The greatest majority of fossils found in Arizona are found in sedimentary rocks.

Such rocks, usually shale, sandstone or

limestone, were produced on sea bottoms where sand, mud or thick beds of shells have been compressed into solid stone

Several basic requirements

must be met by nature before an animal
or plant can become a fossil. First, the
organism must be rapidly buried within
sediments which are not soon disturbed.
Sea animals are most common as fossils
because, after death, they are rapidly
covered with mud which will in time
become hard shale or limestone.
Second, the organism must have parts
capable of preservation. This is a very
ambiguous rule, for a plant or animal
does not necessarily need hard parts to
become a fossil. If the sediments are
fine enough, such animals as worms or
jellyfish can be perfectly preserved in
the finest of detail as carbon films or Did he swim head first into a meat grinder? Taphonomy is a
impressions. Taphonomy, the science of fascinating part of paleontololgy, the how and why of death
and decay.
death and decay makes detectives out of
many fossil hunters.

Even if plants or animals become fossilized, permanent preservation after being buried for eons is not necessarily
guaranteed. Often, sedimentary rocks become metamorphosed, or altered due to the tremendous heat and pressure. The
Volcanic activity that was regionally so prevalent in the Jurassic and Cretaceous cooked many fossils in sedimentary
rocks, and the forces involved in mountain building often compressed fossils in to meaningless smudges in the rock,
into nothing at all. The fossil record in these cases no longer exist in Arizona, but fortunately over the next hill
conditions could have been quite different and an abundance of specimens might be found. In the Tucson Mountains,
where I live, much of the rock is volcanic, having been formed as the great 10 mile-wide caldera here blew its stack in
the Late Cretaceous. But among these beautiful, craggy volcanic formations are virtually untouched sedimentary rocks
that contain dinosaur bones and tracks, and both invertebrates and plant fossils. No wonder geologists call this the
"Tucson Mountain Chaos."

KINDS OF PRESERVATION FOUND IN ARIZONA

1. Molds and casts: Animals with
shells or hard exoskeletons buried in
sediments are often acted upon by
acid-rich ground water which may
dissolve away shells or other organic
structures. The void created by this
action is called a mold.
Geologist call it a "steinkern" Cast (L) Cast (R) of a fossil snail

The mold's positive counterpart is called the cast. Both molds and casts should be collected as each often
holds some detail which its counterpart has lost.

2. Distillation:
Most often referred to as
carbonization

This process of preservation occurs when volatile elements in organic matter distill away, leaving a thin carbon
film as the only fossil record Many fossils in Arizona are preserved in this way, especially carbon copies of leaves,
the flesh of fish and certain soft bodied invertebrates such as worms and arthropods.

3.Petrification:
Fossils in which the
entire cellular
structure of the
organism is replaced
by mineral matter are
considered petrified.

Carnelian replaced Coral Agatized palm Wood

"Rainbow Wood"

Fossil wood of the Petrified Forest and many

dinosaur bones are preserved in this manner. The
dinosaur bone shown on the right is the work of a
skilled lapidary. Its not unusual for fossils to be
replaced by colored agate or carnelian. Originally
the lattice of cells were open and porous, and if
buried in just the right conditions with lots of
surrounding water that contains dissolved iron or
other secondary minerals, the result can be
spectacular. Does someone who wears such an item
promote paleontology? I've seen it happen over and
over; a comment on the adornment turns into a
discussion on fossils then to paleontology. I've seen
outcrops littered with broken and battered bone
fragments, most of which are useless to science. I
guess the purist would disagree.

Dinosaur bone replaced by red agate

Petrified wood (wood turned to stone) falls into two categories: casts and permineralizations. The first step in
formation of both of these types of fossils involves quick burial in sediment so that fungal and bacterial decay is
retarded due to low oxygen levels. A cast is formed as minerals or other sediments fill and harden within the
sedimentary cavity formed as the original wood deteriorates. Casts show the external form of the fossil but do not
preserve internal cell structure, and consequently cannot be identified to genus or species. Permineralized woods are
formed when minerals dissolved in groundwaters infiltrate the wood, filling the spaces within and between cells,
gradually embedding and preserving the entire tissue. Permineralized woods retain the original cellular structure and
therefore can be identified by anatomical study.

In some cases the minerals which replace organic tissue is colored with one or more elements which
impart pleasing colors to the fossil. Iron and manganese will color a fossil red, yellow or orange; manganese blues,
and the color green in Arizona usually means copper or chromium had something to do with the fossilization. For
the fossil collector, who may also be a lapidary, the discovery of such well preserved fossils poses an obvious
dilemma. Clearly, a well preserved fossil should be spared. For the weathered fragments or items out of geological
context, I have no answers as the subject can make some rather hot under the collar.
 When Fossils are "pretty" is it
ethical to slice and dice a fossil that has
been replace by a pleasingly colored
mineral such as jasper? In some areas of
Arizona, dinosaur bone can be found in
which cells are filled with bright red agate
or carnelian. When does a paleontological
specimen become fair game to the
lapidary. For me, not often, but there is
often badly weathered bone showing no
exterior structure, and not found in situ,
that is in place. Its a judgement call, and Petrified palm-wood pendant
I'm not the judge.

4. Permineralization: Porous organic

structures, like bone, certain shells and woody
tissue may not be turned to stone and may still
be considered fossils. The bird's nest shown at
right is at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.
While its age in indeterminate, percolating
water from a hot spring infused into the twigs of
the nest and the bird eggs themselves at some
point and "permineralized" the entire structure.
Is it a fossil? Quien Sabe? In New Mexico's
Jemez Springs, I split shale and found
"Fossil" bird nest and eggs at
newspapers that could still be read. Another Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
hotspring kind of thing.
When an organism's pores are filled with mineral matter without removing the original organic substances,
this process is called permineralization. Sometimes there is a gray area between these to types of preservation, as a
small component of original organic matter may remain, even in the silica-replace woods of the Petrified Forest's
Chinle Formation.

5. Footprints and Trails: Fossil track

ways are an invaluable supplement to the study
of ancient life forms. From fossil tracks much
more can be learned about an animal's habits
than by studying only the actual remains.
Dinosaur footprints are widely known, but
many prints and trackways of lower vertebrates
such as lizards and amphibians are commonly
found in Arizona rocks from early Paleozoic to
the latest Pleistocene. Tracks of invertebrates
such as trilobites and molluscs can be common
in fine-grained shales and sandstones. On
Reptile tracks in Coconino Sandstone
interesting site I dug was a cavalcade of
mammal tracks in Late Pleistocene sediments in
Brawley wash west of Tucson, and included
lion, camel and mammoth.
6. Coprolites. Casts of excrement preserved as
fossils. The name comes from the Greek kopros
meaning feces. A great deal can be learned by
studying fossil food material preserved in such
fossils, and the shape alone of a coprolite can tell
something about the internal anatomy of the long-
extinct animal. Coprolites were produced by
invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles or mammals.
Some of these are beautifully agatized also.

7: Mummification.
Rarely, animals are
preserved with no alteration
of their soft parts.

Mummies usually are represented by animals preserved by natural desiccation in arid regions. In Arizona,
mummies of Shasta ground sloths are found in dry caves and are famous throughout the world.

8. Amber: Amber is a natural tree resin

that had hardened through various chemical
changes. Sometimes this sap surrounds an
insect (remember Jurassic Park?) and
preserves it in perfect detail. Undocumented
reports show that amber has been found in
the Cretaceous Mancos Shale of Black
Mesa and other Mesozoic rocks that
represent offshore environments that were
the ultimate source for runoff that carried
debris from forested upland environments.
The specimen at right is a classy piece of
Baltic Oligocene amber trapping the best
preserved spider in existence. I gave the
specimen to my "Amber Maniac" friend
Mark Collins in Dublin, Ireland. Keep
splitting that soft lignite coal in Arizona;
insects in amber will eventually be found.

Although it looks like stone, amber is actually ancient resin from conifers and some tropical broadleaved
trees. Trees produce these resins as a defense against insect or disease, or as a protective cover for wounds from, say,
a snapped branch. As the resin reaches the surface of the tree, it hardens. It takes specific environmental conditions -
- and time- - for that resin to become amber. The resin must find an appropriate resting place -- in lake sediments, for
example.

What makes that type of environment suitable is that it lacks oxygen, which would begin to decay the resin. Then,
over several thousand years, the resin becomes a substance known as copal, and is considered "subfossilized"-- that
is, it seems hard, but will melt when exposed to a hot flame. As compounds in the resin called terpenes become
chemically linked over thousands or even millions of years, the copal hardens into amber, which softens and
blackens when exposed to a flame, but won't liquify. This insect was trapped in amber about 180 million years ago.

9. Burrows: Burros are horses in Arizona (You've got to

visit Oatman to see the wild ones!), but fossil burrows are
evidence of bottom-living creatures that dig into the muck, on
the bottom of the oceans or lakes, or in the sand if in streams,
in the sand. In the specimen shown here, invertebrates,
perhaps annelid worms, made a labyrinth of hollow tunnels
that were eventually filled in by silt and preserved as this
fossil. Burrows are very common, and can represent the work
of worms, crustaceans, or even reptiles or mammals.
Technically burrows are considered trace fossils as they rarely
show much detail of the critter than produced them
 ANOMALIES

Freezing: In Arizona? Dream on! The

closest thing Arizona has to this kind of
preservation is the package of carrots that
has been frozen in the very back recesses
of my refrigerator-freezer for 20 years.
Some of the remarkable mummies that
have been found in Arizona's bone-dry
caves however do give us a glimpse as
the soft tissues of animals. Is a mammoth
clone in our future?

Mammoth frozen in Arizona?

I've got a bridge to sell you too!

10. Just to keep the Creation Science

people happy, I've included this "indisputable
proof" (right) that a piece of iron reinforcement bar
("rebar") was recently found in a deposit of
Permian age limestone, 325 million years old.
Much of the creationist case is based upon intellectual
dishonesty. Creationists depend heavily on quotations
from evolutionary scientists and writers which they have
pulled out of context and twisted to sound like something
other than what the writer intended. They also depend
heavily on half-truths, distortions, deliberate citation of
data they know to be untrue, and outright fabrications.

Despite their arrogant claims to represent the "Christian

point of view", the creationists and their fundamentalist
friends constitute a very tiny minority in mainstream
religion. Every mainstream Christian denomination in
the United States rejects the paranoid and ultra-literalist
world-view of the creationists, and sees no conflict at all
between Christian faith and modern science.
If nothing else, we should remember from history that
people have been controlled by appealing personalities
using appealing messages, mostly by FEAR....False
Evidence Appearing Real.
Fossil rebar in Paleozoic Limestone? Well, the crinoid
stem and my piece of iron reinforcement bar might look
"exactly" alike to someone who has no biological
background, and this coincidence, just as do "human
footprints" found along with dinosaur tracks in Texas,
or "trilobites found squashed" inside a man's foot
imprint in the Paleozoic of Arizona is the kind of
ammunition for Creationist that a few would like to see
taught in the public schools. Science trys to explain
how, lets leave religion to answer the question "why?"

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