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A friend of mine told me that the fossils on display in museums are plaster replicas because the actual fossils are too fragile. I always thought that the fossilization process turned the bones into rocks. Who is right here?

2007-11-19 12:23:53 · 5 answers · asked by Ari 1 in Science & Mathematics Earth Sciences & Geology

5 answers

Depends. It is not really a problem of fragility but rather of availability. If there is a squeletton of a whole tyranosaurus rex, there might be 20% of the bones which are actual fossiles. The rest are reconstructions.
If the paleontologists were presenting the actual finding, it will be not spectacular enough, very often, you get one teeth, one jaw, one piece of skull etc... The rest is inference.
Now, this is for the bones. For the shells, ammonites etc... they are mostly real fossiles

2007-11-19 18:49:20 · answer #1 · answered by omalinur 4 · 1 1

Many are replicas, as the actual fossil may be too fragile and/or too heavy for display.

2007-11-19 14:31:50 · answer #2 · answered by Howard H 7 · 1 0

most are actual. very rare ones might be replicas..eg. hominid fossils. large dinosaur displays have replica skulls, because the originals are too heavy. fossil bone is quite brittle.

2007-11-19 12:29:39 · answer #3 · answered by deva 6 · 0 0

No, a few are, however most are actual fossils taken from archaeological digs.

2007-11-19 12:28:02 · answer #4 · answered by bgee2001ca 7 · 0 0

I'm sure most of them are real, but some of them probably are replicas.

2007-11-19 12:32:37 · answer #5 · answered by LD 4 · 0 0

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