Fossils are evidences of ancient life forms or ancient habitats which have been preserved by natural processes. Fossil evidence is typically preserved within the sediments deposited beneath water and land. They can be actual remains of once lived such as bones or seeds or even traces of past event such as dinosaur foot print or ripple marks on a pre-historic shore. Usually when organisms die, their bodies will be decomposed and lost.

Sometimes the body or some parts of the body do not decompose Geologists can tell the age of a fossil. The study of fossil is called 'Palaeontology'.

Palaeontologists determine the age of fossil by using carbon dating method. The breakdown of radioactive isotopes of certain elements such as Carbon, Uranium and Potassium takes place at a known rate. So the age of rock or mineral containing isotopes can be calculated.

Collect information about radio carbon dating method and radioactive isotopes and discuss with your teacher or from library display your collections in your class.

For example if a dead insect get caught in mud, it will not decompose quickly and the mud will eventually harden and retain the impression of the body parts of insect. All such preserved traces of extinct organisms are called fossils.

A rare and magnificient fossil of the dinosaurs, ketosaurs belonging to the lower Jurassic age going back to about 160 million years were collected from Yamanapalli in Adilabad district of Telangana. This fossil has 14 metres length and 5 metres height. This fossil is preserved at BM Birla Science Centre in Hyderabad