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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
What can you infer about other fossils in the same rock layer as trilobites?
It can be assumed that the organisms that created the fossils were a part of the same depositional environment and process, and roughly from the same time span of the rock that comprises the layer.
What kinds of fossils can you find in Logan canyon?
Birds, mule, deer, plants and even some people live in certain areas of the Grand Canyon.
None. A mineral is a naturally occurring, inorganic, homogeneous solid with a definite (but not fixed) chemical composition and an ordered atomic arrangement. As wood is completely organic, there are no minerals in wood.
What is the age limit for radiocarbon dating of fossils?
The age limits for radiocarbon dating anything is about 100-40,000 years.
However, to date the early hominid fossils that have been found in Africa scientists have used Argon/Argon dating to date the volcanic lava and ash it was buried between. The age limits of Argon/Argon dating are 1,000 to the oldest rocks on earth.
Generally, you never really date the item of interest when figuring out the age. You will date items that it was used with, buried with, cooked with, etc. Many different dating methods are used to date the items and the age limits vary between each method.
Are fossils indirect evidence of evoution?
Fossils are like the clues the police use to solve a crime. Together they paint a picture of the truth - in this case the truth is evolution
Each one tells a story. Like clues to a crime, where the police don't have to find a print of every footstep taken by a subject or confirm every thing that he did, the clues paint a logical outline of all the events around the crime.
Like clues in a crime the police do not initially identify a person they want to pin the crime on and then seek to tie him to the event - they find a number of clues which identify potential subjects of interest. They then attempt to prove the relation of these suspects to the crime until the trail of evidence is strong and dependable. Usually multiple facts on the same evidence are considered - for a crime it might be fingerprints and video tape and eye witnesses, for fossils it could be carbon 14 and dendrochronology and geologic strata.
Why are there few fossils left of the earliest organisms?
Fossils are incredibly numerous, particularly for small marine organisms, and plant life. Larger animals are less numerous simply because of predation and because of depositional requirements for preservation.
Do index fossils tell the relative or absolute age of fossils?
Index fossils can be used to help determine the relative age of rock layers. Index fossils are from species that only existed for a short time. Index fossils are found in rock layers. Trilobites and Graptolites are index fossils.
Abundant fossil evidence did not appear in the geologic record until what geologic era?
Abundant and diverse fossils first appeared in the Cambrian era, although there is fossil evidence throughout much of the Precambrian.
How do fossils show changes in related species?
Fossils are used to show changes because they are permanent. These fossils are also old and show evolutionary changes in species alive today.
What environment would the shell of an organism most likely be preserved as a fossil?
A hard shell organism have more of a chance to become a fossil .
Why can trilobites be used as index fossils?
Trilobites: The Index Fossil There are many thousands of known species of trilobite fossils found worldwide. Trilobites are considered to be good index fossils because they evolved so rapidly, and this allows geologists the ability to date the rocks in which the trilobites are found. The discovery of trilobites is second only to the discovery of dinosaurs, and new species of trilobites are still being discovered today.
This INDICATES that there was once a body of water or a river in this area and it has long since dried up and any organisms that dies there have been fossilized.
The fossil that is formed when an organism is buried in sediment and hardens into rock is called a cast fossil, in which the empty space serves as a mold.
How do fossil horses provide information about evolution?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/horse_evol.html
here is your answer :)
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*there is a better answer*
-The first horse was called a Hyracotherium, or originally called Eohippus. it didn't look like the horse that we know today, it had 4 toes on each foot and it stood about 10 inches tall
- the second horse was called either Mesohippus , just a bit larger than Eohippus, they had longer legs and 3 toes instead of 4
-Merychippus (see Mesohippus).....gradually the Earth's dense, wet forests became firm, grassy plains, and to avoid extinction, the early horses had changed to.....
-the next horse was Pliohippus, it had large, flat grinding teeth for feeding on grass, and longer, stronger legs supported by hooves.
- then came the last horse that we all know today, Equus caballus! by the end of the ice age, millions of wild horses that we could now recognize today, roamed Europe and Asia.
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How do fossils form through permineralization and carbonization?
Permineralized fossil are formed when dissolved minerals precipitate from a solution in the space occupied by the organism's remains.
Where were the earliest remains found?
I know for a fact that it was found on the Continent of Africa but I'm not sure which counrty in Africa.
The oldest human remains were found in the Horn of Africa, Somilia.
What do the glossopteris fossils tell us about the early position of the continents?
shows that all three continents were once connected (joined) together. because the 'exact' same fossil types were found in all three different continents, which are now split from each other.
Where are fossil watches made?
no
Actually, at one time, some Fossil watches were made in the US. In fact, I'm wearing one such watch now (says "Made in the USA of Swiss parts" on the back). Mine was purchased in the early 90s.
They are no longer made in the US, however.
Where can fossils be found in?
Fossils can be found anywhere. They're found on every continent except Antarctica, but they can be found in the ocean floor under antarctica. Rarely you'll find them frozen in the ice, but there's a very low chance you will. You'll have a slightly larger chance if you go further inland (in ice?), because that part of antarctica almost never defrosts. But of course the correct answer is that they are not found in a specific place, they are found everywhere.
What percent of geologic time is represented by abundant fossil evidence?
The planet Earth is about 4,600 million years old.
Fossil evidence becomes abundant in the geological record in the Cambrian Era, which was about 550 million years ago (when hard shelled animals appeared)
Therefore (550/4600)*100 = roughly 12% of Geological time contains abundant fossil evidence.
However, please note that (non abundant) fossil evidence goes back about 3600 million years, (3600/4600)*100 = roughly 73% of Geologic time.
How do fossils support the evidence of pangaea?
Pangaea implies at some part in the Earth's evolution, probably before the rise of mammals and intelligent life ( Man) there was one major world continent that since has split up into the present seven. As life of intelligent type did not exist at the time, there is no way fossils can be dragged in to prove things one way or the other, though it does have a relative bearing on Atlantis and Atlantean studies.
Why fossils of the glossopteris a tropical plant were discovered in antarctica?
"Glossopteris (Greek glossa, meaning "tongue", because the leaves were tongue-shaped) is the largest and best-known genus of the extinct order of seed ferns known as Glossopteridales (or in some cases as Arberiales or Dictyopteridiales). Long considered a fern after its discovery in 1824, it was later assigned to the gymnosperms. The genus is placed in the division Pteridospermatophyta. In reality, many of the plant groups included within this division are only distantly related to one another." That was straight out of the Wikipedia article. It explains what glossopteris is (or was), and a fossil of one of these long-gone plants would be what was asked about in the original question. A link is provided to our friends at Wikipedia for further information.
