Photograph by Jonathan Blair
Mary Anning
The 19th-century British fossil collector Mary Anning proved you don't have to be a paleontologist to contribute to science. Anning was one of the first people to collect, display, and correctly identify the fossils of ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and pterosaurs. Her contributions to the understanding of Jurassic life were so impressive that in 2010, Anning was named among the ten British women who have most influenced the history of science.
Microfossils
Even though most of us have only seen dinosaur fossils in museums, most fossils are not that big. Some of them are so small, you can't see them without a microscope.
(singular: alga) diverse group of aquatic organisms, the largest of which are seaweeds.
translucent, yellow-orange material made of the resin of ancient trees. Amber is sometimes considered a gemstone.
very old.
(singular: bacterium) single-celled organisms found in every ecosystem on Earth.
preserved evidence of what was once the body of an ancient organism, such as bones or teeth.
to decay or break down.
area of land that receives no more than 25 centimeters (10 inches) of precipitation a year.
to become a solid mineral.
air containing a large amount of water vapor.
tropical ecosystem filled with trees and underbrush.
language of ancient Rome and the Roman Empire.
molten rock, or magma, that erupts from volcanoes or fissures in the Earth's surface.
fossil that is large enough to be seen and analyzed without a microscope.
one of many extinct species of large animals related to elephants, with long, curved tusks. The last mammoths became extinct about 5,000 years ago.
extinct shark that lived between 25 million and 1.5 million years ago.
fossil that can only be seen and analyzed with a microscope, such as a grain of pollen or a single bacterium.
inorganic material that has a characteristic chemical composition and specific crystal structure.
living or once-living thing.
person who studies fossils and life from early geologic periods.
powdery material produced by plants, each grain of which contains a male gamete capable of fertilizing a female ovule.
materials left from a dead or absent organism.
clear, sticky substance produced by some plants.
to slowly flow through a border.
hard outer covering of an animal.
bones of a body.
dark, sticky petroleum product created from the decomposition of organic material such as wood.
preserved evidence of the presence or behavior of an ancient organism, such as tracks, feces, or burrows.
