Vignette on fossils

• Pass fossils through – you can remove tags to look at fossils, but please replace them

• These are my own, for the most part collected by myself – it is not hard to find fossils! You just have to know where to look

• Please return all to the basket

AmmonitesExtinct!

(=such animals do not exist/live today)

They lived 220 – 65 million years ago in the sea

Fossils

Cephalopods• Are a group of marine

mollusks (related to snails & clams)

• Intelligent; many arms (tentacles)

• Some are alive today! (Octopus, “Kraken”, Nautilus, Squid, “Calamares”)

• Others are extinct and only known from fossils: Ammonites, Belemnites, etc.

Fossils

Cephalopods todayFossils

Extinct cephalopodsFossils

Belemnite

Ammonite

First things to notice about fossils:

• Often hard to tell what they are!

• Sometimes show animals or plants that do not exist any more (=are extinct)

• Often show animals or plants that don’t live in the same place any more (seashell fossils found on mountaintops)

• Usually hard-shelled parts fossilize, mostly from marine animals

Fossils

Fascinating fossil facts

• Oldest fossils are almost as old as the planet!!!

• First complex animal fossils from about 0.5 billion years ago

• Usually form when dead animal is covered by sediment under water; sometimes in bogs/swamps; rarely deserts

Fossils

Dinosaur footprints

Footprints and tracks

Footprints and tracks

Dinosaur footprints

Footprints and tracks

Footprints and tracks