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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 21 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 claim does this record support?
  2. 2. What would you expect in a layer that was once a forest?
  3. 3. What does that suggest about this place long ago?
  4. 4. What kinds of living thing are in this layer?
2.Some fossils are of organisms with no living species at all. What does that tell you?
  • A.Fossils are not real
  • B.Some kinds of living thing that once lived have died out
  • C.Every kind of living thing is still alive
3.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 are still alive
  • C.Ammonites lived in trees
4.A fossil footprint has three toes and is the size of a dinner plate. What does it tell you?
  • A.The rock is new
  • B.A large animal once walked across soft ground here
  • C.A bird is still nesting here
5.Fossil coral is found on a hillside far from the sea. What does that suggest?
  • A.Coral grows on hills
  • B.The coral walked there
  • C.The land was once under a warm shallow sea
6.Why compare a fossil with a living organism?
  • A.To see which is older
  • B.To make the fossil heavier
  • C.A living relative shows how the fossil organism probably lived
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 the air
  • C.They lived in deserts

LessonPrint · 3-LS4-1 · Set 21 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — What the Quarry Held

Set 21. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Fossils give evidence of the organisms and the environments of long ago. 2. Fern fronds and land animal bones rather than sea urchins. 3. It was under the sea, because only sea creatures are fossilized here. 4. Sea creatures: ammonites, sea urchins and fish.
  2. 2.Some kinds of living thing that once lived have died out
  3. 3.Ammonites lived in the sea, as the nautilus does
  4. 4.A large animal once walked across soft ground here
  5. 5.The land was once under a warm shallow sea
  6. 6.A living relative shows how the fossil organism probably lived
  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.