Treasure Hunting For Fossils

Written By: admin - Apr• 20•10

Fossils

Whether it’s fossil excavation sites in Florida, or fossils in Millard county Utah, people from the youngest kids to the oldest grandparents are always amazed at the fact that they can dig up and hold in their hand something that lived on this planet millions or even billions of years ago.

Trilobite from the Utah

Treasure hunting vacations for fossils are extremely rewarding not only for the person interested in making some amazing finds by themselves, but for families also. There are many fossil sites for kids throughout the country that can help to make your fossil hunting adventure a success.

What Are Fossils

So your first question may very well be, “What are fossils?” The scientific answer is “Fossils (from Latin fossus, literally “having been dug up”) are the mineralized or otherwise preserved remains or traces (such as footprints) of animals, plants, and other organisms.”

Literally it means that both plants and animals along with any footprints or other traces they leave behind have been replaced by minerals and have become stone. So when you go out to dig for dinosaurs you will actually be digging up a mineralized shadow of what used to be a living plant or animal.

How Are Fossils Formed

Your next question is probably, “How are fossils formed?” Well, the complete answer to that is as complicated as the variety of fossil sites in the world are numerous. So, “how are fossils formed” is very complicated question and really depends on the place where they are found.

If you wish to learn about the possess of how fossils form in detail there are many hundreds of books, with tens of thousands of pages that describe the exact processes that can take place, but here are the basics of what usually happens…

The plant or animals that eventually become the fossils that you’re going to be digging up were buried either by a land slide; they fell into water and were covered by sediment; or they met some other fate that lead to them quickly being covered over by soil.

As long as conditions were correct and the specimen was in an oxygen deprived environment to stop decomposition, over the millennia that follow minerals slowly replace the parts of the mater that once was living mater.

Most often this only happens to the hard parts of the animal or plant such as bones, shells, teeth, or wood. There have been instances of flesh being fossilized also, but these specimens are much less numerous.

Another way for them to form is simply as a caste of the surface of the plant or animal. This is most often seen as the fossils of tree leaves and the outline of a fish’s body around its fossilized bones. Castes are also seen as the fossilized outline of a dinosaurs footprints.

Where to Dig For Dinosaurs

Weather you’re looking for a dinosaur dig for kids or simply to dig for dinosaurs yourself, the sites listed below will set you on a treasure hunting adventure that will take you back in time millions of years.

U Dig Fossils Delta, UT

Rucks Pit Fort Drum, FL