# data[].attributes.body
Fossils are the remains or traces of plants and animals that live a long time ago. Fossils help scientists understand what life was like millions of years ago. Some fossils provide evidence of living things that have gone extinct, which means they no longer found alive anywhere on earth today.

https://www.generationgenius.com/fossils-and-extinction-lesson-for-kids/

# data[].attributes.body
Marine fossils are identified as fossils that are found from aquatic life. These fossils can be from marine animals, plants, or shells. These fossils are formed as sediment buries bones, plants, or shells are molded into the sediment throughout a very long time!

# data[].attributes.body
Paleontologist's often uncover fossils from extinct organisms. To be extinct means the population of the living being is no longer on earth today. Often, scientists study the fossils of the most popular extinct organism - dinosaurs.

As animals, plants, and marine animals died millions of years ago, their bodies were covered by sediment. While their skin decayed into the ground, their bones remained which is the reason fossils are made!

# data[].attributes.body
Locally discovered fossils are those that we find in our local environment! Erie has a lot of fossils due to the unique terrain and Great Lake. Recently, paleontologists uncovered enormous Dunkleosteus bones The Dunkleosteus was a huge prehistoric fish that lived and fed in the saltwater ocean that covered Erie County and much of the eastern United States 360 million years ago. Most of the fossil evidence of the huge, heavily-armored predator so far has been unearthed in and around Cleveland.

Beyond animal and aquatic life fossils, Pennsylvania is remembered for their state fossil: the Phacops.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It was the size of a small school bus with a bite that could cut a powerful shark in two.

The Dunkleosteus was a huge prehistoric fish that lived and fed in the saltwater ocean that covered Erie County and much of the eastern United States 360 million years ago.

Most of the fossil evidence of the huge, heavily-armored predator so far has been unearthed in and around Cleveland.

But that's changing.

A McKean Township man and his two young sons recently found pieces of bone from two of the predator fish in a streambed in McKean Township.

And "there absolutely are more out there," said Scott McKenzie, assistant professor of geology and paleontology director at Mercyhurst University.

McKenzie found a third piece of bone in the same stream where Rich Reislund and sons Jonathan, 12, and David, 10, found bones. Another Dunkleosteus bone was found at the same location some years ago, McKenzie said.

A large piece of Dunkleosteus skull was found by a collector in North East in 2004.

An Edinboro University of Pennsylvania professor found another piece of skull along an Elk Creek tributary.

A 2-inch-thick piece of Dunkleosteus armor was found near Waterford.

Collectors most likely have found more.

"This might be the tip of the iceberg," McKenzie said of the combined finds. "There might be a Dunkleosteus graveyard in our region."

The Dunkleosteus bones will be part of a larger collection of fossils on display at Asbury Woods' Brown's Farm Barn in Millcreek Township in July. The "Unearthed" exhibit runs July 7-31.

The largest and best-known permanent display of the Devonian Period predator is at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Nineteenth- and 20th-century Cleveland-area collectors found scores of Dunkleosteus fossils in and around the city. Ocean waters may have been shallower or deeper there, or currents may have concentrated remains in those places, McKenzie said.

"Cleveland has been the epicenter of where these things have been found over the past 200 years," he said.

But now, with most of the best fossil grounds developed for Cleveland-area high-rises and shopping malls or owned and protected by the government, local enthusiasts could put Erie County on the Dunkleosteus map, McKenzie said.

"Anybody who goes out and really hunts stream beds where the rocks are exposed can find these things," he said.

Reislund took his sons to Mercyhurst's recent Dig Into Erie's Past event, which revived a childhood interest in fossils and stones.

"I was always interested in rocks and fossils as a kid and now am reliving some of that through my kids," he said.

Reislund took his boys on a field trip to search for fossils the week after the Mercyhurst event.

"I saw these laying there and thought they looked different," Reislund said of the bones. "When I looked closer I could see they were bone. I could see cellular structure."

The Reislunds found their first piece of Dunkleosteus bone on that first field trip. They found the second in the same streambed a week later and asked McKenzie to take a look at them.

The two bones are the same, McKenzie said, meaning that they came from separate fish. Both are part of a great fish's shoulder armor, he said.

"What's so important is that it's the first time in Pennsylvania that evidence of more than one of the big fish has been found at the same place," McKenzie said.

Dunkleosteus bones also have been found near Buffalo and in North Africa. Africa was still attached to North America's East Coast when the Dunkleosteus lived, McKenzie said.

Dunkleosteus fed on sharks and even their own kind, as evidenced by the bite marks on some of the fossilized bones, McKenzie said.

The skull of the big fish can be as wide as 4 feet. Its total length could reach 30 feet.

"It was the largest carnivore on Earth over 100 million years before the dinosaurs," McKenzie said. "It was the fish version of Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was a monster predator."

The huge fish were victims of a mass extinction at the end of the Devonian Period. It's not known what killed them and other species.

"They disappeared off the face of the Earth," McKenzie said.

McKenzie urges anyone interested in the big fish to go looking for a piece of one, and then to preserve it.

"Each one has a story to tell," he said. "But once the fossil is exposed on the surface of a streambed it will be eroded and lost and nobody will ever get it back."
Valerie Myers can be reached at 878-1913 or by email. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNmyers.
'Unearthed'
What: Exhibit of fossils from Mercyhurst University Sincak Natural History Collection

Where: Asbury Woods Brown's Farm Barn

When: Tuesdays 10 a.m.-noon and 5-7 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m.-noon, July 7-31.

Lectures: "Journey of Prehistoric Life that Once Inhabited Asbury Woods," by Scott McKenzie, Mercyhurst Univesity, July 12, 6:30 p.m.; and "Geologic History of Asbury Woods," by Nick Lang, Mercyhurst University, July 26, 6 p.m.

Admission: Free.

For information on other "Unearthed" events: www.asburywoods.org/news/unearthed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Finds in Erie County might point to a 'graveyard' of Dunkleosteus, a giant fish that lived here 360 million years ago.

# data[].attributes.body
Fossils have been found EVERYWHERE! Even on Mars!

Paleontologists are scientists that study fossils.

Fossils give scientists a lot of knowledge, such as the environment the organism lived, how old the organism was, and how they died and even what they ate!

Scientists have the ability to understand the age of the organism, how they died, their environment, and species type through radiometric dating.

What is radiometric dating?

Radiometric dating is a technique which is used to date materials such as rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when they were formed.