Fossils as Evidence
Analyse and interpret data from fossils to provide evidence of organisms and environments that existed long ago
What a learner can do afterwards
- Explain that fossils are preserved remains or traces of organisms that lived long ago
- Use fossil evidence to make inferences about past organisms and their environments
- Describe how comparing fossils with living organisms helps us understand how life has changed
1 · Read
A fossil is more than an old bone in a rock. It is evidence, like a clue at a detective's scene. Traces like footprints count too. Shapes survive, but color almost never does. Scientists study fossils to work out what an organism looked like, how it moved, and what its world was like millions of years ago.
Ravi finds a fossil shell shaped like ones that live in the ocean today, but he finds it in a desert far from any sea. He compares the fossil to living ocean shells and sees they match closely. Ravi concludes: this desert was once covered by ocean water, long before it dried out.
When you study a fossil, ask two questions. What does it look like compared to living things today? And what would that living thing need to survive? Those answers are your evidence.
Fossils are evidence: compare them with living things to learn about ancient organisms and their environments.
The rewritten reading was written for this dataset.
More to read
The Pangea Puzzle
Scientists keep a giant online list of fossil finds from all over the world. They can use it to make maps showing where certain fossils are found today. Then they draw a different map, one that shows what Earth looked like long ago when all the continents were squished together into one huge landmass called Pangea.
Some of the very same kinds of fossils turn up on continents that are now far apart, like Africa and South America. That is a big clue. If the same ancient plant or animal left fossils on both continents, those continents were probably connected once, so the animal could walk or spread across the land without crossing an ocean.
By comparing where fossils are found now to where the continents used to sit, scientists build evidence for how the map of Earth has changed over millions and millions of years.
Rock layers made by tiny living things
Before plants and animals appeared, tiny living things lived on Earth. You would need a microscope to see them. Some formed thin mats along the seabed.
The mats trapped sediment, and minerals built up around them. This made layered, sometimes rounded and bumpy rocks called stromatolites. Ancient examples around 3.5 billion years old are among Earth's earliest signs of life.
These tiny creatures left no bones or footprints. Instead, the layers they helped build preserve evidence that life was there.
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2 · Watch
En anglaisTake it off screen
Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
24 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.