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What the Quarry Held is a free printable Grade 3 science worksheet on comparing fossil organisms with living ones to infer a past environment, aligned to NGSS performance expectation 3-LS4-1. It prints 7 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions that each ask different questions, so no two students in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.

Set 14 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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What the Quarry Held

3-LS4-1

NameDate

Read the record, then answer the questions.

1.Read the record, then answer the questions.

What the Quarry Held

A list of fossils found in one rock layer at a quarry, from the museum's record card. FOSSILS IN ONE LAYER Ammonites ............ 24 Sea urchins .......... 11 Fish scales .......... 7 Fern fronds .......... 0 Land animal bones .... 0 The rock is a fine gray limestone.

  1. 1. What kinds of living thing are in this layer?
  2. 2. What does that suggest about this place long ago?
  3. 3. What would you expect in a layer that was once a forest?
  4. 4. What claim does this record support?
2.Mammoth bones are found with thick woolly hair. How was a mammoth unlike a living elephant?
  • A.It could fly
  • B.It had thick hair for a much colder climate
  • C.It lived in the sea
3.Fossil sea urchins look almost like living ones. What can you say about how they lived?
  • A.They lived in the air
  • B.They lived in deserts
  • C.They probably lived on the sea floor, as living ones do
4.Fossil palm leaves are found in a country with icy winters. What does that suggest?
  • A.Somebody planted them
  • B.The climate there was once much warmer
  • C.Palms grow in snow
5.Ammonites have no living species, but they look like today's nautilus. What does that suggest?
  • A.Ammonites lived in the sea, as the nautilus does
  • B.Ammonites lived in trees
  • C.Ammonites are still alive
6.A fossil fern is found in a cold, dry place today. What does it suggest about the past?
  • A.The fossil was carried there yesterday
  • B.Ferns like cold deserts
  • C.The place was once warm and wet enough for ferns
7.Fossil coral is found on a hillside far from the sea. What does that suggest?
  • A.The coral walked there
  • B.Coral grows on hills
  • C.The land was once under a warm shallow sea

LessonPrint · 3-LS4-1 · Set 14 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — What the Quarry Held

Set 14. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Sea creatures: ammonites, sea urchins and fish. 2. It was under the sea, because only sea creatures are fossilized here. 3. Fern fronds and land animal bones rather than sea urchins. 4. Fossils give evidence of the organisms and the environments of long ago.
  2. 2.It had thick hair for a much colder climate
  3. 3.They probably lived on the sea floor, as living ones do
  4. 4.The climate there was once much warmer
  5. 5.Ammonites lived in the sea, as the nautilus does
  6. 6.The place was once warm and wet enough for ferns
  7. 7.The land was once under a warm shallow sea

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to 3-LS4-1 of the Next Generation Science Standards.