What’s a fossil?

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Fossils are the preserved stays of animals and crops that lived a very long time in the past.

Fossils will also be proof of a prehistoric animal or plant akin to footprints or proof of nests or burrows. These are referred to as hint fossils.

Dinosaur fossil

Not all stays develop into fossilised. Fossilisation is definitely fairly uncommon. Most animal and crops stays decompose after they die ( or are eaten by scavengers) but when the stays are lined by sediment ( normally sand, mud or lava ) they could develop into fossils.

Phases of fossilisation

  1. The smooth elements of the animal decompose leaving the laborious skeleton behind.
  2. Layers of sediment construct up on high of the skeleton. As an increasing number of layers construct up the strain on the decrease layers will increase and so they begins to show into sedimentary rock.
  3. The animal skeleton dissolves as water passes via it. This leaves a niche within the layers of rock the identical form because the skeleton.
  4. Minerals from the water fill the hole left by the skeleton to kind a reproduction of the unique bone.

Fast Fossil Details

Most fossils are of marine animals because the seabed is the perfect place for layers of sediment to construct up over a useless animal.

It takes 1000’s and generally hundreds of thousands of years for a fossil to kind.

Fossils are pressured as much as the floor when tectonic plates collide, when ice sheets soften or will be pushed up as new rock kind beneath them.

The Latin phrase fossilis means dug up.

Fossilised animal poo is named coprolite and could be very helpful because it give clues to what animals ate.

Weathering and erosion of layers of rock additionally enable fossils to be discovered.

Dinosaur fossils have been discovered on each continent.

Fossils have been discovered on the high of Mount Everest. It’s because the Himalayas have been fashioned when two tectonic plates collided forcing heavier rock down and lighter rock upwards, making the the highest of the mountain house to 400 million yr previous fossils that have been as soon as on the backside of the ocean!

A mould fossil is a 3D impression of an organism that has decomposed in sediment leaving an imprint behind.

A solid fossil is when the mould turns into crammed with natural materials forming a reproduction of the unique bone.

Animals will also be fossilised in the event that they develop into trapped in amber, tar or ice!

Bug trapped in amber
Bug trapped in amber

Fossil Exercise Concepts

Make a brilliant simple fossil with clay. That is an instance of a mould fossil.

Make a fossil of a Coelacanth.

This gummy fossil exercise from Teach Beside Me is unbelievable too!

Lastly, have a go at making your personal mould fossil.

Image of a fossil making activity for learning about fossils

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