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- Family
- see Classification
- Fauna
- The animal life present in an environment.
- Flora
- The plant life present in an environment.
- Fossilization
- Fossilization is the process that takes place when the remains of a living thing, usually an animal, are preserved in a manner that changes its basic composition. The most common process is called permineralization. This occurs when each molecule of the original object, like a bone, is replaced with a molecule of some kind of rock or mineral. The way the bone is covered and in what type of environment, will determine what the fossil is like. Fossils can be hard or soft, depending on the type of rock that replaces the organic material. In addition to the actual organic materials being replaced by minerals, there are also fossils that are made by impressions. These can be footprints or skin impressions, which provide paleontologists with many clues as to how dinosaurs looked and lived. When a dinosaur stepped into some soft mud on the shore of a river the sun would dry the mud and the impression into a hard, rocklike state. This would then be covered with more mud that would dry, preserving the impression for millions of years. Skin impressions of dinosaurs are very rare, but give scientists their best look at what a fleshed out dinosaur would have looked like.
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