FOSSILS
A fossil is any trace of an ancient form of life. Do you
know how fossils are formed? When plants and animals die, their remains decay.
However, the hard parts of their body, such as the bones, do not decompose
quickly. They are sometimes buried in muddy swamps, or in the sandy sediments
at the bottom of the sea. Over millions of years, the sediments harden into
rock, and the bones become fossils. Wind, water and ice may strip away the
layers of rock over the years, and the fossils are then exposed.
Fossils are among the most valuable sources of information
about the earth’s history. They tell us about the organisms that lived on earth
from the time of the oldest fossils, about 3.8 billion years ago, to the
present. By studying fossils, we can learn not only about the creatures and
plants of the distant past, but how they grew, what they ate, how they
interacted, and many aspects of their behaviour.
No comments :
Post a Comment