What inferences can be made based on patterns observed in the fossil record?

Answer 1

Fossils are any evidences of ancient life preserved in stone or other material. Fossils can include molds, casts, defecation material, stomach stones, bones, footprints, trails and burrows. Fossils can be preserved in sedimentary rock (and rarely metamorphic and igneous rock), tar pits, and amber, and are usually the result of the organism being covered rapidly upon death.

A rock with a fossil on it can indicate the rock's relative age, the type of organism that was fossilized, the possible climate at the time of fossilization, possibly the distance the rock fossil has traveled, the composition of the rock and depositional environment, and many more things depending on the type of fossil.

Fossils records are invaluable in helping us determine what kinds of plants an animals were living in proximity to each other (things buried together likely lived in the same general area). Depending on the conditions under which the specimens were buried we might even get an fossilized samples of their skin structure, diet (plants and/or creatures in the stomach), reproduction (eggs or embryos), etc.

Answer 2

Fossils were of grear interest to early scientists because there:

* appered to be of unusual, unknown organisms that were no longer living

* are no fossils of most living species

* buried very deep within rock more than 1km

Answer 3

The oldest fossils would be on the bottom, whereas the newest would be on the top.

Answer 4

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