Question 8

Explain the importance of fossils in deciding evolutionary relationships.

Answer

Fossils are formed during the formation of sedimentary rocks, dead animals of the sea and the lakes, rivers when they sink down and get buried in the rocks. When there is no oxygen, they prevent the decay of an animal. The animals then preserved in the rocks, which form the fossils. The hard matter remains of the dead animals preserved layer by layer in the sedimentary rocks. The deeper layer had more older fossils and the upper layer had more recent fossils. Palaeontology is the study of past life based on the fossil records. Palaeontology furnishes the evidence for the evolution which tells about the organism that lives in today’s time or that lived in the past and how they originated by showing the fossil records. Ages of the fossils can be determined by some methods like relative dating method, absolute dating method etc. By which age of fossils determine how long they have been in the evolutionary relationships.

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