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How Palaeontologists Work

Science · Dinosaurs & Paleontology · ages 9-11

Name ______________________ Date ____________

Why do palaeontologists dig with small brushes and picks instead of big tools?
- To finish the dig more quickly
- To avoid cracking or breaking the fragile fossil
- Because shovels are too expensive to buy
What is the very first step in finding a fossil, before any digging happens?
- Prospecting, searching exposed rock for bone
- Jacketing the fossil in plaster
- Publishing a scientific paper about it
Plaster jacketing means wrapping a fossil in plaster to keep it safe during transport.
Circle one: True False
Count the main stages: prospecting, excavation, jacketing, transport, preparation, study, display. How many stages is that?
Answer: ______________
A team just found bones sticking out of a cliff. What should they do next?
- Ship the bones straight to a museum
- Write a scientific paper about them
- Start careful excavation with small hand tools
Why do scientists wrap a fossil in a plaster jacket before moving it?
- To protect it from breaking on the bumpy trip to the lab
- To make the fossil heavier so it won't blow away
- To clean all the rock off before it leaves the site
After a fossil is cleaned and prepared in the lab, what usually happens before it can go on display?
- The lab throws it away once cleaning is done
- It goes straight back to the excavation site
- Scientists study it and describe it in a published paper
A student says a fossil hunter could just pull a bone straight out of a cliff by hand to save time. What is wrong with this plan?
- Nothing is wrong, pulling it out by hand is the fastest safe way
- Careful digging with small tools is needed, or the fragile fossil could crack
- Bones stop being fragile once they turn to rock

Answer key

For grown-ups. Fold this page away before handing over the rest.

How Palaeontologists Work W1-mt_JBWMqZVO7S-s1

To avoid cracking or breaking the fragile fossil · Fossils are fragile. Small tools let diggers clear rock away without damaging the bone underneath.
Prospecting, searching exposed rock for bone · Prospecting comes first. Palaeontologists have to spot a fossil in the rock before they can do anything else with it.
True · That is exactly what a plaster jacket does. It works like a cast on a broken arm, protecting the fossil on the move.
7 · Go through the list one by one without skipping: there are 7 stages.
Start careful excavation with small hand tools · Excavation comes right after prospecting. Jumping to the later steps risks losing or damaging the fossil.
To protect it from breaking on the bumpy trip to the lab · The jacket acts like a cast, holding the fossil together so it survives the journey in one piece.
Scientists study it and describe it in a published paper · Study and description come after preparation and before display. Scientists need to understand what they found first.
Careful digging with small tools is needed, or the fragile fossil could crack · Fossilised bone is still brittle. Pulling it out without careful digging risks shattering something that took millions of years to form.