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Showing results for tags 'symantics'.
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So, here's one bound to start arguments, but how would you define "Fossil?" I was looking at a children's book the other day, and it was trying to differentiate a modern sea shell sitting on the beach with a fossil. It said that a seashell was not a fossil because it was not embedded in rock. By that definition, the vast majority of what I have in my collection is not a fossil because it was never embedded in rock. In Calvert Cliffs (Maryland), Big Brook (NJ), The C and D Canal (Delaware), Peace River (Florida) and other locales, the matrix is packed sand if not outright loose sediment. So, by this book, they are not fossils. Another definition I saw said that a fossil had to be in stone or replaced by another mineral. I'm not 100% sure, but aren't Pliocene fossils frequently not replaced by anything, just a bit leached and/or filled in from the surrounding matrix? Maybe I'm wrong on that point. A third one I saw said that it had to be at least 10,000 years old. I will challenge this one with the case of Saratoga, NY. The springs there are so heavy in minerals that they create STONE casts of the leaves that fall on the-ever-growing mineral domes in a matter of days. A cast is thick enough to peel off the leaf in a few weeks. The domes are riddled with hundreds and thousands of leaf impressions. If this is not a fossil now, what would make it a fossil later?
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