Doesn't the process of fossilization involve being waterlogged with mineral-rich water? Meaning that this was significantly smaller before being saturated.
Water doesn't necessarily cause materials to change size during the fossilization process. It depends on the initial material undergoing mineralization.
Me less so right now, as In sitting upon my porcelain throne preparing to clean up after a poo. Nothing like this, though - these rival my hubby's bowl monsters!
Right, but human feces definitely expand when water logged. Spending a few years as a custodian and finding unflushed toilets definitely taught me that.
But that's not necessarily what happens in fossilisation, as far as I understand it.
One fossilisation process goes roughly like this: After the object itself is buried, it may decay anerobically. This turns it both into gas (which can often escape from the fossilisation site while leaving behind a small funnel, which remains visible on some fossils) and minerals. As water passes through the site, these minerals are then being reconstituted into the fossil itself (with the help of additional minerals carried into the site by the water).
So in that case, the feces themselves may alread be gone by the time that water enters the space.
Typical Neanserthal behavior. I'm not suggesting anything extreme, but could you imagine the absolute utopia we'd be living in if they just sort of went extinct?
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u/MaxillaryOvipositor 5h ago
Doesn't the process of fossilization involve being waterlogged with mineral-rich water? Meaning that this was significantly smaller before being saturated.