Discussion questions
Apr 7
McGhee 1984
Compare preserving food to preserving fossils. Use at least three examples from McGhee to form the basis of your comparisons.
1. According to McGee, the first important step in controlling the storage of fruits and vegetables is to maintain them under ideal temperatures and conditions. Humidity, for example, must be relatively higher in refrigerators to slow down the moisture loss of produce. On the other hand, low humidity would be necessary to preserve fossils.
2. Increasing the sugar content is an effective way to preserve food, and can be done in a variety of ways. Gelling, for instance, can make the food harden with the outside material, making it firmer while it dehydrates. Fossils, depending on what kind it is, may not require this form of preservation as it may already be without moisture.
3. McGee’s demonstration of freezing food can partly explain how fossils discovered from layers of ice and sediments came to be in that condition. It makes sense that the process of freezing foods probably has a similar effect on organisms--the respiratory process is stopped. McGee shares, however, that produce can be affected by freezing damage. Can the same be done to fossils?
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Shannon -
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting these answers; you have a nice list of 3 processes that preserve food. In #1, why do you see that preserving food needs high humidity but preserving fossils needs low humidity? To answer to question you pose in #3, yes, freezing can definitely lead to the preservation of fossils--frozen mammoths from the ice ages are occasionally found in the most northern parts of this continent as well as in Siberia!
Becca