In 1956 Navarra submitted his wood to several institutions for scientific analysis. The wood was identified as oak. Analyses based on color, density, and lignitization reportedly indicated the wood was about 5,000 years old, in line with the literalist timeframe of the Flood. However, these methodologies for dating wood are unreliable, and rejected by most scientists. Personal correspondence from 1959 refers to an unknown report that Navarra's wood had been radiocarbon dated to exactly 4,484 years old. Such a precise figure is not possible to obtain from radiocarbon dating, and does not correspond to any biblical chronology except that of Navarra, who wrote in 1955 that the Flood occurred "4,484 years ago."