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Fossil wood is wood that is preserved in the fossil record. Wood is usually the part of a plant that is best preserved (and most easily found). Fossil wood may or may not be petrified. The fossil wood may be the only part of the plant that has been preserved; [99] therefore such wood may get a special kind of botanical name.
Fossil preparation is a complex of tasks that can include excavating, revealing, conserving, and replicating the ancient remains and traces of organisms. It is an integral part of the science of paleontology, of museum exhibition, and the preservation of fossils held in the public trust.
These three-dimensional fossils create permanent molds of internal structures. The mineralization process helps prevent tissue compaction, distorting organs' actual size. A permineralized fossil will also reveal much about an organism's environment and the substances found in it since it preserves soft body parts.
Tree remains that have undergone petrifaction, as seen in Petrified Forest National Park. In geology, petrifaction or petrification (from Ancient Greek πέτρα (pétra) 'rock, stone') is the process by which organic material becomes a fossil through the replacement of the original material and the filling of the original pore spaces with minerals.
The conventional, exceptionally preserved fossils of the Burgess Shale are supplemented by the shells of organisms which lived on, and burrowed into, the sediment before the exceptional preservation pathway was complete. The organisms' presence shows that oxygen was present, but at worst this "paused" the mineralisation process. [7]
Scientists in Argentina have discovered excellently preserved fossil remains of the oldest-known tadpole, the larval stage of a large frog species that lived alongside dinosaurs about 161 million ...
Some fossils were so well-preserved that experts could pinpoint their age. Large tortoises and land-dwelling crocodiles once lived on the island but are now extinct there. Kristen Grace/Florida Museum
Taphonomy is the study of how organisms decay and become fossilized or preserved in the paleontological record. The term taphonomy (from Greek táphos, τάφος 'burial' and nomos, νόμος 'law') was introduced to paleontology in 1940 [1] by Soviet scientist Ivan Efremov to describe the study of the transition of remains, parts, or products of organisms from the biosphere to the lithosphere.