Why are Fossils important?
People consider the past as a mystery and the only way to know about the past is to ‘dig it up,. Fossil is commonly called ‘fossus, in Latin which means ‘having been dug up,. Fossils are the only evidence on which scientist and paleontologists use to study past life. They are the remains of plants and animals which have been preserved and other living organisms of the past. The overall number of fossil, discovered and still hidden is termed to as fossil record.
There are many theories about the evolution of life on earth and the fossils of long ago may hold the answer to these theories. Fossilization in itself is considered rare and unique in its own way. Since things tend to decompose with time, fossilized organisms are considered priceless to modern science.
There had been many discoveries with the help of fossils and the most popular of them are the existence of ‘Dinosaurs,. The word came from the Greek words ‘deinos,, which means terrible or fearfully great and ‘sauros, meaning lizard. These great lizards are believed to have walked the earth million of years ago and left their mark in history as fossils.
Fossils are not limited to animals, plants can also be fossilized, feces (organic wastes) and even ‘foot prints,. Paleontologist view fossils like ‘books, that holds vast amount of knowledge waiting to be unlocked. Whenever a new fossil is dug up and new species is discovered, it slowly completes the puzzle on how life on earth begun over thousand and even millions of years ago.
Paleontologist can determine these changes in the environment by analyzing the fossils and determining how old they really are. Scientists believes that the world in early times is composed of one big continent, that later broke up into different continents and islands. Fossils had proved that previous desserts where once oceans and oceans where once part of the land. Through these discoveries, scientists may be able to predict the geographical changes that might happen in the future.
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