How smushed shells could help to resolve paleontological mysteries. By Asher Elbein You never know where a bit of unusual scientific research is going to lead. Consider a 2012 study about turtle ...

Through careful study of an ancient ancestor of modern turtles, researchers now have a clearer picture of how the turtles' most unusual shell came to be. The findings help to fill a 30- to ...

Skeleton season may be just around the corner, but the skeleton age dawned with the early Cambrian Period, about 538 million to 506 million years ago. In this time span, most major animal groups ...

Fossils provide a vital record of ancient life, preserved primarily within sedimentary rocks . The journey from death to discovery involves rapid burial, lithification, and chemical replacement.

Spain discovers four 72-million-year-old dinosaur eggs in Guadalajara, preserved like authentic “time capsules.” ...

Since the age of dinosaurs, turtles have looked pretty much as they do now with their shells intact, and scientists lacked conclusive evidence to support competing evolutionary theories. Now with the ...

Imagine there are ten different types of shells, each the size of a grain of sand, mixed in the bowl of mud in front of you. You want to find each type of individual shell —what do you do? For ...

Scientists have identified a mineral signature for sites that are more likely to contain rare fossils that preserve evidence of soft tissue — essential information to understanding ancient life. Much ...

A collection of fossil shells from marine snails and clams is challenging a theory that says the world’s deadliest mass extinction was accompanied by severe ocean acidification. Instead of showing ...