Vocabulary
Fossil Formation
Learning from Fossils
Georgia Connection
Fast Facts
100
describes a group of living things that is no longer living
What is extinct
100
in petrified wood, the soft parts of the once-living plant were replaced by this
What are minerals
100
Scientists may learn what an animal ate by looking at the shapes of this fossil item.
What are teeth?
100
The oldest fossils in Georgia can be found in this region.
What is the mountains?
100
Layers of a rock can be used to tell how _________ a fossil is.
What is old?
200
the hardened remains of a living thing that died long ago
What is a fossil
200
Animal fossils are more common than plant fossils because plants have this.
What are softer body parts?
200
By comparing fossils, we can determine that some living things have not done this in millions of years.
What is changed?
200
Coal from Georgia mountains formed from this.
What are the remains of animals that lived long ago?
200
Deeper layers of rock are ___________ than the layers above.
What is older?
300
the shape of a once-living thing left in sediment; it is a cavity shaped like the plant or animal
What is a mold
300
We do not know what many ancient plants look like because they did this before they could form a fossil.
What is rotted away?
300
Scientists compare animal fossils to similar animals that are alive today. For example the elephant and the mammoth both have these.
What are tusks?
300
Finding these explains why scientists believe southern Georgia was once covered by an ocean.
What are clam fossils, fossil whale bones, and shark teeth?
300
These two things that form metamorphic and igneous rock often destroy plant and animal parts before they can form a fossil.
What are temperature and pressure?
400
forms when mud or minerals later fill a mold; it is the actual shape of the once-living thing
What is a cast
400
Fossils are usually found in this type of rock
What is sedimentary?
400
If two fossils are found in the same rock, scientists can infer that these two things did this.
What is lived at the same time?
400
Describe how you could use a fossil mold to make a model of the fossil for your science class.
press clay into the mold to create a cast of the fossil
400
An animal still looks much like it did millions of years ago so we can infer this about a fossil of that animal.
The fossil of the animal will much like the animal that is still living today.
500
when an insect gets stuck in tree sap and the sap hardens
What is amber
500
Describe the steps for a fossil to form in sedimentary rock.
1) soft parts of the animal decompose 2) hard parts of the animal are buried under layers of sediment 3) the bones and sediment turn into rock
500
By looking at a fossil jawbone you may learn....
What did an animal eat? How old was the animal? Was the animal male or female?
500
We can infer this because there are many fossil imprints of ferns.
Most plants on Earth were once ferns.
500
Suppose a plant and animal die on the same day. Which one will most likely become a fossil? Why?
The animal because it has more hard parts than the plant
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