0
Fossils
This category is for questions about the bones, fragments, imprints, and other remainders from a different time. The questions and answer you will find here are history set in stone -- our past, immortalized in solid rock. You will also be able to find questions pertaining to the locations of these fossils, how you might identify them, and how they were formed.
3,454 Questions
Why are many fossils often incomplete?
Not all organisms became fossils. In fact, for an animal or plant to fossilize is a rare occurrence.
Most fossils are found in sedimentary rocks which formed at the bottom of seas or oceans, but no present oceanic crust is more than 200 million years old.
Only relatively small areas of oceanic sedimentary rock were preserved on land due to the actions of plate tectonics, the rest were part of shallow continental seas, drowned areas of land similar to the South China Sea or North Sea today.
Nowhere on Earth has a complete, unbroken sequence of rocks from earliest times as our planet is constantly moving, new oceans being born and mountain ranges being formed. So you cannot have an unbroken record of fossils from the beginning of life, although more new finds are being discovered every year.
What does the fossil record show about evolution of life?
Get Justin bieber tuckets bum :)
Evolution does not make any regard to the origin of the earth. It only deals with the development of existing life.
Would you be less likely to find fossils in metamorphic rock than a sedimentary rock?
Metamorphic rock can contain fossils, but since these rocks form under intense heat and pressure where stone flows something like taffy, the fossils will be highly degraded and distorted.
Sedimentary rock forms when layers of silt are Why_are_you_less_likely_to_find_fossils_in_metamorphic_rock_than_sedimentary_rockon the bottom of a body of water. When conditions are right, layers form quickly and are not disturbed and little oxygen is present, dead creatures that fall on that bottom can become entombed in preserved at the layers are increasingly compressed, eventually cementing into rock.
What is the most important information evidence against evolution in the fossil record?
The fact about fossils that is the most important to scientists who study evolution is their age. Advancements in carbon dating has made age determining possible. By knowing the age of a fossil, scientist are able to determine migratory and evolutionary phenomenon.
How can water erosion uncover fossils?
The rain water washes away the dirt that is covering the fossil.
What are fossils and what do they tell us about the process of evolution?
Fossil the dead remains of plants and animals that lived in the past is know as fossil.
What types of information do fossils provide scientists?
Fossils have provided all information and sourced all theories that are to do with dinosaurs. Our general view, knowledge of their behaviour and knowledge of what the eat have came from fossils such as dinosaur bones or even dinosaur poo.
What is the answer to this describes a organism whose tissues are completely replaced by minerals?
An organism whose tissues are completely replaced by minerals is a fossil.
How are stratigraphic and radioactive dating different in regards to how they date fossils?
Radioactive dating refers to the process of measuring the age of an object using the amount of a given radioactive material it contains. Relative dating, meanwhile, measures the order of past events, without determining their absolute age.
What are the 2 benefits of using carbon 14 in dating objects?
Carbon-14 dating can provide an accurate estimation of the age of organic materials up to around 50,000 years old. It is also a non-destructive technique, meaning that the object being dated does not need to be damaged or altered in any way during the dating process.
What is the Arrangement of rock layers based on their ages?
A geologic column is an arrangement of rock layers in which the oldest rocks are at the bottom. The upper part of the column is rich in fossils.
Fossils are made of rock yes.
Most commonly this happens when a living organism (plant or animal) dies and its body is buried in mud before it has a chance to decay. The mud hardens into rock quickly, while the dead body slowly breaks down and leaves behind a hollow impression in the now solid rock around it. This kind of fossil is called a mold fossil, as the hollow remains empty like a jello mold.
A cast fossil is when later other mineral rich water fills up the mold eventually turning the hollow into a solid rock of a different kind than the rock around it.
Trace fossils are made in the same way but come from things made by a living organism such as footprints or tracks, burrows or nests, eggshells and droppings. These fossils are not of the animal itself but preserve evidence of the animal behavior.
How do organisms become fossils?
For an organism to become a fossil it must not be eaten or decomposed. They can only form in an environment that is dry and doesn't contain too much bacteria. They can also form if they are buried in sedimentary rocks.
What is the difference between a mold and a trace fossil?
A Fossil is the remains (or an impression) of a plant or animal that existed in a past geological age
A trace fossil is the burrows, trails, etc, of an animal.
A trace fossil is where something left a mark on something else, and then became fossilized. A body fossil is a fossil of a once living thing.
What happens when people burn fossil feels?
Fossils are mostly minerals, so unless they are very high in carbon, such as coal, they will not burn.
How do rocks and fossils in an area give clues to an areas past?
Some sorts of rocks are sedimentary, i.e., they were created by building up sands in the sea. Later, they were pushed up and turned around etc. Often, the (formerly horizontal) layers of sand can be clearly seen and give an indication what was horizontal; and that actually there was a sea somewhen in or near this area.
Why was the discovery of fossils so significant?
The discovery was significant because we found prove of pangea in other parts of the Earth.
A tropites fossil is a fossil of a tropites. A tropites is a genus of coiled ammonite. They only existed for about 20 million years, which makes it a good index fossil.
