what is the remains of a prehistoric animal or plants?
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Fossils are the mineralized remains of animals or plants or other traces such as footprints. The totality of fossils and their placement in rock formations and sedimentary layers (strata) is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils is called paleontology.
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Where is Calimecita when you need her!!!\n\nArchaeopteridales\n(Upper Devonian to Mississippian)\nPerhaps one of the most remarkable paleobotanical discoveries is the work done by Charles B. Beck in the 1960s. Through careful and painstaking work, he was able to demonstrate that the fossil wood known as Callixylon and the leaves known as Archaeopteris, shown at left, were actually part of the same plant. This may sound trivial, until one realizes that the fossil record seldom preserves whole organisms intact. \nIn the case of Archaeopteris, the leaves were reminiscent of ferns, and in fact produced and released spores in a manner consistent with this interpretation. As a result, they were considered to be some sort of fossil fern. The wood Callixylon, by contrast, was considered similar to modern conifers, and was placed with the seed plants. When Dr. Beck demonstrated that fossils of Archaeopteris were physically attached to Callixylon wood, it was realised that the plant, now collectively called Archaeopteris, was actually an extinct group of plants unlike any living plants today -- it had both wood and fern-like reproduction. \n\nYes...........I cut and pasted. (Hoping it would all make sense to you!!)
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Here is a web site with pictures of Quaternary plant fossils.\nhttp://www.paleoportal.org/fossil_gallery/search.php?taxon_id=14&period_id=7\n\nPlants in the Quaternary include Angiosperms, ferns and relatives, gymnosperms (includes conifers,  gnetophytes, & cycads), horsetails, lycophytes, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and phytoliths.\n\nThe site below will help you explore these groups.
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the types of fossils are:\n\n1.  body fossils - fossils of the actual body or body parts of an organism, whether altered or not\n2.  trace fossils - any evidence of past life that is not a body fossil.  Examples include tracks, trails, burrows, borings, impressions, molds, casts.\n3.  pseudofossils - are things that appear to be fossils but are not.  The most deceptive of these are the lacy dendrites of manganese dioxide.  Often, inorganic rock concentrations are thought to be fossilized soft parts of various animals. \n\nto form a fossil, there are important prerequisites:  there should bequick burial & there should be a hard part or parts of the organism. the the organixm is notquickly buried, bacteria or other animals may destroy it.  if the organism dies in an anaerobic environment (absence of oxygen) the soft tissues may also be preserved.
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Fossils (from Latin fossus, literally "having been dug up") are the mineralized or otherwise preserved remains or traces (such as footprints) of animals, plants, and other organisms. The totality of fossils and their placement in fossiliferous (fossil-containing) rock formations and sedimentary layers (strata) is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils is called paleontology.\n\nFossilization is actually a rare occurrence because most components of formerly-living things tend to decompose relatively quickly following death. In order for an organism to be fossilized, the remains normally need to be covered by sediment as soon as possible. However there are exceptions to this, such as if an organism becomes petrified or comes to rest in an anoxic (oxygen-free) environment such as at the bottom of a lake. There are several different types of fossils and fossilization processes.\n\nFossils usually consist of traces of the remains of the organism itself. However, fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as the footprint or feces of a dinosaur or reptile. These types of fossil are called trace fossils, as opposed to body fossils. Finally, past life leaves some evidences that cannot be seen but can be detected in the form of chemical signals; these are known as chemical fossils (for lack of a better term).\n\n\nThe oldest known structured fossils are most likely stromatolites. Now understood to be formed by the entrapment of minerals by mucous-like sheets of cyanobacteria, the oldest of these formations dates from 3.5 billion years ago. Even older deposits (3.8 billion years old) of heavy carbon that are indicative of even earlier life are currently proposed as the remains of the earliest known life on Earth.\n\nRarity of fossils\n\nBecause fossilization requires the relatively quick preservation of bodily remains, fossils are relatively rare. Due to the combined effect of taphonomic processes and simple mathematical chance, fossilization tends to favor organisms with hard body parts, those that were widespread, and those that lived for a long time. On the other hand, it is very unusual to find fossils of small, soft bodied, geographically restricted and geologically ephemeral organisms, because of their relative rarity and low likelihood of preservation.\n[edit]\n\nPermineralization\nA permineralized trilobite, Asaphus kowalewskii\nEnlarge\nA permineralized trilobite, Asaphus kowalewskii\n\nPermineralization consists of organic remains being to some degree impregnated by minerals derived from the surrounding sediments or waters. For permineralization to occur, the organism must become covered by sediment soon after death or soon after the initial decaying process. The degree to which the remains are decayed when covered determines the later details of the fossil. Some fossils consist only of skeletal remains or teeth; other fossils contain traces of skin, feathers or even soft tissues. Once covered with sediment, these layers slowly become compacted and cemented into rock, and the organic remains are slowly replaced with hard minerals. This is a form of diagenesis.\n[edit]\n\nReplacement and compression fossils\n\nIn some cases the original remains of the organism have been completely dissolved or otherwise destroyed. When all that is left is an organism-shaped hole in the rock, it is called a mould fossil or typolite. If this hole is later filled with other minerals, it is called a cast fossil and is considered a replacement fossil since the original materials have been completely replaced by new, unrelated ones. In some cases replacement occurs so gradually and at such fine scales that no "hole" in the rock can ever be discerned and microstructural features are preserved despite the total loss of original material.\n\nCompression fossils such as those of fossil ferns are the result of chemical reduction of the complex organic molecules composing the org
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You have got to be kidding me. I have a favorite 'prehistoric water-dwelling animal'? I believe in a young earth anyway, so they're not prehistoric. I guess maybe Leviathan.
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The specialized field is paleobotany, the study of extinct plants.
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Try a museum of natural science.  You can find all kinds of fossils there.
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Thye lived a long time ago, and the closest living relative to the dinosaurs is the crocodile.  Crocodiles have remained unchanged for 1000's of years.
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Well, I gotta tell you that there's a lot of them.  The paleozoic spans a period from roughly 560 million years ago to roughly 240 million years ago.  There's a LOT of them - the periods are the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, and the Permian.  Then we go into Mesozoic life.\n\nI guess maybe an answer would be the types of fossils we find: multicellular organisms, with amphibians being the dominant land animal in the later part.  Dinos don't come around much until the Mesozoic.\n\nOther than that, you get all types of sedimentary rocks and forms as you do now.  Hope that sort of answers your question!
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Examining fossils- they tell us a lot about once living things like appearance & behavior. Fossils include everything from dinosaur bones & eggs to worm burrows, fossilized tracks, fossilized poop, etc.\n\nStratigraphy or the laying down of sediments over time. This tells us a lot about when & where water occurred. Ripple marks & dunes created by winds. Escarpments carved by the ocean.\n\nGeochemistry involves looking at different isotopes to tell what things were like once.
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Animal remains of all kinds decompose at different rates depending upon whether and/or how they were embalmed, presence and/or type of coffin, the soil type, ambient temperature, general climate conditions, and activity of other organisms, including bacteria and insects.\n\nAs mentioned by a previous responder, bones rarely decompose entirely, however they may become extremely delicate and/or fragmentary due to soil chemistry, water, compression, and disturbance.\n\nA great deal of study and experimentation in recent years has been devoted to studying rates of decomposition of bodies for forensic information, including the effects of temperature, climate, burial at various depths, placement in various other items such as plastic bags, coolers, boxes, car trunks, etc,; and the study of the life-cycles of insects to help determine the amount of time since death.
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The popei plant came around right as the dinosaurs were going extinct... most dinosaurs has really small nasal cavities...\nmakes you think....
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_bird\n\nlists a bunch of types
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Silurian (440 to 410 million years ago)\n    * First land plants\n\n\nSource: \nFossils and the geological timescale\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossils_and_the_geological_timescale
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Fossil bones and shells have turned into rocks.  That's why they're heavy.
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Scientists look for a great many things.\n\nScientists want to know what the Earth used to be like.  They look at fossils, among other things, to find out.\n\nPretty much every aspect of fossils is examined.  Given any on fossils, scientists will be trying to determine:\n\n* How the individual lived.\n* How it died.\n* What died with it.\n* What it says about the larger world.\n\nFor instance, scientists know that some Sauropod dinosaurs (ones like Brontosaurus) lived in herds because they frequently trampled on each other's tails.  Sauropod tails have large numbers of these minor injuries, suggesting such tail damage was common.\n\nA single fossil will be examined for bone damage to see what killed it.  Sometimes, they can identify the species of animal that attacked the the fossil.  They also look for traces of scavengers afterwards, and even decay processes!\n\nFossils of animal dung are examined to see what was being eaten.  These are called coprolites.\n\nFossils of "supersized" insects in the ancient past tell us that the oxygen in the atmosphere used to be much higher.  Today, an insect that large would suffocate.\n\nEvery aspect of a fossil is examined.  How big it was, how fast it grew (from growth lines), everything.\n\nIt's a detective story!  Come help us figure it all out!