We talk about fossils a lot on this podcast – every episode, in fact – but we rarely take the time to discuss how fossils get the way they are. This is a crucial subject, because the fossilization process is a filter, and nothing comes through the filter unaltered, and many things don’t come through at all. In this episode, we talk about how fossils typically form, how we study this process, and why it’s so important for paleontologists to understand fossilization.

In the news: giant croc tracks, injured dino footprints, evolution in cities, and ancient snakey-ness.

Time markers:
Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00
News: 00:04:00
Main discussion, Part 1: 00:41:00
Main discussion, Part 2: 01:16:00
Patron question: 01:52:00

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http://commondescentpodcast.wordpress.com/

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The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome.
More music like this at http://ocremix.org.

Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

11/05/2012 - The Church Of What's Happening Now #25