Many species of animals and plants have disappeared from the earth. They have died out or become extinct. But sometimes animals or plant remains can be found buried in rocks. 'These are called fossils. Imprints in rocks (paw prints, for example) are also called fossils.
Not every creature survives as a fossil. Many simply rot away completely and leave no trace of their existence. Because many creatures and plants have disappeared without leaving any fossils, we will never know anything about them.
The study of fossils, or palaeontology, to give its scientific name, became established at the beginning of the nineteen century. Before this research began, people did not believe that fossils had once been alive. Large fossils teeth were seen as evidence of a race o
f giants in the past, while ammonites, a very common type of fossil which one might easily find on a beach or among rocks, were called snakestones because of their snake-like shape. People believed that snakes had been turned to stone by a miracle.
The most famous fossils of all are the dinosaurs. There are, of course, no dinosaurs on display in zoos. They were not hunted to extinction by humans as some animals have been, but became extinct millions of years before our own species developed. The reason why the dinosaurs became extinct is still a mystery. Many theories have connected the disappearance of dinosaurs with major climatic change. One possibility is that a gigantic meteorite crashed into the earth displacing so much dust into the atmosphere that the amount of sunlight was reduced. The temperature would have fallen and, as a consequence, many types of plants and animals would have become extinct.
To conclude, we should say that it is very interesting to explore our past and discover how things have changed until nowadays, to notice how climate influenced the flora and fauna of our planet and to conserve the remains from our past. In this way we will be able to preserve beautiful proofs which history has left for us, because it is very important for the mankind to sometimes keep a relation with the past.
History Set in Stone written by Cristina Nuta for FamousWhy.com
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by Cristina Nuta -