Fossil Facts
A fossil is the remains or trace of an ancient living thing. Fossils of animals, plants in sedimentary rock.
Answer these questions on your paper. Click on the links to help.
1) Describe the trilobites.
2) What would this fossil be?
3) If this is found in Utah what can it tell us about the past?
4) Describe Amber.
5) How are fossils formed?
Watch this video and answer the questions.
6) How old are real fossils?
7) What are two ways we can see the fossils unchanged?
8) How are fossils formed?
A fossil is the remains or trace of an ancient living thing. Fossils of animals, plants in sedimentary rock.
- > A fossil is any evidence of past plant or animal life that is preserved in the material of the Earth’s crust, and Paleontology is the branch that studies the forms of life by studying fossils.
- > The only way scientists can study dinosaurs, prehistoric people and other animals is by the fossils that were left behind.
- The word fossil comes from the Latin word fossils, which means, “dug up”.
- > Most fossils are found from sedimentary rock layers. Sedimentary rock is rock that has formed from materials like sand, mud, and small pieces of rock.
- > The fossil of a bone doesn’t have any bone in it. A fossilized object has the same shape as the original object, but is more like a rock.
- > When the animals are buried their bodies undergo a chemical change. Water seeps into the minerals in their bodies. The chemicals in the bone are replaced by rock-hard minerals. This process is called permineralization. In the end we get a heavy, rock-like copy of the original object – a fossil. The fossil has the same shape as the original object, but is chemically more like a rock.
Answer these questions on your paper. Click on the links to help.
1) Describe the trilobites.
2) What would this fossil be?
3) If this is found in Utah what can it tell us about the past?
4) Describe Amber.
5) How are fossils formed?
Watch this video and answer the questions.
6) How old are real fossils?
7) What are two ways we can see the fossils unchanged?
8) How are fossils formed?