Fossil Hunting Information
Fossil hunting is an enchanting pastime loved by families and people of all ages and levels of experience all through the year. With just just a little time spent learning the fundamentals anyone can benefit from the thrill of finding evidence of prehistoric creatures and the environments they lived in. The following web page offers some guidance to getting started, including the most effective places to look and techniques for fossil hunting effectively and safely.
The trendy use of the word ‘fossil’ refers back to the physical evidence of prehistoric life that is preserved from a time period prior to recorded human history. There is no universally agreed age at which the evidence can be termed fossilised, nevertheless it’s broadly understood to encompass anything more than a number of thousand years. Such a definition includes our prehistoric human ancestry and the ice age fauna as well as more historical fossil teams such as the dinosaurs, ammonites and trilobites.
Fossils happen commonly around the world though just a small proportion of former life made it into the fossil file, maybe less than a billionth. Most living organisms merely decayed without hint after death. Thus, the abundance of fossils reflects the immense number of organisms which have lived and the huge length of time over which the rocks have accumulated.
The earliest fossils discovered date from 3.5 billion years ago, nonetheless it wasn’t until approximately 600 million years ago that complex multicellular life began to enter the fossil document, and for the purposes of fossil hunting the majority of effort is directed towards fossils of this age and more recent.
The geologic timescale is divided into eras which are further divided into intervals, of which probably the most regularly quoted is the Jurassic period (from the Mesozoic era) – famous for the abundance of dinosaurs at this time. To view the geologic timescale
The first step towards understanding the place to search for fossils is to appreciate the distribution of fossil bearing rocks and the conditions that led to their formation and subsequent exposure. The rocks reveal the conditions current at the time of their formation and the forces that subsequently influenced their character.
There are three primary rock types: sedimentary, shaped from accumulated sediment, e.g. sand, silt and skeletal stays; igneous, formed from molten rock that has cooled and hardened; and metamorphic, sedimentary or igneous rocks that have been altered significantly by heat and/or pressure.
Fossils are most commonly discovered within sedimentary rocks as a result of favourable conditions of burial and restricted alteration by way of time. Sedimentary rocks kind on the Earth’s surface as sediment accumulates in rivers, lakes and on the seafloor in particular. Among the many frequent sedimentary rocks include: sandstone, composed predominantly of grains of eroded rock; limestone, composed predominantly of shell particles and planktonic skeletons; and shale, formed from hardened clay (initially deposited as mud).
Sedimentary rocks may undergo considerable change thousands and thousands of years after deposition leading to a new rock type, e.g. slate. These ‘altered’ rocks are collectively often known as metamorphic. Slate was originally laid down as a muddy sediment which was then compacted and hardened to form shale (a sedimentary rock), over time the shale was exposed to higher pressure and heat within the ground, a result of continental movement and/or tectonic activity. Over time the material of the shale was altered, replacing the unique cloth and converting it to a metamorphic rock, consequently fossils within the slate are often flattened and distorted.
On very rare events fossils may also be discovered within igneous rocks where molten rock escapes to the Earth’s surface and envelops organisms in its path, comparable to a tree. In this instance if the molten rock cools and hardens in less time than it takes to turn the tree to ash, then the hardened rock might type a solid mould across the tree. Over a short time frame the tree tissues decay leaving an empty chamber inside the rock, some examples even protect the feel of the outer bark on the partitions of the mould.
Having recognised unaltered sedimentary deposits as the primary source for fossils, the following step is to know the place such rocks are located. Geology maps are a useful place to start as they reveal the age and type of rocks current on the surface; note that the surface rock is usually underlain by older rocks unless significant geological forces have caused buckling/folding of the landscape.
The trendy use of the word ‘fossil’ refers back to the physical evidence of prehistoric life that is preserved from a time period prior to recorded human history. There is no universally agreed age at which the evidence can be termed fossilised, nevertheless it’s broadly understood to encompass anything more than a number of thousand years. Such a definition includes our prehistoric human ancestry and the ice age fauna as well as more historical fossil teams such as the dinosaurs, ammonites and trilobites.
Fossils happen commonly around the world though just a small proportion of former life made it into the fossil file, maybe less than a billionth. Most living organisms merely decayed without hint after death. Thus, the abundance of fossils reflects the immense number of organisms which have lived and the huge length of time over which the rocks have accumulated.
The earliest fossils discovered date from 3.5 billion years ago, nonetheless it wasn’t until approximately 600 million years ago that complex multicellular life began to enter the fossil document, and for the purposes of fossil hunting the majority of effort is directed towards fossils of this age and more recent.
The geologic timescale is divided into eras which are further divided into intervals, of which probably the most regularly quoted is the Jurassic period (from the Mesozoic era) – famous for the abundance of dinosaurs at this time. To view the geologic timescale
The first step towards understanding the place to search for fossils is to appreciate the distribution of fossil bearing rocks and the conditions that led to their formation and subsequent exposure. The rocks reveal the conditions current at the time of their formation and the forces that subsequently influenced their character.
There are three primary rock types: sedimentary, shaped from accumulated sediment, e.g. sand, silt and skeletal stays; igneous, formed from molten rock that has cooled and hardened; and metamorphic, sedimentary or igneous rocks that have been altered significantly by heat and/or pressure.
Fossils are most commonly discovered within sedimentary rocks as a result of favourable conditions of burial and restricted alteration by way of time. Sedimentary rocks kind on the Earth’s surface as sediment accumulates in rivers, lakes and on the seafloor in particular. Among the many frequent sedimentary rocks include: sandstone, composed predominantly of grains of eroded rock; limestone, composed predominantly of shell particles and planktonic skeletons; and shale, formed from hardened clay (initially deposited as mud).
Sedimentary rocks may undergo considerable change thousands and thousands of years after deposition leading to a new rock type, e.g. slate. These ‘altered’ rocks are collectively often known as metamorphic. Slate was originally laid down as a muddy sediment which was then compacted and hardened to form shale (a sedimentary rock), over time the shale was exposed to higher pressure and heat within the ground, a result of continental movement and/or tectonic activity. Over time the material of the shale was altered, replacing the unique cloth and converting it to a metamorphic rock, consequently fossils within the slate are often flattened and distorted.
On very rare events fossils may also be discovered within igneous rocks where molten rock escapes to the Earth’s surface and envelops organisms in its path, comparable to a tree. In this instance if the molten rock cools and hardens in less time than it takes to turn the tree to ash, then the hardened rock might type a solid mould across the tree. Over a short time frame the tree tissues decay leaving an empty chamber inside the rock, some examples even protect the feel of the outer bark on the partitions of the mould.
Having recognised unaltered sedimentary deposits as the primary source for fossils, the following step is to know the place such rocks are located. Geology maps are a useful place to start as they reveal the age and type of rocks current on the surface; note that the surface rock is usually underlain by older rocks unless significant geological forces have caused buckling/folding of the landscape.
