Dating Fossils Paleontologists use many ways of dating fossils in geologic time. Behind the Scenes at the Royal Ontario Museum Fossils are the remains of animals and plants, or the record of their presence, preserved in the rocks of the Earth. After being found, a fossil must be carefully freed from the rocky matrix that encased it for millions of years. Then it's time to put the pieces together. A NASA research team of scientists at the Johnson Space Center and at Stanford University has found evidence that strongly suggests primitive life may have existed on Mars more than 3.6 billion years ago.
Many people think paleontology is the study of fossils.
In fact, paleontology is much more. In short, paleontology is the study of what fossils tell us about the ecologies of the past, about evolution, and about our place, as humans, in the world. A fossil is defined as any trace of a past life form. Trilobites Trilobites are extinct ocean dwelling arthropods that inhabited the earth during the Paleozoic era. Arthropods have segmented body appendages and are covered by a chitinous exoskeleton.