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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 15 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 would you expect in a layer that was once a forest?
  2. 2. What does that suggest about this place long ago?
  3. 3. How many land animal bones were found?
  4. 4. Why record what was NOT found as well as what was?
2.A layer has fossils of fish but no land animals. What was this place like then?
  • A.It was a forest
  • B.It was under water
  • C.It was a dry desert
3.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
4.Why compare a fossil with a living organism?
  • A.To see which is older
  • B.A living relative shows how the fossil organism probably lived
  • C.To make the fossil heavier
5.Some fossils are of organisms with no living species at all. What does that tell you?
  • A.Some kinds of living thing that once lived have died out
  • B.Fossils are not real
  • C.Every kind of living thing is still alive
6.Mammoth bones are found with thick woolly hair. How was a mammoth unlike a living elephant?
  • A.It had thick hair for a much colder climate
  • B.It lived in the sea
  • C.It could fly
7.Fossil sea urchins look almost like living ones. What can you say about how they lived?
  • A.They probably lived on the sea floor, as living ones do
  • B.They lived in deserts
  • C.They lived in the air

LessonPrint · 3-LS4-1 · Set 15 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — What the Quarry Held

Set 15. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Fern fronds and land animal bones rather than sea urchins. 2. It was under the sea, because only sea creatures are fossilized here. 3. No land animal bones at all. 4. The absence of land bones and fern fronds is part of the evidence.
  2. 2.It was under water
  3. 3.The climate there was once much warmer
  4. 4.A living relative shows how the fossil organism probably lived
  5. 5.Some kinds of living thing that once lived have died out
  6. 6.It had thick hair for a much colder climate
  7. 7.They probably lived on the sea floor, as living ones do

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