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Fossilized animals. The most unusual of the oldest living beings. Fossilized excrement and vomit of ancient reptiles

Most of us think that when the Earth formed, life immediately appeared in the seas. This is partly true, but no one knows exactly how the first life appeared. And having appeared, life immediately began to influence the surface of the planet. Without plants that crumble rocks into sediment, for example, there would not be enough materials to form tectonic plates, and hence continents. Without plants, the Earth could become just a water world.

Believe it or not, more complex life may even change the structure of global ice ages, making them less severe with "". The intermittent pattern of freeze and thaw goes back billions of years to a time when the Earth did not have the complex web of life that exists today. Then the glaciers stretched from the poles to the equator, breaking the entire planetary foundation.

Since then, as more and more life has filled the surface and the seas, huge glaciers have formed on Glacial Earth at both poles, extending a few fingers across latitudes that never reach the equator.

Something mysterious happened on Earth 542 million years ago

Experts are calling the sudden increase in the diversity and richness of the Earth's fossil record, which began 542 million years ago, the "Cambrian explosion." He puzzled Charles Darwin. Why did all the ancestors of modern animals appear literally overnight, in a geological sense?

One expert opinion suggests that there was life before the Cambrian period, but it did not have any hard parts. The scientists analyzed soft-bodied Precambrian fossils, some of which have nothing to do with any form of modern life today, as well as young Cambrian soft-bodied fossils from Canada. It turned out that at least 50 million years before the Cambrian "explosion" multicellular life was developed. Scientists don't understand where the hard parts came from, perhaps a genetic mutation caused a cascade effect that led to the sudden development of shells and skeletons. However, not everyone agrees with this theory. So far, there is no exact answer to the question of what happened to life on Earth 542 million years ago.

First land plants may have caused mass extinction

During the Devonian period, which was 150 million years after the Cambrian, it was good to be born as a fish at the top of the food chain. Apart from a few errant plants and animals that explored the land, all living things lived in the sea. After tens of millions of years, everyone left the sea on land, where tall forests of ferns, mosses and mushrooms appeared.

And then the sea creatures began to die. At least 70% of all invertebrates in the sea have gradually disappeared. The Devonian extinction was one of the ten largest mass extinctions in the history of the Earth.

Many experts believe that terrestrial plants were to blame. They say the first forests created soil that broke rocks into minerals that eventually leaked into the ocean, causing algae blooms. These algae consumed all the oxygen, and the sea creatures suffocated. Even worse, the algae were then eaten by other organisms and became hydrogen sulfide. He turned the sea waters into acid. The plants couldn't escape either. They sucked enough carbon dioxide out of the air to cause an ice age that wiped out many of them too.

Fortunately, there are a few species left that have survived even these hellish conditions at sea or on land.

Ancient life knew how to adapt

There has never been a complete extinction of species, even when a massive asteroid hit the planet. For example, even in the youth of the Earth, the oxygen produced was poisonous to many early life forms. While many oxygen haters have died, others have adapted and become more difficult. Extinctions have happened from time to time, but Jurassic Park's Ian Malcolm was right when he said that life will always find a way to keep going.

According to the fossil record, survival and extinction had more of an impact on demographics. If a large group of species were scattered around the world, there was a chance that at least one or two individuals would survive extinction. Other conditions include environmental conditions and genetic factors that make species vulnerable or allow adaptation.

The horseshoe crabs were the best - they survived four major mass extinctions and countless smaller ones.

The search for Martian fossils is changing our understanding of the Earth

What is a fossil? At first glance, this is all that is dug out of the ground, but this approach can be misleading when we are trying to understand ancient life.

At the moment, attention is focused on Mars, because apart from Earth, this planet offers the friendliest planetary climate for life. Once there were even rivers flowing and there were lakes. If life existed in these ancient waters, fossils could be left behind. This begs the obvious question. If we're trying to understand what life was like on Earth 542 million years ago, how do we define Martian remnants that are 4 billion years old?

Astrobiologists are working on this, not disdaining the help of paleontologists. Understanding what ancient fossils on Mars might be is allowing scientists to hone in on what isn't fossils on Earth.

fossil sites

Most of the fossils we have seen probably formed in water. Water is good for making fossils. The land is not very good. In shallow water close to the beach, for example, a lot of rainfall from rivers and streams quickly buries shellfish and other sea creatures, preserving them.

Tropical rainforest rain can be as rich and intense as a shallow sea shelf, but it won't produce many fossils. Plants and animals that die in it will quickly decompose due to moisture. In addition, predators will quickly carry away the corpses, and the rest will be destroyed by wind and rain.

Still water in lowlands like swamps and lagoons is also suitable, because it does not contain much oxygen, and not many decaying organisms live in it. In addition, there is also a shift in fossils towards bodies with hard parts, as well as groups of animals and plants that are large, long-lived, and dispersed over a wide geographic area. Time also has an effect. Geological processes like mountain building and plate subduction tend to erase fossils, which is why it's so hard to find the oldest ones.

Fossils rarely resemble a living thing

The physical processes after a plant or animal dies are complex and messy. There is a separate area of science that studies these processes. And while it certainly helps a lot, it doesn't provide a perfect map of the original living being. Some whole fossils, such as insects and carnivorous plants found in amber, are the exception, but they are all relatively young. For the most part, only a small part of the organism is preserved. And as far as we know, fossilization occurs only in the hard and tough parts of a plant or animal, so experts must reconstruct animals from a pair of teeth and, if they're lucky, from a few bones.

Paleoartists use fossil data to reconstruct ancient living things, but they fill in the gaps with details taken from the modern descendants of a plant or animal. Often, new discoveries confirm reconstructions. Sometimes - more often in the case of feathered dinosaurs - the first reconstructions turn out to be inaccurate.

Not all fossils are fossilized

Scientists love to cling to words. A paleontologist describing a 200-million-year-old tree that turned to stone would rather call it "mineralized" or "replaced" than petrified.

Mineralization occurs because there are empty cavities in the wood. Suppose a tree falls into a lake that contains a lot of dissolved minerals from a nearby volcano that released its ash stuff into the water. These minerals, especially silicates, get into the wood, fill the pores and other cavities, so parts of the wood become encased in the stone and are preserved.

The tree can also be replaced. This is a longer process. Suppose our tree did not fall into the lake when it fell, but went into the soil. Groundwater began to seep in and after a certain geological time, minerals replaced the whole tree, all the woody parts, molecule by molecule. All "petrified" trees are good, but paleontologists extract more information from a tree that has undergone molecular replacement than from a mineralized tree.

It turns out that the saber-toothed "tiger" was not the only ancient creature with long teeth. Saber-toothed animals are an example of convergent evolution, when unrelated species independently develop the same useful function. Saber-toothed were useful for all kinds of predators, who were supposed to hunt animals that were larger than them.

There are many other examples of convergent evolution. Modern giraffes, for example, are not related to dinosaurs, but have the same long necks as brachiosaurs and other pangolins. The long-extinct mammal Castorocauda looked and behaved like the modern beaver, although the two species are unrelated.

One of the strangest cases of convergent evolution involves us. Koalas have fingerprints that look just like ours, although they are marsupials (they have pouches in their belly) and we are placentals (our unborn young feed through the placenta). Scientists believe that koalas may have developed tiny curls on their fingers to make it easier for them to climb trees, just as we have done in the past.

Ancient animals live and thrive today

It often happens that some strange species of animal or plant, which everyone already thought of as extinct, turns out to be alive and well. We think of them as relics, unaware that there are still many ancient organisms on Earth that have hardly changed.

As we have noted, horseshoe crabs have survived many mass extinctions. But they are not the only ones. The same cyanobacteria that once killed a lot of life on Earth by providing oxygen billions of years ago are also alive and well. also perfectly show themselves as ancient life. For example, rove beetles date back to the Triassic period (more than 200 million years ago). Today, this family of beetles probably contains the most living organisms in the world. And their ancestors must have been familiar with the Triassic water bugs, like those that sometimes appear in ponds and scare people.

The most amazing thing is that some species of sulfur-producing anaerobic bacteria, which were among the first living organisms on Earth, live with us today. Moreover, it is one of those microbes that inhabit our digestive tract. Fortunately for us, the Earth's atmosphere has improved significantly over the years. Or most of them, at least.

Ecology

When we find common ancient shell fossils on the beach, they are very easy to recognize. However, there are fossils of very ancient living creatures, which are difficult to recognize even for specialists.

The problem also lies in the fact that many of them are poorly preserved or have come down to us in an incomplete form. Unsurprisingly, until better specimens are found, fossils of long-extinct creatures will often be mistaken for completely different species. We invite you to learn about these mysterious fossils, which at different times were mistaken for mysterious things.

1) Ammonites

Ammonites are often found in fossils, but have been misidentified for a long time. Even in ancient Greece, it was believed that these were the horns of rams. They were named after the Egyptian god Amon, who wore such horns. In ancient China they were called horns-stones for the same reason. In Nepal, they were considered as holy relics left by the god Vishnu. The Vikings believed that the ammonites were the sacred offspring of the serpent Jormungand, who turned into stone.

In the Middle Ages in Europe they were called snake stones, were thought to be the fossilized bodies of coiled snakes that Christian saints turned into stones. Some enterprising traders even carved snake heads from ammonite fossils and sold them as souvenirs.

Today we know that these are just shell fossils of squid-like creatures that lived on our planet 400 million years ago and lived until the death of the dinosaurs. More complex fossils represent more than just shells. Shell fossils can be found along with tentacles protruding from them and shapeless heads that resemble modern nautilus clams.

2) Fish teeth

The fossilized remains of fish teeth have been interpreted in different ways. Some ancient fish had hard, flat molars that enabled them to crush mollusk shells. In Greece and later in Europe, these fossils were seen as magical ornaments, they were often called toad stones, since people believed that they were worn as decorations on their heads by large toads. Teeth were used to make talismans, it was believed that they could cure epilepsy and poisoning.

In Japan, shark flat tooth fossils have been identified as claws shed by the terrible Tengu monsters. In Europe, shark teeth were viewed as hardened tongues of the devil.

It wasn't until the 17th century that the Danish anatomist Nils Stensen seriously studied these fossils and concluded that most of the "devil's tongues" found were just shark teeth. He also realized that fossils do not spontaneously appear in the ground and that they are located next to the remains of long-dead ancient animals.

3) Trees

Lepidodendron- an ancient tree-like plant with a bark resembling a pine cone, which has long since died out. The leaves of this plant looked like grass stalks and lepidodendron is still closer to grasses than to modern trees. Most of the European coal deposits are the remains of these ancient plants. Lepidodendron fossils are very interesting. Long tree trunks were often preserved entirely in fossils, such a trunk could be up to 30 meters high and about a meter wide.

In the fairgrounds of the 19th century, these fossils were often displayed as the bodies of scaled snakes and dragons. People could pay a small fee to admire the ancient "monsters" and listen to fictional stories about their dramatic fate. Also, various Christian saints could appear in the stories. More complete fossils could include not only trunks, but also branches, roots, leaves and cones, which were evidence that they were once trees, and not mysterious fairy-tale creatures.

4) Foraminifera

On the Pacific coast in southern Japan, unusual grains of sand can sometimes be found. Many of them are shaped like tiny stars, less than 1 millimeter in size. Local legends say that these are the remains of unfortunate children from the divine union of two stars. These "children" died because they fell to Earth, or were killed by sea monsters that live off the coast of the Japanese island of Okinawa. Their fragile skeletons are washed ashore, and this is all that remains of the poor creatures.

In fact, these are the remains of various forms of terrestrial life, amoeba-like creatures, which were named foraminifera. These creatures and their modern descendants are single-celled creatures that build a protective shell for themselves. When they die, their needle-like shells remain, and if you look through a microscope, you can see tiny chambers and structures in great detail.

5) Protoceratops

Dinosaurs called protoceratopsian were relatives of the more famous triceratops. They walked on 4 legs and were comparable in size to a large dog, although they were somewhat heavier. They definitely had a large skull with a bird's beak, in the back of which there was a bony outgrowth with holes.

Protoceratops lived in large herds, so they left behind a large number of fossils. For many people who were not yet familiar with dinosaurs, the found skulls seemed to be the remains of fantastic and strange creatures. Because of their size, it was believed that Protoceratops were small lions. However, the distinctive feature of the skulls of these animals suggested that they were lions with curved beaks, like those of eagles. The feet of the animals looked more like clawed eagles than lions. People thought that the creature was a mixture of a lion and an eagle. Apparently, the legends about these creatures most likely appeared after people found fossils of Protoceratops.

6) Belemnites

Belemnites are extinct ancient animals that resemble modern squids. Unlike squids, belemnites had 10 "arms" of the same length, which were covered with tiny hooks, and, remarkably, these marine inhabitants possessed a skeleton. The Belemnites lived during the age of the dinosaurs and are well preserved in the fossil record.

The fossilized remains of their skeletons are most often found, which are cylindrical objects with a tapered end without any structures, such as tentacles. These fossilized skeletons are shaped like a bullet.

In Europe, these were thought to be "thunderbolts"—objects that fell to earth from the heavens, producing the sound of thunder as they hit the surface of the earth. They were associated with various thunder gods. Many people kept them in different parts of their dwellings in order to divert lightning. Others believed that the Belemnites were related to the elves and not to the gods. They believed that these were the fingers of elves. People used them in various superstitious medical rituals, such as treating snake bites or getting rid of headaches. They applied fossils to the affected area of the body and cast various spells.

7) Ankysaurs

Ankisaurs were one of the early dinosaur groups. These herbivores had long necks and tails and were related to the more familiar brontosaurs and diplodocus. Ankisaurs were smaller than their later ancestors and grew no more than 2 meters in length. They evolved from bipedal ancestors and were not fully 4-legged, although their forelegs were well adapted for locomotion. They reared up on their hind legs when necessary and used their front paws to grab something.

Ankisaurs were of particular interest because they were initially misidentified. They have been confused with the creature that seems to be the least dinosaur-like: a human. Oddly, the long neck and tail, lizard-like body, reptile-like skull, and other features were simply ignored! Just the fact that the creature was the size of a human helped make everyone believe that it was the remains of our ancestor.

After other fossils of these creatures were found over the course of several decades, the name "dinosaur" was coined and people recognized that these fossils were not human at all, but reptiles. The fact that you can confuse a lizard with a person shows how people can be mistaken.

8) Mastodons and mammoths

A few thousand years ago, mastodons and mammoths roamed the icy land. They looked like elephants, but had warm fur and tusks several meters long. The mass extinction of species, climate change and hunting have led to their extinction. Like modern elephants, these animals had very strong muscles in their trunks that were stronger than other muscles in their bodies.

The trunk of mammoths and mastodons required a hole in the middle of the animal's skull. Modern elephants have the same feature. People who live in areas where elephants live have seen animal skulls more than once, so they know this feature. Others, who found the skulls of ancient elephant relatives with giant holes in the middle, imagined this creature as a huge humanoid giant with one eye socket. The legend of the Cyclops seems to go back to the time when people found the skulls of ancient animals outside of Africa.

9) Sea urchins

Sea urchins are round, spiny creatures whose fossils can usually be found off the coast. They belong to a group of animals called echinoderms. These creatures have lived on our planet for hundreds of millions of years, and their distant ancestors left behind a lot of fossils. Although ancient sea urchins have much in common with modern species, their fossils have long been mistaken for completely different creatures.

In England, it was believed that these were supernatural crowns, loaves of sacred bread, or magical snake eggs. In Denmark, they believed that these were "thunderstorm" stones: it was believed that they begin to release moisture before storms, which helped people predict inclement weather.

Five lines, found on the fossils of many sea urchins, were considered a good sign, they were kept in India as a talisman for good luck. The magical powers associated with sea urchins reflected how each culture interpreted them. It was believed that they were able to cure a snake bite, helped to prepare bread, protected from a storm and brought good luck.

10) Hominid

Many human relatives - monkeys - left behind fossils. These fossils were often misinterpreted before people began to think about human evolution. Fossils that were found in Europe and America sometimes "proved" the existence of various mythical characters mentioned in the same Bible, such as giants or demons. Others said that they were the ancestors of monkeys, although modern monkeys have very different features.

Some are sure that these skeletons belong to aliens, and not fabulous monsters. Apparently, the fossils found in Asia inspired people to create legends about the Yeti. Some believe that some hominids could coexist with humans, so the creators of legends were not inspired by their fossils, but by these living creatures themselves.

1) Ammonites

Ammonites are often found in fossils, but have been misidentified for a long time. Even in ancient Greece, it was believed that these were the horns of rams. They were named after the Egyptian god Amon, who wore such horns. In ancient China, they were called horn-stones for the same reason. In Nepal, they were considered as holy relics left by the god Vishnu. The Vikings believed that the ammonites were the sacred offspring of the serpent Jormungand, who turned into stone.

In the Middle Ages in Europe, they were called snake stones, it was believed that these were the fossilized bodies of coiled snakes, which Christian saints turned into stones. Some enterprising traders even carved snake heads from ammonite fossils and sold them as souvenirs.

2) Fish teeth

The fossilized remains of fish teeth have been interpreted in different ways. Some ancient fish had hard, flat molars that enabled them to crush mollusk shells. In Greece and later in Europe, these fossils were thought of as magical ornaments, they were often called toad stones, as people believed that they were worn as ornaments on their heads by large toads. Teeth were used to make talismans, it was believed that they could cure epilepsy and poisoning.

In Japan, shark flat tooth fossils have been identified as claws shed by the terrible Tengu monsters. In Europe, shark teeth were viewed as hardened tongues of the devil.

It wasn't until the 17th century that the Danish anatomist Niels Stensen seriously studied these fossils and concluded that most of the "devil's tongues" found were just shark teeth. He also realized that fossils do not spontaneously appear in the ground and that they are located next to the remains of long-dead ancient animals.

3) Trees

Lepidodendron is an ancient tree-like plant with a bark resembling a pine cone that has long since died out. The leaves of this plant looked like grass stalks and lepidodendron is still closer to grasses than to modern trees. Most of the European coal deposits are the remains of these ancient plants. Lepidodendron fossils are very interesting. Long trunks of trees were often preserved entirely in fossils, such a trunk could be up to 30 meters high and about a meter wide.

4) Foraminifera

In fact, these are the remains of various forms of terrestrial life, amoeba-like creatures, which are called foraminifera. These creatures and their modern descendants are single-celled creatures that build a protective shell for themselves. When they die, their needle-like shells remain, and if you look through a microscope, you can see tiny chambers and structures in great detail.

5) Protoceratops

Dinosaurs called protoceratops were relatives of the better-known triceratops. They walked on 4 legs and were comparable in size to a large dog, although they were somewhat heavier. They definitely had a large skull with a bird's beak, in the back of which there was a bony outgrowth with holes.

6) Belemnites

Belemnites are extinct ancient animals that resemble modern squids. Unlike squid, belemnites had 10 "arms" of the same length, which were covered with tiny hooks, and, remarkably, these marine inhabitants possessed a skeleton. The Belemnites lived during the age of the dinosaurs and are well preserved in the fossil record.

7) Ankysaurs

Ankisaurs were one of the early dinosaur groups. These herbivores had long necks and tails and were relatives of the more familiar brontosaurs and diplodocus. Ankisaurs were smaller than their later ancestors and grew no more than 2 meters in length. They evolved from bipedal ancestors and were not fully 4-legged, although their forelegs were well adapted for locomotion. They reared up on their hind legs when necessary and used their front paws to grab something.

After other fossils of these creatures were found over the course of several decades, the name “dinosaur” was coined and people recognized that these fossils were not human at all, but reptiles. The fact that you can confuse a lizard with a person shows how people can be mistaken.

8) Mastodons and mammoths

9) Sea urchins

10) Hominid

Department of Education of the Administration of the Lebedyansky Municipal District of the Lipetsk Region

Municipal budgetary educational institution

DOD XUN Lebedyan

research

fossil artifacts

Penkova Margarita Yurievna, 7th grade, MBOU DOD XUN Lebedyan

d / o "Young Researcher" (on the basis of MBOUSOSH in the village of Kuiman)

Head - Penkova Olga Anatolyevna

teacher

Lebedyan - 2014

Object of study: animal fossils.

Subject of study: places of discovery of fossils in the Lipetsk region, types of fossils.

Purpose of the study: determining the location of animal fossils and compiling an idea of the features of nature in prehistoric times.

Tasks:

1. Collect samples of animal fossils at designated locations in the Lipetsk region.

2. Give a brief description of the places where fossils were collected in the Lipetsk region.

3. Determine the approximate species affiliation of fossils.

4. Determination of the approximate time of existence of the fossils found on the geochronological scale.

5. Compose a general description of the nature of the Devonian period of the Paleozoic era in the Lipetsk region.

6. Suggest a route for amateur paleontologists in the Lipetsk region.

Methods:

Finding and collecting fossils in the field.

Description.

Work with the geochronological scale and Internet resources.

Compilation of a collection of found artifacts.

Plan

Introduction

1. Literature review.

2.Materials and methods

3. General conclusions on the study and an approximate route for amateur paleontologists of the Lipetsk region.

Conclusion

List of literature and used Internet resources.

Appendix (collection of animal fossils).

Introduction.

I want to become a geologist. Not a lawyer, not an economist, not a doctor, but a geologist. I read somewhere that the profession of a geologist is the oldest. After all, how did human civilization begin? From the fact that a person began to distinguish a stone that is suitable for making a stone ax from a stone unsuitable for this purpose. And this is the basics of geology. Thus, mining began in ancient times. Later miners began to extract clay and coal. With the beginning of the era of great geographical discoveries, the study of the Earth began. At this time, the first geologists-thinkers appeared who tried to guess where minerals might be. But the profession of a geologist is connected not only with the search for minerals. For example, I am most interested in paleontology. My passion for paleontology began with the fact that I read the book of the famous Russian geologist Vladimir Afanasyevich Obruchev, which was called "Plutonia". Paleontology (from ancient Greek Παλαιοντολογία) is the science of organisms that existed in past geological periods and preserved in the form of fossil remains, as well as traces of their life. Ancient animals today have turned into fossils that can be found in rocks, such as limestone, which is abundant in the Lipetsk region. Making my trips to the geological school "Amethyst", I found a number of interesting samples of fossilized animals in interesting places in the Lipetsk region, from each trip I brought a new interesting sample. And after studying them, I came to some conclusions about the past of the land on which I live. This paper reflects my observations and conclusions.

Literature review.

Fossils (fossils, fossils) are evidence of the existence of life in prehistoric times. They consist of the remains of living organisms, completely replaced by minerals - calcite, apatite, chalcedony. Fossils are usually mineralized remains or
imprints of animals and plants preserved in the soil, stones,
hardened resins. Fossils are also called preserved traces, for example, of the feet of an organism on soft sand, clay or mud.
Fossils are formed during fossilization processes. She is
It is accompanied by the influence of various environmental factors during the passage of diagenesis processes - physical and chemical transformations, during the transition of the sediment to the rock, which includes the remains of organisms. Fossils are formed when dead plants and animals were not immediately eaten by predators or bacteria, but soon after death were covered with silt, sand, clay, ash, which excluded access to oxygen. During the formation of rocks from sediments, under the influence of
mineral solutions, organic matter decomposed and was replaced by minerals - most often calcite, pyrite, opal, chalcedony. At the same time, due to the gradual course of the replacement process, the external form and elements of the structure of the remains were preserved. Usually, only solid parts of organisms are preserved, for example, bones, teeth, chitinous shells, shells. Soft tissues decompose too quickly and do not have time to be replaced by mineral matter.
Plants during fossilization are usually completely destroyed, leaving the so-called. prints and nuclei. Also, plant tissues can be replaced by mineral compounds, most often silica, carbonate and pyrite. Such a complete or partial replacement of plant stems while maintaining the internal structure is called petrification. S. V. Obruchev distinguished the following groups of fossils: 1) impressions of the body or more often of the skeleton (shell) of an animal and trunks, stems and leaves of plants on the surface of the rock; 2) Nuclei-casts of the internal cavity of the shells, resulting from the filling of voids with rock after the removal of soft parts. The nuclei without imprints are of very little importance, since the systematic position of mollusks and brachiopods is determined by the shape of the external sculpture and the device of the castle. The nuclei are needed to determine the attachment of muscles and study other details of the anatomy. 3) Solid parts of organisms - bones, teeth, scales, shells, skeletons of corals and sponges, echinoderm shells, etc. - for the most part are not preserved in their original form, but with partial or complete replacement of the primary substance by a secondary one - calcite, silica, sulfides , iron hydroxides, etc. Under favorable conditions, chitinous and horn parts are also preserved. The most favorable rocks for the preservation of organic remains are marls, bituminous and clayey limestones, calcareous and glauconite sands, sometimes sandstones and shale. Pure quartz sandstones and quartzites, especially those occurring in continuous strata, are very poor in fossils. Pure, thick, thickly bedded, monotonous limestones are also poor in fossils, but irregular masses of reef limestones and dolomites, sometimes very thick and without clear bedding, contain corals, bryozoans, calcareous algae, and other remains of reef-building animals. In sandstones, the appearance of interlayers of shaly clays, limestones, and marls increases the chances of finding fauna; lenses of carbonaceous shales and clays contain delicate imprints of leaves, and sandstone layers - imprints of trunks; the latter are found even in thick layers of coarse-grained sandstones. Concretions (concretions) often contain fossil accumulations or individual specimens. Conglomerates, especially coarse ones, contain in small quantities only the strongest parts of organisms - bones of vertebrates, thick shells, trunks. Often abundant fossils are contained in thin interlayers or short lenses; in some cases, the remains of animals or plants accumulate in such quantities that they compose entire layers of rocks. Marine deposits are richer in organic remains than continental ones. Heavily metamorphosed rocks contain organic remains only in extremely rare cases in a very poor condition, because when the rock changes and recrystallizes, the skeletons disappear or merge with the rock mass. The surface of the Lipetsk region is an elevated undulating plain, dissected by river valleys, gullies and ravines. The flatness of its territory is due to the geological structure, the presence at the base of a rigid crystalline foundation, covered with sedimentary deposits with a horizontal occurrence of layers. As a result of modern erosion in the Lipetsk region deposits of the Upper Devonian and younger deposits are exposed, which are represented by limestones, marls, dolomites with interlayers of clays of various shades, with the inclusion of quartz grains. The rocks contain a large number of fauna.

2.Materials and methods

2.1. Determination of points of the Lipetsk region for the search for fossils.

I collected my small collection of fossils in the Lipetsk region. It is located in the center of the European part of Russia, in the upper reaches of the Don, within the Central Russian Upland in the west (height up to 262 m) and the Oka-Don Plain in the east. In the north it borders on the Ryazan and Tula regions, in the west - on the Oryol region, in the south - on the Voronezh and Kursk regions, in the east - on the Tambov region. The main rivers are the Don with tributaries of the Beautiful Sword, Pine, Voronezh with tributaries of the Matyra, Usman, Stanovaya Ryasa.
Erosive relief. The climate is temperate continental. The west of our region - the Don River basin is distinguished by a large number of limestone outcrops, I observed this during excursions to the Dankovsky, Lebedyansky, Zadonsky and Khlevensky districts. I was looking for fossilized remains of animals in limestones and dolomites, because it is these rocks that prevail in the Lipetsk region and you can often find their outcrops to the surface. In the summer, together with other geoschool students, I visited the lower reaches of the river. Beautiful Sword (Lebedyansky district), on the Don conversations (Zadonsky district), on a karst field in the vicinity of the village. Kon-Kolodez (Khlevensky district), on the rivers and streams of the city of Lipetsk, at the Dankovsky dolomite plant (Dankovsky district), at Devonian limestone outcrops in the village of Kamennaya Lubna (Lebedyansky district). I found the following fossils in rock outcrops - ammonites and sea lilies in the village of Kamennaya Lubna (Lebedyansky district), corals - in the village of Pokrovskoye (Terbunsky district), brachiopods - in Dankovo. It is these settlements that I would suggest visiting fossil seekers. The village of Pokrovskoye, Terbunsky District, Lipetsk Region, is located in the center of the Russian Plain on the Central Russian Upland in the southwestern part of the Lipetsk Region, located within the black earth belt in the forest-steppe zone. It stands on the right bank of the Olym River. Here the Sredny Korotysh stream flows into it. The city of Dankov is the administrative center of the Dankovsky district of the Lipetsk region, located 86 km northwest of Lipetsk, on the picturesque banks of the Don River, not far from the place where, presumably, the Battle of Kulikovo took place in 1380. The geological structure of the Dankovskoye dolomite deposit was formed over many millions of years on the ancient Russian platform, which is a huge tectonic structure, the crystalline foundation of which is composed of such rocks as granite, schists, gneisses and other rocks of the Archean-Proterozoic age, and from above they are covered by a layer of sedimentary deposits represented by limestones, dolomites, marls, clays, sandstones and other rocks. The thickness of these deposits in the area of the Dankovsky deposit is more than 600 m. Kamennaya Lubna is a village in the Doktorovsky rural settlement of the Lebedyansky district of the Lipetsk region. Before the village was called Lubna. Both names - on the river Lubna. The definition of stone - by the exit to the surface in these places of stone.

2.2. Rules for collecting fossils.

Before setting out to search and collect fossilized remains, it is important to think over and select equipment for work. Rocks such as clays, sands, some sandstones and occasionally even limestones are broken or crushed by hand, but this is the exception rather than the strict rule. Most rocks cannot be split without special tools. In addition, it is necessary not only to split the stone, but to remove the fossil from it, which will soon crumble. A paleontologist's set should include: a geological hammer, a chisel, a knife, a shovel, brushes, needles, and sometimes a crowbar. The geological hammer can be replaced by any other hammer that is pointed on one side and has a flat surface on the other. Chisels should also be of different sizes. A chisel can be used to break off large pieces of rock and remove rocks around the fossil. For the most delicate, thorough processing, very small chisels and needles are needed - they prepare the sample. A well-sharpened knife doesn't hurt either. Sometimes with its help it is possible to successfully exfoliate rocks. A shovel or shovel will be very effective when digging loose sandy or clayey rocks. Brushes are good for dissecting or extracting fossils from loose rocks. They will allow you to very carefully remove the neighboring rock without damaging the fossil. In this way, bone remains are sometimes extracted. For wrapping samples, you can take newsprint or thicker paper - kraft. Particularly fragile samples can be laid with cotton wool or gauze. It is also allowed to pack samples in various boxes and cloth geological bags with an attracting rope. If some fossil has fallen apart, it can be glued together with PVA glue or Moment.
If only the imprint of the fossil remains in the rock, it can be counter-imprinted or cast using plaster. The prints can be valuable because they reflect the external sculpture of shells and shells, which is far from being always preserved.
To describe and sketch the cut, you need paper and simple pencils, an eraser and a ruler. And in my opinion, nothing can convey the features of a geological section like a photograph, so it’s good to have a camera with you. A compass is needed to determine the location of the cut. A backpack is required for transportation. Paleontologists have many rules for studying the locations of fossil organisms and the fossils themselves. But there are among them the main ones, the failure to fulfill which greatly reduces the value of research and collections. Two of them are the description of the studied geological section and the preparation of detailed labels. First, you need to make a general description of the location of the cut, recording in detail its signs; where it is located, in what region, in what city, village, on the banks of a river or lake, find out its location relative to the cardinal points. The label is the passport of the fossil. The label contains basic information about it. The label is made of thick paper. Recordings are made with a pencil or pen. Each of them must indicate the institution that conducts the tour. First, the field determination of the residue is recorded, then the age, indicating the layer from which the sample was taken. This is followed by the name of the place of the excursion and its exact address (region, region, nearby settlements, reservoirs), the date of collection, the name of the person who collected and identified the fossil. Each fossil is assigned a field number.

2.3. Description of fossil collection sites.

Above, I indicated that I was looking for my artifacts in Dankovo, Kamennaya Lubnya and Pokrovsky. Outwardly, limestone outcrops in these areas are similar. The outcrops are outcrops of ancient limestone of Devonian age, covered from above with a layer of chernozem. The color of limestone is from beige to light brown. It is difficult to accurately determine the mineral composition of the rock without laboratory analyzes; one can make an assumption: the chemical composition of pure limestones approaches the theoretical composition of calcite (56% CaO and 44% CO2); they are not white, but have a yellow and brown tint, which means that in addition to CaCO3, they still contain impurities of iron oxides. The structure of limestone is cryptocrystalline, sometimes clastic, organogenic. Texture - homogeneous, layered, striped, porous (samples do not scratch glass). The strength can be judged by the ability to split under the blow of a hammer. For a strength test, a limestone sample with a volume of about 200 cm3 (approximately 6x6x6 cm) was split into gravel with one or two hammer blows. A strong sample will break into 2-3 pieces, and a fragile one will break into many small pieces. The investigated limestones are durable. The systems of cracks in the limestone massif initially set a block structure, which makes it possible to separate blocks - slabs (natural separations), the thickness (thickness) of the slabs is from several tens of centimeters to several meters. In the thickness of limestone, inclusions can be distinguished - lithomorphic, in the form of clay and sand, biomorphic, in the form of fossilized remains of shells of marine animals, corals. It is not possible to determine the total thickness of limestone deposits, but the textbook "Geography of the Lipetsk Region" says that the thickness reaches hundreds of meters. At the same time, the upper, younger, layers are wider than the lower, earlier deposited horizons; the latter lie on the underlying older rocks.

2.4. Description and determination of the approximate species affiliation of the found animal fossils.

I found fossils of four types of marine animals: ammonites, corals, brachiopods and crinoids. The ammonite fossil is located in limestone, its size is 10 * 7 cm, the pattern of the relief of the shell is clearly visible on it, and at the break you can see the partitions between the chambers, their diameter is small, so it can be assumed that the found area was closer to the end of the shell.

Ammonites (Ammonoidea) - an extinct subclass of cephalopods that existed from the Devonian to the Cretaceous. In 1789, the French zoologist Jean Bruguier gave them the Latin name "ammonitos" in honor of the ancient Egyptian solar deity Amun of Thebes, depicted with twisted ram horns that resemble the shell of ammonites. In those days, only one genus of ammonites was known, and now there are already about 3 thousand of them, descriptions of new species are constantly appearing. Most ammonites had an outer shell consisting of several whorls located in the same plane, touching each other or overlapping each other to varying degrees. Such shells are called monomorphic. The ammonite shell was divided into many chambers, the one closest to the mouth was inhabited. The length of the body chamber varies from 0.5 to 2 whorls. Most of the chambers were filled with gas (air chambers), a few were filled with liquid (hydrostatic chambers). Most ammonites belong to the ecological group of nekton, that is, organisms floating freely in the water column. However, some forms were representatives of the benthic (bottom) community. According to the way of feeding, ammonites were predators. Other mollusks and small fish became prey for ammonites. Ammonites are the guide fossils of the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous deposits. The simplest ammonites appeared as early as the Silurian period, and real ammonites reached their greatest development in the Jurassic and Cretaceous; at the end of the Cretaceous, this diverse and rich group of mollusks completely disappeared. Fossilized remains of sea lilies - sections of the stem 2.5 cm and 3.5 cm long, on which segments are clearly distinguishable, in one specimen the intestinal cavity is visible.

Sea lilies or crinoids (Crinoidea) are bottom animals with a predominantly sedentary lifestyle. It is animals belonging to the type of echinoderms (Echinodermata), and not plants at all, as the name might seem. They exist from the Ordovician to the present. The body consists of a stem, calyx and brachioles - arms. The stems and arms are composed of segments of various shapes, during the life of the animal they are connected by muscles, in the fossil state they often fall apart. Filters by type of food. Now these are deep-sea animals, earlier, when there was less pressure of predators, they also lived in shallow water. The maximum flourishing was experienced at the end of the Paleozoic. Most often there are segments of various shapes and pieces of stems, much less often - cups. Sometimes whole sea lilies are found in limestone, but such finds are very rare. The diameter of the segments varies from a few millimeters to 2 centimeters. The length of the stem is up to 20 meters in fossil forms. I encountered brachiopod fossils in limestone very often; on one of the specimens found, there are 15 distinct shells, on which the relief is clearly visible, and many fragments. On other samples, there are either several prints or single copies. Shell size 0.6 - 2 cm * 0.4 - 1.5 cm.

Brachiopod shells are the same integral component of the marine fauna of the Paleozoic (they were very widespread in the Devonian and Carboniferous period) as ammonites in the Mesozoic, are currently represented on Earth by only 200 species. In some places, brachiopods still form huge accumulations, it’s just that now the ecological niches that brachiopods occupied in the Paleozoic and early Mesozoic are occupied by bivalves, and brachiopods are pushed to the depths and into cold waters. Brachiopods are not mollusks, although they have a bivalve shell, but an independent type of marine shell animals (Brachiopoda). According to many paleontologists, they are related to bryozoans, although at first glance there is little in common between them. As a rule, brachiopods are attached to the bottom with a thick, muscular foot. Filters by type of food. Sometimes brachiopods are called brachiopods - Brachiopoda, from the Greek. brachion - shoulder and podos - leg. Shell valves in brachiopods are different, they are called ventral and dorsal. This distinguishes them from mollusks, in which the shell valves - right and left, are symmetrical to each other. In brachiopods, the valves are not identical; the right and left parts of one valve are symmetrical. The size of brachiopod shells rarely exceeds 7-10 centimeters.
Coral fossils were found on limestone, size 10 cm * 6 cm. These corals are colonial, multiplied by budding, individual segments are visible, the size of which is about 1 cm.

Representatives of the coral class are already known from very ancient Silurian deposits and are found in more or less significant quantities in the sediments of all systems up to the Quaternary, inclusive, and in places form significant reef-like accumulations among marine deposits. The organization of Paleozoic corals is so peculiar that their place in the system adopted for the classification of living corals has not yet been precisely established. Now non-existing groups of Paleozoic corals are divided into - Zoantharia rugosa, which had the form of bowls or cones, more or less curved, sometimes reached a significant size, had numerous, well-developed star-shaped plates and a wrinkled outer shell; Zoantharia tabulata - colonies of fused columns with a few short star-shaped plates with parallel transverse septa, from which they take their name; and tubular corals - consisted of tubular cells, sometimes free-lying, sometimes mutually intertwined, forming sod-like masses. Z. rugosa corals are the leading form of the lower horizons of the middle section of the Devonian system.

2.5. General characteristics of the nature of the Devonian period of the Paleozoic era of the Lipetsk region.

In the stratigraphic scale, the Devonian period is the period following the Silurian and preceding the Carboniferous. It lasted about 55 million years and ended about 345 million years ago. Devon is divided into 3 sections (upper, middle, lower). The name of this period comes from the name "Devonshire" - a county in southwestern England, where the system of Devonian layers was first identified by scientists in 1839. The beginning of the period was characterized by the retreat of the sea and the accumulation of thicknesses of thick continental red-colored deposits; The climate was continental and arid. In the early Devonian, the Caledonian folding ended, and later large transgressions occurred. Middle Devonian - the era of submergence; increase in marine transgressions, intensification of volcanic activity; climate warming. The end of the period is the reduction of transgressions, the beginning of the Hercynian folding, the regression of the sea. Devon is considered one of the most interesting stages in the evolution of life on Earth. At the beginning of this period, organisms that had appeared in previous geological epochs slowly and gradually continued to develop in the seas. And in the middle of the Devonian, an unprecedented flowering of marine fauna occurred. The warm waters of the Devonian seas were abundantly inhabited by cephalopods, corals and brachiopods. Among the echinoderms, the most common during this period were crinoids, starfish and sea urchins. Cephalopods felt great in the Devonian seas. Corals, sea lilies, as well as benthic attached animals - brachiopods and bryozoans, have reached an extraordinary development. Together they created colossal reef structures. Of particular interest to modern paleontologists are the arthropods that lived in the Devonian seas - trilobites, which lived on Earth for 300 million years and completely died out for unknown reasons. Unfortunately, I did not find a fossilized trilobite, but I studied its features in the literature. But still, scientists consider the Devonian - first of all, the "epoch of fish". Their fossilized remains were not found by me either, but I believe that this is still ahead, since I have just started doing this work. In the literature, I found a description of a major event in the Devonian biosphere - the Devonian extinction - mass extinction species at the end of the Devonian, one of the largest extinctions of flora and fauna in the history of the Earth. In total, 19% of families and 50% of genera became extinct. Extinctions were accompanied by widespread oceanic anoxia, that is, a lack of oxygen, which prevented the decay of organisms, and predisposed to the preservation and accumulation of organic matter. Probably, it is precisely because of this that we can now get acquainted with the nature of the Devonian through fossils. The Devonian crisis primarily affected marine ecosystems, and affected shallow water heat-loving organisms much more strongly than those that preferred cold water. The most important group affected by the extinction were reef-building organisms, in addition, the following groups were very affected by the extinction: brachiopods, trilobites, ammonites. Among the most probable causes of extinction in the literature is the fall of meteorites. It is claimed that it was the fall of a meteorite that was the primary cause of the Devonian extinction, but reliable evidence of an extraterrestrial impact has not been found. Although some indirect evidence of a meteorite fall in the deposits of the Devonian period is observed (iridium anomalies and microspheres (microscopic balls of fused rock)), it is possible that the formation of these anomalies is caused by other reasons.

3. General conclusions on the study and an approximate route for amateur paleontologists in the Lipetsk region.

After analyzing my observations, findings and literature, I came to the conclusion that:

On the territory of the Lipetsk region there are a large number of limestone outcrops, especially along the river valleys - the Don and its tributaries

the age of limestones is determined as Devonian (according to literature)

limestones are sedimentary organic rock - e then the skeletons and shells of ancient organisms that lived millions of years ago. Settling to the bottom of the seas and oceans, they caked and cemented.

the predominant fossils in the Devonian limestones are brachiopods, crinoids, ammonites and corals

the presence of a large number of fossils of marine animals suggests that the territory of the region was some time ago the bottom of the sea

knowing that corals cannot live at great depths and in cold waters, it can be assumed that the Devonian seas were shallow and warm

the large thickness of limestone deposits indicates a high density of the inhabitants of the Devonian seas

Devonian nature in the Lipetsk region is absolutely different from modern

Paleontologists - amateurs who want to travel around the Lipetsk region can recommend the Don Valley. There are a huge number of objects where you can try to find fossil artifacts. I would suggest the following travel route: Dankov (quarry of the dolomite plant) - Lebedyan (Tyapkina Gora - Lebedyansky Devonian) - with. Kamennaya Lubna and a quarry in the village of Znobilovka (Lebedyansky district) - Don Conversations and a safari park in the village of Kamenka (Zadonsky district) - the right bank of the Olym River in the village of Pokrovskoye (Terbunsky district). I believe that there are many more interesting fossils to be found at these points (maybe even fish and trilobites), you just need a little luck, and also make an effort and be careful.

Conclusion

Paleontology is the science of how life originated and developed on our planet, what and why happened on our Earth. By definition, paleontology is the science of the biological cycle: paleos is ancient, ontos is a being; the science of ancient beings. By and large, paleontology should answer questions; where we are, who we are, where we are going. The past is a window to the future. After doing my little research, I realized that there is nothing permanent in nature - everything develops, becomes more complicated, changes. It is possible that in a million years the nature of my native land will change beyond recognition and someone, like me, will try to touch the past. Man is a very inquisitive creature, which means that paleontology, like all geology, is doomed to a long, long existence. And of course, I will continue to look for and study fossils in order to learn even more about the distant past of the region in which I live - the Lipetsk region. I would like to finish my work with a poem by Anatoly Tsepin:

On our roads you will not find traces -
We are the first to lay them.
From noisy, tired, big cities
We run away every summer. We graze in the wild near the blue water, We walk the taiga distance, We do not seek rewards for our labors, And you will not lure us to Antalya.
We have a stove and a fireplace instead of a fire,
And a bed of needles - feather beds,
But the heart is a living piece, not a motor,
Yearning sometimes for no reason.
Through noisy tired big cities, By the faces of loved ones and home, And we retreat in our footsteps, Because there is no other way.

List of Internet resources

http://geomem.ru/mem_obj.php?id=12908&objcoord=&objokrug=%D6%E5%ED%F2%F0%E0%EB%FC%ED%FB%E9&objoblast=%CB%E8%EF%E5% F6%EA%E0%FF%20%EE%E1%EB%E0%F1%F2%FC&objregion

The features of these ancient fibers, such as their attachment to iron clumps, are also similar to those found in modern microbes, which use these clumps to hold on to rocks. These iron-oxidizing microbes trap iron escaping from underwater vents to use in chemical energy-releasing reactions. This energy is then used to convert carbon dioxide from the surrounding water into organic matter, which allows microbes to grow.

How did we know there would be fossils there?

When we found these fossil structures, we knew that they would be very interesting and promising candidates for hosting microfossils. But we had to demonstrate that they really are just that, that they are biological. We evaluated all possible scenarios for the formation of tubes and filaments, including chemical gradients in iron-rich gels and metamorphic rock extensions. None of the mechanisms fit our observations.

We then looked at the chemical traces in the rocks that might have been left by microorganisms. We found organic matter preserved in the graphite in a way that indicated microbial formation. We also found key minerals that are typically produced during the breakdown of biological materials in sediments, such as carbonate and apatite (which contains phosphorus). These minerals also appear in granular structures that usually form in sediments around decaying organisms and sometimes retain microfossil structures. All these independent observations have become strong evidence in favor of the biological origin of microstructures.

And they showed a strong biological presence in rocks 3770-4280 million years old, pushing back the earliest known microfossils by 300 million years. So that you understand, if we go back 300 million years ago, there will not even be dinosaurs there, they have not yet appeared.

The fact that we found these life forms in hydrothermal vent deposits from such early Earth history supports the long-standing theory that life originated in this type of environment. The environment in which we found these microfossils, as well as their resemblance to younger fossils and modern bacteria, suggests that their iron-based metabolism was one of the first ways life nurtured itself on Earth.

In addition, we should not forget that this discovery shows us that life managed to take over the Earth and quickly develop at a time when there was liquid water on the surface of Mars. This leaves us with the exciting possibility that if conditions on the surface of Mars and Earth were similar, life must have appeared on Mars by about 3,770 million years ago. Or the Earth has become an enviable exception.

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