Week of January 26

Pictured above is a 1 meter long ice core with a dark ash layer - where do you think this ash came from?  How do scientists use ice cores to explain past climates and environmental conditions?

Fossil Types

Preserved Remains - this type of fossil is the most informational for scientists!!  Most or all of the organism is preserved usually in ice, amber, or tar and asphalt.  See some examples below:

The Iceman - Otzi - he was found frozen in the Alps near Austria and Italy.  He is over 3, 000 years old!

37,000 year old Baby Lyuba - Woolly Mammoth found in 2007

May 2013 - female woolly mammoth found in Siberia with actual liquid blood in veins and fur - approx. 39,000 years old

Preserved Remains in amber

Preserved Remains in tar or asphalt

Trace Fossil - a trace fossil is something left behind by the animal; for example a footprint, a nest, even their poop!

Dinosaur Footprints

Mold and Cast Fossils - these fossils are created when the hard parts like shells of an organism make an imprint in mainly sedimentary rock.  Below is a nautilus shell mold and cast fossil

Carbon Film - these fossils are created when organisms - ferns are very popular finds - are pressed between rock squeezing carbon from the organism creating a "picture" of it on the rock.  Below are ferns that have been carbon-pressed!

Petrified - these fossils are created  - wood is popular - when the tissue of the organism is replaced by chemicals turning it to stone basically.

Links for written assignments:

Ice Cores Video

Ice Core Basics

Climate at the Core

How Has Life Changed Over Geologic Time?

What Stories Do Rocks Tell?

Links for Exploration

Bill Nye Fossils Video

Animation of how a fossil can form

Animation of how an unconformity can form

Evolving Planet Interactive

Big Idea: The evidence of dynamic change of the Earth's surface through time is found in the geologic record.

I can explain:

1.  What the principle of uniformitarianism is and how its applies to geological events

2. What fossils can tell us about the Earth's history

3.  What type of rock we find fossils in

4.  What are types of fossils

5.  What  ice cores can tell us about climate

6.  What factors have affected the diversity of life over time

7.  How scientists use relative to date rock layers

8.  What 5 ways rock layers can be disturbed?

9.  What the laws of superposition, and crosscutting relationships are and how they are applied to relative dating

Question:  Study the geologic column diagram below - order the layers from oldest to youngest? (Hint: you really better do this question...hint, hint!!!)

Question:  Study the layers in the column below - when did the mass extinction occur?