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Palaeofacts for younger Palaeofans
Science uses some very big words that scare off a lot of people, but we know how hard it is to understand something when you can't even say the words inside your own head. So what we've done in this website is to take those big words and break them into bite-sized chunks to give you the sound of each piece of each word. So when you see a word like this - “FOSS-ILLS” - it's showing you how to say it. The underlined piece of the word is the bit you say louder than the rest. So good luck with your reading, and don't let the words frighten you away from the science.
Welcome to the wonderful world of prehistoric plants and animals - the science we call 'palaeontology'. That's a big word, and it looks very hard to say, but if you say it in little bits like this - “PAL-EE-ONT-OLL-O-JEE” - it's not so very difficult after all. Palaeontology is the study of very, very old life: all the different plants and creatures that lived on our world in the long L-O-N-G ago past - not just tens of years ago, or hundreds of years ago, but hundreds of millions of years ago, when our Earth was a very different place indeed from the one we know today. It's hard to think about time in such big numbers, so think about it like this: when the dinosaurs were walking around, there was NO grass and NO flowers and NO birds and NO people. It was before all of those things. Now can you get some sort of idea of just how VERY long ago that was?
HOW DO WE KNOW ABOUT THESE THINGS, IF THEY LIVED SO VERY LONG AGO? Well, we know about them because we find their bones, or their footprints, or their eggs, or their babies, or their bite marks and claw marks in bones, or even their skins or their insides! We find the bits and pieces that have been left behind by things that lived in the past. Those things have been saved for us to find by the Earth itself, and we call them FOSSILS (you say it “FOSS-ILLS”). WHAT ARE FOSSILS? Fossils are very special, because they have been changed by time and by what happens deep in the ground into rock (yes, rock - or stone, if you want). A fossil is a piece of rock that was once part of a living animal or plant, or a mark it made when it was alive. HOW COULD ANYTHING THAT WAS ALIVE TURN INTO A ROCK? First, it has to be covered over with mud or sand or soil quickly after it dies, so it does not rot away or get eaten up or smashed into pieces. Then, over many many years - millions of years - more and more soil and sand and mud is blown by the wind, or washed by the rain, or dropped by rivers or lakes or even the sea on top of those bones or bits of plant or footprints. At last, there is so much mud and soil and other material lying on top of the plant or animal (or the pieces that are left of the plant or animal), that it presses the ground around - which is now very, VERY deep underneath the surface of the Earth - into rock. Then little droplets of water run down from the land above through the ground, and through the new rock. As those droplets move, all kinds of things melt into them from the ground they pass through. When they reach the bones, or the bits of plant, they drop those things into tiny spaces in the bones or bits. This goes on until slowly, over lots of time, the bones or the bits of plants are turned into stone. They have become fossils. Sometimes, the bone or plant rots away inside the rock, leaving a space behind it that is a perfect copy of its outsides. This is a different kind of fossil, called a mould (“MOLD”) fossil. Perhaps that space fills up with mud or sand, which then hardens into rock and makes another kind of fossil altogether. There are many different kinds of fossils, but they all show us the life that once lived on our Earth. They help us build up a picture of that life - what it looked like, how it lived, when it lived, what the world was like so long ago. ARE THERE FOSSILS IN SOUTH AFRICA? Here in South Africa, we actually have some of the most important fossils in the world, of some of the most important animals that ever lived. Did you know that the oldest ever dinosaurs were South African? The oldest dinosaur eggs ever found are right here in this country - in fact, in the museum at the Bernard Price Institute in the University of the Witwatersrand. South Africa has the fossils of some of the oldest animals with backbones of anywhere in the world. We have the oldest crocodiles, turtles, tortoises, snakes and mammals. This is a very special country indeed for fossils.
WHY DOES SOUTH AFRICA HAVE SO MANY FOSSILS? The place we call South Africa today, down at the bottom of Africa, has been around for a very long time - longer than most pieces of land. For a lot of that time, the conditions here were perfect for fossils to happen. There was a lot of water, for instance, which is wonderful for making fossils: animals fall into the fine, soft mud at the bottom of a sea or a lake or a slow river and are kept in one piece as well as being in the sort of 'ground' that easily and very often turns into rocks. South Africa was also safe from earthquakes and volcanoes for very long times, so the bones and bits of plants were not destroyed. WHAT DO WE CALL THE PEOPLE THAT WORK WITH FOSSILS? Scientists who study fossils are called palaeontologists (“PAL-EE-ONT-OLL- O-JISTS”), but there are also other people who help them in their work and who are important because their work lets the scientists do their work. There are people who take away the rock from around the fossils so the palaeontologists can study them - a job that is called 'preparing' a fossil. These are the preparators (“PREP-PAR-A-TORS”). There are also people who work in the laboratories (LA-BORR-A-TORR-EEZ) with different chemicals, who are called technicians (“TEK-NISH-UNS”). COULD I BECOME A PALAEONTOLOGIST? Yes, you could. You need to work hard at school, especially with your Maths and Science subjects. Then you go to university to get a science degree, which is called a BSc (“BEE ESS SEE”) and which takes three or four years, depending on where you live. If you live in South Africa, you would then come to the Bernard Price Institute here at the University of the Witwatersrand and learn to be a palaeontologist. It is the only university in South Africa with a Department of Palaeontology, so you would have to come here if you wanted to stay in this country. In other parts of the world, there are universities that let you do your BSc in palaeontology. You have to find out about those for yourself through your school, or you could ask your parents to find out for you.
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS YOU'D LIKE TO ASK, SEND THEM TO TIME WORLD AND WE'LL GET THE ANSWERS FOR YOU FROM THE SCIENTISTS AT THE BERNARD PRICE INSTITUTE FOR PALAEONTOLOGICAL RESEARCH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND. YOU CAN ALSO WRITE AND TELL US ABOUT YOUR FAVOURITE PREHISTORIC ANIMAL. WE'D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. IF YOU REALLY LIKE DINOSAURS AND PALAEONTOLOGY, YOU COULD BECOME A PALAEOPAL©. CLICK HERE TO MEET OUR FIRST PALAEOPAL© WHO'S BEEN A DINOSAUR FAN SINCE HE WAS TWO YEARS OLD: 10-YEAR OLD JOSHUA VILJOEN FROM JOHANNESBURG. HE HAS ALSO DRAWN A LOVELY PICTURE FOR US OF A SOUTH AFRICAN DINOSAUR.
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