How Fossils support the theory of evolution
Paleontologists have recovered and studied the fossil remains of many thousands of organisms that lived in the past. This fossil record shows that many kinds of extinct organisms were very different in form from any now living. It also shows successions of organisms through time (see faunal succession, law of; geochronology: Determining the relationships of fossils with rock strata), manifesting their transition from one form to another.
When an organism dies, it is usually destroyed by other forms of life and by weathering processes. On rare occasions some body parts—particularly hard ones such as shells, teeth, or bones—are preserved by being buried in mud or protected in some other way from predators and weather. Eventually, they may become petrified and preserved indefinitely with the rocks in which they are embedded. Methods such as radiometric dating—measuring the amounts of natural radioactive atoms that remain in certain minerals to determine the elapsed time since they were constituted—make it possible to estimate the time period when the rocks, and the fossils associated with them, were formed.
"Evolution." Britannica School, Encyclopædia Britannica, 22 Aug. 2018. school-eb-com-au.db.plcscotch.wa.edu.au/levels/high/article/evolution/106075.
Fossils 101
National Geographic. (2019, August 22). Fossils 101. National Geographic. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=bRuSmxJo_iA&feature=emb_logo
Evolution: The Evidence
Twig. (n.d.) Evolution the Evidence. Retrieved from https://www-twig-world-com.db.plcscotch.wa.edu.au/film/evolution-the-evidence-1142/
How are Fossils formed
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Australian Museum. (2020). How are fossils formed? Retrieved from https://australian.museum/learn/australia-over-time/fossils/how-are-fossils-formed/#:~:text=Fossils%20are%20formed%20in%20different,top%20and%20hardens%20into%20rock.https://australian.museum/learn/australia-over-time/fossils/how-are-fossils-formed/#:~:text=Fossils%20are%20formed%20in%20different,top%20and%20hardens%20into%20rock.
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Castro. J. (2015). How do Fossils Form? Retrieved from https://www.livescience.com/37781-how-do-fossils-form-rocks.html
When animals, plants and other organisms die, they typically decay completely. But sometimes, when the conditions are just right, they're preserved as fossils -
ScienceViews.com (2008). The Formation of Fossils. Retrieved from http://scienceviews.com/dinosaurs/fossilformation.html
Fossils are the record of life preserved in monuments of stone. Almost all living organisms can leave fossils, but usually only the hard parts of plants and animals fossilize.
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Oxford University Museum of Natural History. (2006). How Do Fossils Forms. Retrieved from https://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/thezone/fossils/intro/form.htm
When an animal or plant dies its remains usually rot away to nothing. Sometimes though, when the conditions are just right and its remains can be buried quickly, it may be fossilised. There are several different ways fossils are formed. Here we go through the five steps of fossilisation to make a typical 'mould and cast' fossil.
