EOSC 116 Lecture 5: EOSC Mod E

• School: UBC
• Department: Earth and Ocean Sciences
• Course: EOSC 116
• Professor: Stuart Sutherland

Document Summary

Forming a fossil: variable: insects in amber, freezing, mineralization, impressions. For dinosaurs: minerlization of bones/teeth most common, bone: calcium phosphate and organic material, atom by atom replacement of bone material = permineralization, common mineral media: calcite, iron minerals, silica. Finding and understanding a fossil: only a small percentage of living organisms become fossilized, have to consider: What happened to the organism after death (taphonomy) Taphonomy: all post mortem processes prior to fossilization, movement and decay, factors to consider. Physical and biological movement after death (scavengers, rivers etc. ) Can take a carcass out of environment where it used to live to a totally dif one. Decay starts a few minutes after death: necrolysis. Note: 60% of marine organisms are soft bodied. Factors to consider: soft bodied stuff won"t fossilize well, supply of oxygen fewer scavengers/fewer microbes (swamps, black sea) Acidic atmosphere, been turned into leather: nature of organic carbon: volatiles decay fast, others such as cellulose decay slower.