Name: 【TED-Ed】How to fossilize...yourself - Phoebe A. Cohen
Uploaded: 2014-05-04T09:49:40.000Z
Duration: 5 min 14 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

posing for hordes of fawning photographers.

At least 99.9% of creatures that have ever lived

and assume you had a long, fulfilling life

so we can get to what is really important --

so let's highlight your top death options.

You could get yourself trapped in tree sap,

and can survive intact for millions of years.

But unless you find a really big tree to sit under,

the domain of insects and other very small animals.

is wherever sediment is actively being deposited,

because the longer you hang around on the surface,

before ever having a chance to get preserved.

That lack of oxygen will slow down your decay

your bones get saturated with mineral-rich waters.

Bit by bit, microscopic crystals precipitate

to fill in the empty spaces and pores in your bones.

and another sediment or mineral fills in the spaces

creating a perfect cast of your skeleton.

Over time, the sediments around your fossil

They could get uplifted into a mountain range

and subducted back into the Earth's mantle,

that erosion from wind and rain wipes you away

an intrepid paleontologist has to come find you.

She whacks away at layers of rock above you

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【TED-Ed】How to fossilize...yourself - Phoebe A. Cohen

find

record

surface

live