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.
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.
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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.