Why Don’t Fossils Break Down in the Ground?

KOMPAS.com – Have you ever wondered, why fossil not destroyed? Though usually the bodies of living things that have died will decompose in the ground.

What is a fossil?

Fossil are body parts of organisms that are naturally preserved by nature. The word fossil comes from the Latin, namely fossus, which means excavated. Fossils are not in the form of a complete body of the organism, but in the form of rock and are found in rock formations in the Earth.

Fossils are parts of organisms that are at least 10,000 years old. Fossils can date back to the Archean Period, which was formerly known as the Archaicum. This era occurred 4 billion years ago.

One of the oldest fossils ever found is fossil algae that lived in the sea more than 3 billion years ago.

Also read: This Fossil of the Oldest Dinosaur Ancestor from South America Reveals the Origin of Dinosaurs

Fossils are very rare to find because most of the remains of organisms will decompose when they die. If bone is buried, it will generally turn into a mineral and melt into the ground.

Therefore, the fossils found are generally not intact. In the case of organisms that become fossils, usually the body is covered sediment immediately after death. Sediment it can be a mixture of sand, lava, even tar and sticky resin.

This sediment will help organisms and plants experience fossilization. resin or amber can preserve even soft parts of organisms, such as insects.

Insects fossilized in resin are generally more intact than fossils covered in ordinary sediments.

Meanwhile, fossils in sediments are generally only small parts of the body, such as teeth, horns, skull bones, and large bones. However, there are different sedimentary conditions that result in more intact preserved fossils. These sediments over time formed rocks and became more durable until they were finally excavated by paleontologists.

In addition to fossils in sediments and resins, there are also fossils found in ice. Fossils in this ice are fossils that come from time lapse. This fossil must be untouched or disturbed by anything until it is completely frozen and preserved in ice. An example of a fossil in ice is the mammoth fossil.

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