Fossil Detectives
What is a fossil?
Preserved remains or traces of an organism that lived long ago.
What is sediment?
Small pieces of rock, minerals, or other material.
What is an environment?
The surroundings and conditions of a place, including living and non living things
What is an inference?
An inference is a scientific idea paired with observations and data
There are 4 quarts in a gallon and 4 cups in a quart. How many cups are in a gallon?
16
What type of rock most commonly contains fossils?
Sedimentary rock
What is sedimentary rock made from?
Sediment that accumulates and becomes rock over time.
What do scientists called geologists study?
Earth, including its rocks, materials, processes, and history.
What is scientific evidence?
Information or observations that help support or challenge a claim.
Geologists discover fossils of ocean organisms in Desert Rocks National Park, even though the area is now a dry desert. How can scientists infer that this environment was once covered by water?
Scientists examine the types of fossils found in the sedimentary rock layers. Because these organisms lived in water, their fossils provide evidence that the environment was once underwater, even though it is a desert today.
How can a fossil become preserved in sedimentary rock?
An organism dies, is buried by sediment, and the sediment eventually hardens into rock.
What type of sedimentary rock forms from mudstone?
Clay
What are two pieces of evidence geologists can use to learn about past environments?
Fossils and types of sedimentary rock.
What is an obersvation?
Information gathered using our 5 senses
Subtract 15 from 23. Then add 7. Whats the results?
Geologists discover a fossil of an ocean animal in a desert. What can they infer about the past environment?
The area was probably covered by water in the past.
Calcium carbonate makes what stone?
Limestone
Desert Rocks National Park has evidence of both a floodplain and a deep ocean. What does this suggest?
The environment changed over time.
A geologist finds a layer of sandstone above a layer of limestone. What does this suggest about the environment over time?
The environment changed. Conditions that formed limestone existed before the sand-depositing conditions that formed sandstone.
There are a dozen children but only 10 chairs. How many more chairs are needed?
2 more chairs
Two fossils are found in undisturbed rock layers. Fossil A is in the lower layer and Fossil B is in the upper layer. Which fossil is probably older? Explain.
Fossil A, because lower rock layers formed before the layers above them.
What type of sedimentary rock forms from gravel?
Conglomaerate
A lower layer formed in a floodplain, and an upper layer formed in a deep ocean. Which environment existed first, and how do you know?
The floodplain existed first because its rock layer is below the deep-ocean layer.
Geologists infer that the Mosasaurus was an organism that lived on an watery environment and ate turtles. How did scientists come to this inference?
Scientist used clues from the fossil remains to piece together this information. They examine the Mosasaurus body and teeth and location of where the fossil was found, next to a Mortoniceras, a plankton eating organism that lived deep in the ocean
Why are some sedimentary rocks bigger than others?
Faster-moving water can transport larger, heavier sediments, while slower-moving water generally deposits smaller particles. The different sediment sizes preserved in the sedimentary rock layers provide evidence about how fast the water was moving in the past.