Fishy Question!?

Question

What could the conditions have been like at the bottom ofa lake when the fossilization of a fish occurred?

Answer 1

Poetress,
It seems to me it would have to be awfully big and awfully fast to catch a fish that was once swimming around and trap it under several feet of lake bottom mud before it had a chance to decompose. Some upheavel caused by an earthquake of large magnitude or some other huge event. If you look at strata that is exposed on a mountain side--you can see layer after layer of lake bottom, but as you are looking at this strata which should be horizontal to the ground according to gravity, you might see a sudden break, and the strata that once was a horizontal bed of a lake is now at a 60 degree angle or maybe almost vertical. What forces of nature caused this? I once found fossil shells 60 miles inland from the coast! the shells were fossilized in strata that had once been their home in the ocean.. What catacylsmic (big word meaning huge, sudden) event caused them to be fossilized in time, just like the fish in the lake?
Hopes this has helped. Keep studying and stay bright!
-Spec

Answer 2

Fossil sites with exceptional preservation, sometimes including perserved soft tissues, are known as Lagerstätten. These formations may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus delaying decomposition.

Answer 3

i think the conditions should be muddy, little or no currents, little or no decomposition.

Answer 4

wet?