About Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or the traces of the animals, animals and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of the fossils both discovered and not discovered and their placement in the fossiliferous (fossil containing) rock formations and the sedimentary layers are known as the fossil records. The study of the fossils record across the geological times how they were formed and to which period they belong and many other questions are put forward to be answered during the study of the fossils.
You must have seen many samples of the fossils in some museum or the other. However you will find the Florissant fossil bed to be one of the oldest fossils which you would have ever seen. I must say that this old fossil remain which is situated in the region near Florissant which is near to the Colorado springs is now a well known national park. It presents one of the oldest fossils remains which you would have ever seen. The people from all corners of the world do visit this place and I must say that they are really overjoyed by these remains.
You must have heard about the trace fossils, micro fossils and many other kinds of fossils but you will definitely find the fossils at the Florissant fossil bed to be among one of the oldest as far as the fossils are concerned. I once went to the fossil bed near Florissant. I was really very excited. When I saw the petrified red woods then my excitement really reached the peak. It was really very exciting to visit this place. Since then whenever I hear about the fossils, I have only one thing in my mind and that is this old Florissant fossil bed.
Whenever I talk to somebody about the fossils then my first words are about this great place which is now also a national park.
William Smith (1769-1839), an English canal engineer, found that rocks of diverse ages (based on the law of superposition) conserved different assemblages of fossils, and that these assemblages succeeded one another in a regular and determinable order. He also absorbed that the rocks from different ages could be correlated by the type of the fossils they contain. He called this phenomenon as faunal succession.
Smith, who preceded Charles Darwin, was unacquainted of biological evolution and did not know why faunal succession occurred. Biological evolution clearly explains in deep how the faunal succession occurs as the time passes by. Faunal succession was one of the most important evidence for Darwin to come up with his theory of the biological evolution.
I really feel that all the archeologists who are engaged in excavation work finding out different fossils and those who are trying to do research on these fossils are really doing a great job and we all should really appreciate it.