Name: ______________________________________________________ Date: ____________________________ Per. ________ Pg. _________
Fossils Vocab
Vocab Word or Concept
1. What is a Fossil?
The trace or remains of an organism that lived long ago, most commonly preserved in sedimentary rock
2. Body fossil
Illustration
Fossil made from parts of an organism’s body
3. Trace fossil
Signs, such as footprints or burrows, that an organism was alive

Name: ______________________________________________________ Date: ____________________________ Per. ________ Pg. _________
Fossils Vocab
Vocab Word or Concept
4. Four things we learn from fossils
Illustration
1) what kind of organisms lived in the past
2) how organisms have changed with time
3) what the Earth and environment was like in the past
4) how the Earth and environment has changed with time

Name: ______________________________________________________ Date: ____________________________ Per. ________ Pg. _________
Fossils Vocab
Vocab Word or Concept
5. Petrified Remains
Petrifaction
Illustration when minerals replace all or part of an organism’s tissues, such as in petrified wood or a dinosaur bone
6. Mold
An impression or imprint of an organism that was left in sediment which turns to rock
This mold, or imprint, is of an extinct mollusk called an ammonite.

Name: ______________________________________________________ Date: ____________________________ Per. ________ Pg. _________
Fossils Vocab
Vocab Word or Concept
7. Cast
Illustration
Object formed when sediment fills a mold made by an organism and becomes rock.
8. Carbon films
• The thin layer of carbon left behind in sediment which shows an organism’s delicate parts, like leaves on a plant.
This ammonite cast was discovered in the United
Kingdom.

Name: ______________________________________________________ Date: ____________________________ Per. ________ Pg. _________
Fossils Vocab
9. Preserved Remains- When animals are preserved in or close to their natural state
Amber - Hardened sticky tree sap that may trap insects
Ice - Frozen remains of organism found in ice
Tar - Sticky pools of tar that trap and preserve bodies of animals
10. Index fossil- fossils that remain unchanged for a short, specific amount of time.
A fossil that is used to establish the age of a rock layer because the fossil is distinct, abundant, and widespread and the species that formed the fossil existed for only a short span of geologic time (a few million to a few hundred million years)