Fossils provide a vital record of ancient life, preserved primarily within sedimentary rocks . The journey from death to discovery involves rapid burial, lithification, and chemical replacement.

Scientists have identified a mineral signature for sites that are more likely to contain rare fossils that preserve evidence of soft tissue — essential information to understanding ancient life. Much ...

Imagine there are ten different types of shells, each the size of a grain of sand, mixed in the bowl of mud in front of you. You want to find each type of individual shell —what do you do? For ...

Three undergraduate students from the University of Arkansas made a world-class discovery this week when they uncovered a 325-million-year-old nautiloid fossil just yards from two of ...

Modern Nautilus and Allonautilus species inhabit deeper waters than their extinct ancestors did over 500 million years ago.

Since the age of dinosaurs, turtles have looked pretty much as they do now with their shells intact, and scientists lacked conclusive evidence to support competing evolutionary theories. Now with the ...

ALTHOUGH Wells 1 and Scrutton 2 suggested methods of studying fossils to determine probable changes in day length, few studies have followed these suggestions. We have examined fossil bivalve shells ...