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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 24 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. How many land animal bones were found?
  3. 3. What kinds of living thing are in this layer?
  4. 4. What does that suggest about this place long ago?
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.Why compare a fossil with a living organism?
  • A.To make the fossil heavier
  • B.A living relative shows how the fossil organism probably lived
  • C.To see which is older
4.Fossil coral is found on a hillside far from the sea. What does that suggest?
  • A.The land was once under a warm shallow sea
  • B.The coral walked there
  • C.Coral grows on hills
5.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
6.Fossil sea urchins look almost like living ones. What can you say about how they lived?
  • A.They lived in the air
  • B.They probably lived on the sea floor, as living ones do
  • C.They lived in deserts
7.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

LessonPrint · 3-LS4-1 · Set 24 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — What the Quarry Held

Set 24. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Fern fronds and land animal bones rather than sea urchins. 2. No land animal bones at all. 3. Sea creatures: ammonites, sea urchins and fish. 4. It was under the sea, because only sea creatures are fossilized here.
  2. 2.Some kinds of living thing that once lived have died out
  3. 3.A living relative shows how the fossil organism probably lived
  4. 4.The land was once under a warm shallow sea
  5. 5.A large animal once walked across soft ground here
  6. 6.They probably lived on the sea floor, as living ones do
  7. 7.It had thick hair for a much colder climate

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