How do you date fossils?
Sometimes, dead creatures are found buried under volcanic ash. The ash sometimes contains radioactive substances that scientists can date. Hence, they can work out the time when the animals lived.
What is carbon dating?
Plants and animals absorb and give out carbon-14 while they are alive, so the percantage of carbon-14 in their tissues stays constant. When they die, the percentage of trapped carbon-14 reduces as the nuclide decays by beta emission. By measuring the activity of the carbon-14 present in dead plant or animal tissues, it is possible to estimate their age from a decay curve. This is known as carbon dating, and it is one of the methods used by archaeologists to determine the age of ancient remains.
What was piltdown man?
Some bones, thought to be fossils of an early human ancestor, were discovered at Plitdown Common, England, between 1910 and 1912. But Plitdown man was a fake. The skull was human, but the jawbone came from an orang-utan.
What can scientists learn from fossils?
From the study of fossils- know as palaeontology- scientists can learn about how living thing evolved on Earth. Fossils can also help palaeontologists to date rocks. This is because some species lived for only short period on Earth. So, if the fossils of these creatures are found in rocks in different places, the rocks must have been formed at the same time. Such fossils are called index fossils. Important index fossils include species of trilobites, graptolites, brachipods, crinoids, ammonites and belemnites.
How were petrified logs performed?
Petrified logs formed when water replaced the molecules in buried logs with minerals. Slowly, stones replicas of the log were produced.
What are trilobite fossils?
Trilobites were common animals that lived in the sea in the Paleozoic era.