WEBVTT - How Fossils Work 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.560 It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:16.400 from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.440 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:27.120 the intrepid paleontologist Charles W. Chuck Bryant. It's terrible, Wasn't 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.600 I like it? Okay? I wish I was a Paleontologist's 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:34.040 your new nickname? Or intrepid? At least? Let's just go 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.440 with paleontologists. That'd be great. Okay, we're talking fossils today. Dude, 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:41.600 this isn't really interesting stuff? It really is. And um, 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:45.960 you can tell that Tracy Wilson are esteemed head of 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:51.520 the writing editor. I think she's site director director right. Um, 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:53.880 you can tell that she was very, very excited. She 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:59.400 took her time and really dolled this one out. I think, um, 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.200 save her is the right word. You can feel it 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.480 her smiling through the keyboard. Yeah, she's very happy to 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:09.200 write how fossils work, and um, we're happy to do 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:12.800 it because it's one of those very comprehensive articles on 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.480 the site that you just has. It has everything you need. 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:23.120 Sedimentary rock flat bones versus round bones leaf impressions has 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.880 it all unless you're an intrepid paleontologist, and we'll get 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.360 an email saying it actually wasn't very comprehensive. You guys 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:31.800 royally screwed this up. We just wait until we get 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:38.160 into punctuated versus gradual evolution. Chuck, Um, you've heard of 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:42.640 Lucy right, the austral epithecuss Yeah, okay, Well, Um, she 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.440 was I think three point two million years old. That's 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:49.040 one old lady. It really is the earliest hominid we've 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.600 found as far as I know. Um, But there's a 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:56.160 part of her foot missing. It's always been missing that 0:01:56.200 --> 0:02:00.240 we've never found before. So this thing, this bone, was 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:05.240 so essential that we couldn't tell how she walked until recently. 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:07.920 Why because the missing bone, we couldn't tell how she 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.280 walked exactly. We we we can tell so much from 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:13.520 bones that when we don't have the right bones, we 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.359 can't tell anything. So she may have been in a 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:22.119 knuckle dragger, she may have hopped, we didn't know. Well. Recently, Um, 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.880 some people from the University of Missouri or Missouri, depending 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:28.119 on whether or not you live in the state, UM 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:33.400 found the Uh, the group of foot bones needed to 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:38.800 show what kind of walker Lucy was. And she walked 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:40.960 up right? How was her gate? Upright? Upright? Just like 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.640 a human. She had a hitching her get along, she 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:48.679 had a pepper and her step. Possibly she knew she'd 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:53.680 be famous one day with duck. But but consider this, right, 0:02:54.720 --> 0:03:00.400 three point two million year old footbones were found and 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:03.040 we could tell from them how she walked. This is 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.720 the state of the field that you remember paleontology. Pretty cool. 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:10.160 This is how advanced it is, and yet it's really 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:14.120 just kind of using common sense to figure out what 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:21.519 old bones mean. Common sense and science. Fossils go, let's 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:23.080 talk about it, Chuck. What are some of the different 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:27.280 kinds of fossils. Uh, well, one of my favorite kinds 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.799 is trace fossil. Yeah, that's actually one of my favorites too. 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:39.200 It's like, um, that Jesus footprint thing, footprints in the sand. Yeah, 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.320 it's sort of this josh um that is when it's 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:44.960 actually not part of the organism at all, but it's 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:49.000 um like tooth marks in a chunk of wood from 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:53.320 a saborite tooth tiger, or footprints or footprints or track ways, 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:58.040 as Tracy calls them. Yes, footprints, it's just unnecessary, but 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.119 it has a pleasant tone, you know science. Yeah, they're 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:05.520 not footprints, the track ways I'm bored in Ethiopia, let's 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:10.000 call so trace fossils is one. Of course, there's bone fossils, right, 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.640 the most famous fossils. Yeah, those are great too. They 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.800 got nothing on trace fossils. So actually, bone fossils, that's 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:20.200 that's what you really want. If you're going to reconstruct 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:24.080 a dinosaur for your museum. You can't deal it with footprints, No, 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.640 you can't. You need the bones. And the bones are 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:29.719 of course the most famous ones in the dinosaur bones 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:31.720 are the most famous of all the bone types. Right. 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:36.960 So there's something that I think um is often missed 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:41.440 by lay people such as myself um in in that 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.599 when you find a bone, right, so, you find like 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:49.920 a big old dinosaur bone, it's really geologically speaking, it's 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:52.080 not a bone any longer. It's not like you find 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:54.880 a bone buried in your yard that was an animal 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.320 from like, you know, thirty five years ago, but that's 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.480 not a fossil. That's still bone. A fossil is a 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:05.920 bone or a piece of um, once living organic material 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.640 that's undergone a transition from uh, an organic state to 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:13.720 an inorganic state. That's what a fossil is. It's gone 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.839 through the process of fossilization. And most of these fossils, 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.800 the vast majority of fossils, are found in sedimentary rock. 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:24.240 Before we go any further, we should probably do a 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.440 little brief primer on sedimentary rock, right, which is awesome. Yeah, 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:31.480 it's pretty easy to Uh, we've talked about the Earth's core, 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:35.560 um and layers. When I think we talked about earthquakes 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.080 and maybe some other stuff. We all know that there's 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:42.239 the inn core, outer core. We got the crust. Crust 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:44.680 is the thinnest layer, and that's where the fossils are. 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:49.200 That's where the goods are. And uh, most of the 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.840 rocks in the crust are sedimentary rocks. You've been talking 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.720 about off and on for the past eight minutes, right, 0:05:55.560 --> 0:06:00.560 And that's like silty sandy stuff that hardened over the right, 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.840 I mean, but the the Earth, Remember we talked about oh, 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:09.560 what was it clouds I can't remember what podcast it was, 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.560 but we talked about how much sand is transferred from 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:17.520 Africa to South America annually. But if you remember the 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:21.880 one I'm talking about. Okay, so the Earth's geo biogeochemical 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:27.000 processes equal a lot of movement of particulate matter. Right. 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:30.040 The Earth is dynamic, baby, it is. It's also very fluid. 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.880 To write, A lot of that matter is at at 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:38.640 one point as suspended particles in water that's moving around, right. 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:44.280 So um as this as the water leaves and the 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.400 sediment is deposited, it builds up and up and up. 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.520 Over time, it hardens into rock and eventually we have 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:54.159 sedimentary rock which is below our feet. We don't normally 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:58.640 see it unless say, the Colorado River um winds over 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:02.680 it for you know, millions and millions and millions of years, 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:08.240 revealing the sedimentary rocket that's in the Earth's cross Grand Canyon, 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:10.520 exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, I forgot the Grand 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:12.720 Canyon park. So you know how I said the Earth 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.480 was dynamic, baby? Yeah? Uh, that's important. I didn't just 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:18.840 throw that in there as a factoid. It's important because 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:23.000 when these plates shift around, that's how fossils are on Earth. 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.480 Things can be moved great distances and pushed to the 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.880 surface eventually or close enough to where a dig can 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:33.160 unearth it. And it's like just because it's fossilized, doesn't 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.600 mean it's stuck in that one spot forever, because Earth 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.000 is always moving. So the point of all this is 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:42.480 is sedimentary rock um is like you said, dynamic. It 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.880 moves around. Sometimes fossils pop up, or it becomes exposed 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.360 all of the Colorado River um, and that is where 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:53.240 fossils are, right Chuck. Yes, So let's say that at 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:55.640 some point in time there was a dinosaur or a 0:07:55.640 --> 0:08:01.640 saber tooth tiger or a cyanobacteria wily mammoth, woly mammoth, 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:05.560 sure um, and it's um hanging out around the riverbed 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.240 and it has a massive heart attack and falls over 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:14.480 in the river bed and very quickly it becomes covered 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:18.600 with sediment and silt, right yeah, And that's important because 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.480 once it starts getting covered up with stuff, it's sort 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:24.880 of being protected from like all of us. Let's just 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:27.640 break the news. All of fossil means is that something 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:33.000 has been protected from the natural decomposition process. Otherwise we 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:35.920 just decompose like everything else and you wouldn't see anymore. 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:40.160 You just totally betrayed Tracy in the tone she went 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:44.120 to this, that the whole drama drawing out suspense. But 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.200 that's true. So what you said was right. So you'd 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:48.400 fall over in a riverbed, you start getting covered up 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.680 with the sediment and silt, and it's it's immediately starting 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.240 to protect you in a way. Um, not you, but whatever, 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.000 the wily mammoth, the wooly mammoth. Um. The thing is 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:00.800 the in this sediment, in this still, you can't really 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:07.440 hide from macrobacteria, uh and other forms of life that 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:16.000 are basically dedicated to breaking down organic matter, soft tissue, hair, eyeballs, um, genitalia, 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.160 all that kind of stuff. It eventually becomes broken down 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.400 and what's left is the hard stuff, the bone, right, 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:27.240 But the bone also has organic material within it as well. Yeah, 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.880 and that'll break down. We're talking blood, cells, collagen, fat, 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.280 that's gonna break down. To the key here is the 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:37.840 inorganic parts of the bone remain intact. And it's the 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:41.679 other keyword here's porous. Yes. Well, you take calcium, I 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:46.440 imagine for your hips. Yeah, sure, glucosim and calcium. Sure. 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.600 So what you're doing is, um, you're fortifying the calcium 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:54.640 that's already in your hips supposedly, um, because the bone 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:56.920 is made in large part of calcium, which is a mineral, 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:59.840 which is inorganic, So it's all the organic stuff dies 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:03.439 that out. What's left is, like you said, the inorganic 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:07.480 like calcium, whatever, minerals, and that holds the shape, right. Yeah, 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:11.480 the initial structure is kept intact, right, But like you said, 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.040 this bone is also porous. Yeah, that's the key, and 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:19.560 over time, um other mineral sediment kind of um it 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:25.760 enters into these these microscopic pores iron right, carbonate and 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:30.360 fortifies this, ultimately turning this but what was once an 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:34.320 organic bone into an inorganic rock in the shape of 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:36.839 the bone. Yeah, but for all intensive prefaces, it's still 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.160 the bone. It still has that original calcium. It's still 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.839 the same thing. It's not like a replica of it. 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.760 It's just become fossilized. Yeah. And Tracy in the article 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:49.000 uses a pretty good example. I thought, it's like filling 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.840 a sponge with glue. The sponge is gonna keep the shape, 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.160 but the glue is gonna ouze through all these spots 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.240 that it can ouze harden, and there you go. You've 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:01.480 got a hard sponge, a hard sponge, which is basically 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.040 what a fossil is. And this takes place Josh over 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.400 the course of millions of years, the sediment reinforcing the 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.400 bones eventually becoming rock. It's not the kind of thing 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:13.720 that happens willy nilly over thousands of years a long time, 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:17.079 and it's just this isn't just UM happening by itself. 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:21.520 All of the surrounding area UM is being deposited with 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:24.640 sediment as well. It's also turning into rock UM. And 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:26.920 then the ultimate test of time for a fossil is 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:29.880 that it can withstand the pressure of the that's mounted 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:34.120 by the hardening rock sedimentary rock that's growing around it, 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:37.559 so it can be crushed. Is that how? A lot 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:42.040 of fossils are definitely crushed crushed the death um. But 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.920 if it survives and you can find this, you will 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:49.920 eventually be able to get to it. And then you 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:52.520 remove the rock from around the fossil, and there's your 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.080 bone that you can take to the Natural History Museum 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.360 and get at least five dollars for When you were 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:01.000 a kid, Josh, let me ask this, did you ever 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:05.199 go into the woods on a little nature course from 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.960 like a science center, let's say, and do a cast 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:14.400 plaster cast of a animal footprint? Do you ever do that? No? Really, 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:16.880 really I did that. We went and found like deer 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.400 hoof prints, you fill it with plaster, and there was 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.000 some way of doing it where you got an inverse 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.280 plaster cast of a deer hoof print. That can happen 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.320 actually in a way that with trace fossils, So you can, 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.080 you know, sediment connect the same way in one of these. 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.840 Let's say the wooly mammoth makes a footprint in some 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.240 loose but sturdy soil that fills up with sediment and 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:40.880 creates basically a mold, just like I did as a 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:43.400 kid with the plaster cast. Yeah, as long as the 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.920 sediment that fills it in is lighter or thinner, yeah 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.360 than the soil that the impression is made in, then yeah, 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:53.240 it would it would, It would preserve that track. Yeah, 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:54.880 And plants can do the same thing. It's not just 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:58.520 bones we're talking about. Um. It can also fill in 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:00.600 in a different way. I guess the was it way 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.920 to where it makes a basically a cast of the 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:08.120 foot that made the track. And then so it's like 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:12.240 a kind of like a fossil of a ghost foot 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.839 that's not really there, but it makes the foot. It's 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.160 like an inverse cast, okay, of not the track, but 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.280 the foot that made the track cool. You know what. 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:27.599 Other another my favorite trace fossil is it's not a 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.160 track way, it's copper light. I changed my mind. That 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:33.520 is a good one. That's done it poop, fossilized poop, 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.200 that's right. I can tell you a lot about an animal. 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.640 It can tell you about its fiber intake. It can 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:44.600 tell you about what size it's poop was. Um chuck. 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.520 You know, in the eighties the CIA found out much 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.920 about Gorbichoff and his health. They found out he had 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:56.560 like cancer or some sort of chronic illness um by 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:00.079 stealing his poop when he was when he came the 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.160 state visit to the US, they took his poop and 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:07.080 analyzed it, and when he was in the US they 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.120 described it from the toilet. Did he not flush? I 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.319 just want more specifics that you probably don't have. As 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.880 far as I understand, they probably his hotel room or 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:19.040 wherever he was staying. They were prepared to do this. 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:23.160 This was like toilet rigged. Probably yes, But wherever Reagan 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:26.080 went they had a portable toilet that he used. It 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:27.800 was the only one he was allowed to use. I'm 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.200 not kidding. So no one can steal his poop. Talk 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:36.160 about paranoid. Yeah, seriously, when you point one finger, there's 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:40.280 three pointing back at you, you know what I mean. Yeah? Yeah, 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.080 Uh so, Josh, that is sedimentary rock and that's to 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.120 me one of the cooler ways you can get a fossil. 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:49.680 Petrified wood too. Don't leave that one out. It's basically 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:52.640 the same thing that we just described for bone, but 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.200 for wood hard as a rock because it is a rock. 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:58.960 Here you go, alright, So like I just said, um, 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:01.560 that was dementary rock and that's kind of fun. But 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:06.120 you can also uh get a fossil. Has that funny 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.640 because one dies in a cave that's really dry. Yeah. 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:14.120 Desiccation Yeah, desiccation is basically, uh, sort of a mummification, 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:16.920 but it's not like we think of with mummification with 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.120 the Egyptian tombs or anything like that. Well, that's because 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:25.200 there's no preservation techniques that have been undertaken. Basically, it 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:27.920 dries out. It's like throwing an orange in a dehydrator. 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.320 So when it's really dry, there's not gonna be any 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.200 place for bacteria to thrive. That's the reason beef jerky 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.920 is not um refrigerated. If you refrigerate your beef jerkey, 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:40.360 you're you're doing something wrong. Yeah, that's true. Well, if 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.400 you have beef jerky long enough to need refrigeration, then 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:48.440 you're doing something wrong or something really really right. Uh 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:52.480 So desiccation actually works so well sometimes that it can 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.400 preserve the skin and soft tissues as well, which is 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:57.720 something that sedimentary rock cannot do. Have you been to 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.480 the Smithsonian? I have they have um a very cool 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.760 I guess a prehistoric cow or a musk ox I 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.480 can't remember, but it's the thing's head, um, much of 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.680 its back, I guess, the cape, two of its legs, 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:14.000 and the skin is still there. It's just right there. 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.320 Probably it's tens of thousands of years old and it's 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.080 just sitting right there. Did they rebuild could they rebuild 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.280 it or just put the parts up? It's just the parts, 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:26.040 but it's laid out so that like it gives you 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.040 the impression of what you're looking at, but its face 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.280 is still there. It's very cool. Uh. My favorite kind 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.560 of fossil, though, Josh, is I'm gonna say that, like 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:39.040 every five minutes is a frozen fossil. Because if you 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:41.360 get trapped let's see your wily mammoth trapped in ice. 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:44.600 Not only is that going to keep other like vultures 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:47.320 and things from picking up your bones and skin, but 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:50.280 it's also going to keep it from breaking down. And 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:55.280 you can get hair fully preserved sometimes if you're in 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:57.400 skin and like a big mammoth. Have you seen pictures 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:01.200 of Leuba No? Liuba is a baby wooly mammoth that 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:05.840 was found um by a reindeer herder in Siberia and 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.760 um it was pounds or something like that, but it 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:11.200 would have gotten up to several times. It is adorable 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:16.440 because it is a fully preserved wooly mammoth baby with 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.200 the wrinkles in the skin and everything, yet spent forty 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.440 years in the perma frost. But it's like completely intact. 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.000 It's very cute. That's why it's my favorite. It's one 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:30.639 of the cutest dead things you'll ever see. Another couple 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:33.119 of ways you can get a fossil josh, which are 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:37.840 not my favorite, are a tar librea tar pits, although 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.160 that is one of my favorites, which librea tar pit 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.040 is actually redundant because Librea means the tar, so it's 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.080 calling it the tar tart pit, and not the tartar. 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:48.359 Did I ever tell you about when I shot a 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.040 commercial there? Have you? Did you go by there in 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.480 l A? No? I want to. I forgot about it 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:55.320 when we were there last Well, for those of you 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.399 haven't been, it's right in the middle of Los Angeles, 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.200 like south of Hollywood on Wilson Bull Levard, and it's um. 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:06.920 The main tar pit is uh. Tar pits are fenced off, obviously, 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.800 and they have little recreations. It's it's actually the saddest 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:11.880 thing you'll ever see. The recreation they have in there 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.520 is of a like I guess it's a mother wooly 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.119 mammoth trapped in the tar trying to get out, and 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:21.920 the father and the baby on shore like howling. It's awful. 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:24.760 But it's still active, like all this tars bubbling up 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.439 and everything. And shot a commercial there once and I 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.320 was on the other side of the property, far away 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.120 from the main pit, and I looked down and there 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:37.280 was a little mini tar pit, a little tar puddle 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.560 about a foot wide, bubbling right beneath my feet. I 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:43.680 could have scooped it up with my finger if I 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:47.680 had been so inclined. Yeah, Instead, you're like that stinks. Well, 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.399 it's just crazy to think that that's still like it's happening. Apparently, 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:54.520 um I looked it up. There's um there's like you said, 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.320 main pits that are chained off and that are still 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.200 being excavated. But they have them like in neighborhood. It's 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.520 all around the area and parks. They're just kind of 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:05.800 all over the place around there. That's like parts of 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.600 Stone Mountain popping up all over the place. We used 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:11.520 We had a big chunk of stone Mountain in our 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.879 backyard growing up. All right. For those of you don't know, 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.720 Stone Mountain is the world's largest exposed piece of granite 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:20.200 and it is right here in our home state. And 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:22.480 it takes like thirty minutes to hike, but you still 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:23.800 get to get to the top and be like I 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.280 just hiked a mountain, which I have, Josh. You can 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:31.600 also get a pete. Mossy pete can preserve life forms, 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:35.119 including human beings like tolon Man? Was it? Who was 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.399 that Toland Man? I don't know about him? How do 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.239 you know? All these people? To people? The first the 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:45.560 first um multi syllable word I could spell with archaeology. Really, 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.680 I've always been interested in that I could see that. Yeah, 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.280 Tolan Man. Also it doesn't. You can hate archaeology like 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:54.960 some people hate art, and you'll still be interested in 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.560 Toland Man. Um, he was He's found in Denmark. He 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:03.879 lived years go and he was murdered. Uh, sacrificially they think, 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.720 and cast into the peat bog which pete is just 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:10.520 decomposing moss and lots of it, but it has a tendency. 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:14.000 I think it's anaerobic. So um tissue is preserved really well. 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:16.480 But it's this guy that they dug up and he's 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:18.159 so well preserved that when they found him in the 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:20.640 nineteen fifties they called the cops because they thought they'd 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.840 found a murder victim, like a recent one. It looks 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.280 kind of funny, but he's got his whiskers are preserved, 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.080 he's wearing a cap, he still has this the garrett 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:34.440 around his neck. Um, it's really awesome. So like three 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.160 hundred to four hundred BC is one who was killed 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:42.400 and he's wearing a hat. Yeah, sheepskin leather cap. Yeah. 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.879 No last chance garage for him. No. Well uh. And 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:47.600 then my favorite way, Josh, that you can get a 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:53.400 fossil h you're joking. Did you say it again? Is amber? 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:55.800 They just keep getting better and better, like the movie 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.520 Jurassic Park. Yeah, that's how we get dinosaurs again. Yeah, 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.440 dino d NA. So you found something on on whether 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.679 or not that's feasible, right, Yeah, because I always wondered. 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:07.520 You know, when you see Jurassic Park, you see the 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.359 little video They made it clearly to explain to the 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:12.800 movie going audience how this was done. It's better than 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:19.000 Ellen Page running around. What was that movie inception? Um So, 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:22.800 the mosquito flies and tree resident tree resident eventually becomes 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:26.640 hard as copal than it eventually becomes inert as amber. 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:29.080 You get the little mosquito in there. They extracted the 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:32.320 dino DNA from the blood of the mosquito, filled in 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.960 the gaps with I think frog DNA, and that was 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:40.000 all there was to it. And at the time I thought, yeah, 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:42.639 at the time, I thought that seems plausible, and it 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:44.760 sort of is. But I did look up today and 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:47.919 there was a researcher that was interviewed at the or 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:50.600 closer to that time. I think that basically debunked it 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.440 and said we could potentially maybe get some DNA even 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:58.080 though it's really fragile and loses his signature really quickly. 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.240 Even if you could get the in a he said 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:05.240 that you couldn't construct a dinosaurs just you can't fill 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:07.320 in the blanks like that. There's way too many blanks. 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:11.320 You have a giant frog, yeah, with little tiny arms 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:14.720 forearms that Steven Spielberg made us believe when you saw 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:17.159 those dinosaurs walk across that field. That guy can make 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:21.640 me believe in anything, that aliens came to the American Southwest, 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:26.960 that there was a World War two. That um home, 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:32.679 yea good stuff. Uh, where are we here? Chuck it. 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:34.679 We're kind of painting this picture where if like you 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:36.800 just stick a shovel anywhere on the Earth, you're gonna 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:40.280 yield like all sorts of bones and fossils. No, it's 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:45.440 not um. First of all, a mere fraction that I 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.320 don't think could possibly be calculated because we rely on 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:52.240 the fossil record to show us what existed back when, 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:55.840 and it's incomplete. Therefore we've entered to catch twenty two. 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:59.240 But there's just a mere fraction of all of the 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:05.600 species organisms that's ever lived that become fossilized UM Like. Basically, 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:08.959 a perfect storm of chance has to occur for a 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:11.919 fossil to be created. As we've seen, even when it 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:15.800 is created, it can still be crushed into oblivion. Um. 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:20.359 And so there are few and far between to begin with. 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:24.320 What we have to figure out where to find them? Well, 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:26.080 then you got to find that. That's the other problem, 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:28.800 and the way we find it is by identifying rock 0:23:29.000 --> 0:23:32.640 that will likely have the type of fossil that we're 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:35.280 looking for. Yeah, so if you want something that from 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:39.360 that year. So if you know that this animal, yeah, 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:41.399