Fossil Records

By: Kate, Susannah, Emma, and Anne

What is a Fossil?

• The prehistoric remains of an animal or a plant• Can be dated through carbon dating.• Study of Fossil is Paleontology

Fossil Facts

• Age of earliest fossil: about 3.8 billion years old.

• It was a fossil of a cyanobacteria

Evidence that support evolution

• Provides snapshots of the past.• They illustrate a panorama of evolutionary

change over the past four billion years.• There may be bits missing, but fossil evidence

clearly shows that life is old and has changed over time.

Source: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/lines_02

What parts are fossilized

• Footprints/ prints• Bones• Seeds• Leaves• Ripple marks in a prehistoric shore• Eggs• Dinosaur dung

Formation of Fossils

• Fossils can form in Amber• Buried in mud• Either in or over the sediment of rocks• Animals can be trapped from natural disasters

Method of dating(Radioactive decay)

• Also known as carbon dating• Arranges it through oldest to newest.• Creates sequence in chronological order and

can see where speciation occurred or evolution.

• Used to compare living species to past species and can know how old they were by dating the bones.