Question about the bodies of dead animals
actingne...@gmail.com
surrounded by billions of decaying bodies?
And if it's a simple case of the them being buried .. does this mean
that soil is constantly rising?
Dave Head
>What happens to the carcass of every living creature? Why aren't we
>surrounded by billions of decaying bodies?
They are eaten by other animals.
>
>And if it's a simple case of the them being buried .. does this mean
>that soil is constantly rising?
Who would bury them, and why?
actingne...@gmail.com
who buries fossils?
coco
Fossils are usually dug up for study! But bodies of Aminals and plants
that died a long time ago were covered by floods, ocean sediments.
river sediments, Volcanic dust, land slides - You get the Picture for
preserved remains of ancoent animals and plants! And such as the
exposed bones - hey - The Indian porcupine (Hystrix indica) is found
throughout southeast and ... They have also been known to chew on
bones, in search of minerals ....
Scott Nudds
<actingne...@gmail.com> wrote
> What happens to the carcass of every living creature? Why aren't we
> surrounded by billions of decaying bodies?
Where there are animals that eat the dead, the dead are eaten. This is
not usually the case in the desert or the high arctic, but is usually the
case everywhere else. They may not be eaten by Birds, or Dogs or
Huffalumps, but maggots, beatles, and other insects. Bacteria and fungus
take care of the rest. An animal the size of a mouse for example, will
generally vanish within a week or two. Something the size of a cat may hang
around for 3-4 weeks.
First the bacteria in the animals own gut begin to break down it's own
gut, and then spill into the animals other entrails. At the same time
maggots enter through the soft tissues of the eyes, mouth, anus etc, and
start to consume the muscle and inner layers of skin. Once the interior is
completely consumed they move on to the outer layers of skin and leave
behind only the bones and tuffs of unconnected fur that readily blows away
from the site.
Some skin will not be consumed but becomes tanned, dried and leatherlike
in the process, it may cover the bones for several years as it's broken down
by fungi.
The bones remain, scattered by the wind and rain if they are small enough,
and they too dissolve over time through exposure to acidic rain, the sun and
the action of fungi on the proteins between the calcium crystals that
compose the bone.
At the same time, the wind tends to cover the bones with silt. Leaves
cover them over the seasons as well, and of course if it's in a farmer's
field, they are plowed under.
<actingne...@gmail.com> wrote
> And if it's a simple case of the them being buried .. does this mean
> that soil is constantly rising?
No, because the material the animal is made from - the dry material -
comes from the soil in the first place. So upon death it is to some extent
simply returned there, if it does not become part of another organism.
Soil however is constantly being created. The basis for soil is weathered
rock of course, and as one goes from beadrock to the soil surface, the
organic contamination of the rock increases, until the surface is mostly
organic matrial - dead leaves, living plants and animals, roots, twigs, but
still a fair bit of silt and sand.
This is a generality of course, some soils like the desert are virtually
inorganic all the way down, and there are some soild like permafrost which
are mostly organic all the way down. ANd there are forest soils that are
completely organic on the surface due to the high rate of leaf clutter every
fall. And of course there are some places without soil at all - some areas
of the Canadian shield have large expanses of exposed bedrock.
Dave Head
>but other animals don't eat bones etc
Yes, chipmunks will eat the bones in time, too, for the calcium. Its why the
woods is not hip-deep in deer antlers, which shed every year and grow back new
from season to season.
actingne...@gmail.com
gave the exact answer I was curious about
I still don't understand one thing though: how can scientists determine
the age of a fossil from how far down the ground the remains were
found?
That's why I thought that all bones are ultimately buried
Scott Nudds
<actingne...@gmail.com> wrote
> I still don't understand one thing though: how can scientists determine
> the age of a fossil from how far down the ground the remains were
> found?
> That's why I thought that all bones are ultimately buried
You have to realize how rare it is for a fossil to form. Simply burrying a
bone will not cause it to become fossilized, you have to have it burried
under some reasonably stable conditions for it to fossilize.
If you just burry a bone in forest soil fore example, it will simply
degrade and fall apart after a good period of time. The same is true for
all other active soils.
In order to get a fossil you have to have the bone burried in a preserving
environment and that is rare. There are a host of preserving environments
and I don't have good knowledge of any of them, but one obviously can
develop when bones are covered with sand and silt that is rapidly deposited.
Floods, volcanic eruptions, etc. Bones in this instance are not generally
found again by other animals so they sit in place in the layer of silt or
rock that surrounds them.
Paleontologists date fossils in part - and initially only this way - by
looking at the layers of rock that are above and below the fossil in
question. The presumption is typically that the fossil will be younger than
the layers below and older than the layers above. Geologists have
painstaking records of the surface layers of rock from all over the globe,
with key layers being dated, some layers even extending over the entire
globe and providing a key reference date for a common event that occurred
globally. These events provide key reference dates that are used to
synchronize dating between widely separated geographical areas.
The geologic layers themselves are dated using a variety of methods that
typically revolve around measuring the relative abundance of various
isotopes within the crystals that form the rock. Other dating rules are
also used for example the idea that rock layers are applied from above, not
from below, so that a layer that is found above a reference layer will be
known to have been deposited after the reference layer.
There are various kinks and anomolies to the geologic column as it is
called, no matter where you go. Strata can be uplifted and folded, or blown
back upon itself by meteor impact, etc. These anomolies are identified and
studied and then the problems ironed out.
Similarly for fossils, there are also some anomolies that are similarly
resolved. The fossils of sand worm burrows for example are clearly dug into
the ocean bottom through various layers of rock. In such instances dating
by location in the deposition strata of the surrounding rock is imprecise
because animal has burrowed down through mud that has subsequently been
compressed into stone.
In each case of this type, further research provides a way to resolve the
inconsistancy either by refining the dating method or by explaining the
inconsistancy.
Not all inconsistancies can be explained of course. These inconsistancies
are the noise that obscures the big picture. Yet the big picture of
evolution can still be resolved - although not in absolutely precise detail.