What is a Fossil?

By Kate Wilkinson-Brindle

What is a Fossil? Illustrated by Jason Henderson

What is a Fossil?

A fossil is the stone remains of an animal
or plant. It can also be the stone remains
of something left by an animal or plant,
like a footprint. All fossils are ancient: they
are between 10,000 and 4 billion years old.
The word fossil comes from the
Latin word fossus, which means
having been dug up.

This fossil is an ammonite. The ammonite
was a creature that lived around 100 million
years ago. Scientists think that it may
have looked like this.

fossil by James St. John (flickr)

How Do Fossils Form?

Here’s one way that a fossil can be formed:
1. An animal dies.
2. Before it can rot away or be eaten, the

animal gets covered by sediment.
3. The soft parts of the animal rot away, and

only the hard parts, like bones, are left.
4. The sediment builds up over the remains, and

over the years, it hardens to become rock.
5. The bones gradually get washed away

leaving spaces in the rock.
6. Water and minerals trickle through the rock

into the spaces.
7. Minerals gradually fill in the spaces, and

they become an exact copy of the shape of
the animal’s bones.

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Where Can I See a Fossil?

There are lots of different places that

you can go to see fossils. You can see

them in many museums, but one of

the most interesting places you can

see fossils is the La Brea Tar Pits in

California. There have been more than tthheefofossssiliilsiseeddbboonneessooffaa
3 million fossils found there! This is ssaabbrree-t-tooootthheeddttigigeerr
because of the sticky tar that bubbles

up from under the ground in that area. Many thousands of years

ago, the sticky tar trapped animals, which then became fossilised.

The fossilised bones of giant sloths, mammoths, dire wolves and

sabre-toothed tigers have all been found at the La Brea Tar Pits.

fossilised sabre-tooth tiger by James St. John (flickr)

Fossil Hunters

People who study fossils are called
palaeontologists (pay-lee-un-tol-o-jists).
Palaeontologists spend a lot of time
walking around looking at the ground!
They don’t always have to dig to find
fossils. Sometimes wind and rain
erodes rock, which means that you
might be able to see a part of a fossil
without having to dig.

Mary Anning was a fossil hunter from
Dorset, England. Early in the 1800s, she
discovered many skeletons of ancient
sea creatures. Look at the skull of this
amazing ichthyosaur (ik-thee-uh-saw).

ichthyosaur skull by AD 04 (flickr)

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Fossil Fuels

Fuel is something that is burned to make heat or power. Fossil fuels
were made millions of years ago from plants and small creatures
that died. After they died, they were covered in layers of sediment.
Over hundreds of millions of years, the pressure of the layers and
the heat from under the earth turned ancient plants and trees into
coal. Ancient sea plants and creatures turned into oil and natural
gas. Humans use fossil fuels to make electricity, cook food and
provide fuel for transport.

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dinosaur footprint by Gregg Willis

Fossil Tracks

Imagine being the palaeontologist
who found this incredible fossilised
footprint of a large dinosaur!
This footprint may have been made
by a type of dinosaur called an
ornithopod (or-nith-uh-pod).

Some fossil tracks have been found in Texas that
seem to show a large plant-eating dinosaur
being chased or followed by a predator.
Isn’t it amazing that there is a fossil record of
what was happening on Earth over 100 million
years ago?

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