How to Observe How Fossils Are Formed

Visit a beach near your home or take time out during your next vacation at the shore to investigate several fossil-rich environments. Walk along the waterline, preferably at low tide, and collect the shells you find and place them in your bucket. Keep an eye out for small chunks of amber, which can contain fossilized material, and pieces of coral that are constructed entirely of fossils. Pick up any small pieces of driftwood and any petrified wood chunks you might find. Bring your bucket with you to the next collection site.

Walk along the shingle, or the rocky line of debris that borders the high-tide line of most beaches. Here you will find fossilized materials, driftwood, shells and all manner of sea life and organic refuse through which to search. Collect anything of interest in your sample bucket and move on to any rock formations or cliffs near the beach. Search beneath the large rocks for loose stones and coral chunks. Search along the rock cliffs for loose sedimentary rocks and protruding fossil evidence. Use your masonry hammer to break free any items of interest or break open sedimentary layers to inspect for fossilized material.

Lay out your collected samples and shells on the sand. Look through your collected rocks and coral samples for the fossilized outlines of sea life, plant life or insects. Split any layered rocks you have collected with your masonry hammer. Look for more fossil evidence within the split rocks. Look closely at coral to distinguish the many different forms of small sea life of which it is made.

Compare the fossil evidence you find with the shells of dead sea creatures you found along the shoreline. You will see that the fossils reveal the identity of the animals they once were. You will be able to observe the stages of fossilization in this manner, from the living creature to the discarded shell or carcass, to the print it eventually leaves in clay or rock thanks to minerals and sediments that fill the spaces left when the creature's organic form eventually decays.

Analyze any driftwood you have found for an even more observable record of the fossilization process. Wood left to float in seawater is gradually permeated by the salts and minerals that make the ocean briny. These minerals fill the spaces within the wood and solidify. Over time the wood itself slowly decays, and the vacant areas left behind are filled in by minerals. Eventually the organic wood will be completely replaced by hardened minerals, and petrified wood will form. Wood has become stone, and a fossil is the result.