Fossils: The Habitat Museum

Grandma Bea takes Millie to the Fossil Hall at the Habitat Museum. Four glass cases hold a spiral shell, a fern leaf, a fish and a dinosaur footprint, all turned to stone long, long ago. There is even a friendly long-necked dinosaur skeleton!

Remember: A fossil is what is left of a plant or animal from long ago, kept in rock: bones, shells, leaf prints, even footprints. Most fossils are found in sedimentary rock, because mud and sand buried the living thing and slowly hardened into rock. A fossil takes thousands of years or more to form, and fossils show us what lived long ago.

Magic trick: Deeper is older. Rock layers pile up like a stack of pancakes: the bottom one was made first, so fossils lower down are usually older.