GEOLGY 307 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Depositional Environment, Gastrolith, Coprolite
Document Summary
Most dinosaur fossils are mineralized bones but dinosaur fossils include tracks, eggs, skin impressions, and stomach stones called gastroliths and fossilized feces called coprolites. Key to the process of fossilization is burial in sediment of the dinosaur bone. After burial, the remaining bones and teeth must usually undergo some form of mineralization to become fossils. Bones and teeth contain inorganic and organic matter. The organic matter is replaced or combined with minerals at a microscopic scale, so that tiny spaces around the inorganic matrix are filled with the new minerals. Thus a combination of the inorganic bone matrix (a mineral called calcium phosphate) and the new minerals. Three types of rock on the surface of the earth. Igneous rock are those that cool from a molten state. Metamorphic rock are those that have been altered by temperature and/ or pressure. Common metamorphic rocks are marble, which is limestone before metamorphism, and quartzite, which is sandstone before metamorphism.
