Fossils & Earth's Changing Story

Dinoling — Fossils & Earth's Changing Story Buried Bone Catacombs

Dinoling here. We've reached our imaginary Buried Bone Catacombs.

The Grumblies mixed records from different times. Let's compare them carefully.

A place's present appearance may hide a very different past.

Places on land today may once have been under water.

Fossils and surrounding rocks can preserve clues about those earlier environments.

Our case shows marine fossils in rock now on a hill.

Marine means connected with the sea.

These fossils support a past marine environment for that rock layer.

Later changes can raise rock or change where shorelines lie.

Earth's crust moves, sea level changes, and erosion reshapes land.

The changes may happen across very long periods.

We don't need to imagine sea animals climbing a modern hill!

The fossils formed in earlier conditions; the landscape changed later.

Their location in the rock is part of the evidence.

Extinction means a kind of organism has no living members left.

Moving to another place isn't the same as becoming extinct.

Missing fossils in one layer don't prove extinction everywhere.

Remember that many organisms never become fossils.

An organism might have lived somewhere without leaving preserved evidence.

Some rock records have also been removed by erosion.

Scientists compare evidence from many places and times.

That's more patient work than making a claim from one gap.

First, organisms live in a marine environment.

Some evidence of that life becomes preserved within rock.

Later Earth changes leave that rock exposed on a hill.

This outline fits our case without inventing every missing detail.

Which explains marine fossils in this hill's rock layer?

A past marine setting followed by change, or sea animals climbing?

A past marine setting followed by change fits the evidence.

You compared past conditions with today's landscape. Excellent observation!

Does one layer without a fossil prove that organism went extinct?

No. Missing evidence in one place isn't proof of global extinction.

Fossils and rocks can reveal environments different from today's landscape.

Extinction means no living members of that kind remain.

Compare multiple records before explaining a gap in the fossil record.

Our records tell a changing-Earth story. The Grumblies overlooked time!

I'll be beside you as we investigate the adventure's final clues.

Train more, start this adventure, or choose another map destination.

Free Fossils & Earth's Changing Story teacher guide and practice (PDF)