Natural Sciences and Technology Grade 5-B ... - Thunderbolt Kids

ock. The layers of the shale split apart and he sees the shape of a
leaf or an animal in the rock. The shape is called afossil.
All over the world, people find fossils of leaves and bones in the
layers of sedimentary rock. These leaves and bones came from
plants and animals that lived millions of years ago. They were not
like the plants and animals we see today.
Fossils are rock shapes of dead plants and animals
A fossil is not the real leaf or bone you see; the rock has kept the
shape of the leaf or the bone. This rock shape is called a fossil.
Below you can see aphoto of afossil of the head of adinosaur,
and the next image shows you what scientists think this dinosaur
looked like.
The fossil shape of the head of
Massospondylus, a dinosaur that
lived in the eastern Free State
about 200 million years ago. 1
Paleontologists think that
Massospondylus looked like this. 2
This fossil of the dinosaur’s head is not the actual bones, but it is
actually now a rock in the shape of the dinosaurs bones. Over
millions of years, the bones turned into rock. So, a fossil is the
remains of an ancient plant or animal which has been preserved in
a rock. Most of the organisms that paleontologists study are now
extinct. This means that they are no longer alive today.
Why are fossils so important?
The Earth's past is fascinating to us! Imagine being around when
all the dinosaurs were walking on Earth. As humans, we want to
find out about Life's History on Earth.
Chapter 4. Fossils
VISIT
Find out how
scientists use fossils to
recreate dinosaurs.
(video)
goo.gl/uKzeQ
VISIT
Early dinosaur
evolution. (video)
goo.gl/tWnJe
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