 14C dating. It is key to point out that the usefulness of the method of dating carbon in iron-based materials relies on the source of the carbon found in the materials.

A second interesting area concerns the use of rust for dating. If rust can be dated reliably, it opens up a large number of possibilities for dating iron artifacts. Investigators will not need to cut into valuable artifacts for clean metal, but will be able to use surface corrosion products. This potentially opens the way for dating precious samples such as the iron plate found in the Great Pyramid at Gizeh,10,11 now at the British Museum. It may also be possible to date completely rusted artifacts, commonly found in waterlogged early Iron-Age sites in Europe and in underwater shipwrecks. Previous investigators had been careful to remove rust from iron prior to dating for fear that it adds contamination. A key issue though, is whether any of the original carbon remains within the matrix of rust and other corrosion products. If not, rust and similar materials are clearly of no interest for radiocarbon dating and should probably be removed since, at best, they can do no good. However, if original carbon is present, the corrosion products themselves may be appropriate targets for dating, subject to solving the potential contamination problems.