What is a fossil?

Fossils are naturally preserved remains of ancient animals, plants, fungi, or microbes in stones or resins.

There are three main types of fossils depending on how they formed:

• impression fossils - are prints, or impressions, of ancient plants or animals that landed in mud or sand and made an impression. Over the years the mud or sand hardens into rock keeping those prints.
• trace fossils - capture the activities of ancient animals that leave footprints, scat in the sand, mud, or silt which hardens over the years preserving the trace of the animal.
• replacement fossils - are replicas of things that were once alive, such as plants, trees, or sea animals trapped, died, and covered by water. As these plants or animals rot, the organic parts are replaced by silica that fills in the empty spaces and creates a fossil of the living thing.

Fossils you’ll find at the Village Rock Shop:

• Tumbled petrified wood
• Tumbled Stromatolite
• Orthoceras plate
• Fossilized palm root
• Trilobite fossil
• Ammonite fossil
• Coral fossil
• Shiva shells