Learning about Fossils

The Grade 7 had a short workshop on Fossils as a part of their Ecology class.  The speaker talked about the process of fossilization and excavation. He showed a slideshow with local sites in Tamil Nadu where fossils have been found. The children got to see, hold and touch the different types of fossils. They also had a fun activity where they recreated the fossilization process.  

Here is a write up by the students:

A fossil is any preserved remains, impression, trace of any dead organism buried underground. There are many types of ways in which fossils form:

·        Impression Fossils – Where the organism or its part, trace or trail rots and only its impression remains and gets fossilized.

·         Petrification – o   Animal -  When an animal dies it falls in the water. It settles in the layer of the sediment, then it gets embedded. Then it is covered by sediment. Over the ages, it gets fossilized. It takes at least 10,000 years or more for it to become a fossil.  Water is essential for fossilization.

o   Plant – The plant falls on the sediment layer, then it settles and gets embedded.

·         Compression fossils – fossils which have got compressed like coal

·         Freezing – A fossil preserved in ice

·         Amberization – Amber is a resin which a plant sends out in times when a plant is wounded. If an organism sits on it , it’ll get stuck and the resin will harden capturing the organism in it.

How to excavate a fossil

·         Remove the overburden

·         Take out the fossil with a curved hammer at 45o angle

·         Brush off the dust on it

·         Plastering – cover one side with plaster

·         Jacketing – Plastering from all sides

·         Labeling - Labeling the fossil

-  By Shahana Shameer, Safwan Samsudeen & Abdullah Ibrahim, Grade 7