eli5: Do you have to carve Fossils out of the stone or will they pop out in the form they are in, when the stone it split open?

Question

eli5: Do you have to carve Fossils out of the stone or will they pop out in the form they are in, when the stone it split open?

In: 8

Answer 1

Yes and yes…sometimes. But most of the time, for anything larger than a cat…the rock is prepared and shipped to facilities where it can be worked on in a protected environment. Smaller fossils are often left in their respective material, but are cleaned up and exposed for study or presentation. Some fossils can come from extremely soft material that is basically compacted sand, or like the ones from La Brea, in tarsands.