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fossil

(Encyclopedia)fossil, remains or imprints of plants or animals preserved from prehistoric times by the operation of natural conditions. Fossils are found in sedimentary rock, asphalt deposits, and coal and sometime...

reaction-formation

(Encyclopedia)reaction-formation: see defense mechanism. ...

fossil fuel

(Encyclopedia)fossil fuel: see energy, sources of; fuel. ...

paleontology

(Encyclopedia)paleontology pāˌlēəntŏlˈəjē [key] [Gr.,= study of early beings], science of the life of past geologic periods based on fossil remains. Knowledge of the existence of fossils dates back at least...

Old Man of the Mountain, rock formation, United States

(Encyclopedia)Old Man of the Mountain, N.H.: see Franconia Mountains. ...

Archaeopteryx

(Encyclopedia)Archaeopteryx ärˌkēŏpˈtərĭks [key] [Gr.,=primitive wing], a 150 million-year-old fossil animal first discovered in 1860 in the late Jurassic limestone of Solnhofen, Bavaria, and described the f...

Dryopithecus

(Encyclopedia)Dryopithecus drīˌōpəthēˈkəs, –pĭthˈəkəs [key], an extinct group of apes. Fossils about 20 million years old have been found in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Dryopithecus had a semierect postu...

Tobias, Philip Valentine

(Encyclopedia)Tobias, Philip Valentine, 1925–2012, South African paleoanthropologist, b. Durban. He graduated from the Univ. of Witwatersrand (Ph.D., 1953) and taught there for five decades. Tobias entered paleoa...

John Day

(Encyclopedia)John Day, river, 281 mi (452 km) long, rising in several branches in the Strawberry Mts., NE Oreg., and flowing W, then N to the Columbia River. Unnavigable, the river is used to irrigate vegetable fa...

Triceratops

(Encyclopedia)Triceratops trīsĕrˈətŏps [key] [Gr., = three-horn face], genus of ornithischian quadruped dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period. Because of some variations in sample fossils, it was thought...