What are fossils and how do they form?
Stone Memory
What are fossils and how do they form?
Deep in the rock, something is waiting. It looks like stone, but it has a shape — a curl, a tooth, a leaf, a bone. It's a fossil: a message left behind by something that was alive a very, very long time ago. The strange part? Most of the original creature is gone. What you're looking at is mostly rock pretending to be a bone.
Let's start at the worst possible moment for a creature — the end. Most animals that die simply vanish. Scavengers eat them, bacteria break them down, weather scatters the rest. To become a fossil, you need a lucky accident. You need to get buried fast, before anything can finish you off.
