Fossil
class
We
had some fun with fossils.
It was the first time that many of
these kids had the chance to handle real fossils and they were excited.
We got them seated in a circle so
they could pass some of the specimens around.
The fossils in the middle had been
found locally.
They were of worm tracks through mud
that had filled with slightly different mud and hardened.
They were too big to pass around but
the kids did get to examine them.
One of the kids wanted to make sure
his teacher got a picture of him and a small
fossil.
They are holding a replica of a
pterosaur fossil.
Most people know that some
pterodactyls were huge but many similar animals were
quite small.
This one was full grown when it was
fossilized.
One of the favorite exhibits is a
cast of the footprint left by a Dilophosaurus.
I made this cast on a visit to a
dinosaur park in Connecticut many years ago.
They liked to compare the size of
their hands to the cast.
If you were wondering this is what it
looked like.
Students and teachers had questions
about it.
Careful examination of a fish fossil.
They all recognized Manny from the
movie Ice Age and were fascinated with the bit of hair and tusk I had to
show them.
The kids saw and handled a lot more
fossils than are shown here.
Many of them can be found locally but
others we have collected from around the world.
The oldest is a stromatolite from
Australia that is about 3.5 billion years old.
Orthoceras, crinoids, and ammonites
that are between 500 million and 100 million years old.
I showed the kids two dinosaur
coprolites and a bone that are about 100 million years old.
The fossil of part of the jaw and
teeth of an oreodont that is only 20 million years old.
The mammoth specimens are about 40
thousand years old.
We all had a lot of fun.
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