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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

Why are their so many well-preserved fossils?

There are so many well preserved fossils because there are so many fossils, some will be well preserved. In certain locations at certain times the conditions will be right for preserving living tissues.

Would teuthid fossils make good index fossils?

Depends on the type of eurypterid. In short, no; we don't know enough about them to say that they are only found in certain time zones.

Is a imprint of a leaf in mud a fossil?

Sea shells are hard carbon components, thus they are ideal objects for fossilization. Many of our current disscovered fossils are in fact sea shells from the various epochs. They can tells us of the evolutionary changes in species such as mollusks.

How do fossils indicate how the earth has changed?

Fossil demonstrate organisms, geological structure or formations, that may not be present in our lifetime, due to extinction. Usually these can be classified, as a long time ago, if no documented evidence can support such an organism etc, at a specific time E.g a certain bug infossilizedtree sap, which was not present at 300ad, therefore it was formed earlier. . However, withmillennium old fossils, the age can be found through carbon dating. Carbon dating uses samples of carbon within the fossil, to determine the age of the chemical compound, and therefore the time at which the fossil was formed. Fossils come from decomposed matter, hardening around an object underground and experiencing forces and heat for thousands of years.

What kind of habitat that is most likely to be rich in fossils?

According to experts, the best environments to search for fossils are places near rocks or deserts. Most fossils are preserved in these areas.

What environmental conditions are necessary for fossil formation?

4 Conditions for fossil formation would be, looking up answers, being a fresh skater kid and asking a teacher for the answer in a smart way that make her think you really wanna know the answer (x good luck out there,(x

-Andy

How are fossil teeth similar and different?

Both can be predators or herbavores. Both are different sizes and different teeth do different things.

How are insects preserved?

Due to their exoskeleton preserving the bodies of insects in collections requires nothing more than drying them out after killing. They are then typically mounted using pins to a display board.

In which type of rock are fossils least likely to occur?

Fossils would not likely be found in rock other than limestone, sandstone, and shale, or rock such as marble that has morphed from these sedimentary rocks.

Fossils can basically be find in most Sedimentary rocks, but not in Igneous rocks because they are formed in volcanoes.

What is the process that brings fossil to the surface?

when a fossil is exposed at the earths surface, that means that weathering and

erosions has exposed it or the movement of plate tectonics moved the earth and

then the fossil is exposed that way.

Why can only sedimentary rocks contain in tact fossils?

Sedimentary rocks form three horizontal layers: strata, singular and stratum. The organisms that fall into the sedimentary rocks, will then be fossilized in each layer.

Do swamps contain fossils?

they can, but they are mostly found underground

What are fossils made from?

Fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, and natural gas) are made, over long periods of time, from vegetable matter including algae, ferns, etc. Sometimes in popular culture, fossil fuels are said to result from dinosaur remains, but that is not the case; dinosaurs, like any other animal, will decay after death, and do not leave behind any fossil fuels (although they do leave behind fossils of other sorts).

What do we call the scientist who studies all types of fossils?

Scientists who study fossils are known as paleontologists.
Scientists who study fossils are known as paleontologists. A paleontologist who studies dinosaurs may be a vertebrate paleontologist or a macro paleontologist.

What can we learn by studying fossils?

This matter should be applyed to all ancient subjects that have been studied by scientists since they began getting interested on past issues: Antropology, archeology, space research (nowadays) and planets observation since Galileo, the Incas and the Egyptian people. If the subject is to study the past, no matter if it is fossils or other issues concerning to the past. Everything has one goal : the anxiety of knowing our origins. How and when everything was formed... Fossils, human skulls, archeology, have a common characteristic : The visible linkage to the past.

Which scientists study bugs?

Entomologists, which means study of insects, is in the field of biology.

What must usually happen in order for a dead organism to be preserved as a fossil?

B. The organism must be buried in sediment soon after it dies.

C - the organism must go through a process of petrification

Needed

  1. Moist sediment or soil
  2. organism trapped, dies
  3. lack of anything disturbing that area
  4. moistness ; warmth ; heat to break down additional layering
  5. pressure from more layers on top
  6. lengthy amount of time (millions of years)

How mountains on land can be composed of rock that contain fossils of animals that lived in ocean?

Mountains on land can be composed of rocks that contain fossils of oceanic animals through the process of plate tectonics. When tectonic plates collide, the oceanic plate may be forced beneath the continental plate in a process called subduction. The pressure and heat from this process can transform the oceanic rocks containing fossils into mountainous structures.

Which environment would most likely not contain fossils?

The vast majority of fossils are found in marine sediments because it is the easiest environment in which to be buried without the original animal or plant rotting or being eaten.

Fresh water sediments such as lakes are also good for fossil formation especially when the lake has periodically dried up or a natural disaster has removed a lot of the oxygen from the water.

Most fossils of land animals, birds and plants are found in river or lake sediments when the organism has been washed into the water upon death.

What is the study of the development of life on earth including the fossil remains?

All the biospheric sciences, which includes, but is not limited to, biogeography, paleontology, palynology, micropaleontology, geomicrobiology, geoarchaeology and biological oceanography.

Many of the oldest known fossils most closely resemble which modern organisms?

Wolves have changed some over the past 20 million years, but not by a huge amount. There are fossils of mosquitoes in amber that are remarkably similar to modern mosquitoes, though they are over 200 million years old.

Coelacanth is a variety of fish for which modern specimens are somewhat similar to species that lived at the close of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. So there are a few creatures that have not changed a whole lot over vast stretches.

Horseshoe crabs are yet another example, for which there are specimens over 440 million years old.