Reflection On Digging For Fossils

Like I said before there are many parts in paleontology including training. Responsibilities, conditions, and the different fields you can work in are a big part of training. Time management is a big responsibility in this career. You could be gone on an excavation for a long time depending where the excavation is. It can be as far as other countries! Another responsibility is being prepared for the harsh conditions you might face on your excavations. Lastly, the different fields/ parts of this career are big responsibilities because you need to know what you have to do and when you need to do it.

Pursuing geology as a career began as a child, enjoying playing in the rocks as do many adolescent children. Most of my youthful endeavors of this sort took place at my grandparent’s home in Jefferson City, Missouri. Specifically in their front and side yards in which they had pleasant shrubbery to match the gravel of which their grandson had intentions of creating into excavation sites. Minus the commercial equipment of course. For theatrical sake, let us imagine a five year old running a backhoe. Supervised or not, it is quite a petrifying thought. While amongst the rocks years later, thoughts about history that could be found within them arose. Then began my interest in common fossils, preserved in the rocks found at any average

In chapter 6 of Springboard: Launching Your Personal Search for Success, G. Richard Shell argues that confidence is central for achievement. Confidence, Shell writes is part of discovering your true self and is related to our sense of purpose and our ability to interpret failure the right way. Confidence can be broken into two stages. The first type is to give strength in ones skills. The second type is to put to the test in ones skills.

Fossils Tell of Long Ago uses accessible language and illustrations to aid all students in vocabulary and new concept growth. Explicit instructions, reading the book allowed to the class, and allowing conversation among individual students as they work through learning new words will aid ELL students in expanding their word knowledge. Furthermore, having ELL students translate new word to into their native language will help them activate their previous knowledge. Encouraging all students to be actively engage in learning words will ensure that ELL students and all students will gain knowledge and make connections to new words.

The first chapter of the book discusses the way we can use fossil records to study the biological world. Fossils are one of the major lines of evidence we use to understand ourselves. Surprisingly, we are able to discover them with a high amount of precision and predictability. In particular, field paleontologists have it easier than it has ever been before due to the current information age. The physical hunt for important fossils, however, is much like it has always been. Three factors limiting the number of useful fossil sites include rock age, type (whether or not it can preserve fossils), and number of exposed rocks. So, it takes a bit of luck to reliably find fossils. Thankfully, rock

They chose the time period of 375 million year old rocks because they thought that it was an ideal age to check the transition. They were only able to find fish found in 380 million year old rock and the animals with limbs in 365 million year old rocks. Sedimentary rocks are ideal because they are made due to the turns of the river, ocean and lakes. This is the place where fishes and animals are ideal to live and survive upon. Also the environment, in which they are made, doesn’t destroy the fossils and they preserve them. In 2004, the fossils were found on Ellesmere Island in Northern Canada. This location was chosen because this is the place where there are no humans or roads or any disturbance that would forbid them to dig anywhere they want.

Throughout the book, Shubin illustrates the life of a paleontologist through engaging stories. Paleontologists work long hours, days and even years just to make one meaningful discovery, however each discovery contributes to a missing puzzle piece in evolution.. Shubin compares searching for fossils in the Arctic as “worse than finding the proverbial needle in the haystack” (Shubin, 2009). While reading through Shubin’s accounts of discovering fossils the reader will feel as if they are there uncovering new insights into the history of evolution. One can expect to learn about the arm, hand, teeth, head, nose, eyes and ears of

Walking along the bank of Chartiers Creek I climb a top an array of massive rocks that look as if they had fallen from the hill side when civilization still meant hunter, gatherer. From a top the rocks I sit, and listen to the mollifying sound of the water rush past me. I close my eyes, and let the sound rush over me. I breathe in the fresh spring air which smells like life renewed. I could sit at that spot all day-for the rest of my life maybe-but it’s time to go the next, and final attraction the fossil cliff. The fossil cliff is a roughly fifty foot high sheer cliff. Through the woods I hike to its base, and start to pull away loose stones looking for fossils of long since gone plant, and animal life. A convenient sign explain the high probability for finding fossils in this particular area. I’m yet to find the uncategorized dinosaur fossil which will make me rich, and famous, but I have found a wide variety of plants (that I’m not smart enough to identify) within the rocks. After working up a sweat from walking, getting covered in dust from fossil excavation, and seeing nightfall creeping upon me it’s time to head back to my

The fossils that are yet to be found in this project just very well may double the museum’s collection which is already at 3.5 million fossils. The project contains 16 fossil deposits that were recently unknown which makes us wonder how many more deposits are there left to discover (The Natural History Foundation, 2016). As technology advances and our understanding of these fossils grows it will be interesting to see what the future years will bring to the field of

The area where Anning lived, Lyme Regis, was an outstanding place for fossil hunting. Approximately 200 million years ago, the area was located the equator, underneath the ocean. The reason the fossils are so abundant now is because marine animals, after dying, would sink to the bottom of the ocean and would be buried in mud, resulting in preservation. To this day, Lyme Regis is full of fossils, and now, amateurs are permitted to fossils along the beach. If they obtain a permit, they are also allowed to dig along the cliffs

Since the number of shipwreck discoveries has been increasing over the years, there is a constant disagreement between treasure hunters and archaeologists regarding who has the right to recover artifacts from these underwater sites. This conflict is causing people to consider the positive and negative aspects of both sides of the issue. The documentary, Deep Sea Treasure Hunters Versus Archaeologists, shows the importance of archaeology for understanding the past and settles the debate between the treasure hunters and archaeologists. This film suggests that a more efficient system could be developed for the greater good of archaeology if the two sides worked together.

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

For instance, if you decide to present in class, and your classmates are impressed by your lecture, You will feel more assured at what you’re doing. You will learn; by experience, that new accomplishments makes you wiser. Not everyone has confidence, but to build such confidence as a person, makes you momentous. After mastering new things you won’t doubt yourself as much, and it’ll begin to be

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 the remains or traces of ancient organisms which have been preserved. For example, a fossil can exist as skeletal remains or even as a footprint. Such organisms are subjected to a slow rate of decaying since they have been rapidly buried under conditions that facilitate this. It is common for fossils to occur as hard-bodied organisms as these are more resistant to environmental influences. Fossils are usually found embedded in rock. The layers of rock are of different age and makeup. Hence fossils found in one layer would vary in characteristics from those found in another layer. They can be observed and analyzed through visual as well as radiometric means so that the age and morphology can be determined. These features indicate