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If the Deluge had carried the shells for distances of three and four hundred miles from the sea it would have carried them mixed with various other natural objects all heaped up together; but even at such distances from the sea we see the oysters all together and also the shellfish and the cuttlefish and all the other shells which congregate together, found all together dead; and the solitary shells are found apart from one another as we see them every day on the sea-shores. Palmer, T. J.; Wilson, MA (1988). "Parasitism of Ordovician bryozoans and the origin of pseudoborings". Palaeontology. 31: 939–949. Ancient Egyptians Collected Fossils". 5 September 2016. Archived from the original on 10 February 2019 . Retrieved 9 February 2019. Editor's note: Many paleontologists consider birds to be surviving members of the theropod dinosaur lineage. Thus, it is correct to say "non-avian dinosaurs" here, rather than "dinosaurs." More information is available at http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/dinosaur.html. March 25, 2010 The Zebra River Canyon area of the Kubis platform in the deeply dissected Zaris Mountains of southwestern Namibia provides an extremely well exposed example of the thrombolite-stromatolite-metazoan reefs that developed during the Proterozoic period, the stromatolites here being better developed in updip locations under conditions of higher current velocities and greater sediment influx. [64] AstrobiologyFossils provide important evidence for evolution and the adaptation of plants and animals to their environments. Fossil evidence provides a record of how creatures evolved and how this process can be represented by a ‘tree of life’, showing that all species are related to each other. In 1666, Nicholas Steno examined a shark, and made the association of its teeth with the "tongue stones" of ancient Greco-Roman mythology, concluding that those were not in fact the tongues of venomous snakes, but the teeth of some long-extinct species of shark. [74]

Scientists can also use radiometric dating to figure out a fossil's age. Radiometric dating is a way to tell how old something is by studying its chemical properties. Over time, minerals in the sediment seep into the remains. The remains become fossilized. Fossilization usually occur in organisms with hard, bony body parts, such as skeletons, teeth, or shells. Soft-bodied organisms, such as worms, are rarely fossilized. The Virtual Fossil Museum – Fossils Across Geological Time and Evolution". Archived from the original on 8 March 2007 . Retrieved 4 March 2007.Peterson, Joseph E.; Lenczewski, Melissa E.; Scherer, Reed P. (October 2010). Stepanova, Anna (ed.). "Influence of Microbial Biofilms on the Preservation of Primary Soft Tissue in Fossil and Extant Archosaurs". PLOS ONE. 5 (10): 13A. Bibcode: 2010PLoSO...513334P. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0013334. PMC 2953520. PMID 20967227. Despite significant advances in uncovering and identifying paleontological specimens, it is generally accepted that the fossil record is vastly incomplete. [103] [104] Approaches for measuring the completeness of the fossil record have been developed for numerous subsets of species, including those grouped taxonomically, [105] [106] temporally, [107] environmentally/geographically, [108] or in sum. [109] [110] This encompasses the subfield of taphonomy and the study of biases in the paleontological record. [111] [112] [113] Art In medieval China, the fossil bones of ancient mammals including Homo erectus were often mistaken for " dragon bones" and used as medicine and aphrodisiacs. In addition, some of these fossil bones are collected as "art" by scholars, who left scripts on various artifacts, indicating the time they were added to a collection. One good example is the famous scholar Huang Tingjian of the Song Dynasty during the 11th century, who kept a specific seashell fossil with his own poem engraved on it. [78] In his Dream Pool Essays published in 1088, Song dynasty Chinese scholar-official Shen Kuo hypothesized that marine fossils found in a geological stratum of mountains located hundreds of miles from the Pacific Ocean was evidence that a prehistoric seashore had once existed there and shifted over centuries of time. [79] [80] His observation of petrified bamboos in the dry northern climate zone of what is now Yan'an, Shaanxi province, China, led him to advance early ideas of gradual climate change due to bamboo naturally growing in wetter climate areas. [80] [81] [82] Why not come and pay me a visit at Unit 60 in The Indoor Market (bottom right hand corner) in the beautiful City of Durham? I have lots of mineral specimens, fossils, crystals and polished stone gift items on display. I look forward to seeing you there. Koch, C. (1978). "Bias in the published fossil record". Paleobiology. 4 (3): 367–372. Bibcode: 1978Pbio....4..367K. doi: 10.1017/S0094837300006060. S2CID 87368101.

a b Taylor, P. D. (1990). "Preservation of soft-bodied and other organisms by bioimmuration: A review". Palaeontology. 33: 1–17. Georges Cuvier came to believe that most if not all the animal fossils he examined were remains of extinct species. This led Cuvier to become an active proponent of the geological school of thought called catastrophism. Near the end of his 1796 paper on living and fossil elephants he said: Fossils appear to have directly contributed to the mythology of many civilizations, including the ancient Greeks. Classical Greek historian Herodotos wrote of an area near Hyperborea where gryphons protected golden treasure. There was indeed gold mining in that approximate region, where beaked Protoceratops skulls were common as fossils. Löfgren, A. (2004). "The conodont fauna in the Middle Ordovician Eoplacognathus pseudoplanus Zone of Baltoscandia". Geological Magazine. 141 (4): 505–524. Bibcode: 2004GeoM..141..505L. doi: 10.1017/S0016756804009227. S2CID 129600604. Paleontologists are people who study fossils. Paleontologists find and study fossils all over the world, in almost every environment, from the hot desert to the humid jungle. Studying fossils helps them learn about when and how different species lived millions of years ago. Sometimes, fossils tell scientists how Earth has changed.Bressan, David. "July 18, 1635: Robert Hooke – The Last Virtuoso of Silly Science". Scientific American Blog Network. Archived from the original on 12 February 2018 . Retrieved 11 February 2018. It has been suggested that biominerals could be important indicators of extraterrestrial life and thus could play an important role in the search for past or present life on the planet Mars. Furthermore, organic components ( biosignatures) that are often associated with biominerals are believed to play crucial roles in both pre-biotic and biotic reactions. [65]

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