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Fossil collecting (sometimes, in a non-scientific sense, fossil hunting) is the collection of fossils for scientific study, hobby, or profit. Fossil collecting, as practiced by amateurs, is the predecessor of modern paleontology and many still collect fossils and study fossils as amateurs.
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.
Like other fossils, coprolites have had much of their original composition replaced by mineral deposits such as silicates and calcium carbonates. Paleofeces, on the other hand, retain much of their original organic composition and can be reconstituted to determine their original chemical properties, though in practice the term coprolite is also ...
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.
A fossil preparator handles fossils found in Petrified Forest National Park at the museum's demonstration lab. Visitors are not allowed to take fossils from the park.
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.
A carbonaceous film or carbon film is an organism outline of a fossil. It is a type of fossil found in any rock when organic material is compressed, leaving only a carbon residue or film. When an organism is buried under many layers of sediment , pressure and heat increase during diagenesis and if the organism lacks a hard skeleton, it will ...
Trace fossils contrast with body fossils, which are the fossilized remains of parts of organisms' bodies, usually altered by later chemical activity or by mineralization. The study of such trace fossils is ichnology - the work of ichnologists. [2] Trace fossils may consist of physical impressions made on or in the substrate by an organism. [3]