Week 2

Question 1

Taphonomy

Answer 1

study of natural processes that occur to a dead animal (decay, erosion, potential scavenging)

Question 2

Bloat and float

Answer 2

One of the many ways a carcass can move from where it died to a new location, caused by build up of gasses then carried by water

Question 3

Vehicles of carcass movement

Answer 3

Flowing water, scavengers, broken part then washed away (depends on weight and shape), sunlight disintegration, losing only a bit that becomes exposed, mineral content leached away.)

Question 4

Plastic deformation

Answer 4

The deformation of bones from pressure of rocks

Question 5

Preferable fossilization environment

Answer 5

Wet environments (so that water can bury the carcass in silt/mud/sand)
low elevations (where silt/mud/sand are washed too)

Question 6

Fossil probable location

Answer 6

Ancients rivers, streams, lake deposits

Question 7

Lacustrine deposits

Answer 7

fossils found in old lakes, higher chance to fossilize hair or feathers because of little water movement and because of fine particulates like mud providing better feather fossilization chance

Question 8

Fluvial deposits

Answer 8

Fossils found in rivers and streams

Question 9

costal deposits

Answer 9

don’t often find fossils here but can happen by a storm washing the carcass out. Only found in the shallows

Question 10

Aeolian deposits

Answer 10

Are also wind-based deposits, usually found the in desert. Not common at all but found in abundance in Mongolia as there was a river

Question 11

Sedimentary rocks

Answer 11

where most fossils are found (very few exceptions), they form from particulates that accumulate and then compact together

Question 12

Igneous rocks

Answer 12

solid magma rocks

Question 13

metamorphic rocks

Answer 13

form when other rocks undergo changes by heat or pressure (fossils don’t survive this)

Question 14

Different types of sedimentary rocks

Answer 14

Mudstone, from mud mostly in lakes and slow rivers
Shale, from silt mostly in lakes
Sandstone, from sand indicates former beach, river channel or ocean floor
coal, comes from compression of plant material, indicates former swamp
limestone, from shells and exoskeletons of small marine invertebrates, indicates former shallow marine environment

Question 15

Permineralization

Answer 15

Preservation style of empty internal spaces filled with minerals, water deposits the minerals in the bone voids

Question 16

Replacement

Answer 16

preservation style of bone gradually decaying then minerals fill in the space

Question 17

Best chance for finding fossils

Answer 17

The burial process has to be partly undone to re expose the fossil. So a place with minimal plant life is preferable to increase erosion rates

Question 18

overburden

Answer 18

Rock and earth that covers the fossil

Question 19

Bone bed

Answer 19

they location of many bones. as they are removed they are carefully mapped relative to each other `

Question 20

Long bone alignment

Answer 20

when the long bones are oriented parallel they most likely traveled down a fast flowing river

Question 21

Plaster shell

Answer 21

The fossils are delicate and unlikey to hold their own weight so they are covered in plaster to support them

Question 22

Marks on bone giving hints

Answer 22

Disarticulation can point to scavenging
long bone orientation is a point of how it was moved
abrasion from water erosion and impacts can show how far down a river it went
tooth marks indicate scavenging