Why Are Only A Few Fossils Found In Marble

Fossils are inherently delicate things and therefore precious little would withstand the conditions that are required to create marble and therefore marble hardly ever contains fossils as a.

Why are only a few fossils found in marble.

Marble is a metamorphic rock formed when limestone is subjected to high pressure or heat. In its pure form marble is a white stone with a crystalline and sugary appearance consisting of calcium carbonate caco 3 usually marble contains other minerals including quartz graphite pyrite and iron oxides these minerals can give marble a pink brown gray green or variegated coloration. Recrystallization is what marks the separation between limestone and marble. It also occurs without forming foliation which normally is found in rocks that are altered by the directed pressure of a convergent plate boundary.

Fossils are some living things remains which lived long time ago and are extinct now. But small fossil fusulina is easy to see in the marble around you. Traces of fossils are sometimes found in metamorphic rocks deriving from metamorphic processes of low intensity on sedimentary rocks. The criteria of fossil dating is based on biostratigraphy i e.

The heat and pressure required to change or metamorphose rocks usually destroys any fossils. However special circumstances do happen. Fossils rarely occur in metamorphic or igneous rocks. Big animals and plants fossils are very difficult to find out.

For example fossilized shells and bacteria have been found in marble which is metamorphosed limestone. These are bones shells and marks in the stones.