FOSSILS

1113 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: History of Earth Essay

I. Introduction to Fossils
The word fossil means: a preserved impression, imprint, or trace of living organisms from the past. The Latin term Fossilis means to be dug up. The first fossils were found in Ancient times by the Romans and Greeks who thought the bones belonged to giants and dragons. The first recorded fossil was a Megalosaurus (a carnivorous dinosaur) found by Thomas Pennyston. Pennyston later gave it to Robert Plot in 1676. Plants and all types of animals can turn into fossils. But most don’t, because of other animals destroy the bones or the remains decay before the fossilizing process can take place. There are two types of fossils. Trace fossils which are the trace of living things from the past. The trace fossils are things such as footprints, nests, burrows, and coprolite (feces). Body fossils are parts of the body or the whole body of living things. The body fossils are things such as teeth, claws, bone, and insects.
II. The Six Different Ways Fossils Form
There are six different ways a fossil can be formed. Tar, carbonization, permineralizaion, amber, desiccation and freezing are the six different ways fossils can form.
One way a fossil forms is through tar pits. Tar pits form when crude oil seeps through the Earth’s crust forming pools. The light oils are evaporated leaving the thick sticky oil we call tar. Then a plant or animal gets stuck in the tar because they think it is water. Predators, like Canis dirus (dire wolves) and Smilodon californicus (the most known sabre toothed tigers) are lured to the thought of a free lunch and go to get the prey and they end up stuck as well. They are the two animals most commonly found in the La Brea Tar Pits in California (where over six hundred new spe...

... middle of paper ...

...ived at a certain time period so the fossils next to it are from around the same time period.
Fossils let us learn many things. From fossils we now know what the Earth was like millions of years ago. Fossils helped us learn about the prehistoric organisms and how they lived. These fossils can also help us to learn how the Earth has changed.
IV. Conclusion
In conclusion we learn that there are many different types of fossils such as index fossils, trace fossils and body fossils. We also learn that there are many different ways the fossils are formed and a wide range of how long it takes them to be formed. Each fossil tells a different story and new knowledge in the world of science. Fossils have taught us many things about the history of Earth. Every time a new fossil is found it’s opening a window to the past in a new way. Fossils let the past live forever!

Show More
Related

  • Ardipithecus Ramidus Kadabba: The Oldest Hominid

    1182 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first fossils were found in 1997 and the latest fossils were discovered in 2001. “Researchers found the fossil remains of several of the ancient individuals along the foothills of the west margin of the southern Afar Rift, located in Ethiopia’s Middle Awash study area. The Middle Awash is located about 140 miles northeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city, and about 50 miles south of Hadar, where the 3.2 million-year-old “Lucy” fossils were discovered nearly 30 years ago”(Rickman 2001) .... ...

    Read More

  • Discoveries of the (Dinosaur) Incisivosaurus Gauthier, and (Hominid) Sahelanthropus Tchadensis

    1359 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the year 2002 a bizarre looking theropod dinosaur fossil was found in China (Xu). It challenges the way researchers have been thinking of theropods and other dinosaurs for a long time. In the Sahara desert, the oldest hominid skull in the world was found that same year. These are just two of many discoveries that have challenged the way we perceive the ancient world.

    Read More

  • 30 000 Skeletons Essay

    516 Words  | 2 Pages

    30,00 skeletons is a better medium to learn about forensic anthropology because it is a video. Videos help kids and adults to be more connected than reading a book that is boring and bland. Videos have elements that help people learn about forensic anthropology because it can help people who have a reading disability or if they’re more of a visual learner. In the video 30,000 skeletons it shows where they look to find clues about this person. This can help a person to know what anthropology is because it shows specifically where to look and how they find this out. Kari Bruwelheide shows a skeleton in the Written In Bone exhibit. Kari Bruwelheide states, “This skeleton for example, I can look at the chemistry of his bones and tell you that

    Read More

  • The Implications Involving Dinosaur DNA

    1094 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although we can only do so much with DNA and protein fragments, they are still discoveries, which are going against previous intuitions. Again, no cloning of dinosaurs are going to take place any time soon, but DNA may help to link dinosaurs with other species around today. These two articles, the research article and the review article show strong evidence that preserved proteins, including DNA can survive under the perfect circumstances. Of course more research will need to be done, and hopefully more findings will conclude the same results.

    Read More

  • The Cosquer Cave Discovery

    612 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1991, a diver by the name of Henri Cosquer from Cassis discovered the cave that is now named for him. His discovery was so extraordinary and unexpected that some scientists believed it to be a deception or very probably a farce. But soon after his discovery scientists using modern procedures performed datings that confirmed Cosquer’s discovery. Henri Cosquer had discovered and important archeological site!

    Read More

  • The Big Bang Theory: The Ideas Of Evolution

    1336 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...xamples that show evolution exist. The exhibit use fossils to explain how there is an existence of similarities between the creatures who walk the earth today and who have walked the earth billions of years ago. Also how the Pangaea was divided into different continents and how plants and animals are only located in certain regions such as kangaroos, koala bears and other marsupials are only located in Australia. There are also other unique creatures located in other different parts of the globe, such as New Zealand. They also have a thirteen thousand year old human whom they found frozen in the snow that shows the world is older than 4,000 years as some other theory proclaims. I would recommend this exhibit to anyone who wants to learn the theory of evolution yet enjoy themselves with having fun with the activities, fossils, pictures and other fun teaching methods.

    Read More

  • The Burgess Shale Fauna

    1581 Words  | 4 Pages

    Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (2014). Burgess Shale Fossil Specimens. Retrieved May 2014, from http://paleobiology.si.edu/burgess/burgessSpecimens.html

    Read More

  • The Cambrian Explosion

    975 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are several theories about how the Cambrian Explosion started. There were major changes in marine environments and chemistry from the late Precambrian into the Cambrian, and these also may have impacted the rise of mineralized skeletons among previously soft-bodied organisms. One theory as to what happened is that oxygen in the atmosphere, with the contribution of photosy...

    Read More

  • Homo Habilis

    1372 Words  | 3 Pages

    11.) Fossils - are the remains of plants or animals that have been preserved over centuries in the strata or layers.

    Read More

  • Burgess Shale Essay

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    With its abundance of genera, the Burgess Shale is one of the world’s most important fossil fields. It’s discovery in 1909 led to over 100 years of paleontological study in the Canadian Rockies, a majority of which has been carried out in two quarries known as the Walcott and Raymond quarries (Hagadorn, 2002). Though he was originally in search of trilobites in the Burgess Shale Formation, paleontologist Charles Walcott also discovered a diverse group of soft- and hard-bodied fossils, from algae and sponges to chordates and cirripeds (Hagadorn, 2002). Soft-bodied fossils are incredibly rare due to their delicate structure and susceptibility to decay, so it is hard-bodied fossils that more regularly occur in fossil findings. However over 75,000 soft-bodied specimens have been found in the Burgess Shale formation (Hagadorn, 2002). These specimens are preserved in layers of shale formed from deposits of fine mud. One of the most significant species discovered is the Pikaia gracilens. Believed to be an early chordate, the Pikaia gracilens existed very close to the beginning of the evolutionary path that ultimately lead to humans (McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia, 2006).

    Read More

  • Charles Darwin's Scientific Theory of Evolution

    1295 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...aware that fossil records contradicted him as they represented the fact that new species had appeared with no evidence of an evolutionary ancestry. Darwin argued that fossil record was not accurate and should not be used as an indication on whether species are introduced suddenly. He also claimed that rocks containing fossils are only created through special situations and after the long period of time from when it was created. Another issue that is related to fossils was born after the sudden discovery of a whole group of living things at a certain point in the fossil records. The best example of this occurring was with the discovery of all the basic modern types that originated from the Cambrian era. Darwin tries to argue that the imperfections of the records include these fossils. Although he had plenty of hypotheses for this, he had no evidence to back it up.

    Read More

  • Extinction On Dinosaurs

    569 Words  | 2 Pages

    The dinosaur could not have lived for ever. No creatures, no plants, no tiny bacteria are

    Read More

  • Reptiles

    1082 Words  | 3 Pages

    Reptiles are vertebrate, or backboned animals constituting the class Reptilia and are characterized by a combination of features, none of which alone could separate all reptiles from all other animals.The characteristics of reptiles are numerous, therefore can not be explained in great detail in this report. In no special order, the characteristics of reptiles are: cold-bloodedness; the presence of lungs; direct development, without larval forms as in amphibians; a dry skin with scales but not feathers or hair; an amniote egg; internal fertilization; a three or four-chambered heart; two aortic arches (blood vessels) carrying blood from the heart to the body, unlike mammals and birds that only have one; a metanephric kidney; twelve pairs of cranial nerves; and skeletal features such as limbs with usually five clawed fingers or toes, at least two spinal bones associated with the pelvis, a single ball-and-socket connection at the head-neck joint instead of two, as in advanced amphibians and mammals, and an incomplete or complete partition along the roof of the mouth, separating the food and air passageways so that breathing can continue while food is being chewed. These and other traditional defining characteristics of reptiles have been subjected to considerable modification in recent times. The extinct flying reptiles, called pterosaurs or pterodactyls, are now thought to have been warm-blooded and covered with hair. Also, the dinosaurs are also now considered by many authorities to have been warm-blooded. The earliest known bird, archaeopteryx, is now regarded by many to have been a small dinosaur, despite its covering of feathers The extinct ancestors of the mammals, the therapsids, or mammallike reptiles, are also believed to have been warm-blooded and haired.

    Read More

  • Evolution in Different Species

    693 Words  | 2 Pages

    Evolution in different species show up more and more often as scientists find different ways to find it. Evolution can be found using different methods; from analyzing the bones of the species to studying the species firsthand. Research is being done and articles written about evolution and with every article we understand each species more. For example, there recently was a skull from the new species Panthera blytheae found. At first the DNA of the Pantherin...

    Read More

  • Igneous Rocks Essay

    1413 Words  | 3 Pages

    They are mostly created under water. Sediment makes up a sedimentary rock with materials such as mud, clay, sand, pebbles, and organisms that once lived. These materials are worn away over years by natural occurrences such as wind, water, rain, and snow. Imagine a road in the winter when it begins breaking apart and withering away. The sediment eventually ends up in one place and layer upon each other. When observing these rocks we get the opportunity to see into the past and understand how the world was like long ago. This is possible by observing the impressions made by different organisms and

    Read More

More about FOSSILS

Open Document