The preservation lab! ...Who knew rocks could hold so much history!

1. It may seem intuitively obvious that a slimy little worm isn't going to have a good fossil record. But intuition isn’t good enough for scientists. Explain why it probably won’t fossilize using at least three lines of evidence.
The worms will not fossilize very well for a few different reasons; the first is that a worm is made of fleshy material without a skeleton making it very difficult to leave any kind of fossil. The second reason is that worms are a good food source for many animals and would be eaten if found. Lastly special preservation for this animal would be very rare not to mention hard to find. (Like trying to find a needle in a bunch of needles)

2. Do shelled organisms that live on top of other shelled organisms increase or reduce their chances of preservation? Explain.
The organisms that live on top of another shell can encrust a shell and increase its chances of being preservation but as the shell is being encrusted it does decrease the quality of the fossilization. It is important to note that the organisms on top of the shells will also become preserved providing a good fossilization of those organisms.

3. Why do you think most fossils of birds are from lakes?
The fossils of birds are found near and around lakes because that is one of the prefect environments for making fossil, Birds that come to a watering hole, or build their nests next to area of water can and most likely found themselves being covered or killed rapidly and then covered in these areas. In the case that this did happen the skeleton of the birds would be persevered in the sediment of the lake thus producing a fossil. (Class discussions, 2010)

4. How do the processes in special preservation differ from the processes in normal preserva¬tion?
Many times in special preservation like instant freezing there are some presents of flesh and tissue left on the fossil of the animal, where as with normal preservation the flesh and tissues have degraded and rotted away leaving only the bones and hard bodies deposits. (Class discussion, 2010)

5. What is time-averaging?
Time- averaging is a method of finding the average age of a grouping of fossils. Many times this is done using the fossils of shells (shell mash) that has layered the bottom of a lake, river, or ocean bed. This information can then help scientists now about what time different organisms co-existed. (Class discussion, 2010)

6. Write a caption for the figure below, explaining how it illustrates time-averaging.
The figure below (not seem here) illustrates time averaging, this is done by measuring the shells with into the group being studied and from those measurements they average the age of the group as a whole.

7. Compare the magnitude of time-averaging in a verve to time-averaging along the continental shelf where most fossilization occurs. ( I do not understand this question, I will be asking my professor)

8. What was the coolest thing you learned in this lab? Why was it so cool?
The coolest thing I learned over the course of this lab is just how much information you can gather from a normal fossil. In one of the stations we were asked to write down everything we knew about a horse. Once I had made a list I then had to think about how much of that information could be gather form just the skeletal fossil of a horse, I was shocked to find out just how much we can learn from the shape of the bones, the shape of their teeth and so on and so forth. This excises really allowed me to see the importance of studying and understanding what has been persevered in the soil and rocks all over the world.