B. MODE OF PRESERVATION:
Because soft tissues, such as flesh and body organs, decay very quickly after death, it is usually only hard, mineralized skeletal material that has any real chance of being preserved as fossils. Thus, fossils almost always occur in the form of bone, shell or tooth, rather than as some other aspect of anatomy.
Skeletal remains of organisms are preserved in rocks in different ways.
Among the most common ways in which fossils are preserved are the following: 1) as original shell material;
and 2) as carbon replacement of original organic material.
A rarer form of preservation involves preservation in amber – fossilized tree sap.
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©J.A. Chamberlain, Jr. - Brooklyn College - Earth and Environmental Sciences