Fossil Vocab
A copy of a plant or animal’s shape made of hardened minerals.
What is a cast?
It settles in mud/sand/water.
What happens after a dinosaur dies, but before it is covered in sediment?
The hollow space left behind when an organism decays.
What is Mold?
Water
What liquid usually carries the minerals that fill the empty spaces in bone?
A fossilized example of a dinosaur walking
Trace Fossil or Footprint
The hard parts of an animal that eventually become a fossil.
What are bones/shells?
Compaction/cementation/pressure
What is the process that turns wet sediment into hard rock?
The type of fossil that is created when the mold is filled with new sediment.
What is a cast?
This natural process must happen to expose the fossil so we can find it.
What is erosion?
The type of rock that contains most of the fossils we find.
What is sedimentary Rock
The name for the material that must cover a dead animal quickly for a fossil to form.
What is sediment?
Death/burial, sediment/compaction, mineralization, erosion/discovery.
What are the four main steps of fossil formation in order?
A soft leaf or an insect's entire body.
Give an example of something that could form a mold, but not a true-form fossil.
It decays too quickly and is not buried by wet sediment.
Why is it rare for an animal that dies in a dry desert to become a fossil?
A burrow shows activity/behavior; a trunk is a body part.
Why is a worm burrow considered a trace fossil, but an actual petrified tree trunk is not?