1. Fossils!

2. Question How do you think fossils form?
What do you think that fossils tell us?

3. Fossils Are preserved remains or traces of living things.
Provide evidence of how life has changed over time.

4. How fossils form
Most form when living things die and are buried by sediments
Sediments slowly harden into rock and preserve the shapes of the organisms

5. Fossils

6. Sedimentary rock Fossils usually found in this
Rock is made of hardened sediment.

7. Found
Most found in animals and plants that lived in or near quiet water such as swamps, lakes, or shallow seas.
Dies = hardens and only hard parts leave fossils

8. Found
Fossils found in rock include molds and casts, petrified fossils, carbon films, and trace fossils.
Others preserved in tar, amber or ice

9. Mold
Is a hollow area in sediment in the shape of an organism or part of an organism
Forms when hard part such as a shell is buried in sediment

10. Cast
Fossil that is a copy of an organism’s shape formed when minerals seep into a mold

11. Petrified fossils
Are fossils in which minerals replace all or part of an organism

12. Carbon film
Extremely thin coating of carbon on rock

13. Trace fossils Provide evidence of the activities of ancient organism.
Ex: fossil footprints, trails, and burrows

14. Paleontologists
Collect and classify fossils

15. Fossil record Provides evidence about the history of life on earth
Shows that groups of organisms have changed over time
Shows fossils occur in a particular order

16. Scientific theory
Well tested concept that explains a wide range of observations

17. evolution
Is the gradual change in living things over long periods of time
Fossil record shows millions of types of organisms have evolved.

18. Extinct
No longer exists and will never live on earth again

19. Extinction