Fossils and Geologic Time - Student Lesson Outline 

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What Is A Fossil?

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-to-fossilize-yourself-phoebe-a-cohen

You can aspire to great things in life, but how about in death? Could you be one of the world's greatest fossils many years from now? To ensure being found by a future paleontologist, you'll need to die in a highly specific way (think within tree sap or on the bottom of the ocean floor), and nature takes care of the rest. Phoebe A. Cohen details the steps your body must take to find future fame as a fossil.

Lesson by Phoebe A. Cohen, animation by Anton Bogaty.

How to fossilize...yourself - Phoebe A. Cohen

Dinosaurs! Fossils! The American Museum of Natural History! In this episode of The Dinosaur Show we travel to the world famous American Museum of Natural History in New York City to take a closer look at some amazing fossils as we attempt to answer the question, How Does a Dinosaur Become a Fossil?!

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The Dinosaur Show is Written & Hosted by Dustin Growick
The Dinosaur Show is Produced, Shot, and Edited by Zaza Weissgerber

PREHISTORIC ANIMALS: Allosaurus, Barosaurus, Apatosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex), Oviraptor, Triceratops, Anatotitan, Stegosaurus, 

KEY VOCAB: Taphonomy, Permineralization, Replacement, Thalassomedon, Stupendemys, Prestosuchus, Cryptocleidus, Body Fossil, Trace Fossil, Coprolite, Cladogram. 

ENORMOUS THANKS to Brian Levine and Aubrey Miller, and to my countless friends and colleagues across departments at AMNH.

Intro Music: "Call to Adventure" by Kevin MacLeod/Incompetech
Thank You Music: "Buddy" by Benjamin Tissont/Bensound
Dance Party Song: "Nutrition Facts" Izzy Weissgerber/Shoutbox
Dinosuar Herd Video: Walking With Dinosaurs 3D (2013) - Patchi and Alex (Courtesy 20th Century Fox)
Taphonony Video: Walking With Dinosaurs 3D (2013) - Patchi and Alex (Courtesy 20th Century Fox)

Other great dinosaur videos on YouTube:

It's Okay to Be Smart — Did Dinosaurs Really Go Extinct? — youtube.com/watch?v=3_RLz0whDv4
SciShow — Will We Ever Run Out of Dinosaurs? — youtube.com/watch?v=Cnb7LdKablY
Dinologue — The Jurassic Park Question — youtube.com/watch?v=cV0ULUKGBDA

#AMNH #AmericanMuseumofNaturalHistory #JurassicPark #JurassicWorld #museum #dinosaurs #dinosaur #trex #paleontology #STEM #science #education #museumed

How does a dinosaur become a fossil?

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For decades, one of the most abundant kinds of fossils on Earth, numbering in the millions of specimens, was a mystery to paleontologists. But geologists discovered that these mysterious fossils could basically be used to tell time in the deep past.

Thanks as always to Nobumichi Tamura for allowing us to use his wonderful paleoart: http://spinops.blogspot.com/

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References:
Agematsu S, Uesugi K, Hiroyoshi S, Sashida K. 2017. Reconstruction of the multielement apparatus of the earliest Triassic conodont, Hindeodus parvus, using synchotron radiation X-ray micro-tomography. Journal of Paleontology.
https://doi.org/10.1017/jpa.2017.61
Briggs DEG, Clarkson ENK, Aldridge, RL. 1983. The conodont animal. Lethaia 16: 1-14.
doi: 10.1111/j.1502-3931.1983.tb01993.x
Dzik J. 1991. Evolution of oral apparatuses in the conodont chordates. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 36(3): 265-323.
https://app.pan.pl/archive/published/app36/app36-265.pdf
Goudemand N, Orchard MJ, Urdy S, Bucher H, Tafforeau P. 2011. Synchotron-aided reconstruction of the conodont feeding apparatus and implications for the mouth of the first vertebrates. PNAS 108(21): 8720-8724.
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/21/8720
Purnell MA, Donoghue PC. 1997. Architecture and functional morphology of the skeletal apparatus of ozarkodinid conodonts. Philosophical Transations of the Royal Society B 352: 1545-1564.
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.1997.0141
Purnell MA, Donoghue PC. 1998. Skeletal architecture, homologies and taphonomy of ozarkodinid conodonts. Palaeontology 41(1): 57-102.
https://www.palass.org/sites/default/files/media/publications/palaeontology/volume_41/vol41_part1_pp57-102.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273457548_Conodonts_from_the_Carnian-Norian_Boundary_Upper_Triassic_of_Black_Bear_Ridge_northeastern_British_Columbia_Canada_New_Mexico_Museum_of_Natural_History_and_Science_Bulletin_64_1-139_2014
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/rhaetian

The Most Useful Fossils in the World

The theory of evolution states that individuals within a species show wide degrees of variation, and those individuals with characteristics best suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. This theory grew from studying the variations and similarities in living animals and plants, but also, very importantly, by studying fossils. 

The study of the number and placement of fossils within certain types and areas of rock is known as the  fossil record. This record gives us an indication of the types of animals and plants that existed in the past, from many millions of years ago, right up until around 10 000 years ago. 

Fossils of single celled organisms such as cyanobacteria from Australia have been found in rocks that are more than 3.5 billion years old! Palaeontologists are people who study fossils. By comparing fossilised body structures and fossilised tracks of movement, they painstakingly piece together the story of how animals and plants have changed and evolved over time. 

Importantly, by comparing fossils from different species, palaeontologists can look for similarities in structure, to try and work out which species are related to which others. This work has enabled scientists to visualise how some species have evolved from others. 

The discovery of “transitional” fossils has greatly assisted palaeontologists’ understanding of how evolutionary processes occur. For example, in 1998 scientists found a 370 million year old fossilised fish with a hand-like fin, suggesting a transition from sea dwelling creatures to land. Meanwhile the discovery of transitional reptile fossils with mammal-like jaw bones has enabled palaeontologists to date the emergence of early mammals to about 245 million years ago. Mammals did therefore live alongside the dinosaurs. 

Fossil evidence even has allowed us to identify where humans and chimpanzees went their separate ways. Our last common ancestor lived about 5-7 million years ago. Since that time fossils of over 20 hominid species have been discovered! 

Tracing the lineage of plant and animal species using the fossil record is not an exact science. The lack of transitional fossils makes this all the harder, leading to significant “gaps” in the fossil record. Because the formation of fossils is a rare event, many transitional species have just not formed fossils. However, as new fossils are being discovered all the time, we can expect at least some of these gaps to be eventually filled.

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Fossils & Evidence For Evolution | Evolution | Biology | FuseSchool

Skeletons of ancient animals sometimes become fossilized. But if this happened to every animal that ever lived, wouldn’t we be swimming in a sea of fossils right now? BrainStuff explains why only a fraction of animal bones turn into fossils.

Learn more at HowStuffWorks.com:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/fossil.htm

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Hey Brainstuff -- it’s me, Jonathan. You know, sometimes in a lull between events at CES I’m digging a six-foot hole in the middle of the desert outside Las Vegas and I start to wonder: Where are all the dead animals? Shouldn’t we be wading knee-deep in fossils every time we go outside? 

You can probably guess that not every animal that dies leaves behind fossil evidence. 

But why is that? 

Just to get our terms straight, a fossil is any physical remnant left behind by an organism that died long ago. In many cases, fossils might only be things like preserved footprints or nest sites. But today, we’re looking at direct remains of animal bodies, like bones. 

The likelihood that any particular animal body will become fossilized is amazingly small, way less than 1%. You might as well buy a lottery ticket.

So let’s look at the stations of the obstacle course to fossilization:

First, there’s body type. Fossilization has a strong preference for animals with hard body parts, like bones, teeth and shells. Animals with soft bodies, like slugs and jellyfish, will usually just decompose completely and disappear after death.

The second main hurdle to fossilization is exposure. To become a fossil, you need to be one of the rare animal bodies that is rapidly buried soon after the animal dies. This is most likely to happen in or near the site of a moving body of water, like a river or a flood plain, where runoff, floodwaters or regular flow may quickly cover a dead body in sediment. 

It might also happen in arid desert settings, where wind can quickly bury animal remains in sand dunes. If the remains are not rapidly buried, scavenging animals are likely to scatter and consume them -- after all, nature hates to pass up a free lunch. We're alike in that way. And even a clean skeleton left out exposed to the elements will eventually be erased by decalcification, erosion and corrosion. 

But let’s say your bones are lucky enough to be rapidly buried somehow. The next big hurdle is the sediment itself. A nice dry sand or alkaline mud might be a good place to become a fossil. But if your bones are buried in soil with a higher temperature and higher acidity, your prospects are a lot slimmer. 

Acidic environments (meaning soils with a low pH) tend to dissolve hydroxyapatite -- a calcium phosphate mineral that is a main structural ingredient in our bones. So, many soil types on Earth will simply destroy all the bones they swallow.

I'm counting on it. (I kid, I kid)

But even in friendly sediment, over a long enough period of time, bones can break down. The organic proteins in bones, like collagen, eventually decompose, and the inorganic minerals in bones can be crushed, dissolved or otherwise destroyed by physical forces over the centuries. 

So if you want your actual bone structure to survive, you have to be lucky enough to undergo a little transformation. Most really ancient bones we find, such as dinosaur bones, aren’t the unaltered, original bones that were buried millions of years ago, but either minerally modified versions of those bones, or “stone photocopies.” 

Two processes represent the majority of these cases: permineralization, and replacement. 

In permineralization, mineral-rich water seeps into the buried bones and fills the pores of the bones with its mineral content. These minerals form crystals inside the bones, causing them to modify and harden over time. Sometimes this process is also called “petrification.” 

In “replacement,” the original bones can be completely dissolved, but still leave fossil copies, as the minerals in the groundwater completely replace the shape of the bones over long periods of time. 

So let’s say you’re the rare dead animal that wins the fossilization lottery, and you just happen to pass ALL these tests? You still have to be found. 

The total surface of the Earth is almost 200 million square miles, and even for a guy like me, there’s only so much time to dig. 

SOURCES:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-are-the-odds-of-a-de/

http://www.livescience.com/37781-how-do-fossils-form-rocks.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/fossils

https://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/taphonomy-what-happens-to-bones-after-death/

http://www.weather.com/science/news/flesh-bone-what-role-weather-plays-body-decomposition-20131031

http://www.donaldprothero.com/files/47440594.pdf

Why Don't All Skeletons Become Fossils?

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By looking at the layers beneath our feet, geologists have been able to identify and describe crucial episodes in life’s history. These key events frame the chapters in the story of life on earth and the system we use to bind all these chapters together is the Geologic Time Scale. 

Thanks to Studio 252mya for their illustrations. You can find more of their work here: https://252mya.com/licensing

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References:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/steno.html
http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/histgeol/steno/steno.htm
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/47/14518.full.pdf
http://www.stratigraphy.org/ICSchart/ChronostratChart2013-01.pdf
https://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/25/9/pdf/i1052-5173-25-9-38.pdf
http://www.strata-smith.com/?page_id=279
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/history-of-geology/march-30-1759-the-four-layers-of-earth/
http://earthscienceshistory.org/doi/pdf/10.17704/eshi.31.2.c2q4076006wn7751
http://www.le.ac.uk/gl/ads/SiberianTraps/AreaVolume.html
https://books.google.com/books?id=rmrGS9s-KewC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://palaeoblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/born-this-day-giovanni-arduino.html
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n1/full/ngeo1649.html?foxtrotcallback=true
http://www.pnas.org/content/95/19/11028.full
http://humanorigins.si.edu/human-characteristics/walking-upright
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/10/scientists-may-have-found-earliest-evidence-life-earth
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130117084856.htm
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vendian/ediacaran.php
http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/science/origin/04-cambrian-explosion.php
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/28jan_extinction
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2017/20170612-falklands-impact-crater.html
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/1/l_031_01.html
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080521131541.htm
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-beguiling-history-of-bees-excerpt/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/asteroid-killed-dinosaurs/
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/eocene.php
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/geology/article-abstract/36/3/251/29681/cooling-and-ice-growth-across-the-eocene-oligocene?redirectedFrom=fulltext
https://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/G204/lectures/204grass.html
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/sahelanthropus-tchadensis-ten-years-after-the-disocvery-2449553/
https://www.livescience.com/40311-pleistocene-epoch.html
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/49/20641.full
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_04
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/steno.html
Steno, N. (1916). 1669: De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus. Florence, 78p.
Hancock, Paul L; Skinner, Brian J, Oxford Companion to the Earth, Oxford University Press, 2000
http://www.nature.com/news/anthropocene-the-human-age-1.17085
Addition to image credits: some footage from this episode is from VideoBlocks.com

A Brief History of Geologic Time

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What would it look like if we took Earth's 4.5 billion year history, and stuffed it into a normal day's 24 hour time-frame? Follow the magnificent journey of life; where it began, and how it eventually led to humanity as we know it. 

Written and created by Mitchell Moffit (twitter @mitchellmoffit) and Gregory Brown (twitter @whalewatchmeplz). Inspired by the book "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. 

TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/AsapSCIENCE
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Music by Mitchell Moffit
http://www.mitchellmoffit.com
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Gregory Brown
http://www.gregorybrownart.tumblr.com
http://www.twitter.com/whalewatchmeplz

Some Sources -

1) A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson

Specific Life Timelines:

2) http://bit.ly/dtytk (New Scientist)
3) http://bit.ly/xwUh7m (Wikipedia)
4) http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/history_of_the_earth (BBC)

The Evolution of Life on Earth

Fossils and Geologic Time - Student Presentation 

Fossils and Geologic Time - Teaching Presentation 

Fossils and Geologic Time - Exit Ticket

Fossils and Geologic Time is a lesson by Teach Science with Fergy, containing engaging videos, presentations and activities to help develop students' science knowledge.

Fossils and Geologic Time - Student Lesson Outline

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