Fossilization

If what is said concerning the petrifaction of animals and plants is true, the cause of this (phenomenon) is a powerful mineralizing and petrifying virtue which arises in certain stony spots, or emanates suddenly from the earth during earthquake and subsidences, and petrifies whatever comes into contact with it. As a matter of fact, the petrifaction of the bodies of plants and animals is not more extraordinary than the transformation of waters.If the Deluge had carried the shells for distances of three and four hundred miles from the sea it would have carried them mixed with various other natural objects all heaped up together; but even at such distances from the sea we see the oysters all together and also the shellfish and the cuttlefish and all the other shells which congregate together, found all together dead; and the solitary shells are found apart from one another as we see them every day on the sea-shores.And we find oysters together in very large families, among which some may be seen with their shells still joined together, indicating that they were left there by the sea and that they were still living when the strait of Gibraltar was cut through. In the mountains of Parma and Piacenza multitudes of shells and corals with holes may be seen still sticking to the rocks....'All of these facts, consistent among themselves, and not opposed by any report, seem to me to prove the existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some kind of catastrophe.The Virtual Fossil MuseumThree small ammonite fossils, each approximately 1.5 cm acrossEocene fossil fish Priscacara liops from the Green River Formation of WyomingA permineralized trilobite, Asaphus kowalewskiiMegalodon and Carcharodontosaurus teeth. The latter was found in the Sahara Desert.Fossil shrimp (Cretaceous)Petrified wood in Petrified Forest National Park, ArizonaPetrified cone of Araucaria mirabilis from Patagonia, Argentina dating from the Jurassic Period (approx. 210 Ma)A fossil gastropod from the Pliocene of Cyprus. A serpulid worm is attached.Silurian Orthoceras fossilEocene fossil flower from Florissant, ColoradoMicraster echinoid fossil from EnglandProductid brachiopod ventral valve; Roadian, Guadalupian (Middle Permian); Glass Mountains, Texas.Agatized coral from the Hawthorn Group (Oligocene–Miocene), Florida. An example of preservation by replacement.Fossils from beaches of the Baltic Sea island of Gotland, placed on paper with 7 mm (0.28 inch) squaresDinosaur footprints from Torotoro National Park in Bolivia.