Question

Describe how the fossil record could be used by scientists to help explain the evolution of a species

Answer 1

Explanation:

Fossils are important evidence for evolution because they show that life on earth was once different from life found on earth today. ... Paleontologists can determine the age of fossils using methods like radiometric dating and categorize them to determine the evolutionary relationships between organisms.

Answer 2

Answer:

Fossils are the remains of a plant or animal from a previous geologic era that have been preserved in the Earth's crust. The fossil record is a term for the fossils that are preserved worldwide. it is the primary source of knowledge regarding the evolution of life on Earth.

• To calculate how long it has been since a mineral was formed, radiometric dating counts the number of naturally occurring radioactive atoms that are still present in the mineral.

• According to radiometric dating, Earth was formed around 4.5 billion years ago. The earliest fossils, which are found in rocks older than 3.5 billion years, resemble creatures like bacteria and cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). The so-called Ediacaran fauna, which consists of small, soft-bodied wormlike organisms, is where the oldest animal fossils, dating back roughly 700 million years, may be found.

The fossil record has been of immense help when it comes to tracing down the evolution of species. Let's take the example of the horse and the human specie.

• The ancestor of the horse, known as the dawn horse, was a canine-sized creature with many toes on each foot and teeth designed for browsing that existed more than 50 million years ago. The contemporary horse, which is the most recent version, is significantly bigger, has one toe, and has teeth adapted for grazing making it a herbivore.
• Numerous fossilized species that stood in the middle between living apes and humans too, have been discovered. Sahelanthropus and Orrorin, which were primarily bipedal when on the ground but had relatively small brains, are the oldest fossiled hominins, or primates belonging to the human lineage after it broke from lineages heading to the apes, and they are 6–7 million years old. They are from Africa.

The fossil record is an asset that stores complex information about various species. It needs to be preserved and studied to trace down the evolution of various species.

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