Fossils

Fossils, for those who don't know, is an identification event similar to rocks and minerals, herpetology, bugs, tree, etc. In doing this event, you will become (hopefully) experts on identifying various fossilized animals and plants, along with being able to determine the environment it lived in, its mode of life, how it formed, and other things. Let's start with the basics.

Fossil Formation
There are several types of fossils. These are:


 * External Molds: Imprints of the organism embedded in rocks.


 * Casts: These are formed when external molds are filled with sediment.


 * Internal molds: These occur when sediment fills the shell of a deceased organism, such as a bivalve or a gastropod. These remain after the organism's remains decompose.


 * Trace fossils: Trace fossils are fossils that aren't exactly part of the organism. These include footprints, burrows, eggshells, and my personal favorite, coprolite (or fossilized excrement).They give insight into an organism's behavior.


 * Actual remains: These are much rarer than other fossil types. These are still intact parts of the organism. Actual remains can be seen preserved in ice, tar, or amber. A good example is mammoth hair. It is often frozen and still preserved.

Fossils can only form in sedimentary rocks. In metamorphic or igneous, the extreme heat and pressure needed to form them destroys the fossilizing organisms, or warps it beyond recognition. When an organism dies, if the conditions are right, it becomes covered in sediments, which, after being subjected to pressure, become rock. This takes a very long time, and the actual organism decomposes by then. A soft organism (like a worm or jellyfish) does not get fossilized (usually) because it decomposes too fast. Only the hard parts (skeletons and teeth) remain long enough to keep the imprint in the rock while the rock is forming.

Fossil Environments
Fossils form (for the most part) in bodies of water, because that's where sedimentation occurs. Fossilization needs to occur in places where the dead organism won't be disturbed, so a place in the ocean devoid of wave activity is required.

Modes of life
Different animals have different modes of life (these generally refer to oceanic dwellers, which makes up a bulk of the list). Here are some terms you need to know:


 * Pelagic: Free swimming, such as fish or scallops (scallops "swim" by flapping their shells. It's kinda cool).


 * Sessile. Rooted to the floor. Examples include crinoids (sea lilies) and sea anemones.


 * Benthic: Lives on the sea floor, e.g crabs, lobsters, crinoids.


 * Vagrant: Free swimming, same as pelagic.

Geologic Time
Earth's history is broken up several ways. The largest sections are Eons. There are two; the Precambrian Eon (before 540 mya (million years ago) and the Phanerozoic (540 mya to present). Not much is know about the Precambrian, because all of the life forms lacked hard shells or skeletons, making preservation very unlikely. There are, however, rare fossils called stromatolites that show indications of bacteria. The Phanerozoic Eon is when shelled invertebrates began to emerge, and the fossil record began.

Next, it's split into Eras. Eras are divided based on the dominant life forms at that time. The Paleozoic (meaning "ancient animals", from 540 mya to 243 mya) was dominated by marine invertebrates. Reptiles dominated the Mesozoic (middle animals) Era (from 243 mya to 65 mya), and mammals dominate the Cenozoic Era (65 mya to present, meaning "recent animals"). We are living in the Cenozoic Era now.

The most important breakdown (for the event, at least) are periods. Each era is broken down into periods. They are distinguished from each other by certain species that lived only in that period, called index fossils. More on that later. First up, we have the periods of the Paleozoic:


 * Cambrian: (540 mya to 505 mya) The first period, this is when marine invertebrates start to emerge.


 * Ordovician: (505 mya to 438 mya) Primitive fish start to form. Index fossil is the trilobite genus Cryptolithus.


 * Silurian:(438mya to 408 mya) Early land animals began to emerge.


 * Devonian: ( 498 mya yo 360 mya) First forests and amphibians form. Index fossils include Mucrospirifer (brachiopod genus) and Phacops (trilobite genus).


 * Mississipian: (360 mya to 320 mya) Widespread shallow seas form.


 * Pennsylvanian: ( 320 mya to 286 mya) Coal bearing rocks form.


 * Permian: ( 286 mya to 245 mya) Earliest gymnosperms (cone bearing trees).

Next come the Mesozoic periods. It was during this time that reptiles dominated.


 * Triassic: ( 245 mya to 208 mya) First dinosaurs and earliest mammals.


 * Jurassic: ( 208 mya to 144 mya) Earliest birds.


 * Cretaceous:(144 mya to 65 mya) Flowering plants (angiosperms) develop.

Last are the periods of the Cenozoic. The periods in the Cenozoic differ from the other two eras by being broken down even further in epochs.


 * Tertiary: Apes begin to appear. It is broken down into epochs:
 * Paleocene (65 mya to 58 mya)
 * Eocene: (58 mya to 37 mya) further development of mammals.
 * Oligocene: (37 mya to 24 mya) Rise of true carnivores
 * Miocene: (24 mya to 5 mya) Grasses and grazing animals develop.
 * Pliocene: (5 mya to 2 mya) First modern animals


 * Quarternary: Humans appear and develop. This is the period we are still in today.
 * Pleistocene: (2 mya to 10,000 ya): First humans.
 * Holocene: (10,000 ya to present): The epoch in which we live today.

And who knows? Maybe another type of animal will dominate us and another era will be born. You never know.

Index Fossils
Index fossils are fossils of organisms that lived only in one period. They developed near the beginning of the period, and became extinct before the end. Note that this refers to genera or species, not entire classes or families. Index fossils are extremely useful for dating rock. They cant be used to tell absolute age (we need carbon-14 testing for that), but we use them for relative dating. By comparing two rock outcrops with the same index fossil, we can conclude that they are roughly the same age, (give or take several million years, which, in the span of Earth's 4.6 billion year, is not much).

There's not much else I can write now without the list of event description. I'm gonna have to wait, it looks like. I hope this helps right now, and if you know something that I don't, or forgot to add, feel free to put it in. Good luck with fossils!