Recently, a 10 year old boy found paleontological fossils while playing, how did these fossils come

When an animal or plant is buried by sediment, the organic matter is broken down by the microorganisms in the soil, and the remaining hard bones, teeth, shells, or branches slowly turn into stone along with the sediment that surrounds it. In the movement of the earth's crust to rise and fall, fossils are formed by high pressure or high temperature.

Fossils were once thought to be "petrified" by living things, but they are not, but go through a series of complex processes. There are three elements: 1. The dead organism is not decomposed; 2. The creature is not decaying; 3. After petrochemical, it will no longer experience geological changes.

Fossils are earth-shaking changes in the land after death, first of all, the meat has long been decayed, thus forming nutrients, and the bones are hard to decay and decompose, so they have been buried in the soil to form fossils.

Organisms are buried in the soil, and after a long period of sedimentation and chemical action, the remains slowly form fossils.

Fossils are the remains of creatures that lived a long time ago and formed stones over time. The most common are bones and shells. Conditions for the formation of fossils. There must be a hard part. Organic matter such as shells, bones, leaves, etc., are formed by petrification.

These paleontological fossils are traces left by previous organisms and have been inherited through the protective effect formed by burial.

In fact, it is because these creatures have not been corroded with time, but because of the special environment, they have been fused with other soil and stones, so they slowly form fossils.

Fossils are the remains of ancient organisms that are buried deep in the soil and last to form fossils after a long period of crustal movement over thousands of years.

There are two types of fossils, one is formed by the decomposition of the organic part of the body and the petrification of the hard part after the death of the organism on the earth. The other is the traces left by those creatures, which are formed by turning into stone after petrification. It takes hundreds of millions of years to form.

Archaeological scientists use carbon-14, tree ring correction, and thermoluminescence and other dating techniques, although there are many ways to measure the year, but each method has limitations and is not very accurate.

What is Fossil?

The first step in dating a fossil is to determine that the object of study is indeed a fossil. This phrase sounds weird, but it is. Because many of the things that are sent to scientists for analysis are not actually fossils, but look like fossils.

It may just be a notch on the rock, an uneven corrosion mark on the stone, or some strange-looking mineral on the rock, as if it once had life, because many people don't know how fossils are formed, and humans always want to recognize the shape they know, so there are always people who think that the stone they find may be a fossil.

Scientists often combine two annual measurements: relative annual and absolute annual. The relative annual measurement method refers to the ordering of fossils in order from oldest to youngest, and the absolute annual measurement method refers to determining the specific age of the object.

The earliest way to date ancient artifacts was to look at the rock formations they found inside. In order to determine accurately, each layer of soil is removed during the archaeological excavation, a process known as extraction, and archaeology is carried out in a very careful manner with the aim of providing the most accurate results.

Although there are many methods, the most accurate method is carbon-14 measurement, also known as radiocarbon dating, which is only effective for organisms that live between 58,000 and 62,000 years ago. By dating samples of organisms found in the vicinity of the original artifact, archaeologists will be able to know the chronology and history of the artifact. Organisms naturally absorb carbon-14 while they are alive, but when they die, they no longer absorb carbon-14.

Due to the burial of organic matter, the half-life of carbon-14 gradually decays over a half-life of 5000 years, and the frequency decreases. Measuring the exact amount of carbon-14 in a sample gives an approximation of the date the part was generated.

Each geological age has a representative stratum, and archaeologists can roughly determine the age of a fossil based on the stratum in which it is located. Secondly, it can also be judged by looking at the types of fossils excavated in the same period.

Archaeologists analyze the composition of fossils and then determine the characteristics of organisms through the composition, so that the fossil age can be finally determined.

It should be judged by the shape of the fossil and its veins.

After being buried by sediments, the biological remains or relics buried in the sediments were transformed by physical and chemical processes (often accompanied by mineral metasomatism and filling) to form fossils (Fig.

Figure Schematic diagram of the fossil formation process.

Organisms in nature are diverse and abundant, but not all dead creatures are preserved as fossils. The formation of paleontological fossils requires harsh conditions: first, the organism itself must have a hard body that is easy to be preserved, and the minerals that make up the hard body are relatively stable in diagenesis and petrification and are not easy to be decomposed; secondly, the organism is quickly buried by sediment after death, and its carcass is not swallowed by other animals and is not destroyed by external forces; Thirdly, the buried biological remains or relics should withstand the transformation of various geological processes without being destroyed, which mainly include high-pressure compaction and consolidation of overlying huge thick sediments, crystallization and metamorphism under geothermal high temperatures, tectonic deformation and groundwater hydrosomatism.

In the process of such complex geological processes, the vast majority of organisms and biological remains are destroyed, and only a very few survive to become fossils. The complete paleontological fossils that have been excavated are only a very small part of the biological kingdom that once lived on the earth, and the probability of being preserved as fossils is only about 1 in 10,000.

Paleontological fossils are the remains of animals that died in ancient times, and the flesh was decomposed and disappeared from the bones, but because they were buried by wind-blown sand sediments after years of silence, the animal remains eventually turned stone.

That's right. Very well written, a thumbs up.

(1) Organic matter must have hard parts, such as shells, bones, teeth, or woody tissue. However, under very favorable conditions, even very fragile organisms, such as insects or jellyfish, are able to turn into fossils.

2) Creatures must be avoided from destruction immediately after death. If a creature's body is partially crushed, decayed, or severely weathered, this may alter or eliminate the possibility of the organism becoming fossilized.

3) Organisms must be quickly buried by something that hinders decomposition. And the type of material that is buried usually depends on the environment in which the organism lives. The remains of marine animals are often fossilized because they die and sink to the bottom of the sea, covered in soft mud.

Soft mud becomes shale or limestone in later geological epochs. Fine-grained sediments are less likely to damage the remains of living organisms. In certain fine-grained sedimentary rocks of the Jurassic period in Germany, fossils of fragile organisms such as birds, insects, jellyfish, etc., are well preserved.

The process by which paleontological fossils are formed is called permineralization. Fossils here refer to fossils in the narrow sense and do not include non-mineralized "fossils" such as amber. The process of mineralisation is a slow process and many times requires opportunity.

After the death of the organism (plants, animals, etc.), the corpse is covered by soil or other things containing minerals, and in the process of decay, groundwater or other water seeps into the corpse, and a part of the inorganic salts dissolved in the water will slowly precipitate on the part of the organism that is not easy to be corrupted with the evaporation of water, accumulating into a layer of crystal shells, and these crystal shells will slowly thicken the branches and fill the original position of the entire corpse. It became a fossil.

In animals, there is no cell wall, so most of them only occur on bones that are more difficult to decay (fossils can also be produced on non-bones, but the relative chance is small, so most animal fossils are bone fossils). For plants, there are cell walls, so it is easier to produce whole fossils.

Paleontological fossils refer to the remains and activity remains of organisms formed and deposited in the strata during the prehistoric geological history of human beings, including fossils of plants, invertebrates, vertebrates and other fossils and their relict fossils. Paleontological fossils are witnesses to the history of the earth and are the scientific basis for studying the origin and evolution of organisms. Paleontological fossils are different from cultural relics, it is an important geological relic, and it is a valuable and non-renewable natural heritage of our country.

There are generally three types of this mineralisation:

Solidification

During the mineralization process, opal is formed mainly by inorganic salts of silicon. This is also the most common type of mineralisation.

Pyritization

The mineralisation is dominated by pyrrites. Pyrite is formed. This fossil is very beautiful, and many nautilus fossils are like that. Which trembles.

Carbonate mineralization

During the mineralization process, carbonates of calcium or magnesium are predominant, and fossils are produced called "coal balls". Plant fossils are the most common, and many of them are found in the Upper Carboniferous soils.

The formation of fossils depends mainly on two factors: the organism itself and the geological environment, if the organism itself is composed of mineral groups.

Hardened bodies, such as invertebrate shells and vertebrate bones, are often easily preserved as fossils;

On the other hand, mollusks are not easily preserved as fossils. A favorable geological environment refers to the rapid sedimentation of the remains.

Buried, protected from biological, mechanical and chemical damage.