Ancient Life
Many rivers fed into the sea bringing leaves and driftwood from the land. These served as the base of the food chain. Bacteria and other microscopic scavengers ate the decaying wood. Plankton ate the bacteria. Clams filtered the small plankton. Snails ate the clams and were eaten in turn by crabs and fish. Mosasaurs and cephalopods ate the fish and crabs. Some organisms were swimmers or floaters, but most lived on or in the sandy mud of the sea bottom. This layer of sandy clay, bones, and shells became the Coon Creek Formation.
Read more about this topic: Coon Creek Formation
Famous quotes containing the words ancient and/or life:
“Here lies a man who was killed by lightning;
He died when his prospects seemed to be brightening.
He might have cut a flash in this world of trouble,
But the flash cut him, and he lies in the stubble.”
—Anonymous. From Booth, Epigrams Ancient and Modern (1863)
“The rarest of all things in American life is charm. We spend billions every year manufacturing fake charm that goes under the heading of “public relations.” Without it, America would be grim indeed.”
—Anita Loos (1888–1981)