Re: what is a fossil

[Gautam Majumdar <gautam@majumdar.demon.co.uk>]

"Bonnie Blackwell, x 3332" <bonn@qcvaxa.acc.qc.edu> wrote
>you have asked the 64 k$ question there.   there are currently two
>working definition as to what constitutes a fossil:
>1.  remains from an animal or plant that have been remineralized.
>2.  any dead animal or plant
>
>obviously, these are two ends of a very long very complex spectrum of
>processes that turn fossils type 2 into type 1 (you might think of
>them as sensu stricto and sensu lato).  

[snipped details for brevity]

I came across the term _subfossil_ in some books and publications. Could
not make out what that exactly means. Is it a scientific term or a common
term to mean that remineralization is incomplete, or something else ?

Gautam Majumdar                 gautam@majumdar.demon.co.uk