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
How are there fossils of tropical organisms found in Arctic regions?
The central part of North America is actually under the sea during Cretaceous period. The Great Plain of present day is inundated under the Western Interior Seaway. The fauna and marine life prospered under tropical condition, leading to an abundance of fossil fuels in places like Alberta or Bakken Basin.
What was the first fossil that Mary anning discover and when?
Mary Anning was the discoverer of many important fossils. She found the first correctly identified Ichthyosaur, the first two ever of the species plesiosuar, the first pterosaur skeleton located outside of Germany, and many other very important fossils.
Why are ice cores good indicators of past climate?
Ice cores contain tiny bubbles that contain a sample of the atmosphere from that time period. By studying the ice bubbles, it is possible to reconstruct the composition of the atmosphere at that time and thus the climate.
What kind of fossils can be found in the valley and ridge region?
Because the Great Rift Valley's rapidly eroding highlands have filled the valley with sediments, a favorable environment for the preservation of remains has been created. Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus aethiopicus, Australopithecus bosei, Australopithecus anamensis, Kenyanthropus platyops, Ardipithecus ramidus, Ardipithecus kadabba, Homo erectus, Homo ergaster, Homo habilis, Homo sapiens idaltu, and Homo sapiens sapiens have all been found in the rift valley.
Summarize the ways that fossils helped support the hypothesis of continental drift?
The scientists that found the fossils found that were found on different continents. Some of the same fossil were located on each Continent that could only survive in one climate. Therefore, a fossil provided some evidence for the continental drift to be true.
How does the fossil record support the idea that evolution has taken place on Earth?
In a word, plenty. The earliest fossils on earth are of stromatolites, marine bacterial mats. These date back more than three billion years. The earliest metazoans (multicellular organisms) are all marine creatures dating back some 700 million years. By 450 million years ago (the Ordovician) plants and insects began an earnest conquest of the land. Around three hundred million years ago we find the first fossils of amphibians, which all bear uncanny resemblance to sarcopterygian lungfish of that era. ALL terrestrial vertebrates bear the same familiar body plan. All of them are quadrupeds, even the cetaceans (marine mammals). Marine reptiles, marine birds, flying mammals (bats) are all laid out essentially the same. Their forms practically scream common ancestry.
Certain slithering reptiles have lost their limbs, but even snake skeletal anatomy reveals where completely atrophied limbs had once attached in ancient ancestral forms.
Paleontologists have never found a Homo sapien skull more than 200,000 years old, nor any hominid skull more than 7 million years old.
It should be noted that a theory is a hypothesis that is supported by evidence. Geology, DNA, comparative biology, zoology, fossils and the ability for mutations to arise all provide plenty of evidence to support the theory of evolutionary biology.
What is petified fossils mean?
An exact stone copy of an organism, the hard parts of which have been penetrated and replace by minerals.
When were the pterodactyl fossils found?
Italian naturalist Cosmo Alassandro Collini discovered the first fossil evidence of pterodactyls in 1784 in the Eichstätt limestone deposits of Bavaria, Germany.
How did the study of fossils help support the idea of evolution?
Darwin's observations supported Lyell's theory of ancient earth undergoing continual change because Darwin theorized that geology and animals evolve the same way. Sir Charles Lyell was a geologist and a British lawyer.
What is the importane of the tikaalik fossil?
the bone structure is important.. it is relative to the bone structures in other animals such as humans, fish, tigers ,etc.
Scientists who study ancient life on earth and fossils?
the study of the past life me is the key to the futrue
Do fossil form in shale or halite?
Fossils could form in shale. Halite is table salt, a mineral with a crystalline structure that is not compatible with understood fossil formation methods.
No one invented fossils. That would be like asking who invented water. Fossils are a natural occurrence that happens over a long time. Aristotle had questions as early as 4 BC of why seashells were found on mountaintops. See the related link for more information.
A True form fossil is a fossil of the whole/entire body of the organism.
What conditions are required for the formation of fossil fuels?
It is likely to take millions of years to transform the organic material into petroleum. To be able to extract the oil, there must be in a place where it is accessible to drilling and be able to flow or be pumped out of the reservoir.
Coal is similar, in that there must be the organic material to begin with, but the container or reservoir is not necessarily a sealed one.
What are fossils and how are they used to interpret Earth's history?
Fossils are essentially plant and animal matter that have been replaced with stone over time, leaving a solid stone that appears like the original plant or animal matter.
Fossilized leaves, petrified wood, and small oceanic creatures are common.
Fossilized bone is the most common animal remains with most other parts of the animal carcass decaying very quickly. But, they are somewhat rarer than the leaves & small marine animals.
Keep in mind that multi-million year old fossils are extremely fragile and should only be handled by experts.
Fossils can often be dated by determining the age of the soils surrounding them.
Many species of animals have come and vanished on earth over the centuries and millenia. And the animal species, including man, that have survived, have changed over time.
The fossils provide a record of the species that have existed in the past, as well as providing additional support for Darwin's theory of evolution by demonstrating changes to various species over time.
A few species including Mammoths have been found locked in ice and have been preserved virtually intact for thousands of years as frozen specimens, finds that can be extremely exciting.
What type of fossil is found in a hollow place shaped like an organism?
It creats a cast fossil. This question isn't very tricky to figure out. A fossil is formed when something dies. If buried, it won't take as long for the fossil to be formed. But you won't be alive to see the fossil. It's takes about 1000 years for the fossil to become complete, depending on how much sedimentary rock is around that specific area. But, what about something that's not buried? Well, as you know dinosaurs roamed the earth millions of years ago. As time passed, and they died, the tectonic plates holding the continents of the earth would crash together, forming mountians, and sometimes creating a trench where water slowly grew until it was a pond, river, lake, or ocean. As the water grew, it eventually coverd the carcas of the dinosaur. Once underwater, the soft sand covered the body of the dinoaur. Then, as the river dried, the skeletal structer had grown into the sand and was now hardening as the sun dried the dirt. Once the bones of the dinosaur was wrapped around by sedimentay rock, it was preserved creating fossils in the rock. How scientists get these fossils out of the rock? They have to brush every grain of sand from around the bones, and the put the whole structure together, creating the skeleton and then showing it in museums.
Is natural gas considered a fossil fuel?
Propane is called a fossil fuel because it was formed millions of years ago from the remains of tiny sea animals and plants.
Propane is one of the many fuels that are included in the liquefied petroleum (or LP-gas) family. In the United States, propane and LP-gas often mean the same thing, because propane is the most common type of LP gas used. Just as water can be a liquid or a gas (steam), so can propane. Under normal conditions, propane is a gas. Under pressure, propane becomes a liquid.
What fossils offer information on the activity and physiology of the creature that made them?
Probably a trace fossil; evidences of an organisms existence, without the body. Trace fossils include footprints, feces, burrow marks, and chemical signatures.
Punctuated equilibrium is a model of a rapid mutation that happens rapidly or over a short period of time. On the other hand the gradualism model states that this change takes place slowly unlike the punctuated equilibrium.
How do creationists explain fossils?
They think it has too many gaps in it to explain anything, even though biologist have proven many, many things with fossils.
What are two things the paleontologists can learn from fossils?
1. When that animal/plant lived.
2.What killed that animal/plant.
