Fossil finds

This category includes locations where are found scientifically and/or visually interesting remains of organisms, typically more than 10 000 years old.

Fossils are all over the world: after all, throughout billions of years on Earth have lived and died countless diverse organisms. More frequently are preserved the harder parts of the organisms – bones, teeth, shells – in most cases replacing the original organic materials with minerals. But in many cases also the soft tissue is preserved – thanks to lucky coincidences this tissue is replaced with minerals, sometimes up to the level of cells.

Wondermondo has one exciting subcategory to the category of fossil finds:

• Early human finds – the most important and unusual places with remains and other traces of activities by early humans (including other species of humans) and other hominins.

Main types of fossils

The four main types of fossils are:

• Petrified fossils – when hard parts of the organisms (shells, bones, teeth) are replaced with minerals. The most common fossils – from microorganisms to enormous dinosaur fossils..
• Compressed fossils – when the organism is under the pressure and leaves an imprint between the shales. Usually these imprints are darker. This is the most common type of fossil plants but also other organisms.
• Moulds and casts – when the organism leaves a relief – three-dimensional imprint – on the rocks. Often these imprints are filled with another material – cast.
• Remains of organism “in person” – the original material or organism that has been preserved in chemically neutral media. Such are the fossils of insects and even reptiles in amber and also Ice Age animals that are found in ice and permafrost.

The most luxurious finds – Lagerstätte

The best finds of fossils are named – “lagerstätte” – a German term that means “storage location”. Such places are treasured by the scientific community and each of them promises new finds and scientific papers for decades to come.

The two main kinds of lagerstätte are:

• Konzentrat-lagerstätte – locations where lots and lots of fossils are found. Unfortunately, often in such finds the bones and other parts of organisms are fractured into small parts and mixed together. But a good scientist will find a lot of interesting also in such cases.
• Konservat-Lagerstätten – places, where fossils have been preserved in exceptional quality. These places are the best of the best in the world of paleontology – the science about life in the past.

The exact location of many valuable finds of fossils is kept secret – otherwise, the countless fossil hunters would just disassemble these places before the extraction of valuable scientific information.

Some records

• The oldest fossils? Frankly, we are not sure – where are they. Graphite in the gneiss rock in Saglek, northern Labrador in Canada may show traces of microorganisms who could live 3.95 billion years ago, but just as well – this might be some another process not related to life. Similar uncertainties are about other finds that are some 3.6 – 3.8 billion years old. The oldest certain fossils are some 3.5 billion years old stromatolites from Pilbara Region, Western Australia.
• Remnants of the oldest multicellular organisms were found in Torridon, Highlands of Scotland, United Kingdom. This microscopic organism – holozoan Bicellum brasieri lived approximately 1 billion years ago.
• The oldest known vertebrate was found in Flinders Ranges, South Australia. This small, tadpole-like creature lived some 560 or even 565 million years ago.
• The oldest known air-breathing creature is the millipede Pneumodesmus newmani some 414 million years ago. It was found at Stonehaven (United Kingdom, Scotland).
• Fossil of the world’s largest creature could be remnants of a titanosaur in Chihuidos region (Argentina, Neuquén). This dinosaur lived some 98 million years ago. Its size has not been estimated yet but it could be larger than argentinosaurs who were up to 40 m long and 100 metric tons heavy.
• The oldest known mammal fossil is Asaphestera platyris who lived some 315 million years ago.
• The most recent humans of another species (or – subspecies?) were Neanderthals who lived in Gorham’s Cave in Gibraltar 24 000 years ago. There are tempting theories and stories about more recent populations of other human species around the world.