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Rocks and Minerals
 Fossils

Fossils
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 7 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   7.22

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    blasters, matrix, seashell, paleontologists, classification, tyrannosaurus, kingdom, backed, brushes, actual, classify, drills, trilobites, itself, identify, fossil

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Fossils
By Sharon Fabian 		  
1     Fossil hunters put on some old work clothes and gather up a few old-fashioned tools such as pry bars, chisels, hammers, and brushes. Then they head out to an abandoned stone quarry. Why? They're on the trail of trilobites.
 
2     Trilobites are ancient arthropods. Just like today's arthropods, ants and lobsters for example, they had jointed legs and bodies made of several parts called segments. There were many types of trilobites, but the average trilobite was only about one inch long. Trilobites lived in the seas that covered much of the earth about 300 million years ago, and the fossil hunters are hoping to find evidence, preserved in the rock, to show that they existed.
 
3     Another day, the fossil hunters, known as paleontologists, might go out to another area that used to be a lake or swamp. Maybe they will be looking for dinosaur bones on this day. Fossils are often found along the edge of what was once water. Maybe the thirsty dinosaurs liked to stop there for an afternoon drink. Another day the paleontologists might search for teeth from a shark that swam the ancient seas.

Paragraphs 4 to 9:
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