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Fossils help scientists build a picture of the past—and present.

At Wyoming’s Big Red Spit, Scott Wing of the Smithsonian shows a print of the Okefenokee Swamp, depicting what the area may have looked like 50 million years ago. (Photo used with permission of Ira Block)

A word to the wise: don’t ask a paleontologist to pick a favorite fossil. It’s like asking your mother which child she loves most, or asking a baseball slugger to choose his favorite bat.

With over 40 million fossils residing in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History alone, there’s no reason to favor just one. For scientists who love and study them, fossils are more than mere curiosities; they help piece together mysteries from the deep past, and allow researchers to better understand life on Earth.

Below, is what three Smithsonian researchers have to say about the importance of fossils.

Scott Wing, Paleobotanist

After a long day of field work in Wyoming in 2005, Scott Wing decided to take a few more moments to dig into a hillside he hadn’t explored before. What he found shocked him into hysterical laughter.

Wing studies the response of prehistoric plants to rapid climate change—how communities of plants change depending on the climate. For more than a decade, he’d been hunting for a particular layer from the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, an interval of global warming nearly 56 million years ago.

Wing had collected a broad range of fossilized plants from before and after this period, but he wanted to see what kinds of plants were dominant during the hot years. He’d never had much luck.

“As soon as I saw the fossils, I knew. They didn’t look like anything before or after,” Wing says. “It was so striking it seemed absolutely hilarious. There it was all of a sudden, after all that time looking.”

Scientists knew there had been a massive release of carbon into the atmosphere just before the PETM, and that the resulting warming trend took about 100,000 years to subside. Wing’s pre- and post-PETM plant communities were drastically different from groupings alive during the warming event.

Prior to the warming, relatives of modern alder, birch, dawn redwood and sycamore dominated the landscape. But in the chance hillside find, the fossil leaves were primarily relatives of laurel, mimosa and palmetto, species more adapted to hot, dry climates. Wing said it drove home the point that what had previously been a temperate, moist climate was suddenly much hotter and drier.

Wing is eager to understand the distant past for the lessons it holds. “Most people realize that today we are warming the climate by releasing greenhouse gases, but they don’t realize that the change is going to last beyond any human time scale,” he says. “You’re stuck with it for a very long time. We want to mine this information from the fossil record to understand how global climate systems are connected, and what happens when you have a big carbon release and warming like this.”

Nick Pyenson, Marine Mammal Paleobiologist

For many years, fossil researchers were taught that the fossil record was incomplete. Nick Pyenson, pondering this problem, acknowledged that yes, it’s true that some time periods have fewer fossils.

But it begged a different question for him—where fossilized remains are preserved in relative abundance, could counts of individuals and species reveal something more significant about actual population sizes and how they were dispersed across the ancient world?

Pyenson studies whales and their ancestors. He realized there is an excellent modern corollary to the counts of animals in the fossil record: data collected from coastal whale strandings.

“Whales strand on the coasts around the world,” Pyenson says. “In some stretches, we’ve been counting and generating statistics for decades. When you tabulate all those numbers, you discover that the records of dead things on the coasts tells you more about diversity than any survey of living animals.”

Biologists typically count and measure marine mammal diversity using surveys conducted from boats, planes and cliff heights, but it turns out the death records are far more accurate representations of population and diversity. And because the process of how whales end up on the shore isn’t random—currents carry them there even from the deepest depths—the ratio of common species to rare ones is preserved.

Taking that idea to a recently discovered fossil whale graveyard in Chile, the same patterns were evident, Pyenson said. Common species showed up more often, and rare ones less so, but a full range of species was present. In this case, modern strandings showed a similar pattern for ancient strandings.

Modern processes may change all that. The fossil record of whales is, and will be for many years, silent about recent changes, such as whaling that started several hundred years ago, and accelerated declines related to ship strikes, pollution and overfishing. But fossils can illustrate the stark difference between pure ecological processes and human-influenced ones.

“Fossils don’t just tell us about extinct life,” Pyenson said. “In some cases, they faithfully record what life was like in the deep past. Fossils underpin everything. If you want to look at how things came to be, you have to look at how it once was. There are different players moving forward, but there’s an interplay of knowledge between past and present.”

Sarah Tweedt, developmental paleobiologist

On the border between the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, about two hours west of Calgary, Charles Walcott discovered a strange assembly of fossils in 1909. Two years into his tenure as the fourth Secretary of the Smithsonian, Walcott had unearthed a cache of some of the best-preserved fossils from the Middle Cambrian, some 505 to 510 million years old.

The weirdness of the Burgess Shale animals is one of their defining features. Trilobites abound, as do spiked worm-like creatures and other arthropods, distant relatives of today’s shrimp and pillbugs. Their bizarre forms confounded early attempts to categorize their relationships with each other, or with modern animals.

Some of these creatures had been found before, but never in such numbers or fine detail. Soft tissues of these animals—tentacles, legs, antennae and other structures—show up clearly.

Sarah Tweedt, finishing up her doctoral thesis with the University of Maryland through work at the Smithsonian, studies the evolution of how organisms develop. For her, the great diversity represented in the Burgess Shale allows her to ask detailed questions about that evolution.

Plants, animals and fungi, the three kingdoms of multicellular life, all came to their complex body forms independently. As some of the oldest animals in the fossil records, the Burgess fossils may help Tweedt understand more about how ancient animals compare with living ones. They may also shed light on whether animals once developed in different ways, rather than the regimented ways modern animals grow from embryos into adults.

Genetic work in the last several decades has revealed that animals as different as fruit flies and humans share genes that dictate morphology, or body structure. This suggests that even the Burgess Shale animals, possibly even including the distant common ancestor of all animals, used similar genetic tools in their development.

“Because animals share a common ancestor, their development is closely linked,” Tweedt says. “Since we know a lot about how genes create morphology, and the Burgess Shale provides these beautiful examples, I can use what I know about living things to better understand how fossils are related to one another. The Burgess Shale organisms are so well preserved that you can make very strong comparisons to living groups.”

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Lines of Evidence: The Science of Evolution

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Fossil evidence

The fossil record provides snapshots of the past which, when assembled, illustrate a panorama of evolutionary change over the past 3.5 billion years. The picture may be smudged in places and has bits missing, but fossil evidence clearly shows that life is very, very old and has changed over time through evolution.

Early fossil discoveries Scientists have long recognized fossils as evidence of past life. The ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes found fossilized shells on dry land and concluded that the area had once been a seabed. Almost a thousand years ago, the Chinese scientist Shen Kuo made similar arguments based on fossilized remains from species that could not have lived the modern environments in which they were discovered. In the 17th century,  Nicholas Steno  noted the similarity between shark teeth and the rocks commonly known as “tongue stones,” making the argument that the stones had come from the mouths of once-living sharks. Since then, paleontologists such as Victorian England’s Mary Anning, who helped uncover the first correctly identified ichthyosaur fossil, have continued to flesh out our understanding of the diversity of ancient life forms.

Additional clues from fossils Today, few question the finding that fossils represent past life. It’s hard to look at a T. rex skeleton and conclude otherwise.  But this doesn’t mean that science is done with fossils. Paleontologists continue to learn from fossils – and not just about the anatomy of the organisms preserved.

Fossils reveal ecological relationships from the past This leaf fossil (which is a bit more than 10 million years old) shows a distinct pattern of damage – one that matches the damage to modern leaves caused by the caterpillar of the moth Stigmella heteromelis . The damage patterns are so similar and distinct from other sorts of leaf damage that, although we don’t have fossils of the ancient moth itself, we know from the leaf fossil that it must have been present in the environment and at the time that this plant lived.  Based on where this fossil was found, scientists know that the moth species has a much smaller range today than it did in the past.  The fossil also reveals that this caterpillar was parasitized by a tiny wasp, as indicated by the small circular hole (yellow arrow) made by the wasp as it exited. We observe the same parasitic relationship between wasps and S. heteromelis today.

Fossils, physiology, and behavior Fossils can also tell us about growth patterns in ancient animals. For example, this picture shows a cross-section through the skull of the dome-headed dinosaur  Stegoceras validum . The blue spaces show where blood vessels ran through the bone.  The density of blood vessels on the dome indicate that this bone was growing quickly. That, along with other lines of evidence, suggest that this fossil came from a juvenile.  In fact, the dome-head of this dinosaur species was at its most extreme in juveniles.  This (again, along with other evidence relating to the strength of the dome) suggest that the dome was not used in head-butting competitions for adult mates, and probably served some other function – perhaps helping individuals of the same species recognize one another.

• Evo Examples

Learn more about transitional features in  Understanding macroevolution through evograms , a module exploring five examples of major evolutionary transitions in the fossil record.

Reviewed and updated, June 2020.

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Key moment in the evolution of life on Earth captured in fossils

by Curtin University

Curtin-led research has for the first time precisely dated some of the oldest fossils of complex multicellular life in the world, helping to track a pivotal moment in the history of Earth when the seas began teeming with new lifeforms—after 4 billion years of containing only single-celled microbes.

The research paper , "U–Pb zircon-rutile dating of the Llangynog Inlier, Wales: Constraints on an Ediacaran shallow 1 marine fossil assemblage from East Avalonia," appears in the Journal of the Geological Society .

Lead author Ph.D. student Anthony Clarke, from the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group within Curtin's School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said to determine the age of the fossils, researchers used volcanic ash layers like bookmarks in the geological sequence.

"Located in the Coed Cochion Quarry in Wales, which contains the richest occurrence of shallow marine life in Britain, we used outfall from an ancient volcano that blanketed the animals as a time marker to accurately date the fossils to 565 million years, accurate down to 0.1%," Clarke said.

"With similar Ediacaran fossils found at sites around the world including in Australia, dating the fossils identifies them as being part of an ancient living community that developed as Earth thawed out from a global ice age.

"These creatures would in some ways resemble modern-day marine species such as jellyfish, yet in other ways be bizarre and unfamiliar. Some appear fern-like, others like cabbages, whereas others resembled sea pens."

Study co-author Professor Chris Kirkland, also from the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group at Curtin, said the fossils are named after the Ediacara Hills in South Australia's Flinders Ranges, where they were first discovered, leading to the first new geological period established in over a century.

"These Welsh fossils appear directly comparable to the famous fossils of Ediacara in South Australia," Professor Kirkland said.

"The fossils, including creatures like the disk-shaped Aspidella terranovica, showcase some of the earliest evidence of large-scale multicellular organisms , marking a transformative moment in Earth's biological history.

"Ediacaran fossils record the response of life to the thaw out from a global glaciation, which shows the deep connection between geological processes and biology.

"Our study underscores the importance of understanding these ancient ecosystems in order to unravel the mysteries of Earth's past and shape our comprehension of life's evolution."

Journal information: Journal of the Geological Society

Provided by Curtin University

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Paleontology research guide, smithsonian resources, paleontology.

The Smithsonian Libraries and Archives' Paleontology Research Guide is a select list of resources for students, teachers, and researchers to learn about paleontology. 

• National Museum of Natural History Department of Paleobiology : Website for the Smithsonian division which studies of fossil animals, plants, and protists that provides information about Smithsonian research and collections.
• Cerro Ballena : Website exploring how paleontologists studied Cerro Ballena, a unique paleontological site in Chile, and what they have found about the fossils found there, featuring images, maps, and 3-D models of their finds.
• Pyenson Lab : Blog from the Pysenson Lab, a research group studying the evolution and paleobiology of marine vertebrates, with posts about their field work, research, and marine paleobiology more generally.
• Vertebrate Paleontology Library : Smithsonian library which focuses on the physical geography and paleozoology and vertebrates of the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Tertiary, and Quaternary periods with over 1,800 volumes.
• Natural History Research Guide : Includes resources from the National Museum of Natural History and its libraries, links to other museums and libraries, and directories and databases related to biodiversity.​
• Science Teaching Resources (Life Science ): Collection of Life Science related lessons, activities, literacy resources, and videos from Q?rius at the National Museum of Natural History.
• Integrated Taxonomic Information System : Taxonomic database searchable by scientific and common names maintained through a partnership of U.S., Canadian, and Mexican federal agencies including the Smithsonian.
• Databases for Science Research : List of science research databases from the Smithsonian Libraries. Many of the databases are free access, but others do require users to be onsite at a Smithsonian library or have Smithsonian network access.
• Biodiversity Heritage Library : Online library featuring open access legacy literature from the Smithsonian Libraries and a consortium of other natural history and botanical libraries.
• Unearthed! A Digital Dig into the Smithsonian Libraries' Paleobiology Collection : Online collection created by Smithsonian Libraries to showcase the Biodiversity Heritage Library's holdings of books pertaining to paleobiology.
• The Dino Directory : Directory of known dinosaur species from the British Natural History Museum searchable by name, geologic age, and location featuring an illustration, taxanomy, and dietary information for each species.
• The Dinosauria : Educational website from the University of California - Berkeley featuring information about dinosaurs, their fossil record, their lives, and their taxonomy.
• Natural History Museum - Dinosaurs : Website from the British Natural History museum featuring information about their dinosaur collection, dinosaur crafts, and articles about dinosaur origins, evolution, and extinction.
• The Paleobiology Database : Database providing fossil occurrence and taxonomic data across geological ages. The includes an interactive map to display data, which can also be filtered by geological age.
• Berkeley Paleo Collections : Digitized image collections of microfossil, vertebrate, plant, and invertebrate specimens from the University of California Museum of Paleontology.
• Index to Organism Names : Searchable index of millions of scientific names, both fossil and current, from the scientific literature.
• A Guide to the Orders of Trilobites : An online guide featuring information about the morphology, classification, and paleobiology of trilobites, as well as many images and fact sheets about the ancient arthropods.
• NMITA : Taxonomic database of marine life from the Neogene period, with maps, identification guides, and photos for selected species.
• Paleoclimatology Data : Collection of resources about Paleoclimatology from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The resources include datasets, current projects, and presentations.
• Geology, Paleontology & Theories of the Earth : Digitized collection of early and influential books in paleontology and geoscience from the Linda Hall Library.

Paleontology

Paleontology is the study of the history of life on Earth as based on fossils. Fossils are the remains of plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and single-celled living things that have been replaced by rock material or impressions of organisms preserved in rock.

Geology, Geography, Earth Science, Biology

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Paleontology  is the study of the history of life on Earth as based on  fossils . Fossils are the remains of  plants ,  animals ,  fungi ,  bacteria , and single- celled living things that have been replaced by rock material or impressions of organisms preserved in rock. Paleontologists use fossil remains to understand different  aspects of  extinct  and living organisms. Individual fossils may contain information about an organism’s life and environment . Much like the rings of a tree, for example, each ring on the surface of an  oyster  shell denotes one year of its life. Studying oyster fossils can help paleontologists discover how long the oyster lived, and in what conditions. If the  climate  was favorable for the oyster, the oyster probably grew more quickly and the rings would be thicker. If the oyster struggled for survival, the rings would be thinner. Thinner rings would indicate an environment not favorable to organisms like the oyster—too warm or too cold for the oyster, for example, or lacking  nutrients necessary for them to grow. Some fossils show how an organism lived.  Amber , for instance, is hardened, fossilized tree  resin . At times, the sticky resin has dripped down a tree trunk, trapping air bubbles, as well as small insects and some organisms as large as frogs and lizards. Paleontologists study amber, called “fossil resin,” to observe these complete  specimens . Amber can preserve tissue as delicate as dragonfly wings. Some ants were trapped in amber while eating leaves, allowing scientists to know exactly what they ate, and how they ate it. Even the air bubbles trapped in amber are valuable to paleontologists. By analyzing the  chemistry  of the air, scientists can tell if there was a  volcanic eruption  or other  atmospheric changes  nearby. The behavior of organisms can also be  deduced from fossil evidence. Paleontologists suggest that  hadrosaurs , duck-billed dinosaurs, lived in large  herds , for instance. They made this  hypothesis  after observing evidence of social behavior,including a single site with approximately 10,000 skeletons . Fossils can also provide evidence of the evolutionary history of organisms. Paleontologists infer that whales  evolved from land-dwelling animals, for instance. Fossils of extinct animals closely related to whales have front limbs like paddles, similar to front legs. They even have tiny back limbs. Although the front limbs of these fossil animals are in some ways similar to legs, in other ways they also show strong similarities to the fins of modern whales. Subdisciplines of Paleontology The field of paleontology has many subdisciplines. A subdiscipline is a specialized field of study within a broader subject or discipline. In the case of paleontology, subdisciplines can focus on a specific fossil type or a specific aspect of the globe, such as its climate. Vertebrate Paleontology One important subdiscipline is  vertebrate paleontology, the study of fossils of animals with backbones. Vertebrate paleontologists have discovered and reconstructed the skeletons of dinosaurs, turtles, cats, and many other animals to show how they lived and their evolutionary history. Using fossil evidence, vertebrate paleontologists deduced that  pterosaurs , a group of flying reptiles, could fly by flapping their wings, as opposed to just gliding. Reconstructed skeletons of pterosaurs have hollow and light bones like modern birds. One type of pterosaur,  Quetzalcoatlus , is considered one of the largest flying creatures in history. It had a  wingspan  of 11 meters (36 feet). Paleontologists have competing theories about if and how  Quetzalcoatlus  flew. Some paleontologists argue it was too heavy to fly at all. Others maintain it could distribute its weight well enough to soar slowly. Still other scientists say  Quetzalcoatlus  was muscular enough to fly quickly over short distances. These theories demonstrate how vertebrate paleontologists can interpret fossil evidence differently. Invertebrate Paleontology Invertebrate paleontologists examine the fossils of animals without backbones— mollusks ,  corals ,  arthropods like crabs and shrimp,  echinoderms like sand dollars and sea stars,  sponges , and worms . Unlike vertebrates, invertebrates do not have bones—they do leave behind evidence of their existence in the form of fossilized shells and  exoskeletons , impressions of their soft body parts, and tracks from their movement along the ground or ocean floor. Invertebrate fossils are especially important to the study and reconstruction of prehistoric aquatic  environments. For example, large communities of 200-million-year-old invertebrate  marine  fossils found in the  deserts of Nevada, in the United States, tell us that certain areas of the state were covered by water during that period of time. Paleobotany Paleobotanists study the fossils of ancient plants. These fossils can be impressions of plants left on rock surfaces, or they can be parts of the plants themselves, such as leaves and seeds, that have been preserved by rock material. These fossils help us understand the evolution and  diversity  of plants, in addition to being a key part of the reconstruction of ancient environments and climates, subdisciplines known as  paleoecology  (the study of ancient environments) and  paleoclimatology  (the study of ancient climates). At a small site in the  Patagonia  region of Argentina, paleobotanists discovered the fossils of more than 100 plant species that date back about 52 million years.  Prior  to this discovery, many scientists said South America’s biological diversity is a result of  glaciers breaking up the continent into  isolated ecosystem "islands" two million years ago. The Patagonia leaf fossils may disprove  this theory. Paleobotanists now have evidence that the continent’s diversity of plant species was present 50 million years before the end of the last  Ice Age . Some plant fossils are found in hard lumps called  coal balls .  Coal , a  fossil fuel , is formed from the remains of  decomposed plants. Coal balls are also formed from the plant remains of forests and swamps , but these materials did not turn into coal. They slowly petrified, or were replaced by rock. Coal balls, found in or near coal deposits, preserve evidence of the different plants that formed the coal, making them important for studying ancient environments, and for understanding a major energy source. Micropaleontology Micropaleontology is the study of fossils of microscopic organisms, such as  protists ,  algae , tiny  crustaceans , and  pollen . Micropaleontologists use powerful  electron microscopes to study  microfossils that are generally smaller than four millimeters (0.16 inches). Microfossil species tend to be short-lived and  abundant  where they are found, which makes them helpful for identifying rock layers that are the same age, a process known as  biostratigraphy . The chemical makeup of some microfossils can be used to learn about the environment when the organism was alive, making them important for paleoclimatology. Micropaleontologists study shells from deep-sea  microorganisms in order to understand how Earth’s climate has changed. Shells accumulate on the ocean floor after the organisms die. Because the organisms draw the  elements for their shells from the ocean water around them, the composition of the shells reflects the current composition of the ocean.By chemically analyzing the shells, paleontologists can determine the amount of oxygen, carbon, and other life- sustaining nutrients in the ocean when the shells developed. They can then compare shells from one period of time to another, or from one geographic area to another. Differences in the chemical composition of the ocean can be good  indicators of differences in climate. Micropaleontologists often study the oldest fossils on Earth. The oldest fossils are of  cyanobacteria , sometimes called blue-green algae or pond scum. Cyanobacteria grew in shallow oceans when Earth was still cooling, billions of years ago. Fossils formed by cyanobacteria are called  stromatolites . The oldest fossils on Earth are stromatolites discovered in western Australia that are 3.5 billion years old. History of Paleontology Throughout human history, fossils have been used, studied, and understood in different ways. Early  civilizations used fossils for decorative or religious purposes, but did not always understand where they came from. Although some ancient Greek and Roman scientists recognized that fossils were the remains of life forms, many early  scholars believed fossils were evidence of  mythological creatures such as dragons. From the  Middle Ages  until the early 1700s, fossils were widely regarded as works of the devil or of a higher power. Many people believed the remains had special  curative  or destructive powers. Many scholars also believed that fossils were remains left by  Noah's flood  and other disasters documented in the Hebrew holy book. Some ancient scientists did understand what fossils were, and were able to  formulate  complex hypotheses based on fossil evidence. Greek  biologist Xenophanes  discovered seashells on land, and deduced that the land was once a seafloor . Remarkably, Chinese scientist  Shen Kuo  was able to use fossilized bamboo to form a theory of  climate change . The formal science of paleontology—fossil collection and description—began in the 1700s, a period of time known as the  Age of Enlightenment . Scientists began to describe and map rock formations and  classify  fossils.  Geologists discovered that rock layers were the product of long periods of  sediment  buildup, rather than the result of single events or  catastrophes . In the early 1800s,  Georges Cuvier  and  William Smith , considered the pioneers of paleontology, found that rock layers in different areas could be compared and matched on the basis of their fossils. Later that century, the works of  Charles Lyell  and  Charles Darwin  strongly influenced how society understood the history of Earth and its organisms. Lyell’s  Principles of Geology  stated that the fossils in one rock layer were similar, but fossils in other rock layers were different. This sequence could be used to show relationships between similar rock layers separated by great distances. Fossils discovered in South America may have more in common with fossils from Africa than fossils from different rock layers nearby. Darwin’s  On The Origin of Species  observed somewhat similar sequencing in the living world. Darwin suggested that new species evolve over time. New fossil discoveries supported Darwin’s theory that creatures living in the distant past were different from, yet sometimes interconnected with, those living today. This theory allowed paleontologists to study living organisms for clues to understanding fossil evidence. The  Archaeopteryx , for example, had wings like a bird, but had other features (such as teeth) typical of a type of dinosaur called a  theropod . Now regarded as a very early bird,  Archaeopteryx  retains more similarities to theropods than does any modern bird. Studying the physical features of  Archaeopteryx  is an example of how paleontologists and other scientists establish a sequence, or ordering, of when one species evolved relative to another. The dating of rock layers and fossils was  revolutionized after the discovery of radioactivity in the late 1800s. Using a process known as  radiometric dating , scientists can determine the age of a rock layer by examining how certain  atoms in the rock have changed since the rock formed. As atoms change, they emit different levels of radioactivity. Changes in radioactivity are standard and can be accurately measured in units of time. By measuring  radioactive  material in an ancient sample and comparing it to a current sample, scientists can calculate how much time has passed. Radiometric dating allows ages to be assigned to rock layers, which can then be used to determine the ages of fossils. Paleontologists used radiometric dating to study the fossilized eggshells of  Genyornis , an extinct bird from Australia. They discovered that  Genyornis  became extinct between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago. Fossil evidence from plants and other organisms in the region shows that there was abundant food for the large, flightless bird at the time of its extinction. Climate changes were too slow to explain the relatively quick extinction. By studying human fossils and ancient Australian cave paintings that were dated to the same time period, paleontologists hypothesized that human beings—the earliest people to inhabit Australia—may have contributed to the extinction of  Genyornis . Paleontology Today Modern paleontologists have a variety of tools that help them discover, examine, and describe fossils. Electron microscopes allow paleontologists to study the tiniest details of the smallest fossils. X-ray machines and  CT scanners reveal fossils' internal structures. Advanced computer programs can analyze fossil  data , reconstruct skeletons, and visualize the bodies and movements of extinct organisms. Paleontologists and biologists used a CT scan to study the preserved body of a baby  mammoth  discovered in  Siberia  in 2007. A CT scanner allows scientists to construct 3-D representations of the bones and tissue of the organism. Using this technology , scientists were able to see that the baby mammoth had healthy teeth, bones, and muscle tissue. However, the animal’s  lungs and trunk were full of mud and  debris . This suggested to scientists that the animal was healthy, but most likely  suffocated in a muddy river or lake. Scientists can even extract  genetic  material from bones and tissues. Paleontologists made a remarkable genetic discovery when the bones of a  Tyrannosaurus rex  were broken during an  excavation  in the 1990s.  Soft tissue  was discovered inside the bones. Soft tissue is the actual  connective tissue  of an organism, such as muscle, fat, and blood. Soft tissue is rarely preserved during fossilization. Paleontologists usually must rely on fossilized remains—rocks. Paleontologists now hope to use this rare discovery of 68-million-year-old tissue to study the biology and possibly even the  DNA  of the  T. rex . Even with all these advancements, paleontologists still make important discoveries by using simple tools and basic techniques in the field. The  National Geographic Society  supports field work in paleontology throughout the world.  Emerging Explorer  Zeresenay "Zeray" Alemseged conducts studies in northern Ethiopia. There, Alemseged and his  colleagues unearth and study fossils that contribute to the understanding of human evolution. Emerging Explorer Bolortsetseg Minjin is a paleontologist who has found fossils of dinosaurs, ancient mammals , and even corals in the  Gobi Desert  of Mongolia. She also works to teach Mongolian students about the dinosaurs in their backyard, and is hoping to establish a paleontology museum in the country. Many dig sites offer visitors the chance to watch paleontologists work in the field, including the following U.S. sites: Gray Fossil Site in Gray, Tennessee; the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California; and the Ashfall Fossil Beds in Royal, Nebraska.

Evolutionary Biology Many paleontologists are also evolutionary biologists. Evolutionary biology is the study of the origin, development, and changes (evolution) in species over time. Other scientists that contribute to evolutionary biology are geologists and geneticists.

Fossils and Myths Ancient cultures did not always understand what fossils were, and adapted their discovery to fit with myths and stories. China is rich in dinosaur fossils. Dinosaurs are ancient reptiles whose bones share characteristics with both reptiles and birds. Ancient Chinese people often interpreted dinosaur skeletons as the remains of flying dragons! Fossilized remains of dwarf elephants have been found on several Mediterranean islands. Dwarf elephants grew to only 2 meters (6 feet) tall. Their skulls are about the same size as a human skull, with a large hole in the middle where the living animal's trunk is. In the ancient Mediterranean cultures of Greece and Rome, the remains of dwarf elephants were often interpreted as the remains of cyclopes, a type of feared, one-eyed giant.

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 10 British women who have most influenced the history of science.

Soaking Up History The oldest fossils ever discovered are stromatolites, the remains of ancient cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. The oldest animal fossils ever discovered are sponges. Prehistoric sponges have been discovered on the Arabian Peninsula and Australia.

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Chicago Museum Unveils the ‘Most Important Fossil Ever Discovered’: the Feathered Dinosaur Archaeopteryx

Archaeopteryx provided the missing link between dinosaurs and the avians of today, serving as critical evidence for Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution

Aaron Boorstein

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Today, some 50 billion birds roam our planet, navigating every continent and environment. With their melodic chirping that awakens people daily and their visits to birdbaths and feeders, birds are a familiar presence in human lives.

But rewind about 150 million years, and Archaeopteryx —widely recognized as the earliest known bird—cut a starkly contrasting image, boasting a snout filled with sharp teeth, wings with claws and a long, bony tail.

Archaeopteryx (meaning “ancient wing” in Greek) was a genus of small, bird-like dinosaurs from the late Jurassic Period that inhabited what is now Europe. Despite the extinct creatures’ differences from today’s birds, they share many similarities with modern avians: a small size, a wishbone and asymmetric feathers , to name a few.

Only a dozen Archaeopteryx fossils have been discovered, most of which are in Europe. But beginning on Tuesday, May 7, Chicago’s Field Museum will make the 13th known Archaeopteryx fossil visible to the public—the first specimen of its kind in a major natural history museum in the Western Hemisphere.

The displayed fossil is accompanied by an animated, holographic projection illustrating how Archaeopteryx would have moved and looked. The fossil will be removed from public view in June in preparation for its permanent exhibition opening this fall.

“ Archaeopteryx is arguably the most important fossil ever discovered. It transformed how scientists see the world by providing strong support for Darwin’s theory of evolution,” says Julian Siggers , the Field Museum’s president and CEO, in a statement . “This is the Field Museum’s most significant fossil acquisition since SUE the T. rex , and we’re thrilled to be able to study ‘the Chicago Archaeopteryx ’ and to share it with our visitors.”

Unlike SUE, which was named after its discoverer, Sue Hendrickson, the Field Museum’s new fossil is called the Chicago Archaeopteryx , as specimens of the genus are named after the city in which they reside. For example, other  Archaeopteryx fossils are named for London , Berlin and Munich . The only other  Archaeopteryx  in the United States is in Thermopolis, Wyoming.

The Chicago fossil “is, without a doubt, one of the best specimens of this important species that has ever been found,” said Jingmai O’Connor , the Field Museums’s associate curator of fossil reptiles, at a media preview event on Monday.

When Archaeopteryx was discovered in 1861, it provided a groundbreaking piece of evidence in favor of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Paleontologists view the prehistoric bird-like creature as a transitional fossil, bridging small carnivorous dinosaurs, known as theropods, with modern birds, Live Science ’s Joseph Castro writes.

In his 1859 book On the Origin of Species , Darwin noted that the “gravest objection which can be urged against my theory” was the absence of transitional fossils. But the first complete Archaeopteryx specimen provided this “ missing link ” between birds and dinosaurs—and it was discovered only two years after Darwin published the book.

“ Archaeopteryx is like the holy grail,” O’Connor said at the media event.

While the Chicago Archaeopteryx is about the size of a homing pigeon, the species could reach up to 20 inches long . A 2018 study found that Archaeopteryx used its wings to fly and moved like modern pheasants, with short bursts of active, flapping flight.

The Chicago Archaeopteryx was discovered where all other such fossils have been found to date: a deposit in Southern Germany called Solnhofen Limestone. Unearthed by quarry workers in 1990, private collectors held the fossil until Field Museum supporters helped procure it. The fossil reached the museum in August 2022.

“When the specimen arrived, it was still unprepared, meaning that most of the skeleton was obscured by a top layer of rock,” O’Connor says in the statement. “We weren’t sure how complete it was—when we X-rayed the fossil slab and saw that the fossil inside was nearly 100 percent complete, we cheered.”

According to an exhibit label, the museum’s preparators spent 1,300 hours preparing the fossil for display. They “revealed details—like skin imprints and tiny skull bones—that are not preserved in other Archaeopteryx fossils.”

The Field Museum, as well as local and state government officials, are eager for the educational opportunities the fossil offers.

“When this opens permanently this fall, students and teachers will have the unique opportunity to experience the exhibit with a focus on fossil excavation,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said at the media event.

“We are excited to celebrate this priceless specimen and its significance in further positioning Chicago as a premier destination in the world to explore the natural sciences,” Johnson adds in the statement.

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Aaron Boorstein | READ MORE

Aaron Boorstein is an intern with  Smithsonian magazine.

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Big oil spent decades sowing doubt about fossil fuel dangers, experts testify

US Senate hearing reviewed report showing sector’s shift from climate denial to ‘deception, disinformation and doublespeak’

The fossil fuel industry spent decades sowing doubt about the dangers of burning oil and gas, experts and Democratic lawmakers testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

The Senate budget committee held a hearing to review a report published on Tuesday with the House oversight and accountability committee that they said demonstrates the sector’s shift from explicit climate denial to a more sophisticated strategy of “deception, disinformation and doublespeak”.

“Big oil had to evolve from denial to duplicity,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, the Rhode Island Democrat, who chairs the Senate committee.

The revelations , based on hundreds of newly subpoenaed documents, illustrate how oil companies worked to greenwash their image while fighting climate policy behind the scenes.

“Time and again, the biggest oil and gas corporations say one thing for the purposes of public consumption but do something completely different to protect their profits,” Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House oversight committee, testified. “Company officials will admit the terrifying reality of their business model behind closed doors but say something entirely different, false and soothing to the public.”

The findings build on years of investigative reporting and scholarly research showing that the sector was for decades aware of the dangers of the climate crisis, yet hid that from the public.

In the absence of decisive government action to curb planet-warming emissions, the impacts of the climate crisis have gotten worse, committee Democrats said. Several senators said the industry should have to pay damages for fueling the crisis.

“In my view, it should not be state government or the federal government having to pick up the bill,” said the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. “I think it’s time to ask the people who caused that problem, who lied about that situation, to pick up the bill.”

But budget committee Republicans pushed back on the very premise of the hearing. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa senator and the committee’s top Republican, said it is “undeniable that … fossil fuels are critical to our energy security”.

Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, meanwhile, claimed that CO 2 is a “plant food”, implying it has positive aspects. It’s a talking point that has long been promoted by fossil fuel industry-funded thinktanks that aim to sow doubt about climate change.

“I’m not a climate-change denier, I’m just not a climate-change alarmist,” Johnson added.

Kert Davies, director of special investigations at the Center for Climate Integrity, who has long studied climate denial, noted his rhetoric was exemplary of “old school” denial tactics that have long fallen out of favor in the industry.

“The plant food thing was a popular talking point in the 1990s,” he said in an interview. “They’re falling back on these tropes … and that’s all they’ve got, because they have no other rebuttal to the findings about the deception campaigns.”

Perhaps the tensest moment of the morning’s hearing came when Louisiana senator John Kennedy questioned Geoffrey Supran, a University of Miami associate professor who studies fossil fuel industry messaging and whom the Senate committee Democrats had invited to testify.

The Republican senator attacked Supran for retweeting posts about the protest organization Climate Defiance , which recently accosted Joe Manchin, the centrist West Virginia Democratic senator who has well-documented financial interests in coal, and called him a “sick fuck”. (Supran says he did not retweet anything about the action and was not aware of it until the hearing.)

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“Are you going to call me a sick fuck?” Kennedy asked.

In response, Supran said Kennedy’s comments were “characteristic” of the oil industry’s “propaganda techniques”.

“Among all the tactics that the fossil fuel interests have used over the decades to deny their products have caused global warming, one of the most common is character assassination,” Supran said in an interview after the hearing. “The idea is to attack the messenger rather than the message, because they don’t have a foot to stand on with the message.”

The Republicans’ messaging, Supran added, is an indication that though the industry has adopted new forms of “climate delay”, older forms of “climate denial are still alive and well in some cases”.

He said Kennedy’s questioning also points to the “influence of oil money on American politics”, adding that research shows representatives who fight climate policy get more money from fossil fuel companies. (Kennedy has accepted more than $1.5m from the oil industry.)

Cities and states have filed a slew of lawsuits against big oil for alleged deception. Sharon Eubanks, who was lead counsel on behalf of the US in a successful 2005 lawsuit against big tobacco and was invited by the Democrats to testify, said the US could also reasonably take legal action against the oil industry.

In her testimony, Eubanks referenced a document called the Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan, nicknamed the “victory memo” by climate-denial researchers. Circulated by top oil and gas lobby group American Petroleum Institute in 1998, the document detailed a plan to undermine climate science and promote doubt and denial.

One prong of the plan, Davies noted, was targeting US representatives.

“They’re explicitly targeted, and companies spent money on giving Congress propaganda,” he said. “They’re doing the industry’s work for them.”

• Oil and gas companies
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Democrats say Big Oil misled public for decades about climate change

Major oil companies have misled Americans for decades about the threat of human-caused climate change, according to a new report released Tuesday by Democrats in Congress. 

The 65-page report was the result of a three-year investigation and was made public hours before a Senate Budget Committee hearing about the role that oil and gas companies have played in global warming.

“They could’ve been the environmental Paul Revere but, instead, they were more like Rip Van Winkle, wanting everyone to go to sleep,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said about fossil fuel companies’ efforts to mislead and distract the American public for more than 60 years. “The thing that gets me the most is thinking back to the decades when ‘Big Oil and Gas’ understood the problem in a way almost no one in the country or the world did.”

Democrats’ investigation revealed research, transcripts and even video recordings that show the fossil fuel industry knew the consequences of its emissions since at least the 1960s. Their report also showed how oil and gas companies initially tried to hide that information but employed new tactics to downplay the urgency of eliminating emissions.

Geoffrey Supran, an associate professor and director of the Climate Accountability Lab at the University of Miami, researches climate disinformation and propaganda from the fossil fuel industry. He said that oil and gas companies’ claims of decarbonizing are just their latest strategy to delay climate action. 

“Putting spin before science continues at oil companies to this day,” he said of his research into the tactics of the industry.

“This is greenwashing 101,” Supran added. “Talk green, act dirty.”

Senate Republicans called the hearing purely partisan and attempted to refocus the discussion on the financial cost of rapidly transitioning away from oil and gas. 

“We spend all this money, and we don’t lower global temperatures one scintilla of a degree,” said Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, one of the top oil and gas producing states in the U.S.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), a major lobbying group for the industry, was repeatedly blamed in the report and Senate hearing for helping oil and gas companies hide the truth about climate change. According to Senate Democrats, API both advised fossil fuel companies on public relations strategies, while also acting as a scapegoat for congressional scrutiny.

In a statement to NBC News, an API spokesperson said, “At a time of persistent inflation and geopolitical instability, our nation needs more American energy — including more oil and natural gas — and less unfounded election year rhetoric. America’s energy workers are focused on delivering the reliable, affordable oil and natural gas Americans demand while scaling the next generation of low-carbon technologies like hydrogen and carbon capture, and any suggestion to the contrary is inaccurate.” 

Democrats reiterated that oil and gas companies have damaged the planet for decades without having to pay for the consequences. That led Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to ask what happens next. 

“If we have an industry that knowingly, and that’s the point … knowingly understood that climate change would bring devastating destruction to the lives of billions of people, what are the legal grounds we can hold them accountable for?” he said.

Chase Cain is a national climate reporter for NBC News.

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• 23 February 2022

Fossil fish reveal timing of asteroid that killed the dinosaurs

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Evidence suggests an asteroid impact that killed off most dinosaurs might have happened in spring. Credit: Joschua Knüppe

Winter began in spring for many animals during the final year of the age of dinosaurs. Palaeontologists studying fossilized fish suggest that spring was in full bloom in the Northern Hemisphere when an asteroid slammed into Earth, triggering a devastating global winter and mass extinction.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00511-x

During, M. A. D. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04446-1 (2022).

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