Test: December 17
Key words to know: See vocabulary quiz for answers
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Fossil
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Extinct
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Cast
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Mold
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Imprint
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Petrified wood
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Amber
1. In what type of rock can you find the most fossils?
Sedimentary
2. Who is a person who studies fossils? Paleontologist
3. Why have scientists been able to discover many animal fossils, but not as many plant fossils? Plants are softer and therefore decompose faster leaving less behind to become a fossil.
4. What type of plant fossils have scientists been able to find?
Why are there so many of this type of plant fossil? Ferns and
Gingko trees because they are very common.
5. If someone were to find the skull of a large animal that had sharp teeth, what could he or she infer about the animal?
It would tell you that animal ate meat.

6. Name 3 animals that are now extinct: Dinosaurs, sabertoothed tiger, wholly mammoth, auk, dodo bird.
7. What can dinosaur fossils tell us about dinosaurs?
What they looked like (physical traits), what they ate, type of food, size, if they flew or walked, where they lived/habitat.
8. What do fossils tell us about how life changed over time?
Fossils tell us how the animals and the Earth have either changed or have not changed over time or in comparison to today.
9. How are fossils formed? List the steps: First the animal dies.
Next the soft parts of the animal decompose. Then the remaining parts of the animal become part of the sedimentary rock and a fossil. Finally, the Earth may crack allowing the fossil to resurface and be found.
10. What is the difference between a cast and a mold? A cast forms when mud or minerals fill a mold. A mold is the shape of a once living thing left in sediment when the rock formed leaving the shape of the animal or plant (it is filled in)