Fossils.......?

Question

Can anyone tell me is it only organic material that would turn into a fossil? If a car sank in a river bed could it turn up in a million years as a fossil? I ask because there were no metal impliments around when the dinosaur fossils were created.

Answer 1

..there's 'fossil' sand dunes, 'fossil' river beds, 'fossil' glasses, 'fossil' mud's, ...

   calling something a 'fossil' just came to imply something as being extremely old in the last few decades or so.

    if something becomes 'solisified', THAT'S a definition of something -  usually an object  - with it's 'essence' replaces by mineralization of some sort, and is more often than not organic...

   HOWEVER...  solisified materials frequently are mineralization that have filled crevices, cracks, or voids over time, and have created some extraordinary examples of beauty and wonder and value.

Answer 2

A metal implement would form a kind of fossil: either a mould style if the iron was later replaced or possibly an iron oxide distorted impression.

I have seen iron objects completely dissolved in the soil profile leaving a red-brown image due to iron oxide. This could be preserved during conversion to rock but would be a slim possibility.

Answer 3

In most cases fossils are not organic at all.  Most fossils are either casts or molds of the original plant or animal and rarely are the original hard parts preserved and very very rarely are soft parts preserved.  If a car sank and in a million years there was still a trace left it would be called a trace fossil because it indicates the presence of humans and not an actual human fossil.  An example of trace fossils that we currently find are worm burrows or the fossilized human footprints in Africa.

Answer 4

A fossil by definition is an organic creature in which, after death, soilminerals replace the original molecules of the bone or other material.

Something not organic, such as (to use the other fellow's example) a car might leave a trace or a casting (like Pompei), but this would not be a fossil.