1. Fossils are very useful in putting together the history of organisms and how things have evolved over time. They can be found deep in the ground. The long process that makes this possible is fossilization. Fossilization is the process by which the remains of a plant or animal fail to fully decompose and in time, converts into a fossil. In order for organisms to turn into fossils, certain conditions must be met. The soft parts of an organism will often decompose or be consumed by scavengers. Therefore, organisms with hard parts like a shell are more often fossilized, leaving behind the skeleton. Even hard parts such as the skeleton can be destroyed by nature such as waves or by other microorganisms. Most importantly, the chances of fossilization decrease with greater exposure to …show more content…
It takes a very long time for fossilization to get its finished product, a fossil. In the years that fossilization takes place, many things can occur that will damage the organism. Quickly following the first part, the second half of the statement, “fossils in exemplary conditions are easily found all over the world” is also false. In a given scenario that an organism did fossilize, the chances of it being in “exemplary condition” are slim. Nature has most likely taken its toll on it, breaking it apart with wind, rain, storms, waves, etc. Fossils that have been discovered are rarely in exemplary conditions. Bits and pieces of it go missing. Fossils do exist all over the world but the condition that they are in is not always perfect. It is like a bag of chips or peanut butter crackers. When you first get them, the chips are most likely in almost to perfect shape inside an air filled bag. The peanut butter crackers are not broken up. But as you put the chips and crackers in your bag for a whole day, it gets knocked around, squished and thrown on the
Fossils grant us opportunity of understanding about species which no longer exist on Earth- that are extinct. The prehistoric remains inform us about plants and
Fossil discoveries are extremely significant to science and they help people better comprehend the world they live in. Without these discoveries science wouldn’t of grown like it has and people would not know much about the Earth. The fishapod and the dinomummy are two fossil discoveries that have made a gigantic impact on science. The fishapod helped fill the gap between land animals and water animals and the dinomummy proved that dinosaurs vertebrae are different than scientists have been placing them. However, the most important part is the preservation of these two ancient creatures. If they hadn’t of been preserved like they had, then they would never of been discovered and scientists wouldn’t get to learn from the remains of these creatures.
From both the title of the chapter and the introduction by Dr. Shubin, this chapter begins with a focus on teeth. Because the function of teeth is to break down food before it enters the esophagus, the different shapes of teeth can represent many different things about the organism it belongs to including what type of eater it was (carnivore, herbivore, or omnivore). Teeth are the hardest tissue (not bone) in the human body and therefore fossilize well. As Dr. Shubin stated in chapter one, there must be many points that permit a fossil to make any kind of scientific conclusion. Obviously, the state of their presence is important, so the fact that teeth preserve well allows for them to be great specimens for analysis. Dr. Shubin and his team analyzed fossilized teeth in areas as different as Nova Scotia and the Arizona desert. Studying different fossils in these diverse regions allowed the team to see that mammalian and reptilian teeth are very different. For example, mammalian teeth differ from organism to organism to fit with the organisms need (Cheetahs that eat only meat will have different teeth than deer who are herbivores) and are replaced only once in the lifetime of the organism while reptilian teeth are usually sharp and are constantly replaced if damaged. These differences allowed scientists to characterize fossils as either a reptile or a mammal. Similar to Tiktaalik discussed in chapter one, the discovery of fossils that were part reptile and part mammal allowed the researchers to see that mammals evolved from reptiles, and further supported the theory of evolution. Further studies yielded even more
Second, the author thinks that business in selling the fossils, reduce the access of scientists to these fossils as a great source of scientific evidence, but the professor explains that all fossils need scientific evaluation by scientists for price marking, so all fossils are
The author and his colleagues chose to focus on 375 million year old rocks in their search for fossils because amphibians that look dissimilar to fish were discovered in 365 million year old rocks, while fish without amphibian characteristics were discovered in 385 million year old rocks. Thus, it is possible that the evolutionary intermediary, or the “missing link” between fish and amphibians, would be discovered in 375 million year old rocks, between the two time periods. The rocks examined were sedimentary in composition, as the gradual and relatively gentle formation of sedimentary rock under conditions of mild pressure and low heat are conducive to the fossilization of animal remains. Sedimentary rock is also often formed in rivers and seas, where animals are likely to live. This site provides a resource that describes means by which fossils are formed and how the fossil record may be interpreted, and shows some examples of fossils demonstrating evolution through geological periods: http://www.fossilmuseum.net/fossilrecord.htm. In 2004, Shubin and his colleagues were looking for fossils on Ellesmere Island, in northern Canada. This location was chosen because of its lack of human development, as well as of obstructing natural formations and life forms such as trees, which
In the article The Fossil Record Supports Evolution, writer, David A. Thomas argues his position. He favors Evolution over Creationism. In the article David explains how there are gaps in fossilization. He tells how creationists expose those gaps and claim that because of those gaps evolution is not proven to be true. However Thomas explains that there are many difficult steps in the process of uncovering fossils, but those difficulties don’t disprove anything. He says that creationists say that because scientists don’t have the full fossil that they aren’t real. Thomas explains that just because they don’t have the full fossil doesn’t mean the fragment is useless. It means that there are in fact fossils in B.C times and there could be
Because dinosaurs are animals that lived millions of years ago, we are entirely dependent on the fossils that they have left behind for any understanding that we hope to gain. As any paleontologist will tell you, fossil hunting is difficult. There are no certainties, no guarantees. A certain amount of luck is as valuable as any scientific knowledge.
Fossils are organisms that were once living but have now died and been preserved in sediment. Their bones can remains can tell how they lived, what they ate, and what their behavior was like. In the article titles, “Fossils: How Are They Made?”, it states that, “The remains inside the rock also turn to rock. The remains are replaced by minerals. The remains literally turn to stone.” There are also other ways an organism can be fossilized, such as being buried in tar. For example, in the La Brea Tar Pit in the city of Los Angeles, they found remains of many ancient beings such as wooly mammoths and sabertooth tigers. In the video “Death By Tar Pit” on discovery.com, it was stated that remains of over 3 million ice age fossils were found in there because they had died and their remains were preserved in the tar pit. An organism can also be fossilized by being trapped in tree sap which
Fossils are very important for the study of evolution, for they provide a record of how groups of organisms have been evolving throughout the years. Fossils of the same group of organisms show gradual changes over periods of time, and archaeologists use that to determine how they have evolved. They can also
To start it off, there is an absence of vegetation. This makes fossil finding easier because the paleontologists don’t need to dig under trees, roots, and other assorted plants to get to fossils that may have been hidden under vegetation. This makes digging much harder as opposed to sedimentary rocks. When vegetation lies on the ground, it is much harder to find fossils as the time spent uncovering the ground of plants will take up more
According to Liz Veloz of Demand Media Fossils aren't used only to understand individual organisms. Geologists
Have you ever wondered how fossils form in the environment? Will, if you didn’t this is for you. The first stage of the “Fossilization” is when a type of animal dies in a watery environment and is then covered by mud. Then the soft tissues like muscle decompose leaving behind the hard bones, and maybe shells. Next, over time minerals like rock, soil, and others settle over the bones and hardens them to rock along with the others. Then you have your fossil. One of the most unusual fossils is when
The fossil record shows the first diversity of life, not a tree slowly gaining complexity. This means that plants and animals are all on the fossil record as what they are today. There are no records of transitional fossils. For example, evolution scientists claim that a cow slowly turned into a whale, but they only have fossils of the cow and whale individually. Where are the fossils of the half cow-half whale? There are none. This is because evolution is simply a theory that cannot be backed up with scientific evidence.
The fossil record is evidence of evolution. Fossils are often fingerprints of evolution. They help scientists track how species evolved