Fossils

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Fossils
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What is a fossil?
A fossil is the remains or evidence of
prehistoric life.

• Fossils can be as tiny as a seed.
• A fossil can be as huge as a limb bone from a
  giant dinosaur.
• For animal or plant remains to become a fossil
  they must go through a certain process that
  preserves them for up to millions of years after
  they have died.
• Usually it is only the hard parts of plants and
  animals that survive this long process.

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How are fossils created?
It is important to know how a fossil is
preserved. It will tell us what happened to the
fossil before it became buried.

• An animal, or organism dies and is quickly
  buried.
• There must be the presence of some hard parts.
• Unaltered fossils have little or no change in
  their structure.
• Altered fossils go through a process that changes
  them, but leaves behind different kinds of
  fossils.

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Different types of fossils?
There are basically two types of fossils.
Body Fossils These are the actual body parts, or
parts of an organism
Trace Fossils Any evidence of the past that is
not a fossil. Good examples would be animal
tracks, casts, molds, coprolites and impressions.
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Original Skeletal Material
A fossil is the remains or evidence of
prehistoric life.
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Casts or Molds
A leaf fossil is an example of an organism that
leaves a print in a rock. The original part is
dissolved away and the space left is filled with
sediment or mineral matter.
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AmberEntombment

• Certain trees with cones, like pine trees,
  contain sticky stuff called pitch.
• This pitch comes out of the tree and small
  insects get caught in it.
• When this becomes buried it hardens and turns
  into Amber.

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Borings and Burrows

• Certain worms burrow into rocks, wood, shells,
  and all types of sediment.
• These burrows are frequently preserved in fine
  grained rocks.

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Tar Pits

• Insects and animals got caught in the tar and
  then became fossils.
• La Brea Tar Pits has yielded a really rich
  collection of vertebrate.

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Carbonization

• When soft bodied animals become squeezed
  between layers of sediment
• The liquid is forced out of the animal or plant.
• The liquid becomes coal, oil, or gas.

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Coprolites

• Fossil excrement can give us information about
  the diet and size of the animal concerned.