Fossils

The Cast is the fossil of the shell etc itself. The Mould is the hollow left in the surrounding rock if the fossil is removed artificially or by some natural event such as differential dissolution or mass-movement.

Any time something very ancient is excavated, it can teach us about our history. If you are Filipino, the 1976 discovery of a fossilized boat, called a balangay, which was found in the city of Butuan, in northeastern Mindanao, should interest you. (Other similar boats were also discovered in the late 1970s, and they can be seen in museums.) The first discovery of a fossilized balangay revealed a boat which some scholars date to as far back as the year 320. The fossilized balangay is proof of a culture that knew how to navigate: it was a society that built and used these boats, which were made from hollowed out planks of wood. The typical balangay (the word means "sailing boat") was used for fishing, travel, trade, even battle.

The balangay is thus a link with the Filipino past and it shows how important marine navigation was-- so important that the word "balangay" has survived even today. For example, the Balangay Festival is a joyful event that commemorates the settling of what became the Philippines. The word also survives in "barangay," referring to a unit administered by the government-- perhaps a village or a town. Some scholars believe that the word barangay was named because to use a balangay required cooperation and teamwork, which is also needed in the successful governing of a small village or town.

Transitional fossils are important because they are visual evidence of one type of animal evolving into another type of animal. A transitional fossil always contains features of one type and features of another.

For example, Archaeopteryx is a transitional fossil that is a cross between a dinosaur and a bird. It has a bony tail, teeth, and claws like a dinosaur, but it has feathers and is able to fly like a bird. It is an important link in the evolution from dinosaurs to birds.

Fossils tell you about what plants and animals lived under what conditions. If tree rings are small, that tells you the times were dry or cold. If they are big, that tells you they were wet. If you find one type of animal's bones when the tree rings were one way and one when they were another way, that tells you about the fauna. To learn the most about the environment you must actually dig and find them in the site. You must also take pictures while you dig and keep careful records.

Put simply, it doesn't. There really is no other reason, any archaeologist, paleontologist, geologist, or other professional in a field of artifact study will tell you that there is no "line" of creatures leading up to today's animals. For example humanoid skeletons where found conspicuously at the beginning of the Cambrian period and at no time before then, the only explanation for this is that an unaccounted for variable such as a "supernatural force" was present and not noticed

They provide evidence for animals that existed before and do not now. It shows proof of the different evolution. It also gives us comparisons of organisms we have today and where they possibly came from.

Many different types of elements: carbon, nitrogen, iron, etc..

volcanic mountains are mostly associated with igneous rocks and sedimentary rocks at their slopes can be found due to weathering,but mountains such as fold mountains can contain igneous rocks,metarmophic ro

cks and even sedimentary rocks at their slopes

I don't now you

Harder parts of organisms become fossils. For example vasculature in plants and bones of animals are best preserves in the fossils.

fossil evidence is when scientist study fossils to figure out how the animal died how it evoled

Well it depends upon the process that led to the fossilization of the organism. But for the sake of the question we will go with the most common process. This is where the body of the organism is buried or entombed by some non organic matter. For example a sheep falls into a bog. Or a fish dies in water, sinks to the bottom and is quickly covered by silt.

During both of these processes bacteria decompose the "fleshy" parts of the organism. Skin, organs and basically anything that is not bone. Now if the body was left out to the elements even the bone would eventually decompose but the 2 events described above prevent this by limiting the amount of bacteria that can thrive on the dead body.

Now as the sheep falls deeper the pressure increases. In the case of the fish the weight of the sediment on top of it increases which increases the pressure on it. As pressure increases the water bearing elements of the mixture are squeezed together until all the water is squeezed out. However as the water leaves it takes away minerals that were present in the bone. But it also replaces them with non organic minerals until eventually there is no bone left(as in the calcium that makes up bones) only a rocky mineral growth that is the exact shape of the dead organisms bone structure. This process is called permineralization.

From then on it is a case of waiting for intelligence to come along and find the fossil. Or maybe a volcano or earthquake exposing long buried rock which has the fossil in it.

There is a lot paleontologists can learn from dinosaur footprints.

The most obvious is that they can tell where particular genera & species of dinosaurs lived.

If you know which dinosaur made the tracks you can use an equation based on it's leg length to work out how fast it was travelling. From this you can infer what type metabolism the animal had. Did it have a high metabolism like modern day warm blooded birds and mammals or a a slow metabolism like modern day cold blooded reptiles?

You can also infer something of dinosaur social nature. Were they solitary animals like tigers or live in small prides like lions or huge herds like zebra?

You can also work out something of the health of the dinosaur in question. Was it injured and walking with a limp? In some instances, did it have injuries that did not hamper its day to day life? For example did it loose a toe or claw in the past but able to survive and return to normal health?

Some very rare fossil tracks can tell you of the hunting technique of dinosaurs. Was a carnivorous dinosaur following a herbivorous dinosaur?

20,000 b.c.

The two methods are "RELATIVE DATING" and "ABSOLUTE DATING". :)

Because the animal gets trapped and will stay floating or sink and over time the flesh will decay and so the tar will sink in to the bones.The scientists will dig it up because the tar would be hard by now.

No single rock preserves fossils, but they're found mainly in sedimentary rock beds due to the amount of pressure exerted as it layers over millions of years.

Fossil evidence can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. The posture and walking speed of a dead animal can be deduced from a fossilized set of footsteps while fossilized bones and scales can give insight to the animal's internal structure.

The same rocks and minerals from the same batch, dinosaur fossils dating back to the same time periods, natural landforms and structures can be found on completely separate continents. This evidence supports the Plate Techtonics and Continental Drift theories.

Fossils can help us learn about what happened in the past, what is currently happening in the present, and what will happen in the future. The Earth is always changing, nothing on its surface is truly permanent. Rocks that are now on top of a mountain may have been at the bottom of a sea once.

We can dig up fossils anywhere! From the fossil, we can determine what organisms were living, the habitat, the climate, and compare with other fossils to see the many changes and differences. Fossils are very beneficial to our Earth's history. :D

angular unconformity

i bet ur doin that spring break science test right? well the answer is sedimentary. fossils of fern leaves would most likely be found in sedimentary rocks. your welcome

The method used will be determined by the rock type, but the age of a rock will be determined by a determination of the amount of decay of a radioactive isotope, either contained in the rock, or in a geologic layer of rock coinciding with a fossil.

The theory of plate tectonics easily explains the distribution of mesosaurus. When mesosaurus was alive, all of the continents were massed together into the supercontinent Pangaea. Therefor, South America and Africa met because there was no Atlantic Ocean, so the distribution of mesosaurus makes complete sense.

Carbonaceous film fossils are traces of plants or animals preserved as a thin film of carbon. All living organisms contain carbon. If they are compressed by layers of sediment fine details of the organism may be preserved.