What is a fossil? (parts 1-8) Review

What is a fossil? (parts 1-8) review

What is a fossil?

• A fossil is the remains or traces of an organism that lived long ago. Fossils can be made of an organism’s hard parts or its soft parts. 

•  Hard parts include teeth, bones, and shells.

• Soft parts include tissues, such as skin and organs.

• Most fossils are preserved in rock.

Multiple Choice

An organism's teeth and bones would be considered __________.

• hard parts

• soft parts

What is a fossil?

• Some fossils, like that of a mammoth, form when an organism becomes trapped in water that freezes and becomes ice.

• Organisms can get trapped in sticky tree sap and die. As the sap hardens, the organisms become fossilized in the sap, which is called amber.

Multiple Choice

What TWO materials can preserve an organism's soft parts?

• rock

• ice

• sand

• amber

What is a fossil?

• Patterns in nature repeat over time. Some patterns repeat quickly. Others take a long time. 

• Some fossils look like organisms that live on Earth today. Others reveal extinct organisms—those no longer found on Earth.

Multiple Choice

A kind of thing that is no longer found on earth is __________.

• endangered

• extinct

Scale

• Sometimes, it is hard to tell how large an organism was just by looking at fossil pieces of it. It is also sometimes hard to tell a fossil’s size from a simple picture of it. 

•  A scientist will often take a picture as part of collecting data about a fossil. To show the size of the fossil, the scientist will place an object with a known length next to the fossil.

• Fossils of entire organisms are rare. Scientists usually only find pieces and parts of once-living things. 

Multiple Choice

True or False: Finding complete fossils of organisms is very COMMON.

• True

• False